John Waters - World-of-Newave.info World-of-Newave.info http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 2008-08-28T20:09:27Z Latest news and articles about John Waters Copyright (c)2004-2008.§/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Weekly Standard's Hayes notes "significant problems" with Corsi book, but promotes problematic Freddoso book During the August 13 edition of CNN Election Center, Stephen Hayes, senior writer for the conservative Weekly Standard, said of Jerome Corsi's falsehood-laden book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008): "I haven't read this Jerome Corsi book, but from the descriptions that you've given and Jessica [Yellin, CNN congressional correspondent] has given, and the piece in The New York Times, you know, it certainly sounds like it has some significant problems with it." Indeed, as Media Matters for America has documented, The Obama Nation is filled with numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama. Hayes added that the Times article "didn't look at" The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery, August 2008) by National Review reporter David Freddoso. Hayes said about Freddoso: "Freddoso is a serious reporter. I mean, I don't always agree with everything he says. But he's a serious reporter and he's done some of the things that David is talking about, where he's gone back, he's looked at Obama's votes in the Illinois state Senate." However, as Media Matters has also documented, Freddoso's book is also rife with misinformation about Obama. From the August 13 edition of CNN Election Center: CAMPBELL BROWN (host): There's a new book out about Barack Obama. It's Number 1 right now on The New York Times bestseller list. I can guarantee you, though, nobody in the Obama camp is happy at all -- at all happy about that. And here's why. It is called Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. The author, Jerome Corsi, also co-wrote the book Unfit for Command, which started the Swift Boating of John Kerry. Obama Nation is riddled with pretty much every unsubstantiated rumor you ever heard about Obama. Jessica Yellin found out for us that it's also turning into a major campaign headache. And, Jessica, I know -- we know that some of the most damaging charges in this book just aren't true. The author admits he's on a mission to take down Barack Obama. He's been slammed for books that he's written before. They're also discredited. But it's still getting an awful lot of traction. YELLIN: It is. In this case, as you said, the book is topping bestseller lists and it's getting plenty of play in the media clearly. The big danger for the Obama campaign is that it could go viral. True or not, scandalous allegations have a way of spreading and sticking if they're not aggressively refuted, so that's what the campaign has to do, Campbell. BROWN: All right. Jessica Yellin, very quickly for us tonight. Jessica, thanks. I want to get a quick reaction from the panel now. And Errol [Lewis, New York Daily News reporter], pretty simple question to you: Why do you think people are buying this book? And how much damage is it doing? LOUIS: Well, let's be clear. It is possible to game the New York Times bestseller list. You can do bulk sales, which I know for a fact is going on in this case -- you buy, you know, a couple hundred books, you mail it out all over the place. There are ways if you send people out to buy in certain stores that are in key markets, you can sort of rise up, especially in a slow period like the summertime. So getting on the list is not that hard if you want to throw enough money at it. I think, though, that there's an intense amount of interest in this campaign. It's -- we've seen it in all the newspapers, on all the news organizations. Record numbers turning out, record numbers tuning in to the debates. This is really just part of the same phenomenon in a way. I don't read it as an intense interest to read damaging things about a particular candidate at all. BROWN: David [Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network senior correspondent], if you're the Obama campaign, you certainly remember what happened to John Kerry. I mean, how do you make sure that this isn't repeated? BRODY: Well, I think what they've done -- and they've done a pretty good job at this, Campbell, in the past -- is talk about the nuance of it all. You know, if you look at some of those abortion votes that he had in the Illinois state Senate, I mean, they will nuance that and say, listen, it's not exactly the way the pro-lifers make it sound. So what they'll do is if they have to, they'll go point by point and try to muddy the waters a little bit and say, listen, they've got it all wrong and there's a lot more to it. You know, I think it's very interesting it's not so much the book here, Campbell. The book plays into the narrative that conservative groups want, and that is to paint Obama as a liberal. These conservative groups have been doing it trickle, by a little bit trickling here, but it's going to be a lot more in the fall. BROWN: And, Steve, David does make a fair point there. Is this a battle the Obama campaign is going to continue to have, book or no book, with conservatives honing in on this message, trying to raise questions about his religion, about race, about his patriotism? HAYES: Yeah, well, I haven't read this Jerome Corsi book, but from the descriptions that you've given and Jessica has given, and the piece in The New York Times, you know, it certainly sounds like it has some significant problems with it. What's interesting to me is that this New York Times piece today which looked at this Jerome Corsi book didn't look at the book that's Number 5 on its own bestseller list coming out this week. And that's another book about Barack Obama called The Case Against Barack Obama, written by a guy at National Review named David Freddoso. Now, Freddoso is a serious reporter. I mean, I don't always agree with everything he says. But he's a serious reporter and he's done some of the things that David is talking about, where he's gone back, he's looked at Obama's votes in the Illinois state Senate. He's, I think, analyzed those, and it's a -- there seems to be a hunger certainly among conservatives for more information about Barack Obama than they're getting from the quote-unquote "mainstream press." http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/weekly-standard-s-hayes-notes-significant-problems-20080853613.htm 2008-08-15T00:12:01Z 2008-08-15T00:12:01Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200808140006 Weekly Standard's Hayes notes "significant problems" with Corsi book, but promotes problematic Freddoso book {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - During the August 13 edition of CNN Election Center, Stephen Hayes, senior writer for the conservative Weekly Standard, said of Jerome Corsi's falsehood-laden book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions, August 2008): "I haven't read this Jerome Corsi book, but from the descriptions that you've given and Jessica [Yellin, CNN congressional correspondent] has given, and the piece in The New York Times, you know, it certainly sounds like it has some significant problems with it." Indeed, as Media Matters for America has documented, The Obama Nation is filled with numerous falsehoods about Sen. Barack Obama. Hayes added that the Times article "didn't look at" The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery, August 2008) by National Review reporter David Freddoso. Hayes said about Freddoso: "Freddoso is a serious reporter. I mean, I don't always agree with everything he says. But he's a serious reporter and he's done some of the things that David is talking about, where he's gone back, he's looked at Obama's votes in the Illinois state Senate." However, as Media Matters has also documented, Freddoso's book is also rife with misinformation about Obama. From the August 13 edition of CNN Election Center: CAMPBELL BROWN (host): There's a new book out about Barack Obama. It's Number 1 right now on The New York Times bestseller list. I can guarantee you, though, nobody in the Obama camp is happy at all -- at all happy about that. And here's why. It is called Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. The author, Jerome Corsi, also co-wrote the book Unfit for Command, which started the Swift Boating of John Kerry. Obama Nation is riddled with pretty much every unsubstantiated rumor you ever heard about Obama. Jessica Yellin found out for us that it's also turning into a major campaign headache. And, Jessica, I know -- we know that some of the most damaging charges in this book just aren't true. The author admits he's on a mission to take down Barack Obama. He's been slammed for books that he's written before. They're also discredited. But it's still getting an awful lot of traction. YELLIN: It is. In this case, as you said, the book is topping bestseller lists and it's getting plenty of play in the media clearly. The big danger for the Obama campaign is that it could go viral. True or not, scandalous allegations have a way of spreading and sticking if they're not aggressively refuted, so that's what the campaign has to do, Campbell. BROWN: All right. Jessica Yellin, very quickly for us tonight. Jessica, thanks. I want to get a quick reaction from the panel now. And Errol [Lewis, New York Daily News reporter], pretty simple question to you: Why do you think people are buying this book? And how much damage is it doing? LOUIS: Well, let's be clear. It is possible to game the New York Times bestseller list. You can do bulk sales, which I know for a fact is going on in this case -- you buy, you know, a couple hundred books, you mail it out all over the place. There are ways if you send people out to buy in certain stores that are in key markets, you can sort of rise up, especially in a slow period like the summertime. So getting on the list is not that hard if you want to throw enough money at it. I think, though, that there's an intense amount of interest in this campaign. It's -- we've seen it in all the newspapers, on all the news organizations. Record numbers turning out, record numbers tuning in to the debates. This is really just part of the same phenomenon in a way. I don't read it as an intense interest to read damaging things about a particular candidate at all. BROWN: David [Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network senior correspondent], if you're the Obama campaign, you certainly remember what happened to John Kerry. I mean, how do you make sure that this isn't repeated? BRODY: Well, I think what they've done -- and they've done a pretty good job at this, Campbell, in the past -- is talk about the nuance of it all. You know, if you look at some of those abortion votes that he had in the Illinois state Senate, I mean, they will nuance that and say, listen, it's not exactly the way the pro-lifers make it sound. So what they'll do is if they have to, they'll go point by point and try to muddy the waters a little bit and say, listen, they've got it all wrong and there's a lot more to it. You know, I think it's very interesting it's not so much the book here, Campbell. The book plays into the narrative that conservative groups want, and that is to paint Obama as a liberal. These conservative groups have been doing it trickle, by a little bit trickling here, but it's going to be a lot more in the fall. BROWN: And, Steve, David does make a fair point there. Is this a battle the Obama campaign is going to continue to have, book or no book, with conservatives honing in on this message, trying to raise questions about his religion, about race, about his patriotism? HAYES: Yeah, well, I haven't read this Jerome Corsi book, but from the descriptions that you've given and Jessica has given, and the piece in The New York Times, you know, it certainly sounds like it has some significant problems with it. What's interesting to me is that this New York Times piece today which looked at this Jerome Corsi book didn't look at the book that's Number 5 on its own bestseller list coming out this week. And that's another book about Barack Obama called The Case Against Barack Obama, written by a guy at National Review named David Freddoso. Now, Freddoso is a serious reporter. I mean, I don't always agree with everything he says. But he's a serious reporter and he's done some of the things that David is talking about, where he's gone back, he's looked at Obama's votes in the Illinois state Senate. He's, I think, analyzed those, and it's a -- there seems to be a hunger certainly among conservatives for more information about Barack Obama than they're getting from the quote-unquote "mainstream press."
