Yesterday (April 30th) the airwaves were LITTERED with such breathless words and phrases as "catastrophic, environmental disaster, worst oil spill ever, a catastrophe for 5 states" and worse. All of the media outlets are using the exact same talking points and phrases to describe the 200,000 gallon per day spill.
Am I the only one who's deeply distressed by the sad state of affairs which has befallen America journalism? There was a time when at least a handful of Columbia Journalism School graduates in the "mainstream media" took enough pride in their work to take out a calculator and do their job properly by adding context to the hyperbole. Heck, that's a trick I learned in my third week of window cleaning school. (chuckle)
My point here is not to diminish the environmental damage done by this big spill, but to add FACTS and CONTEXT to the hype, both of which are sorely lacking in the media spin.
Fact: There are 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot.
Fact: An average Olympic competition swimming pool is 158ft. long x 60 ft. wide x 8.5 ft. deep.
Fact: That pool has 80,580 cubic ft. of water.
Fact: When you multiply 80,580 cubic ft. x 7.5 gallons you get 604,350 gallons in the pool.
Fact: Divide 604,350 by 200,000 (the amount spilled per day) and you get 3.02.
Fact: The amount spilled per day by the oil well is 1/3rd of an Olympic swimming pool.
You read that right...
The amount spilled per day by the oil well is 1/3rd of an Olympic swimming pool!!
Again, I'm not attempting to minimize the size or scope of the spill, I'm only adding a sense of true scale to the media hyperbole. As this oil spill story continues you can fully expect the Obama Adminstration and their media enablers on the left to continue the hysterical predictions of apocalyptic gloom and doom.
Tomorrow I'll tell you why they push the hysteria.
WHAT??? Are you sure, Morgan?
ReplyDeleteI know we really HAVE no journalists anymore, none who really care and are excited about getting to any TRUTH, but is this true?!!
I can't wait till your post tomorrow!
Did you hear/read Obama's speech today at U of Michigan? I blogged the whole darned thing because the WHOLE darned thing put tears in my eyes. Quite a different country...who'd have ever thought a president would still be campaigning, be that thin skinned, insult the only media the Right has to get ANY truth, etc etc...If you've got the time, at least read the areas I highlighted, you'll be upset, too.
I sure do HOPE your calculations are correct re; the Olympic swimming pool...and not what I just saw spewed at CNN! (and FOX)
Thanks for stopping by Z. We're being spoon fed CRAP by the media, what's new? I stop by later tonight!
ReplyDeleteI think this is a bigger deal (and bigger spill) than you're making it out to be, Jingoist. The oil slick itself has doubled in size in the last two days, which suggests the rate of the flow of oil escaping from the damaged wellhead is increasing. Likely due to the extreme pressures behind the oil pushing out and expanding the hole it is leaking from.
ReplyDeleteThis is a disaster that gets worse every day. 13 days is a long delay time to do nothing about the leak itself, and that delay is getting longer. Something should be stated about the cleanup effort itself. If a third of an Olympic-sized pool of oil is gushing out per day (and likely more than that) and the Obama administration cleans up a tablespoonful of oil every 13 days (an exaggeration because no oil has been cleaned up) how long does it take for the enormity of the task to overwhelm the Obama administration's attempts to do something about it?
They're trying to "contain" an oil spill that continues to grow without doing something to stop the source of the oil from leaking more out and making the spill harder to contain.
America will look at the blackened, once snow-white beaches of the Gulf this summer and remember this ghetto-ass punk of a bullshitter President is why a manageable situation got out of control so fast.
Beamish I love your passion and your amazing wit man!
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "America will look at the blackened, once snow-white beaches of the Gulf this summer and remember this ghetto-ass punk of a bullshitter President is why a manageable situation got out of control so fast."
Do you have an idea how many people I've INFURIATED on the blogosphere by calling Obie a "ghetto commie"? LOL!
Beamish as I said, I'm not attempting to minimize the spill (or it's environmental impact) at all. I'm only doing the job that the media should have been doing all along. Do you remember when they were at least MARGINALLY competant and even-handed? I looked it up this morning and the statistics for the flow rate hasn't changed: it's still 5000 barrels/day or 200,000 gallons.
In context, that's one third of an Olympic competition swimming pool.
Is it a mess? Of course.
Will it kill fish and sea birds? Of course.
Will it dirty up the Gulf beaches for a few months? Of course.
Will we handle it and move on? OF COURSE!
I'm not blaming Obama for a late response here because I'm not sure there's anything more he could have done.
As conservatives we have to keep level heads amidst the chaos, and fix things. We can always count on the OPPOSITE response from the perpetually pre-menstrual left.
People are blowing this way out of proportion. It is definitely a horrible accident but not nearly as bad as the media is leading people to believe.
ReplyDeleteToday I read something about 20 sea turtles found dead along a beach in Mississippi. The article lead me to believe that this was from the oil spill. After some further investigation, I found out that just isn't so. It had absolutely nothing to do with it.
I have a relative that is actually working out there in Venice where Obama visited today. There is no oil in sight, no sheen on the water, nothing.
President Obama has been quoted saying, "Never let a good crisis go to waste". And I'm sure he won't.
I may have absorbed that "ghetto commie" line from you, Morgan, hehe.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems to me that the flow of leaking oil is getting or has gotten faster since it all started, and the Obama response has been completely incompetent.
Nyla wrote:
ReplyDelete"President Obama has been quoted saying, "Never let a good crisis go to waste". And I'm sure he won't."
Good point Nyla. NOTHING these people do is honest and straightforward! When they slip and tell the truth they go into damage control mode. They're already using this spill to shut down further drilling. UGGH!
When gas goes to $3.98 a gallon they'll drag up some Exxon execs in front of a Senatorial committee and browbeat them about "exessive profiteering."
G-d help us, we are in SERIOUS trouble as a country!
Beamish the actual flow may be greater or worse than we know, so we're at the mercy of their press releases. You and I deal in common sense so that drives us nuts! :-)
ReplyDeleteDue to crude oil's properties (most of it floats and disperses w-i-d-e-l-y) all spills appear worse than they actually are.
I've seen 1st hand what spilled oil can do to a ship's evaps. Long story. But after what Saddam did to the Persian Gulf they said it would be YEARS before the sea life returned. They were wrong by YEARS! It's one hell of a mess, but at least it's a mess with a naturally occuring substance. There are things in the ocean that actually eat and process oil.
Ironically, some the same people who champion increased battery tech point to the mess made by fossil fuels like oil...gawd
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