NYT Attempts to Plug Huge, New Oil Find in Texas (and other disinformation campaigns)
BY Glen Tschirgi
13 years, 6 months ago
To amend the proverb slightly, what the The New York Times giveth, The New York Times taketh away.
In this weekend story online, we see once again the duplicitous nature of the State Run Media:
CATARINA, Tex. — Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses.
Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.
The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.
There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rocks to release the oil inside.
The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.
This article uses the well-worn rhetorical technique that grudgingly acknowledges a seemingly good bit of news that runs counter to the Left’s narrative while seeking to undermine it entirely. In this case, the NYT announces the incredible news of oil field discoveries within the continental U.S. that have the potential to exceed the daily output of entire, major oil producers but, alas, must point out that these gains may never be realized because (sigh) the process for extracting the oil “poses risks to water supplies.” It is the poison pill. Concede that which can no longer be concealed but include just enough disinformation or obfuscating facts as to render the entire portion unpalatable. And so the NYT inserts the specious claim that “evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies…” This is pure nonsense by the NYT.
A recent article by the Institute for Energy Research contains a good explanation of the process of fracking (or “hydraulic fracturing”) and points out that there the controversy over fracking is largely misleading if not fabricated. My intention here, however, is not to explore the merits of the process itself and settle one way or another whether fracking is ultimately safe. The aim here is to point out the dishonest approach that the Left uses in attempts to negate developments that threaten their narrative.
Powerline recently noted how The NYT was caught distorting the record on fracking. Notice how the NYT article uses insinuation to mislead here as well. Having been caught in their prior article claiming that there were “numerous documented cases” of water contamination caused by fracking, the NYT in this story resorts to the claim that “evidence mounts” with regard to the evils of fracking without stating any, actual instances where it has been documented or revealing that, in their own correction, the NYT stated that there are “few documented cases.” The IER article goes further and states that there are no documented cases.
The Left’s narrative for America includes the notion that domestic energy supplies are non-existent. If confronted on this fable, the Left claims that our resources are quickly shrinking and any newly discovered resources are too difficult, hazardous, expensive, or environmentally catastrophic to extract. In essence, the Left’s narrative is for Americans to get used to expensive and scarce energy supplies that will necessarily mean a dramatic restructuring of society (loss of individual freedoms) that can only be accomplished by a domineering, central government.
When Obama says that we cannot “drill our way out of” high gasoline prices, he is engaging in this subterfuge. When the lease of new oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico remains at a standstill for over a year with no, legitimate explanation, it is due in large part to the commitment of the Left in stopping all hydrocarbon use which forms a central tenet in their environmental religion.
Considering the diametrically opposed views of the Left and Right in this country, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that we are in the midst of a Cold Civil War in which each election cycle offers another critical battle. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is very little room for compromise with the Left. Their vision for the U.S. is so foreign, so un-American (a phrase itself that used to have a clear meaning but has now been rendered ambiguous by the Left) that there can only be one side or the other that will survive.
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On May 30, 2011 at 8:18 pm, Jeff Lynch said:
“Considering the diametrically opposed views of the Left and Right in this country, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that we are in the midst of a Cold Civil War in which each election cycle offers another critical battle. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is very little room for compromise with the Left. Their vision for the U.S. is so foreign, so un-American (a phrase itself that used to have a clear meaning but has now been rendered ambiguous by the Left) that there can only be one side or the other that will survive.”
Well said and sadly so very true. The other interesting tidbit of information related to the story in the NYT is that the Federal Government is also in the final stages of declaring a very common species of lizard found in West Texas to be on the endangered list. This will effectively roadblock any further drilling near Midland in the Eagle-Ford shale formations. What a coincidence!
At my age I hate to ask the Lord to pass time more quickly but I sure can’t wait till next November.
On May 31, 2011 at 8:10 am, Dave said:
The simple point of why fracking has not been hazardous to our drinking water is that the oil and water are a long ways apart. The drinking water is close to the surface, and the oil is down far deeper than we are willing to drill for water. If fracking were dangerous, the oil would already be contaminating the water and we wouldn’t be drinking it, so the ‘controversy’ about fracking is 100% fabricated nonsense. There is no controversy, much less any real health hazard (notice how there aren’t any ‘victims’ trotting into Congressional hearings on the subject). This is just another attempt by the environmental statists to try to block our way to less expensive gasoline so we have to ride our bicycles everywhere and grow our own vegetable plots. Bastards!
On May 31, 2011 at 10:13 am, Warbucks said:
Some of the greatest fortunes made “honestly” were reportedly derived from investments risked in the belief that today’s problems set the challenge to find tomorrow’s solutions.
At one time oil below 500 feet had little market value.
At $100 a barrel for oil and $350 a barrel for “clean drinking water” (retail) I put a few chips on the Come-line they will find a work-around on frackting caused pollution.