Media Matters - Weekly Standard's Hayes notes "significant problems" with Corsi book, but promotes problematic Freddoso book {...} On CNN, The Weekly Standard 's Stephen Hayes said that Jerome Corsi's falsehood-laden book The Obama Nation " certainly sounds like it has some significant problems with it." Later, speaking about National Review writer David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Barack Obama , Hayes said, "[H]e's a serious reporter, and he's ... gone back, he's looked at Obama's votes in the Illinois state Senate." But Media Matters has documented numerous examples of misinformation in Freddoso's book, as well as in Corsi's. {...}
Published: August 15, 2008, 12:12 am - Indexed: August 15, 2008, 3:25 pm - Page Size: 24KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Myths and falsehoods about oil policies In reporting on high gas prices and initiatives that have been proposed to address the issue, the media have repeated or failed to challenge several myths, falsehoods, and claims contradicted by government agencies. Many of the media-advanced myths and falsehoods have promoted the notion that lifting the current moratorium on offshore drilling and expanding domestic drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will have an immediate impact on rising gas prices. 1. Opening additional acres for offshore drilling will lower today's oil and gasoline prices After successive speeches from Sen. John McCain and President Bush in which they both called for an increase in offshore oil drilling, many major news outlets have uncritically reported the suggestion by drilling proponents that lifting the federal moratorium will have an immediate effect on fuel prices, without noting that, in its Annual Energy Outlook 2007, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated the effects of allowing the moratorium to expire in 2012 and said that "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017." June 23 articles in The Washington Post and New York Times, as well as July 15 articles in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, reporting on suggestions that offshore drilling would lower oil and gas prices, made no mention of the EIA's findings. By contrast, a July 14 Post article did note the EIA's conclusions, although that article appeared on the front page under a headline -- "Offshore Drilling Backed as Remedy for Oil Prices" -- whose suggestion of short-term effects was contradicted by the article itself. 2. Opening ANWR to drilling will impact today's oil and gasoline prices Suggestions that opening federally protected ANWR to drilling will help lower today's gas prices also frequently go unchallenged by news media outlets. For instance, while discussing Bush's trip to the U.S.-European Union summit on MSNBC Live, anchor Contessa Brewer said Bush "will push for help from our European partners on the oil front" and aired a video clip of Bush saying, "The United States has an opportunity to help increase the supply of oil on the market, therefore taking pressure off gasoline for our hard-working Americans, and that I've proposed to the Congress that they open up ANWR, and open up the continental shelf, and give this country a chance to help us through this difficult period." But in its May 2008 "Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," the EIA concluded that oil drilling in ANWR would not impact the U.S. oil supply for at least a decade: "The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018" [emphasis added]. Further, the report says: "This analysis assumes that enactment of the legislation in 2008 would result in first production from the ANWR area in 10 years, i.e., 2018." Further, based on its Annual Energy Outlook 2008 report, EIA estimated that the opening of ANWR would reduce the price of imported low-sulfur, light crude oil by $0.75 per barrel in 2025 (in the "mean oil resource case"), from a predicted reference case price of $64.49. As of the close of trading on August 13, the price of oil settled at $116 per barrel. 3. No oil was spilled offshore as a result of Hurricane Katrina Proponents of lifting the moratorium on certain offshore drilling have on several occasions falsely claimed that no oil was spilled offshore during Hurricane Katrina -- with no challenge from cable news anchors; at least one Fox News contributor has also made this false claim. In fact, as Media Matters has noted, a 2007 report prepared for the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) by the international consulting firm Det Norske Veritas found that damage related to Hurricane Katrina resulted in 70 spills from outer continental shelf structures with a total volume spilled of approximately 5,552 barrels of petroleum products. The study specifically identified damage from Katrina to 27 platforms and rigs that resulted in approximately 2,843 barrels of spilled petroleum products. The combined impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on outer continental shelf structures in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the report, were "124 spills ... with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products." On Fox News' Fox & Friends, former Republican presidential candidate and Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee falsely asserted, "When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico." The claim has also been promulgated on MSNBC. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell has twice allowed guests to claim that Hurricane Katrina did not result in any oil spills. On the June 24 edition of MSNBC Live, Mitchell did not challenge Sen. Richard Burr's (R-NC) false assertion that "there wasn't a drop" of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico due to a Category 5 hurricane. And during a July 15 interview on MSNBC Live, Mitchell did not challenge energy lobbyist and former Sen. Trent Lott's (R-MS) false claim that "[w]e didn't have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in, you know, recent history, Hurricane Katrina." However, on the July 17 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor David Shuster did confront McCain senior policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer about her past use of the false claim on MSNBC. Shuster said: "Earlier this week on this program, though, you defended offshore drilling and said, quote, 'We withstood Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop.' In fact, the U.S. Mineral Management Service said that Katrina and Rita caused 124 offshore spills for a total of more than 743,000 gallons of oil and refined products spilled. So, Nancy, do you want to take back what you said?" Pfotenhauer replied: "Right. Well, I actually do. I was misinformed, and my embarrassment aside, the point is still that we had a remarkable performance." 4. "Natural seepage" of oil into the ocean means oil spills have insignificant environmental impact Some in the media have cited reports finding that more oil leaks into the water from "natural seepage" than from oil tanker and offshore drilling accidents to suggest that the damage caused by spills is comparatively insignificant. But a report by the County of Santa Barbara discussing the effects of natural seepage and oil spills, including a 1969 oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast that released an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil, stated that "major spills can have far greater" environmental impact than seeps have, as the blog Think Progress noted. In a July 12 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Manchester Union Leader editorial page editor Andrew Cline wrote that a "joint study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades' worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans." Likewise, during the July 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report, correspondent William La Jeunesse stated: "Almost 40 years later [after the Santa Barbara spill], the National Academy of Sciences says mother nature spills more oil into the environment than Exxon, Shell, B.P., and Chevron combined -- 63 percent of all oil in U.S. coastal waters comes from natural seepage from cracks in the earth; 32 percent from consumers in their boats and runoff from cities; 4 percent from oil tankers; and just 1 percent from offshore platforms." However, in a 2002 report, the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Energy Division stated that a "comparison of the impacts of seeps and spills based solely on volume would be misleading. The evidence is clear that, far from being invisible against a background of seeps, major spills can have far greater and qualitatively different impacts on the environment than do seeps." From the report: A comparison of the impacts of natural oil seeps versus oil spills involves much more than determining the volume of oil released. Natural oil seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel introduce substantial volumes of hydrocarbons into the marine environment. Seepage rates may be on the order of 100 barrels of oil per day. Most spills associated with oil production offshore of Santa Barbara County have been small during the years since the catastrophic 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The Minerals Management Service estimates that total combined spill volume for the 841 reported spills between 1970 and 1999 was about 830 barrels. However, a comparison of the impacts of seeps and spills based solely on volume would be misleading. The evidence is clear that, far from being invisible against a background of seeps, major spills can have far greater and qualitatively different impacts on the environment than do seeps. The county concluded: "Natural seeps and spills differ in that seep rates do not, on average, exceed the marine environment's capacity to digest the oil, whereas spills may exceed its capacity. Major spills overwhelm nature's mechanisms for processing the oil, in the short term. The consequences include severe oiling of shorelines and mortality to organisms that are ill-prepared to live in an oil-soaked environment." 5. China is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida In the June 5 edition of The Washington Post column, columnist George Will falsely asserted, "Drilling is underway 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are." Vice President Dick Cheney made a similar claim -- citing Will's column-- about China drilling off the coast of Florida in a June 11 speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but according to an Associated Press article the following day, Cheney's office issued a statement saying he was mistaken. The AP reported that the statement said: "It is our understanding that, although Cuba has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is drilling there." The article stated that "Jorge Pinon, a senior energy fellow at the University of Miami specializing in Latin America, said Cuba has awarded offshore oil leases, or concessionary blocs, in its offshore waters to six oil companies -- none of them Chinese -- and soon may announce an agreement with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras." It further reported that Pinon said, "But no one is currently drilling in any of those concessions." Will issued a correction to his claim in a June 17 column. Despite the statement from Cheney's office, Fox News' Sean Hannity claimed on the June 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program: "[W]e've got China, you know, joining with Cuba, they're drilling 60 miles off our shores of Florida." 6. Obama's energy strategy consists only of keeping tires properly inflated During the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributor and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) repeatedly mischaracterized Sen. Barack Obama's energy policy, falsely suggesting that Obama's only "energy strategy" was to encourage people to keep the tires on their vehicles properly inflated and asserting that Obama "suggested if we all inflated our tires, that we would solve the problem." He said to guest co-host Kirsten Powers, "[D]o you really think that inflating your tires is a rational energy strategy?" Later in the show, Gingrich also suggested that Obama's energy policy was limited to "inflate here, inflate now, avoid reality" and "inflate here, inflate now, pretend it doesn't exist." But as Media Matters has noted, during the July 30 campaign event in which he told the audience that "there are things you can do individually to save energy" such as "making sure your tires are properly inflated," Obama also mentioned proposals such as "help[ing] incentivize consumers" to transition to more fuel-efficient cars, developing new technologies, "work[ing] with the auto industry in developing some of these new technologies and plug-in hybrids," and "put[ting] people back to work building windmills and setting up wind turbines." Moreover, Obama's "Plan for a Clean Energy Future" on his campaign's website includes proposals to "invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy," "improve energy efficiency 50 percent by 2030," "support next generation biofuels," "double fuel economy standards within 18 years," "investigate market manipulation in oil futures," and enact a windfall profits tax on oil companies, the revenue from which "will be invested in a number of measures to reduce the burden of rising prices on families." Gingrich's ridicule of Obama's suggestion aside, fueleconomy.gov, a website maintained jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, states: "You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires." It further calculated a fuel economy benefit of 3 percent, or a savings of up to 12 cents per gallon, with properly inflated tires. 