Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Telegraph Pushes BP Fiction


The TelegraphUK pushed the fantasy that the Gulf of Mexico withstood the BP oil spew.

With the gush plugged for the past two weeks, experts are beginning to question whether the BP spill can really be called an environmental disaster at all.

The article didn't say which experts or who they were under contract to. Not one expert was quoted in the Telegraph piece. It did back-hand compliment BP CEO Tony Hayward:

You also don't compare the biggest oil leak in US history to a "drop in the ocean", even though that has turned out to be more or less the case, when your company is responsible for dumping 60,000 gallons a day into the sea, and when it has probably been economical with the truth about the size of the outflow.

The Telegraph doesn't know the difference between a gallon and barrel of oil? A barrel is 42 gallons. The Unified Command reported capturing nearly 1 million gallons per day via the containment cap and Q4000. The public saw oil escaping from the containment cap, in use for some 30 days of the roughly 90 day spew.

If BP and the Obama administration have been "economical with the truth" to date, why should their unnamed experts be believed now? How far can the bar fall in politics and journalism? Who can one trust for honest information nowadays?

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