As media conspiracies go this one on frackting is a mere piker.
On May 31, 2011 at 11:24 am, NevadaSteve said:
Expecting the truth from the NY Slimes? Please. I live in southwest MO in an area where heavy oil is present close to the surface but requires injecting steam into the ground to warm the oil before it can be pumped. If groundwater were being forced into the water supply anywhere it would be here. Our town gets its water from wells and is tested daily. No changes have been noted since the operations began several years ago.
On May 31, 2011 at 11:26 am, NevadaSteve said:
Gotta do a better job of proofing before hitting post – if OIL were being forced into the groundwater anywhere it would be here.
On May 31, 2011 at 12:48 pm, Warbucks said:
The greatest problem I see in public domain science today is the tendency of anyone to call themselves a scientist and “validate” scientific theories by putting their signatures to lists supporting theories they have never researched, read, or understand.
On June 1, 2011 at 6:58 am, TS Alfabet said:
@ Dave:
Just wait. I would bet a tidy sum that the “victims” of fracking pollution have already been lined up and are being coached right now for their appearance at a politically opportune moment (likely when some conservative starts to trumpet the vast amount of oil and gas available through fracking).
On June 1, 2011 at 9:20 am, Dave said:
TS Alfabet –
I am so naively optimistic that I overlooked this possibility. What is the good of victims if there aren’t enough to form a multi-million member class action suit that bankrupts the healthiest part of our economy? Good looking out!
On June 1, 2011 at 10:25 am, Warbucks said:
Re: TS’s ” “victims” of fracking pollution have already been lined up and are being coached right now for their appearance at a politically opportune moment”
I concur TS. But if you are also reaching to imply (as your example seems to offer) that “victimization” is only a process the political right does to the political left, I respectfully reject your notion of truth as being insincere, propaganda, or naive.
In the spiritual passion to seek truth I am always humbled by leaders who may upon rare moments stumble upon it and act to politically realize it without resorting to the tyranny of malice so dominant in world culture, politics, and media currently.
Balance and peace is nearly always found by trying to see the others point of view.
On June 1, 2011 at 4:43 pm, TS Alfabet said:
Not sure what you mean, WB.
do you mean to say that the Right is as guilty of finding phony victims to parade around in front of cameras (or in front of juries) in order to vilify the Left or to bankrupt the Left with frivolous lawsuits?
If so, then we disagree. I challenge you to give me examples where conservatives in the U.S. have behaved like this. The Left does it ALL the time. Conservatives have better things to do and are generally too principled to resort to the kind of power-at-any-cost that the Left excels at.
On June 2, 2011 at 11:56 am, Warbucks said:
Hmmmmm. We seem to be more in agreement than not.
Since this page focuses on an important subject of “energy” development, environmentalism-Public Health, and left vs. right propensities, may I offer out an example of “nuclear power”, much of the health effects are blithely ignored by the right and need to be discussed openly.
“The New American” May 2011 Issue on line at http://tiny.cc/76amd published “Fukushima — Just How Dangerous Is Radiation” as their May cover story.
Hiserodt quotes Professor Bernard Cohen Prof Emeritus of University of Pittsburgh as telling us all to relax and asking “Do you know anyone who died or was sickened by radiation?”… as though that lays the issue to rest once and for all — truly a form of discussion intimidation to the reader. …. to which I would reply “Yes Professor, actually I do. I can play your game too. I know 631,174 vets exposed to depleted Uranium in Gulf-1. This has lead to an epidemic of spousal homicides on military bases.” …. but that’s been kept under wraps and not discussed.
Professor John Cameron, U of Wisconsin Med School, explains “there were only about 400 excess cancer deaths” from Hiroshima and Nagasaki…..whatever “excess cancer death” means as the term is not defined.
The article goes on to become the quintessential Radiation 101 Home Study Module defining most of the frequently used terms and triggering my humility on how dumb I must really be for even thinking that our local whistle blower bio-physicist, Leuren Moret, http://tiny.cc/zi7a1 could be so ill informed after spending a career doing secret government work on the subject.
And yet Moret uses as data for her talks actually published in publicly accessible records by the US Dept of Health. She even shows the data to try and prove her points.
Moret lists all the correlated health effects and radiation poising was not one of her listed big concerns either. So the “don’t worry, be happy, build more nuclear power plants” people appear to be talking past the issues raised by the nuclear protester people.
Yesterday Germany announced it will be decommission all their nuclear power plants by 2036 starting right now, as a result of Fukushima. You don’t suppose that Chancellor Angela Merkel just announced German Energy Independence Plan of yesterday found similar health problems in Germany to those Leuren Moret sites here in the US?