7. Oil companies reinvest all their profits into finding more oil During the June 26 edition of NBC's Today, correspondent Janet Shamlian -- reporting from a Chevron Corp. oil and gas platform -- said: "Each barrel [of oil] yields about 26 gallons of gas. Criticized for record profits, companies like Chevron say every dollar coming out is going right back in to the quest for more." But Shamlian did not note that according to Chevron's 2007 annual report and a press release about its earnings for the first quarter of 2008, both of which were available before her report, a portion of Chevron's earnings goes into stock buybacks and dividend payments. Indeed, in its first-quarter 2008 earnings press release, issued May 2, Chevron "announced a 12 percent increase in its quarterly dividend on common stock" and reported spending approximately $2 billion to buy back shares of its own stock during the quarter. In its 2007 annual report, released on February 28, the company stated that it had raised its dividend by 11.5 percent to 58 cents a share, and had bought back approximately $7 billion of its stock. The Associated Press reported in a July 22 article: "The [oil] companies insist they're trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends." The AP further reported: "The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year ... according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy." Chevron is one of the "so-called Big Five" international oil companies, according to the Baker Institute report cited in the article. The AP reported that "[i]n the first quarter of this year, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron were all among the top 10 companies for share buybacks in the S&P 500." The article also stated that "[s]tock buybacks are common throughout corporate America, not just for Big Oil. They shrink the amount of stock on the open market, essentially increasing its value and giving individual shareholders a bigger stake in the company." From the July 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume: HUME: President Bush's move to lift the executive ban on offshore oil drilling has many environmentalists concerned about the potential for destructive oil spills. But would you believe that the greatest source of oil spills in the world's oceans is not the drilling industry, but something far more difficult to regulate. Correspondent William La Jeunesse explains. [begin video clip] LA JEUNESSE: 1969 -- an oil spill off Santa Barbara prompts Congress to put a stop to offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Almost 40 years later, the National Academy of Sciences says mother nature spills more oil into the environment than Exxon, Shell, B.P., and Chevron combined -- 63 percent of all oil in U.S. coastal waters comes from natural seepage from cracks in the earth; 32 percent from consumers in their boats and runoff from cities; 4 percent from oil tankers; and just 1 percent from offshore platforms. DANIEL KISH (Institute for Energy Research senior vice president): The truth is that two-thirds of all the oil that comes on the beaches of the United States is natural seepage. LA JEUNESSE: Yet many politicians and green groups say the environmental damage of another serious accident, such as the Alaska Exxon Valdez tanker spill, is not worth the risk. DAVE DAVIS (Community Environmental Council executive director): The environment of the Valdez Sound never recovered. The economic effects are still being felt today, right? Is that worth 25 cents in your tank? LA JEUNESSE: All energy production carries an environmental cost, but offshore oil production is radically different from what it was decades ago. From the July 12 Wall Street Journal op-ed: On the morning of Jan. 28, 1969, a Union Oil drilling site six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., sprang a leak. The ensuing spill stretched for miles, killed thousands of birds, and gave America the image of wildlife and shorelines covered in black crude. That spill is widely considered to have conceived the modern environmental movement. A year later, the first Earth Day was held, followed by passage of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. After the spill, Santa Barbara residents formed an environmental group called GOO! (Get Oil Out!), one of the first community groups to oppose offshore oil drilling. Thirty-nine years later, GOO! is still around. But this April the group did something astonishing. It publicly supported an oil company's proposal to drill off the coast of Santa Barbara. Houston-based Plains Exploration and Production Company proposed drilling 22 wells from a platform 4.7 miles from land. It made numerous concessions to the local environmental groups that would curtail drilling in about a decade -- and in the end even the adamantly "no-drilling" crowd agreed that the deal was beneficial for everyone. The Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit environmental law firm, endorsed the plan. Abe Powell, president of GOO!, told the Los Angeles Times it was "good for the community." Terry Leftgoff, a former GOO! executive director, wrote in the Santa Barbara Independent the deal was "a brilliant proposal that finally gives the public something back: the certain removal of four offshore oil platforms, the decommissioning of a notorious industrial plant, and the reversion of rural land subjugated into oil development back into the public trust as parkland." When an environmental group formed for the sole purpose of opposing offshore oil drilling warmly embraces a plan to drill off its own coast, you know something important has changed in our culture: Americans have recognized that offshore oil drilling is largely safe. Since 1975, drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone (within 200 miles of the U.S. coast) has had a 99.999% safety record, according to the Energy Information Administration, which reports that "only .001 percent of the oil produced has been spilled." Thanks to technological advances, large spills are rare. Most spills are tiny, only a few feet in diameter. Large tanker spills, such as the Exxon Valdez in 1989, are so infrequent they account for a very small fraction of the oil that winds up in the sea. A joint study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades' worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans. The vast majority of the oil that finds its way into the sea comes from dry land, NASA found. Runoff from cities, roads, industrial sites and garages deposits 363 million gallons into the sea, making runoff by far the single largest source of oil pollution in the oceans. "Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill," notes the Smithsonian exhibit, "Ocean Planet." The second-largest source of ocean oil pollution was routine ship maintenance, accountable for 137 million gallons a year, NASA found -- more than 2.5 times the amount that comes from tanker spills and offshore drilling combined. But no one is proposing that we ban cargo and cruise ships. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/myths-and-falsehoods-about-oil-policies-20080845513.htm 2008-08-14T17:00:28Z 2008-08-14T17:00:28Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200808140001 Myths and falsehoods about oil policies {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - In reporting on high gas prices and initiatives that have been proposed to address the issue, the media have repeated or failed to challenge several myths, falsehoods, and claims contradicted by government agencies. Many of the media-advanced myths and falsehoods have promoted the notion that lifting the current moratorium on offshore drilling and expanding domestic drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will have an immediate impact on rising gas prices. 1. Opening additional acres for offshore drilling will lower today's oil and gasoline prices After successive speeches from Sen. John McCain and President Bush in which they both called for an increase in offshore oil drilling, many major news outlets have uncritically reported the suggestion by drilling proponents that lifting the federal moratorium will have an immediate effect on fuel prices, without noting that, in its Annual Energy Outlook 2007, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated the effects of allowing the moratorium to expire in 2012 and said that "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017." June 23 articles in The Washington Post and New York Times, as well as July 15 articles in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, reporting on suggestions that offshore drilling would lower oil and gas prices, made no mention of the EIA's findings. By contrast, a July 14 Post article did note the EIA's conclusions, although that article appeared on the front page under a headline -- "Offshore Drilling Backed as Remedy for Oil Prices" -- whose suggestion of short-term effects was contradicted by the article itself. 2. Opening ANWR to drilling will impact today's oil and gasoline prices Suggestions that opening federally protected ANWR to drilling will help lower today's gas prices also frequently go unchallenged by news media outlets. For instance, while discussing Bush's trip to the U.S.-European Union summit on MSNBC Live, anchor Contessa Brewer said Bush "will push for help from our European partners on the oil front" and aired a video clip of Bush saying, "The United States has an opportunity to help increase the supply of oil on the market, therefore taking pressure off gasoline for our hard-working Americans, and that I've proposed to the Congress that they open up ANWR, and open up the continental shelf, and give this country a chance to help us through this difficult period." But in its May 2008 "Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," the EIA concluded that oil drilling in ANWR would not impact the U.S. oil supply for at least a decade: "The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018" [emphasis added]. Further, the report says: "This analysis assumes that enactment of the legislation in 2008 would result in first production from the ANWR area in 10 years, i.e., 2018." Further, based on its Annual Energy Outlook 2008 report, EIA estimated that the opening of ANWR would reduce the price of imported low-sulfur, light crude oil by $0.75 per barrel in 2025 (in the "mean oil resource case"), from a predicted reference case price of $64.49. As of the close of trading on August 13, the price of oil settled at $116 per barrel. 3. No oil was spilled offshore as a result of Hurricane Katrina Proponents of lifting the moratorium on certain offshore drilling have on several occasions falsely claimed that no oil was spilled offshore during Hurricane Katrina -- with no challenge from cable news anchors; at least one Fox News contributor has also made this false claim. In fact, as Media Matters has noted, a 2007 report prepared for the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) by the international consulting firm Det Norske Veritas found that damage related to Hurricane Katrina resulted in 70 spills from outer continental shelf structures with a total volume spilled of approximately 5,552 barrels of petroleum products. The study specifically identified damage from Katrina to 27 platforms and rigs that resulted in approximately 2,843 barrels of spilled petroleum products. The combined impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita on outer continental shelf structures in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the report, were "124 spills ... with a total volume of roughly 17,700 barrels of total petroleum products." On Fox News' Fox & Friends, former Republican presidential candidate and Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee falsely asserted, "When Katrina, a Cat-5 hurricane, hit the Gulf Coast, not one drop of oil was spilled off of those rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico." The claim has also been promulgated on MSNBC. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell has twice allowed guests to claim that Hurricane Katrina did not result in any oil spills. On the June 24 edition of MSNBC Live, Mitchell did not challenge Sen. Richard Burr's (R-NC) false assertion that "there wasn't a drop" of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico due to a Category 5 hurricane. And during a July 15 interview on MSNBC Live, Mitchell did not challenge energy lobbyist and former Sen. Trent Lott's (R-MS) false claim that "[w]e didn't have one drop of oil spilt when we had the biggest hurricane in, you know, recent history, Hurricane Katrina." However, on the July 17 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor David Shuster did confront McCain senior policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer about her past use of the false claim on MSNBC. Shuster said: "Earlier this week on this program, though, you defended offshore drilling and said, quote, 'We withstood Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop.' In fact, the U.S. Mineral Management Service said that Katrina and Rita caused 124 offshore spills for a total of more than 743,000 gallons of oil and refined products spilled. So, Nancy, do you want to take back what you said?" Pfotenhauer replied: "Right. Well, I actually do. I was misinformed, and my embarrassment aside, the point is still that we had a remarkable performance." 4. "Natural seepage" of oil into the ocean means oil spills have insignificant environmental impact Some in the media have cited reports finding that more oil leaks into the water from "natural seepage" than from oil tanker and offshore drilling accidents to suggest that the damage caused by spills is comparatively insignificant. But a report by the County of Santa Barbara discussing the effects of natural seepage and oil spills, including a 1969 oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast that released an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil, stated that "major spills can have far greater" environmental impact than seeps have, as the blog Think Progress noted. In a July 12 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Manchester Union Leader editorial page editor Andrew Cline wrote that a "joint study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades' worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans." Likewise, during the July 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report, correspondent William La Jeunesse stated: "Almost 40 years later [after the Santa Barbara spill], the National Academy of Sciences says mother nature spills more oil into the environment than Exxon, Shell, B.P., and Chevron combined -- 63 percent of all oil in U.S. coastal waters comes from natural seepage from cracks in the earth; 32 percent from consumers in their boats and runoff from cities; 4 percent from oil tankers; and just 1 percent from offshore platforms." However, in a 2002 report, the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Energy Division stated that a "comparison of the impacts of seeps and spills based solely on volume would be misleading. The evidence is clear that, far from being invisible against a background of seeps, major spills can have far greater and qualitatively different impacts on the environment than do seeps." From the report: A comparison of the impacts of natural oil seeps versus oil spills involves much more than determining the volume of oil released. Natural oil seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel introduce substantial volumes of hydrocarbons into the marine environment. Seepage rates may be on the order of 100 barrels of oil per day. Most spills associated with oil production offshore of Santa Barbara County have been small during the years since the catastrophic 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The Minerals Management Service estimates that total combined spill volume for the 841 reported spills between 1970 and 1999 was about 830 barrels. However, a comparison of the impacts of seeps and spills based solely on volume would be misleading. The evidence is clear that, far from being invisible against a background of seeps, major spills can have far greater and qualitatively different impacts on the environment than do seeps. The county concluded: "Natural seeps and spills differ in that seep rates do not, on average, exceed the marine environment's capacity to digest the oil, whereas spills may exceed its capacity. Major spills overwhelm nature's mechanisms for processing the oil, in the short term. The consequences include severe oiling of shorelines and mortality to organisms that are ill-prepared to live in an oil-soaked environment." 5. China is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida In the June 5 edition of The Washington Post column, columnist George Will falsely asserted, "Drilling is underway 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are." Vice President Dick Cheney made a similar claim -- citing Will's column-- about China drilling off the coast of Florida in a June 11 speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but according to an Associated Press article the following day, Cheney's office issued a statement saying he was mistaken. The AP reported that the statement said: "It is our understanding that, although Cuba has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is drilling there." The article stated that "Jorge Pinon, a senior energy fellow at the University of Miami specializing in Latin America, said Cuba has awarded offshore oil leases, or concessionary blocs, in its offshore waters to six oil companies -- none of them Chinese -- and soon may announce an agreement with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras." It further reported that Pinon said, "But no one is currently drilling in any of those concessions." Will issued a correction to his claim in a June 17 column. Despite the statement from Cheney's office, Fox News' Sean Hannity claimed on the June 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program: "[W]e've got China, you know, joining with Cuba, they're drilling 60 miles off our shores of Florida." 6. Obama's energy strategy consists only of keeping tires properly inflated During the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributor and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) repeatedly mischaracterized Sen. Barack Obama's energy policy, falsely suggesting that Obama's only "energy strategy" was to encourage people to keep the tires on their vehicles properly inflated and asserting that Obama "suggested if we all inflated our tires, that we would solve the problem." He said to guest co-host Kirsten Powers, "[D]o you really think that inflating your tires is a rational energy strategy?" Later in the show, Gingrich also suggested that Obama's energy policy was limited to "inflate here, inflate now, avoid reality" and "inflate here, inflate now, pretend it doesn't exist." But as Media Matters has noted, during the July 30 campaign event in which he told the audience that "there are things you can do individually to save energy" such as "making sure your tires are properly inflated," Obama also mentioned proposals such as "help[ing] incentivize consumers" to transition to more fuel-efficient cars, developing new technologies, "work[ing] with the auto industry in developing some of these new technologies and plug-in hybrids," and "put[ting] people back to work building windmills and setting up wind turbines." Moreover, Obama's "Plan for a Clean Energy Future" on his campaign's website includes proposals to "invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy," "improve energy efficiency 50 percent by 2030," "support next generation biofuels," "double fuel economy standards within 18 years," "investigate market manipulation in oil futures," and enact a windfall profits tax on oil companies, the revenue from which "will be invested in a number of measures to reduce the burden of rising prices on families." Gingrich's ridicule of Obama's suggestion aside, fueleconomy.gov, a website maintained jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, states: "You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires." It further calculated a fuel economy benefit of 3 percent, or a savings of up to 12 cents per gallon, with properly inflated tires. 7. Oil companies reinvest all their profits into finding more oil During the June 26 edition of NBC's Today, correspondent Janet Shamlian -- reporting from a Chevron Corp. oil and gas platform -- said: "Each barrel [of oil] yields about 26 gallons of gas. Criticized for record profits, companies like Chevron say every dollar coming out is going right back in to the quest for more." But Shamlian did not note that according to Chevron's 2007 annual report and a press release about its earnings for the first quarter of 2008, both of which were available before her report, a portion of Chevron's earnings goes into stock buybacks and dividend payments. Indeed, in its first-quarter 2008 earnings press release, issued May 2, Chevron "announced a 12 percent increase in its quarterly dividend on common stock" and reported spending approximately $2 billion to buy back shares of its own stock during the quarter. In its 2007 annual report, released on February 28, the company stated that it had raised its dividend by 11.5 percent to 58 cents a share, and had bought back approximately $7 billion of its stock. The Associated Press reported in a July 22 article: "The [oil] companies insist they're trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends." The AP further reported: "The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year ... according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy." Chevron is one of the "so-called Big Five" international oil companies, according to the Baker Institute report cited in the article. The AP reported that "[i]n the first quarter of this year, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron were all among the top 10 companies for share buybacks in the S&P 500." The article also stated that "[s]tock buybacks are common throughout corporate America, not just for Big Oil. They shrink the amount of stock on the open market, essentially increasing its value and giving individual shareholders a bigger stake in the company." From the July 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume: HUME: President Bush's move to lift the executive ban on offshore oil drilling has many environmentalists concerned about the potential for destructive oil spills. But would you believe that the greatest source of oil spills in the world's oceans is not the drilling industry, but something far more difficult to regulate. Correspondent William La Jeunesse explains. [begin video clip] LA JEUNESSE: 1969 -- an oil spill off Santa Barbara prompts Congress to put a stop to offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Almost 40 years later, the National Academy of Sciences says mother nature spills more oil into the environment than Exxon, Shell, B.P., and Chevron combined -- 63 percent of all oil in U.S. coastal waters comes from natural seepage from cracks in the earth; 32 percent from consumers in their boats and runoff from cities; 4 percent from oil tankers; and just 1 percent from offshore platforms. DANIEL KISH (Institute for Energy Research senior vice president): The truth is that two-thirds of all the oil that comes on the beaches of the United States is natural seepage. LA JEUNESSE: Yet many politicians and green groups say the environmental damage of another serious accident, such as the Alaska Exxon Valdez tanker spill, is not worth the risk. DAVE DAVIS (Community Environmental Council executive director): The environment of the Valdez Sound never recovered. The economic effects are still being felt today, right? Is that worth 25 cents in your tank? LA JEUNESSE: All energy production carries an environmental cost, but offshore oil production is radically different from what it was decades ago. From the July 12 Wall Street Journal op-ed: On the morning of Jan. 28, 1969, a Union Oil drilling site six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., sprang a leak. The ensuing spill stretched for miles, killed thousands of birds, and gave America the image of wildlife and shorelines covered in black crude. That spill is widely considered to have conceived the modern environmental movement. A year later, the first Earth Day was held, followed by passage of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. After the spill, Santa Barbara residents formed an environmental group called GOO! (Get Oil Out!), one of the first community groups to oppose offshore oil drilling. Thirty-nine years later, GOO! is still around. But this April the group did something astonishing. It publicly supported an oil company's proposal to drill off the coast of Santa Barbara. Houston-based Plains Exploration and Production Company proposed drilling 22 wells from a platform 4.7 miles from land. It made numerous concessions to the local environmental groups that would curtail drilling in about a decade -- and in the end even the adamantly "no-drilling" crowd agreed that the deal was beneficial for everyone. The Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit environmental law firm, endorsed the plan. Abe Powell, president of GOO!, told the Los Angeles Times it was "good for the community." Terry Leftgoff, a former GOO! executive director, wrote in the Santa Barbara Independent the deal was "a brilliant proposal that finally gives the public something back: the certain removal of four offshore oil platforms, the decommissioning of a notorious industrial plant, and the reversion of rural land subjugated into oil development back into the public trust as parkland." When an environmental group formed for the sole purpose of opposing offshore oil drilling warmly embraces a plan to drill off its own coast, you know something important has changed in our culture: Americans have recognized that offshore oil drilling is largely safe. Since 1975, drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone (within 200 miles of the U.S. coast) has had a 99.999% safety record, according to the Energy Information Administration, which reports that "only .001 percent of the oil produced has been spilled." Thanks to technological advances, large spills are rare. Most spills are tiny, only a few feet in diameter. Large tanker spills, such as the Exxon Valdez in 1989, are so infrequent they account for a very small fraction of the oil that winds up in the sea. A joint study by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, examining several decades' worth of data, found that more oil seeps into the ocean naturally than from accidents involving tankers and offshore drilling. Natural seepage from underwater oil deposits leaks an average of 62 million gallons a year; offshore drilling, on the other hand, accounted for only 15 million gallons, the smallest source of oil leaking into the oceans. The vast majority of the oil that finds its way into the sea comes from dry land, NASA found. Runoff from cities, roads, industrial sites and garages deposits 363 million gallons into the sea, making runoff by far the single largest source of oil pollution in the oceans. "Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill," notes the Smithsonian exhibit, "Ocean Planet." The second-largest source of ocean oil pollution was routine ship maintenance, accountable for 137 million gallons a year, NASA found -- more than 2.5 times the amount that comes from tanker spills and offshore drilling combined. But no one is proposing that we ban cargo and cruise ships.
Media Matters - Myths and falsehoods about oil policies {...}