The New American puff peace doesn’t satisfy my thesis that these plants need a kill switch and I would add the stock holders should be forced to bear the insurable loss if the switch has to be pulled and the plant killed and not passed on to the residents in a 50- to 100-mile radius multi-trillion-dollar public loss.
What would you rather lose a multi-trillion-dollar, 50 to 100 mile radius disaster zone, jobs, houses, agriculture and a nuclear power plant, or a nuclear power plant?
The second article by the Hiserordt, “The Effects of Low-dose Radiation” uses much of the same tactics.
Just for a quick review here’s Moret’s list extracted from public health records: (audio of Moret’s remarks: http://tiny.cc/n60ye (11-minute segment)
Artherosclerosis
Hypertension
Diabetes
Ischaemia-reperfusion
Chronic Inflammatory diseases
Rheumatoid arthrities
Inflammatory bowel disease
Lung damage and the adult respiratory distress syndrome (Asthma)
Cystic Fibrosis
Oxidative stress and cancel; a complex relationship
Oxidative stress and ischaemic or traumatic brain injury
Oxidative stress in Parkinson’s disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Other neurodegeneratve diseases:
—Down’s syndrome
—Multiple sclerosis (MS)
—Neuronal ceroid ligpofuscinoses
—Huntington’s disease
—Friedreich’s ataxia
—Tardive dyskinesin
—Prion diseases (“The real cause of mad cow disease is ionizing radiation. They got Plutonium in their brains…. and in England they grind up the dead cows and they feed them to the living cows, so they’re increasing the concentrations.”)
Oxidative stress and viral infections
—HIV infection
—Mycoplasma
(“Now these tiny nano particles from nuclear technologies enter the lungs, and they’re nano particles, they’re very, very tiny a tenth of a micron or smaller in diameter. The diameter of a human hair is 80 microns. These are invisible. You can’t see them in the air. You can’t taste them. You can’t smell them. You don’t know their their. If you live downwind from a nuclear power plant or within a 100-mile radius, all those fresh fission products with short half lives like radio active iodine go into your house and they attach to the house dust. And so your children, your babies, your grand parents, your friends are all inhaling that house dust. No wonder everybody’s sick within a hundred miles of a nuclear power plant! 70-percent of the particles that get into your lungs go into your blood, and they are carried in cholesterol around your body and that is why cholesterol and that is why cholesterol is the bad actor according to our medical hierarchy in the United States. Everybody needs cholesterol. It’s been in the bodies of living things for billions of years so what do they mean its toxic or it’s going to kill us now? It’s really the radiation particles that are hidden in cholesterol and the body’s defenses can’t detect them.”)
———–
In summary, for me at least, I see the the political right lining up blindly and without sufficient concern for a robust discussion againt what is often labeled the political left in an effort to create a wall of ignorance to pursue a big business agenda.
Big bussiness is not the master of my destiny so long as our oligopolists talk past health issues and make anyone questioning their motives to serve our common good, seem unpatriotic.
On June 3, 2011 at 9:20 am, Warbucks said:
An informative video on the industrial process of fracting:
http://www.northernoil.com/drilling.php
On June 7, 2011 at 10:21 am, Warbucks said:
Another example of Right vs. Left politics which I’ve come to believe typifies the blind-sight we often collectively seem to share and tend to take the word of “Business” interests as our guide star when perhaps we should not, has to do with Net-Neutrality. To listen to Big Business rants surely net-neutrality is nothing short of evil. Conservative blogs across the country are all touting the Obama scheme concocted net neutrality. No bias there, right?
A typical example of ring-in-the-nose follow the lead of Big Business (AT&T, Comcast, Verison – oligopolies) dominating the political debate direction for the 2012 election, would be my good friends at ConservativeActionAlerts.com who count on your sense of patriotism surrounding national concepts of liberty and freedom and mingle it with just the opposite mix of their own desired monopolistic tendencies of Big Business. Flip to any page in the marching orders for 2012 and you’ll soon come across: “Conservative Action Alerts is for freedom on the Internet and against the supposed “Net Neutrality” that the administration has concocted.” Run the flag up the pole boys.
The better question we might ask ourselves is, what is net-neutrality? Wiki offers this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
“Opponents of net neutrality characterize its regulations as “a solution in search of a problem”, arguing that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance.” In fact, that’s exactly what big business wants to do, build themselves a financially tiered turf and charge last mile users to gain access and shut off as much guaranteed community t.v. access as possible. Shut down Netflix or force them to pay more, which forces prices up to consumers and regulates the flow of your choices to communicate.
Supporters of net neutrality don’t trust Big Business promises anymore than they trust companies like say, Facebook, to respect your privacy when Facebook figures it can make money off your personal information and you are standing in their way. There’s always a work around.