Published: August 14, 2008, 5:00 pm - Indexed: August 14, 2008, 9:00 pm - Page Size: 39KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - Crude Reporting: Ask the Tough Questions About Oil News from Portfolio.com Also on Portfolio Buying the Pharma Team Dear Yahoo: Sorry About the Icahn Thing 'Not Bad' Is the New 'Great!' Subscribe to Portfolio magazine The cover of a recent BusinessWeek about the runup in oil and gasoline prices framed the question of what's causing it nicely: "Speculation or Manipulation?" But the story was maddeningly evenhanded. By dodging its own question, the magazine raised another. When it comes to the cost of gasoline, who should we believe? Here are some nominees and their viewpoints: 1. The oil companies: It's supply and demand at its most basic, just like your professor outlined in your freshman economics course. 2. The petro-toadies in Congress: All we have to do is open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the waters off Florida and California. 3. The Department of Energy: OPEC has to pump more, and we've got to allow more refineries by rolling back environmental restrictions. 4. King Abdullah: OPEC pumps plenty of crude but "despicable" oil-futures speculators in the West are driving up the prices due to their "selfishness." 5. Senator John McCain: Exxon Mobil has done such a good job of demonstrating the magic of the marketplace that it deserves another $1.2 billion in tax breaks. 6. Senator Barack Obama: Impose a windfall-profits tax to remind American oil executives that price gouging can backfire politically. 7. About 90 percent of the print and TV reporters in America: See No. 1. It really is that ol? devil supply and demand. 8. The White House: Never mind. Nobody?s home. For my money, a sounder answer as to whom to believe is Don Barlett and Jim Steele, the investigative reporting team that has won two Pulitzers and two National Magazine Awards for exposing government theft and corporate greed. Their 2003 series for Time magazine on oil economics remains required reading for anyone who wants a better understanding of how gas at $4 to $5 a gallon represents a carefully arranged screwing of consumers. "The bottom line for the oil people is, 'How much can I make while spending the least I can get by with on refineries, synthetic fuels, and for exploration and drilling on the vast, unused acreage in existing oil leases?'" Barlett says. He notes that Canada has become the United States' No. 1 oil supplier by funding joint government- industry exploration of the tar-sand fields of Alberta. "The most chilling statistic is Exxon Mobil's. It spent twice as much last year to buy back stock as it did on exploration." As for shallow journalism that helps Big Oil, Steele makes the point that the newsrooms that were once staffed by the redistributionist children of the New Deal and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. are now populated with the children of Reaganomics: "Younger reporters come out of a mind-set that the market rules, taxes are evil, and government ought to let these people in the oil industry go about their business." As journalism has passed from a hungry to an elite profession, there's no shock value in the fact that Exxon Mobil paid only $5 billion in U.S. income taxes last year while it paid $25 billion to foreign governments. Even with Exxon Mobil making $76,000 a minute, the last thing that occurs to many assignment editors and reporters is to investigate whether a windfall-profits tax would drive Exxon Mobil, BP, and other oil companies to invest in the alternative-energy strategies they boast about in their television commercials. Then there's the problem of letting general-assignment reporters, rather than energy specialists, cover gasoline prices mainly as a story of consumer suffering. About 40 percent of U.S. oil is produced domestically, and Washington has declined to regulate auto fuel as an essential commodity. That's where the vertical integration of a giant like Exxon Mobil creates market leverage. It owns oil fields, processing plants, and retail outlets, creating some monopoly-like advantages in controlling supply and fixing prices in the U.S. market. Then there is the remarkable job that the oil companies have done in persuading network-TV anchors and correspondents to depict them as they want to be seen: powerless victims of a supply-and-demand cycle that is as immutable as gravity and as random as lightning. Congress, responding to demands for tougher laws on oil speculation, would prefer to blame environmental regulations. Much of the context-free reporting about what the executives say, in Congress and on television, is marked by breathtaking gullibility. Speaking of television, no one of any age can doubt that the industry's star performer in the public relations battle over gasoline prices is Rex Tillerson, chairman and C.E.O. of Exxon Mobil. His appearances on the Today show have become five-minute promos for price escalation, with Matt Lauer cast as the surrogate for a nation of consumers who don't fully understand their role?helpless and sacrificial?while the company maximizes shareholder value, "our reason for being." This is a "demand-driven price run-up, no question about it," Tillerson drawls, fingers intertwined and as fidget-free as Chance the Gardener. Lauer gamely zeroes in on Exxon Mobil's dirty secret?that it spends only 5.3 percent of revenue on exploration at a time of record revenue. "If you're making $400 billion a year, should consumers expect you to pay or spend even more on exploration?" Lauer asks. The unflappable Tillerson describes this modest expenditure as "very, very robust." He adds, with apparent conviction, "We would do more if we could gain access to more areas." In other words, give us ANWR, then we can talk price at the pump. In fact, no unbiased expert claims that exploiting the fields in the Alaskan wilderness would cause more than a bump in world supply or prices in the U.S.? By the way, Tillerson observes, the industry needs more refineries too. Lauer, charmingly outpointed at every turn, finally blurts, "Mr. Tillerson, you're always nice with your time." "My pleasure, Matt," the oil king rumbles, not a hair out of place on his salt-and-pepper corporate coif. And it was, no doubt, a pleasure for him to slip out of Rockefeller Center, built with Standard Oil dollars accrued in an earlier era of rapacious pricing, without addressing the oil-company claims that are most easily disproved by that old-fashioned journalistic method called reporting. The plain truth is that the record profits cited by Lauer?$10.9 billion in the first quarter of this year for Exxon Mobil?reflect an industrywide decision to flow revenue directly to the bottom line rather than to capital expenditure. To buy Tillerson's story, you'd have to believe that profit is an accident, when it is, irrefutably, the result of a company strategy tailored to this unique moment of opportunity. Oil executives generally believe in an updated version of the peak-oil theory, introduced in 1956 by geologist M. King Hubbert. It posits that because of oil-field depletion and the expense of production, American-oil-industry output will reach a maximum level and then start to decline. An updated version of Hubbert's bell curve?which factors in the number of wells being drilled and refinery capacity?sets the year that the peak will be reached at 2020. If you're getting a prime price for a product that will be harder to acquire in a few years and less valuable due to competition from other fuels, the smart play, obviously, is to divert every penny into profit while the Black Gold Casino is still open. To confuse the press and public, you set up several straw men to take the blame for the supply shortage that you?ve seen coming for a half-century: refinery capacity, environmental legislation, and the imaginary supply potential in undrilled portions of the continental shelf and ANWR. But let's look at the Cheneyesque fantasy that drilling in ANWR is a major national-security priority that would make us less dependent on foreign oil. The fact is, the Trans-Alaska pipeline that is supposed to bring us that new ANWR oil probably couldn't handle it right now because lack of maintenance has left it in bad shape. (Business Journalism 101: You can reinvest revenue in infrastructure or pull the money out as profit.) Plus, there's not enough Alaskan oil to affect price. It would be gone in a few months if we could pump it at maximum capacity. From a national-security standpoint, the smart thing would be to leave it in the ground for use in case of some future civilization-threatening cataclysm. Oil-friendly members of Congress like to blame environmental regulation for the lack of refinery capacity. But the oil companies themselves choked supply by closing more than half of their 300 U.S. refineries in the past 25 years. (Business Journalism 201: You can reinvest in manufacturing capacity or ride the demand curve to higher profits.) Studies by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a respected, oil-friendly consulting firm, indicate that even if all environmental regulations were removed from refinery construction, few would probably be built right away because of a 75 percent rise in construction costs since 2000, largely driven by the increased fuel cost of transporting building materials. I don't mean to imply that when it comes to cutting through industry and congressional malarkey, Barlett and Steele are the only game in town. The Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Texas Monthly, and other publications have all done credible oil series during the past few years. The problem is that headlines on today's pump prices trump the revelations of yesterday's in-depth reporting. The digital-news era is good at letting us know what happens now. But it's lousy at reminding us of what's happening again. Take the richly symbolic case of ANWR. Oil executives know that they haven't explored 80 percent of their existing leases in the continental U.S., according to Barlett. But they also know that if they can crack the wildlife refuge, Congress will lack the political will to keep them away from the other government land and the ocean floor they covet. In that sense, ANWR fits a historical leitmotif. For more than a century, oil companies have been gaming the federal oil-leasing system to receive bargain prices on the raw materials under public ownership. Oil companies have always depended on the transfer of unpumped oil from public to private ownership. In the Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s, oilmen bribed officials at the Interior Department to gain ownership of an oil field owned by the U.S. Navy. With ANWR and the offshore leases, everything will look aboveboard if Congress and consumers can be whipped into a demand-driven frenzy. Oil companies will blame the Arabs and environmentalists for a supply shortage they've maintained as a matter of policy since the days when the Texas Railroad Commission set quotas on how much oil could be pumped out of the ground. Decade after decade, the oil companies claim that they would pump more if only they were allowed to. Barlett calls it playing the short-supply card. "Every freaking reporter out there falls for it," he says. "And if I'm the P.R. guy for an oil company, I?m going to play that sucker for all it?s worth." Supply and demand? Sure, but as John Lee, a business journalist at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for many years, reminds me, supply and demand in oil are not just "two pie charts?where it comes from, where it goes, measured maybe five years ago." There are more complex reasons for pain at the pump. "American gasoline prices have always reflected the latest spot price, namely what you have to pay to buy bulk gasoline on the open market. This is last-in pricing, rather than pricing based on inventory costs." Now, let's say you're an oil company selling bulk gasoline, and suppose your inventory contains some gasoline made from $140-a-barrel oil and some that was purchased for $75 a barrel. That leaves a lot of room for price manipulation. But please, whatever you do, don't think for a minute that's what Tillerson and Exxon Mobil are up to. Just like you and me, they are powerless slaves in the fields of supply and demand. Now tote that barge, lift that barrel. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/crude-reporting-ask-the-tough-questions-about-oil-20080784825.htm 2008-07-21T16:20:00Z 2008-07-21T16:20:00Z Wired.Com http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2008/07/portfolio_0721 Crude Reporting: Ask the Tough Questions About Oil {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - News from Portfolio.com Also on Portfolio Buying the Pharma Team Dear Yahoo: Sorry About the Icahn Thing 'Not Bad' Is the New 'Great!' Subscribe to Portfolio magazine The cover of a recent BusinessWeek about the runup in oil and gasoline prices framed the question of what's causing it nicely: "Speculation or Manipulation?" But the story was maddeningly evenhanded. By dodging its own question, the magazine raised another. When it comes to the cost of gasoline, who should we believe? Here are some nominees and their viewpoints: 1. The oil companies: It's supply and demand at its most basic, just like your professor outlined in your freshman economics course. 2. The petro-toadies in Congress: All we have to do is open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the waters off Florida and California. 3. The Department of Energy: OPEC has to pump more, and we've got to allow more refineries by rolling back environmental restrictions. 4. King Abdullah: OPEC pumps plenty of crude but "despicable" oil-futures speculators in the West are driving up the prices due to their "selfishness." 5. Senator John McCain: Exxon Mobil has done such a good job of demonstrating the magic of the marketplace that it deserves another $1.2 billion in tax breaks. 6. Senator Barack Obama: Impose a windfall-profits tax to remind American oil executives that price gouging can backfire politically. 7. About 90 percent of the print and TV reporters in America: See No. 1. It really is that ol? devil supply and demand. 