Just as Wall Street runaway unregulated derivative markets sunk the banks and your portfolios while betting against you all the time (without disclosure), and hurt all of us, there is always a work-around to current good intentions stated by Big Business… a rule of life that seems to always work both ways, right and left. I.E., the left surly can’t be trust either. But your choice doesn’t have to be to always choose the lesser of two evils. Your choice can be to cut your own path.
It’s interesting to note that at the core of our ability to remain free, the ability to communicate over the internet seems to have climbed to the top of the list of our concerns. Never mind the internet was developed by your tax dollars originally. The Big Boys want it for their corporate milking and net-nutrality is standing in their way. How did we get this far to begin with if what they say were true? After all, we operate and have been operating under a defacto net neutrality all along. What gives?
Who’s hurt? Why should I care? Don’t we all benefit? Perhaps if anyone cares about this post, we can pick up on it, if our good host is willing to tolerate my ramblings.
Interestingly, one of the strongest advocates of regulated net-neutrality are American Churches. They see it as fundamental to the preservation of our freedom of religion in today’s connected world. I see it more as fundamental to our community life and ability to self-organize within our own interest groups.
In any event, this bogus issue of anti-net-neutrality by Big Business is a good example, for the challenge you put forward above. The right is just as prone to be lead around by the ring in the nose as the left.
On June 7, 2011 at 1:06 pm, TS Alfabet said:
You’ll have to try alot harder than that WB.
Net neutrality is somehow an example of how conservatives trot out phony victims or make stuff up out of thin air in support of their ideology?
Nuclear power? There is no conservative dog in the nuclear power hunt. Nothing, at any rate, anywhere close to the kind of willful deception that goes on by environmental groups stoop to in pushing their radical agendas.
On June 7, 2011 at 2:43 pm, Warbucks said:
“Nuclear power? There is no conservative dog in the nuclear power hunt. Nothing, at any rate, anywhere close to the kind of willful deception that goes on by environmental groups stoop to in pushing their radical agendas.”
You and I are in agreement.
I’ve been blogging as a skeptic on man-caused global warming for several years. My postings have been lost as Google transitioned from their old free websites to their new free Google Apps model and I focus on other issues now. There is no question as to the extent of the man caused global warming fraud. I feel sorry for people who take positions on environmental matters without doing some research. One of the best sources for research and commentary that never gets into mainstream media is SPPI http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/
Environmentally I bet both you and I probably want two things in common: Clean water. Clean Air.
As to no Conservative Dog in the nuclear power hunt. I will concede your point with the observation that it’s big business verses little people. The big Power Industry Complex which includes the largest corporations on Earth verses your wife’s health, your baby’s health, your grandparents’ health, and to that extent I believe you are on to the truth.
On June 7, 2011 at 5:46 pm, Warbucks said:
“Stanford Scientists Forecast Permanently Hotter Summers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ck20HoRjE&feature=uploademail
“(June 7, 2011) Large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that by mid-century the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years, according to a study co-authored by Noah Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of environmental Earth system science and center fell at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.”
Well okay, except this one we’re in now and maybe the next few summers will be colder but they are getting warmer.
I used to live next to the head of our nations nuclear bomb weather man, Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser. He began sharing his declassified work with me because I am interested in real atmospheric research and not what passes for politically correct atmospheric science today.
We used to chuckle how today’s politically correct, select, peer reviewed scientists will not own up to the importance of Sun Spot activity and cycles which tend on the long cycle to occur every 1500 years (approx) with many shorter cycles, the short one we are all familiar with is 11 year cycle.
Hugh noted many years ago that the polar caps on Mars are shrinking. So climate change has never been the debate even as we are constantly told it is.
Does this mean we are a bunch of anti-environmentalists. Only when the science used is junk science, opposing opinions are ignored and not given peer review, the political policies created do not solve the the problems, and the politics in play have little to do with truth and environmental benefits.
On June 7, 2011 at 9:31 pm, TS Alfabet said:
Quite right, WB. We seem to be in complete agreement on the whole anthropogenic global warming scam.
Which, I might add, is yet another example of where the Left is all too willing to lie about data and drudge up victims to get power.
I would disagree somewhat about the corporate bad guy kick you seem to be on.
I don’t doubt that there are corporations, or, rather, corporate leaders who are willing to pollute in order to make a buck just as humans in general will do wrong in the pursuit of personal gain, but the real threat vis a vis corporations is the “gangster government” (as Michael Barone puts it) of this Administration and how they partner in a crony capitalism that thwarts free markets and chooses which corporations will prosper and which will fail.
If government would let free markets operate FREELY, then polluting corporations would quickly be out of business. Nothing is perfect, but relying on government to police things is the proverbial fox in the hen house.
On June 8, 2011 at 10:09 am, Warbucks said:
“I would disagree somewhat about the corporate bad guy kick you seem to be on.”
That’s okay. That’s probably important that you do. It keeps us both always in search for the truth…. a process missing from modern day politics.