8. The White House: Never mind. Nobody?s home. For my money, a sounder answer as to whom to believe is Don Barlett and Jim Steele, the investigative reporting team that has won two Pulitzers and two National Magazine Awards for exposing government theft and corporate greed. Their 2003 series for Time magazine on oil economics remains required reading for anyone who wants a better understanding of how gas at $4 to $5 a gallon represents a carefully arranged screwing of consumers. "The bottom line for the oil people is, 'How much can I make while spending the least I can get by with on refineries, synthetic fuels, and for exploration and drilling on the vast, unused acreage in existing oil leases?'" Barlett says. He notes that Canada has become the United States' No. 1 oil supplier by funding joint government- industry exploration of the tar-sand fields of Alberta. "The most chilling statistic is Exxon Mobil's. It spent twice as much last year to buy back stock as it did on exploration." As for shallow journalism that helps Big Oil, Steele makes the point that the newsrooms that were once staffed by the redistributionist children of the New Deal and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. are now populated with the children of Reaganomics: "Younger reporters come out of a mind-set that the market rules, taxes are evil, and government ought to let these people in the oil industry go about their business." As journalism has passed from a hungry to an elite profession, there's no shock value in the fact that Exxon Mobil paid only $5 billion in U.S. income taxes last year while it paid $25 billion to foreign governments. Even with Exxon Mobil making $76,000 a minute, the last thing that occurs to many assignment editors and reporters is to investigate whether a windfall-profits tax would drive Exxon Mobil, BP, and other oil companies to invest in the alternative-energy strategies they boast about in their television commercials. Then there's the problem of letting general-assignment reporters, rather than energy specialists, cover gasoline prices mainly as a story of consumer suffering. About 40 percent of U.S. oil is produced domestically, and Washington has declined to regulate auto fuel as an essential commodity. That's where the vertical integration of a giant like Exxon Mobil creates market leverage. It owns oil fields, processing plants, and retail outlets, creating some monopoly-like advantages in controlling supply and fixing prices in the U.S. market. Then there is the remarkable job that the oil companies have done in persuading network-TV anchors and correspondents to depict them as they want to be seen: powerless victims of a supply-and-demand cycle that is as immutable as gravity and as random as lightning. Congress, responding to demands for tougher laws on oil speculation, would prefer to blame environmental regulations. Much of the context-free reporting about what the executives say, in Congress and on television, is marked by breathtaking gullibility. Speaking of television, no one of any age can doubt that the industry's star performer in the public relations battle over gasoline prices is Rex Tillerson, chairman and C.E.O. of Exxon Mobil. His appearances on the Today show have become five-minute promos for price escalation, with Matt Lauer cast as the surrogate for a nation of consumers who don't fully understand their role?helpless and sacrificial?while the company maximizes shareholder value, "our reason for being." This is a "demand-driven price run-up, no question about it," Tillerson drawls, fingers intertwined and as fidget-free as Chance the Gardener. Lauer gamely zeroes in on Exxon Mobil's dirty secret?that it spends only 5.3 percent of revenue on exploration at a time of record revenue. "If you're making $400 billion a year, should consumers expect you to pay or spend even more on exploration?" Lauer asks. The unflappable Tillerson describes this modest expenditure as "very, very robust." He adds, with apparent conviction, "We would do more if we could gain access to more areas." In other words, give us ANWR, then we can talk price at the pump. In fact, no unbiased expert claims that exploiting the fields in the Alaskan wilderness would cause more than a bump in world supply or prices in the U.S.? By the way, Tillerson observes, the industry needs more refineries too. Lauer, charmingly outpointed at every turn, finally blurts, "Mr. Tillerson, you're always nice with your time." "My pleasure, Matt," the oil king rumbles, not a hair out of place on his salt-and-pepper corporate coif. And it was, no doubt, a pleasure for him to slip out of Rockefeller Center, built with Standard Oil dollars accrued in an earlier era of rapacious pricing, without addressing the oil-company claims that are most easily disproved by that old-fashioned journalistic method called reporting. The plain truth is that the record profits cited by Lauer?$10.9 billion in the first quarter of this year for Exxon Mobil?reflect an industrywide decision to flow revenue directly to the bottom line rather than to capital expenditure. To buy Tillerson's story, you'd have to believe that profit is an accident, when it is, irrefutably, the result of a company strategy tailored to this unique moment of opportunity. Oil executives generally believe in an updated version of the peak-oil theory, introduced in 1956 by geologist M. King Hubbert. It posits that because of oil-field depletion and the expense of production, American-oil-industry output will reach a maximum level and then start to decline. An updated version of Hubbert's bell curve?which factors in the number of wells being drilled and refinery capacity?sets the year that the peak will be reached at 2020. If you're getting a prime price for a product that will be harder to acquire in a few years and less valuable due to competition from other fuels, the smart play, obviously, is to divert every penny into profit while the Black Gold Casino is still open. To confuse the press and public, you set up several straw men to take the blame for the supply shortage that you?ve seen coming for a half-century: refinery capacity, environmental legislation, and the imaginary supply potential in undrilled portions of the continental shelf and ANWR. But let's look at the Cheneyesque fantasy that drilling in ANWR is a major national-security priority that would make us less dependent on foreign oil. The fact is, the Trans-Alaska pipeline that is supposed to bring us that new ANWR oil probably couldn't handle it right now because lack of maintenance has left it in bad shape. (Business Journalism 101: You can reinvest revenue in infrastructure or pull the money out as profit.) Plus, there's not enough Alaskan oil to affect price. It would be gone in a few months if we could pump it at maximum capacity. From a national-security standpoint, the smart thing would be to leave it in the ground for use in case of some future civilization-threatening cataclysm. Oil-friendly members of Congress like to blame environmental regulation for the lack of refinery capacity. But the oil companies themselves choked supply by closing more than half of their 300 U.S. refineries in the past 25 years. (Business Journalism 201: You can reinvest in manufacturing capacity or ride the demand curve to higher profits.) Studies by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a respected, oil-friendly consulting firm, indicate that even if all environmental regulations were removed from refinery construction, few would probably be built right away because of a 75 percent rise in construction costs since 2000, largely driven by the increased fuel cost of transporting building materials. I don't mean to imply that when it comes to cutting through industry and congressional malarkey, Barlett and Steele are the only game in town. The Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Texas Monthly, and other publications have all done credible oil series during the past few years. The problem is that headlines on today's pump prices trump the revelations of yesterday's in-depth reporting. The digital-news era is good at letting us know what happens now. But it's lousy at reminding us of what's happening again. Take the richly symbolic case of ANWR. Oil executives know that they haven't explored 80 percent of their existing leases in the continental U.S., according to Barlett. But they also know that if they can crack the wildlife refuge, Congress will lack the political will to keep them away from the other government land and the ocean floor they covet. In that sense, ANWR fits a historical leitmotif. For more than a century, oil companies have been gaming the federal oil-leasing system to receive bargain prices on the raw materials under public ownership. Oil companies have always depended on the transfer of unpumped oil from public to private ownership. In the Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s, oilmen bribed officials at the Interior Department to gain ownership of an oil field owned by the U.S. Navy. With ANWR and the offshore leases, everything will look aboveboard if Congress and consumers can be whipped into a demand-driven frenzy. Oil companies will blame the Arabs and environmentalists for a supply shortage they've maintained as a matter of policy since the days when the Texas Railroad Commission set quotas on how much oil could be pumped out of the ground. Decade after decade, the oil companies claim that they would pump more if only they were allowed to. Barlett calls it playing the short-supply card. "Every freaking reporter out there falls for it," he says. "And if I'm the P.R. guy for an oil company, I?m going to play that sucker for all it?s worth." Supply and demand? Sure, but as John Lee, a business journalist at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for many years, reminds me, supply and demand in oil are not just "two pie charts?where it comes from, where it goes, measured maybe five years ago." There are more complex reasons for pain at the pump. "American gasoline prices have always reflected the latest spot price, namely what you have to pay to buy bulk gasoline on the open market. This is last-in pricing, rather than pricing based on inventory costs." Now, let's say you're an oil company selling bulk gasoline, and suppose your inventory contains some gasoline made from $140-a-barrel oil and some that was purchased for $75 a barrel. That leaves a lot of room for price manipulation. But please, whatever you do, don't think for a minute that's what Tillerson and Exxon Mobil are up to. Just like you and me, they are powerless slaves in the fields of supply and demand. Now tote that barge, lift that barrel.
Get Wired's take on technology business news and the Silicon Valley scene including IT, media, mobility, broadband, video, design, security, software, networking and internet startups on Wired.com {...}
Published: July 21, 2008, 4:20 pm - Indexed: July 25, 2008, 11:03 am - Page Size: 52KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> {NORTH AMERICA > LODGING} - Plan An Autumn Vacation At Our Fun and Unique Island Beach House! (Beautiful Lummi Island, Washington) $210 3bd Wouldn’t you like to just get away and live on an island for a while? Start planning your escape to beautiful Lummi Island, one of the famous San Juan Islands chain. Our cottages are wonderful Summer and Fall getaways! If you like mild and crisp weather, as well as the occasional bout of dramatic weather, you may be in luck. Our theme this summer at the Flying Fish Guest House and the Old Glory Farmhouse is the many aspects of Mardi Gras! Marcia and John recently traveled to Louisiana to listen and dance to Cajun and Zydeco music, and Marcia is thus inspired….. Ask also about the Artists’ tours, which are great fun, and are presented 4 times a year. There are many local artists and craftspersons represented, as well as nationally know artists. Even if you don’t make the tour, you often can visit the artists on the island in their studios. Ask Marcia if this idea interests you. Please call for unique fun on an artsy island. ~~THE QUICKEST AND BEST WAY TO GET STARTED IS A CALL TO MARCIA AT 360 758-2289. Thanks. And Happy Summer! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two Marvelous Island Retreats, for an Unforgettable Vacation Getaway: THE FIRST (The Glorious and Always Enchanting Flying Fish Cottage) is a charming, intimate, and yet spacious seaside cottage (a full sized house, really), with vaulted ceilings in the main living area, overlooking the ever-changing ocean waters of beautiful Hale Passage, and featuring Magnificent Mountain and Water Views! Lots of boats passing, and ocean wildlife, including seals and the occasional whale. Eagles nest nearby, and Herons stand proudly in their eerie poses while hunting fish and crabs. The cottage has a large deck overlooking the view, a small “morning coffee sipping” deck down the beach stairs and right on the beach, and several smaller personal spaces for more private pursuits. Collect shells and beach glass as an otter looks on, or watch the wild sea birds and soaring eagles, endlessly fascinating. There are two good sized bedrooms (queen beds) facing the water, and a third, smaller, extra room equipped with bunk beds. This unique and engaging beachside house is ideal for a family with children, or for two families to share. THE SECOND unique getaway (The Inspiring and Traditional Old Glory Farmhouse) is a turn of the century farmhouse (updated with modern conveniences) on 5 private view acres, just a short way inland (but you still have beach access), high up on a hill, and with even more sweeping water and Mountain Views, and abounding with wildlife outside your front door!! The farmhouse sits on five beautiful acres, and has a large deck overlooking the view. Eagles, deer, birds of all kinds, and other wildlife abound. There is a roomy master suite upstairs (vaulted ceilings), a smaller, intimate bedroom downstairs, and a third, very private first floor bedroom separated from the main house by a short hallway. Ideal for a family with children, or to share for two families. Larger parties can be accommodated. For each of the two cottages, enjoy these great features: Both are unique, peaceful, private and serene, situated on a comfortably small and quietly beautiful island, and away from the press of city life. And yet, when you get the urge, you find that you are but a short drive from the city excitement and activities found in beautiful Vancouver BC, sophisticated Seattle, and friendly Bellingham, Washington, and many quaint smaller towns along the beautiful Pacific Northwest coast, harboring artists, great food, and lots of scenery. Nearby, you will find plenty of hiking, biking, dining, relaxing, and sightseeing. Each cottage features a spacious and comfortable living/dining room area, and a fully equipped kitchen. Both cottages provide beach access. We provide (at each cottage) a really nice propane gas barbeque for cookouts on summer evenings, or any evening for that matter. Walk down to the beach and gather your seafood repast yourself, or buy that day’s seafood catch, fresh and delicious from a local fisherman and merchant. Buy eggs, marvelously fresh and laid that day, from hens raised locally and sold at many roadside stands (always on the “honor system”), by your friendly neighbors on the island. For special occasions without leaving our beautiful Lummi Island, you can visit either a fine gourmet restaurant or a friendly local café/watering hole, both with great food. For rates and further information, and to live the good island life for a time, call your friendly and charming hostess, Marcia Apolis, at (360) 758-2289, or visit our websites at http://www.lummi-island.net/flyingfish/ for the Flying Fish Oceanside Retreat http://www.lummi-island.net/oldgloryfarm/ for the Old Glory Farmhouse on Five View Acres ---------------FOR QUICKEST RESPONSE, PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.---------------- Often email goes unchecked for a day or two, but Marcia checks phone messages every day. Each cottage accommodates up to 6 people, and we can provide mattresses for more guests, with an additional per-person per-night fee. We are sure that you won't be disappointed!! And by the way, Friendly and Considerate Dogs are Welcome!! (With a pet deposit and cleaning fee.) We want your stay to be wonderful! http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/travel-and-tourism/lodging/plan-an-autumn-vacation-at-our-fun-and-unique-island-20080798321.htm 2008-07-18T22:48:51Z 2008-07-18T22:48:51Z Sfbay.Craigslist.Org http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/vac/760453666.html Plan An Autumn Vacation At Our Fun and Unique Island Beach House! (Beautiful Lummi Island, Washington) $210 3bd {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Wouldn’t you like to just get away and live on an island for a while? Start planning your escape to beautiful Lummi Island, one of the famous San Juan Islands chain. Our cottages are wonderful Summer and Fall getaways! If you like mild and crisp weather, as well as the occasional bout of dramatic weather, you may be in luck. Our theme this summer at the Flying Fish Guest House and the Old Glory Farmhouse is the many aspects of Mardi Gras! Marcia and John recently traveled to Louisiana to listen and dance to Cajun and Zydeco music, and Marcia is thus inspired….. Ask also about the Artists’ tours, which are great fun, and are presented 4 times a year. There are many local artists and craftspersons represented, as well as nationally know artists. Even if you don’t make the tour, you often can visit the artists on the island in their studios. Ask Marcia if this idea interests you. Please call for unique fun on an artsy island. ~~THE QUICKEST AND BEST WAY TO GET STARTED IS A CALL TO MARCIA AT 360 758-2289. Thanks. And Happy Summer! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two Marvelous Island Retreats, for an Unforgettable Vacation Getaway: THE FIRST (The Glorious and Always Enchanting Flying Fish Cottage) is a charming, intimate, and yet spacious seaside cottage (a full sized house, really), with vaulted ceilings in the main living area, overlooking the ever-changing ocean waters of beautiful Hale Passage, and featuring Magnificent Mountain and Water Views! Lots of boats passing, and ocean wildlife, including seals and the occasional whale. Eagles nest nearby, and Herons stand proudly in their eerie poses while hunting fish and crabs. The cottage has a large deck overlooking the view, a small “morning coffee sipping” deck down the beach stairs and right on the beach, and several smaller personal spaces for more private pursuits. Collect shells and beach glass as an otter looks on, or watch the wild sea birds and soaring eagles, endlessly fascinating. There are two good sized bedrooms (queen beds) facing the water, and a third, smaller, extra room equipped with bunk beds. This unique and engaging beachside house is ideal for a family with children, or for two families to share. THE SECOND unique getaway (The Inspiring and Traditional Old Glory Farmhouse) is a turn of the century farmhouse (updated with modern conveniences) on 5 private view acres, just a short way inland (but you still have beach access), high up on a hill, and with even more sweeping water and Mountain Views, and abounding with wildlife outside your front door!! The farmhouse sits on five beautiful acres, and has a large deck overlooking the view. Eagles, deer, birds of all kinds, and other wildlife abound. There is a roomy master suite upstairs (vaulted ceilings), a smaller, intimate bedroom downstairs, and a third, very private first floor bedroom separated from the main house by a short hallway. Ideal for a family with children, or to share for two families. Larger parties can be accommodated. For each of the two cottages, enjoy these great features: Both are unique, peaceful, private and serene, situated on a comfortably small and quietly beautiful island, and away from the press of city life. And yet, when you get the urge, you find that you are but a short drive from the city excitement and activities found in beautiful Vancouver BC, sophisticated Seattle, and friendly Bellingham, Washington, and many quaint smaller towns along the beautiful Pacific Northwest coast, harboring artists, great food, and lots of scenery. Nearby, you will find plenty of hiking, biking, dining, relaxing, and sightseeing. Each cottage features a spacious and comfortable living/dining room area, and a fully equipped kitchen. Both cottages provide beach access. We provide (at each cottage) a really nice propane gas barbeque for cookouts on summer evenings, or any evening for that matter. Walk down to the beach and gather your seafood repast yourself, or buy that day’s seafood catch, fresh and delicious from a local fisherman and merchant. Buy eggs, marvelously fresh and laid that day, from hens raised locally and sold at many roadside stands (always on the “honor system”), by your friendly neighbors on the island. For special occasions without leaving our beautiful Lummi Island, you can visit either a fine gourmet restaurant or a friendly local café/watering hole, both with great food. For rates and further information, and to live the good island life for a time, call your friendly and charming hostess, Marcia Apolis, at (360) 758-2289, or visit our websites at http://www.lummi-island.net/flyingfish/ for the Flying Fish Oceanside Retreat http://www.lummi-island.net/oldgloryfarm/ for the Old Glory Farmhouse on Five View Acres ---------------FOR QUICKEST RESPONSE, PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.---------------- Often email goes unchecked for a day or two, but Marcia checks phone messages every day. Each cottage accommodates up to 6 people, and we can provide mattresses for more guests, with an additional per-person per-night fee. We are sure that you won't be disappointed!! And by the way, Friendly and Considerate Dogs are Welcome!! (With a pet deposit and cleaning fee.) We want your stay to be wonderful!
Plan An Autumn Vacation At Our Fun and Unique Island Beach House! {...}
Published: July 18, 2008, 10:48 pm - Indexed: July 19, 2008, 12:43 am - Page Size: 10KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Travel and Tourism > Lodging

]]> {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - NY Times reported that McCain is "looking to distance himself" from Bush, but not that McCain has voted with Bush, fundraised with Bush, and praised Bush In a June 22 article, New York Times national political correspondent Adam Nagourney reported that Sen. John McCain "has promoted an image as a renegade" in the Senate, and that "McCain is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president." But Nagourney did not note that according to Congressional Quarterly, a nonpartisan publication that tracks legislators' votes, McCain was the Bush administration's most reliable supporter in the Senate in 2007, voting with the president 95 percent of the time. Nor did Nagourney mention that McCain has accepted fundraising help from President Bush, as the Times noted in a separate June 22 article. Indeed, Bush and McCain recently appeared at a fundraiser together, as the Times reported on May 28. Moreover, when Bush endorsed McCain during a March 5 joint appearance, McCain stated: "I'll be pleased to have him [Bush] with me both from raising money and the much needed finances for the campaign, and addressing the challenging issues that face this country. I'm pleased to have him as is -- as it fits into his busy schedule." Also, contrary to Nagourney's assertion that McCain is "sprinting away from his own party," McCain has changed his position on numerous issues -- including tax cuts, immigration, and the religious right -- to align himself more closely with the base of the Republican Party. The most recent of these reversals by McCain is on the issue of offshore drilling. The Times reported on June 19 that McCain is among a group of Republicans who "are abandoning their long-held opposition to drilling in coastal waters." In a June 29, 2006, vote on the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act, 192 House Republicans voted to lift the federal moratorium on drilling and allow drilling if states agreed to do so, while only 31 House Republicans opposed the measure. The bill was not considered -- or voted upon -- in the Senate. From the June 22 New York Times article, which discussed similarities and differences between McCain's campaign and the 1996 presidential campaign of former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS): They are war heroes with the injuries to show for it. They are known for hurricane tempers and caustic wit. They are among the oldest men to seek the presidency. And Democrats are hoping that the 1996 candidacy of Bob Dole will be a template for what will happen to Senator John McCain in his run for the White House this year. But for all the obvious similarities, there are also sufficient differences between the two Republicans to make surface comparisons somewhat misleading. Mr. Dole was not just a creature of the Senate but the very face of the Washington legislative establishment. Mr. McCain has promoted an image as a renegade in the body, scolding it, for example, for its pork barrel spending. Mr. McCain is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president. Mr. Dole resisted running against an institution that he cherished, and that made it easier for Democrats to tie him to what they portrayed as the Republican Party's excesses during the period when the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, and the ascendant conservative wing of the party were seeking to reshape domestic policy. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/ny-times-reported-that-mccain-is-looking-to-distance-20080681226.htm 2008-06-23T01:25:05Z 2008-06-23T01:25:05Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200806220002 NY Times reported that McCain is "looking to distance himself" from Bush, but not that McCain has voted with Bush, fundraised with Bush, and praised Bush {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - In a June 22 article, New York Times national political correspondent Adam Nagourney reported that Sen. John McCain "has promoted an image as a renegade" in the Senate, and that "McCain is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president." But Nagourney did not note that according to Congressional Quarterly, a nonpartisan publication that tracks legislators' votes, McCain was the Bush administration's most reliable supporter in the Senate in 2007, voting with the president 95 percent of the time. Nor did Nagourney mention that McCain has accepted fundraising help from President Bush, as the Times noted in a separate June 22 article. Indeed, Bush and McCain recently appeared at a fundraiser together, as the Times reported on May 28. Moreover, when Bush endorsed McCain during a March 5 joint appearance, McCain stated: "I'll be pleased to have him [Bush] with me both from raising money and the much needed finances for the campaign, and addressing the challenging issues that face this country. I'm pleased to have him as is -- as it fits into his busy schedule." Also, contrary to Nagourney's assertion that McCain is "sprinting away from his own party," McCain has changed his position on numerous issues -- including tax cuts, immigration, and the religious right -- to align himself more closely with the base of the Republican Party. The most recent of these reversals by McCain is on the issue of offshore drilling. The Times reported on June 19 that McCain is among a group of Republicans who "are abandoning their long-held opposition to drilling in coastal waters." In a June 29, 2006, vote on the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act, 192 House Republicans voted to lift the federal moratorium on drilling and allow drilling if states agreed to do so, while only 31 House Republicans opposed the measure. The bill was not considered -- or voted upon -- in the Senate. From the June 22 New York Times article, which discussed similarities and differences between McCain's campaign and the 1996 presidential campaign of former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS): They are war heroes with the injuries to show for it. They are known for hurricane tempers and caustic wit. They are among the oldest men to seek the presidency. And Democrats are hoping that the 1996 candidacy of Bob Dole will be a template for what will happen to Senator John McCain in his run for the White House this year. But for all the obvious similarities, there are also sufficient differences between the two Republicans to make surface comparisons somewhat misleading. Mr. Dole was not just a creature of the Senate but the very face of the Washington legislative establishment. Mr. McCain has promoted an image as a renegade in the body, scolding it, for example, for its pork barrel spending. Mr. McCain is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president. Mr. Dole resisted running against an institution that he cherished, and that made it easier for Democrats to tie him to what they portrayed as the Republican Party's excesses during the period when the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, and the ascendant conservative wing of the party were seeking to reshape domestic policy.
Media Matters - NY Times reported that McCain is "looking to distance himself" from Bush, but not that McCain has voted with Bush, fundraised with Bush, and praised Bush {...} The New York Times ' Adam Nagourney wrote that Sen. John McCain "is, to a considerable degree, sprinting away from his own party and looking to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent president." In fact, McCain has accepted fundraising help from President Bush and was the administration's most reliable supporter in the Senate last year, according to a vote analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly . Further, far from "sprinting away" from the Republican Party, McCain has changed his position on numerous issues to align himself more closely with the party's base. {...}
Published: June 23, 2008, 1:25 am - Indexed: June 23, 2008, 1:11 pm - Page Size: 20KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Kristol asserted that "anyone arrested in" the U.S. has habeas rights -- but not under law he supports During the June 15 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the court struck down portions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), and asserted that, in passing the MCA, Congress had "tried to do the right thing." He then suggested that fears about that law's denial of the writ of habeas corpus were overblown because "American citizens ... and anyone arrested in this country [have] a right to habeas corpus." But contrary to Kristol's suggestion, the MCA explicitly denied habeas rights to noncitizens, regardless of where that person is detained; in Boumediene, the Supreme Court struck down the provisions of the MCA denying habeas to noncitizens, finding that the Constitution guaranteed the right to habeas corpus to those held at Guantanamo Bay. The now-inoperative Section 7 of the MCA states that "[n]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." As Media Matters for America has explained, under the section the court struck down, when the government arrested any noncitizen based on the unreviewed assertion that he or she is an "unlawful enemy combatant," that person's ability to challenge his or her detention effectively depended entirely on the government's willingness to provide a hearing, which the government could postpone indefinitely. Effectively, the MCA granted the president the authority to detain any noncitizen within the United States or outside its borders, for any reason, for as long as the campaign against terrorism continues. From the June 15 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday: KRISTOL: But in fact, habeas is -- almost all the time, a habeas challenge is after a trial when there's new evidence or there's something wrong with a man's detention, and you go to federal court and say, "Wait a second, we now know something we didn't know when this guy's being detained incorrectly prior to trial." That's based on established case law and statutes. This is totally uncharted waters. It's utterly unmanageable. And I think what it means is Congress has to step in now and specify, "OK, if the court's going to make us do this, we need to set up a system of a national security court that can handle these trials." This has been proposed by Andrew McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who tried the blind Sheikh in New York and has a very good book out on the problems of trying to do this through the federal legal system. Anyway, you could do it. You could have a national security court. Senator Lindsey Graham [R-SC] is working on this. And I think you will see Senator Graham, accompanied by Senator [John] McCain, come to the floor of the Senate very soon, like next week, and say, "We cannot let chaos obtain here. We can't let 200 different federal district judges on their own whim call this CIA agent here, say, 'I don't believe this soldier here who said this guy was doing this. You have to release someone,' or, 'Let's build up -- let's compromise sources and methods with a bunch of trials.' " I mean, it's ridiculous. So Congress has to act. Senator Graham and Senator McCain are going to insist on action. It will be interesting to see what Senator Obama's response is if the serious legislative proposal is introduced to set up a way of doing this consistent with the Supreme Court decision. WILLIAMS: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I think what you're saying is you're agreeing basically with the 5-4 decision, because you're saying there needs to be a structure, that you can't simply hold people for an undetermined length. [...] KRISTOL: Let me just clarify my position since you just -- WILLIAMS: OK. KRISTOL: I think -- I just want to make clear: I think it was a very bad decision. A large part of me wishes that President Bush would stand up and say, as President Andrew Jackson said almost 200 years ago, you know, "[Supreme Court] Justice [Anthony] Kennedy has made his decision. Let him enforce it." On the other hand, that's not going to happen -- WILLIAMS: No. KRISTOL: -- and there's a real practical problem now with potential chaos and the release of either information that shouldn't be released or of terrorists who shouldn't be released, and that's why I think Congress has to act. Congress has to now do the right thing, and -- but I very much agree with [Fox News Washington managing editor] Brit [Hume]. Congress tried to do the right thing before. There were -- there was a bait and switch by the Supreme Court. They've decided Congress didn't do the right thing. But Congress has to act aggressively now to prevent chaos in the federal courts. WILLIAMS: Right, but what I was saying to you, Bill, was you have to understand habeas corpus was put in place literally to restrain what could be the unlimited power of the executive here. You don't want the president deciding, "Gee, I don't like what Bill Kristol said the other day. Put his -- put him in jail." No. KRISTOL: American citizens -- WILLIAMS: Come on. You don't -- KRISTOL: American citizens -- WILLIAMS: OK. KRISTOL -- have a right to habeas corpus and anyone arrested in this country has a right to habeas corpus. WILLIAMS: Right, and you -- but -- KRISTOL: These are people arrested in Bosnia, as you said. And how is the federal judge going to decide whether the intelligence was correct? WILLIAMS: Well, that's what you said. Let's set up a structure, a process. And in fact, I think [Supreme Court] Justice [John] Roberts was right to say, "You know what? If you folks disagree with the current situation, you should, you know, outline exactly how you think it should be done." Instead, they have sent it back to the district courts. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/kristol-asserted-that-anyone-arrested-in-the-u-s-20080679139.htm 2008-06-17T18:38:10Z 2008-06-17T18:38:10Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200806170002 Kristol asserted that "anyone arrested in" the U.S. has habeas rights -- but not under law he supports {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - During the June 15 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol criticized the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the court struck down portions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), and asserted that, in passing the MCA, Congress had "tried to do the right thing." He then suggested that fears about that law's denial of the writ of habeas corpus were overblown because "American citizens ... and anyone arrested in this country [have] a right to habeas corpus." But contrary to Kristol's suggestion, the MCA explicitly denied habeas rights to noncitizens, regardless of where that person is detained; in Boumediene, the Supreme Court struck down the provisions of the MCA denying habeas to noncitizens, finding that the Constitution guaranteed the right to habeas corpus to those held at Guantanamo Bay. The now-inoperative Section 7 of the MCA states that "[n]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." As Media Matters for America has explained, under the section the court struck down, when the government arrested any noncitizen based on the unreviewed assertion that he or she is an "unlawful enemy combatant," that person's ability to challenge his or her detention effectively depended entirely on the government's willingness to provide a hearing, which the government could postpone indefinitely. Effectively, the MCA granted the president the authority to detain any noncitizen within the United States or outside its borders, for any reason, for as long as the campaign against terrorism continues. From the June 15 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday: KRISTOL: But in fact, habeas is -- almost all the time, a habeas challenge is after a trial when there's new evidence or there's something wrong with a man's detention, and you go to federal court and say, "Wait a second, we now know something we didn't know when this guy's being detained incorrectly prior to trial." That's based on established case law and statutes. This is totally uncharted waters. It's utterly unmanageable. And I think what it means is Congress has to step in now and specify, "OK, if the court's going to make us do this, we need to set up a system of a national security court that can handle these trials." This has been proposed by Andrew McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who tried the blind Sheikh in New York and has a very good book out on the problems of trying to do this through the federal legal system. Anyway, you could do it. You could have a national security court. Senator Lindsey Graham [R-SC] is working on this. And I think you will see Senator Graham, accompanied by Senator [John] McCain, come to the floor of the Senate very soon, like next week, and say, "We cannot let chaos obtain here. We can't let 200 different federal district judges on their own whim call this CIA agent here, say, 'I don't believe this soldier here who said this guy was doing this. You have to release someone,' or, 'Let's build up -- let's compromise sources and methods with a bunch of trials.' " I mean, it's ridiculous. So Congress has to act. Senator Graham and Senator McCain are going to insist on action. It will be interesting to see what Senator Obama's response is if the serious legislative proposal is introduced to set up a way of doing this consistent with the Supreme Court decision. WILLIAMS: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I think what you're saying is you're agreeing basically with the 5-4 decision, because you're saying there needs to be a structure, that you can't simply hold people for an undetermined length. [...] KRISTOL: Let me just clarify my position since you just -- WILLIAMS: OK. KRISTOL: I think -- I just want to make clear: I think it was a very bad decision. A large part of me wishes that President Bush would stand up and say, as President Andrew Jackson said almost 200 years ago, you know, "[Supreme Court] Justice [Anthony] Kennedy has made his decision. Let him enforce it." On the other hand, that's not going to happen -- WILLIAMS: No. KRISTOL: -- and there's a real practical problem now with potential chaos and the release of either information that shouldn't be released or of terrorists who shouldn't be released, and that's why I think Congress has to act. Congress has to now do the right thing, and -- but I very much agree with [Fox News Washington managing editor] Brit [Hume]. Congress tried to do the right thing before. There were -- there was a bait and switch by the Supreme Court. They've decided Congress didn't do the right thing. But Congress has to act aggressively now to prevent chaos in the federal courts. WILLIAMS: Right, but what I was saying to you, Bill, was you have to understand habeas corpus was put in place literally to restrain what could be the unlimited power of the executive here. You don't want the president deciding, "Gee, I don't like what Bill Kristol said the other day. Put his -- put him in jail." No. KRISTOL: American citizens -- WILLIAMS: Come on. You don't -- KRISTOL: American citizens -- WILLIAMS: OK. KRISTOL -- have a right to habeas corpus and anyone arrested in this country has a right to habeas corpus. WILLIAMS: Right, and you -- but -- KRISTOL: These are people arrested in Bosnia, as you said. And how is the federal judge going to decide whether the intelligence was correct? WILLIAMS: Well, that's what you said. Let's set up a structure, a process. And in fact, I think [Supreme Court] Justice [John] Roberts was right to say, "You know what? If you folks disagree with the current situation, you should, you know, outline exactly how you think it should be done." Instead, they have sent it back to the district courts.
Media Matters - Kristol asserted that "anyone arrested in" the U.S. has habeas rights -- but not under law he supports {...} On Fox News Sunday , Bill Kristol criticized the Supreme Court's decision striking down portions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) and suggested that fears about that law's denial of the writ of habeas corpus were overblown because "American citizens ... and anyone arrested in this country [have] a right to habeas corpus." But contrary to Kristol's suggestion, the MCA explicitly denied habeas rights to noncitizens, regardless of where that person is detained. {...}
Published: June 17, 2008, 6:38 pm - Indexed: June 17, 2008, 7:03 pm - Page Size: 23KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {NORTH AMERICA > REAL ESTATE} - $19438 1 Acre Parcel 180 miles from Los Angeles, California (s.f. bayarea) migfqpozrepmjcvavddgzspiccttgaiquepkbsvbotbxsvexfmufqppsvetnooqiuacflkcvrkfbofanjytzieryxmrcmvpxsebzaxpohkjfelrdouhtjrdfqfrvicmquvswblolqzuouuizchpvyidverbxhpnsggheuhfuzjsjrmhjdralkkazvcboroyllrbdmswwJörg Buttgereit born December , is a German writerdirector known for his controversial films. He was born in Berlin, Germany and has lived his entire life there.He is maybe best known for his film Nekromantik, which was described by American filmmaker John Waters as the “first erotic film for necrophiliacs”.In , he directed an episode of the television series Lexx, after a sixyear absence from the entertainment industry.migfqpozrepmjcvavddgzspiccttgaiquepkbsvbotbxsvexfmufqppsvetnooqiuacflkcvrkfbofanjytzieryxmrcmvpxsebzaxpohkjfelrdouhtjrdfqfrvicmquvswblolqzuouuizchpvyidverbxhpnsggheuhfuzjsjrmhjdralkkazvcboroyllrbdmswwmigfqpozrepmjcvavddgzspiccttgaiquepkbsvbotbxsvexfmufqppsvetnooqiuacflkcvrkfbofanjytzieryxmrcmvpxsebzaxpohkjfelrdouhtjrdfqfrvicmquvswblolqzuouuizchpvyidverbxhpnsggheuhfuzjsjrmhjdralkkazvcbo