Liars, Lies and Republican Politics

Friends,
The Republicans are, once again, lying for votes. Unfortunately, the ignorant listen and believe the liars. McCain has gone to the darkside.

Peace and Love,
Rev O

Did you hear that Alaska has more oil than the Middle East? Salon.com
Busting the myths about cheap and unlimited oil being broadcast by Rush Limbaugh, Jerome Corsi and other ignoramuses.

"Aug. 18, 2008 Petroleum may be in short supply these days, but the United States does have a related surplus: myths of oil abundance."

"These narratives also require spectacularly limited scientific literacy about oil: what it is, how we find it, how much remains. Let's take a brief tour of some claims worthy of tabloid headlines."

"Oil is not a fossil fuel!"
Corsi makes multiple scientific mistakes here. Scientists never argue that oil comes from "dead dinosaurs and decaying ancient forests." Finally, while dinosaur references are irrelevant to oil, basic geological concepts -- erosion, plate tectonics -- explain how any creature might walk on land that later becomes deeply submerged. The National Research Council suggests students should know these concepts by the eighth grade.

"China is drilling for oil in America's backyard!"
Perhaps you've heard some GOP politicians recently claim that China is drilling for oil in Cuban waters near Florida. Give credit where it's due: Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, better known for another kind of prospecting in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, was promoting this notion back in 2006. That April, Craig complained on the Senate floor that China could potentially drill in Cuban waters, then released a statement claiming that soon "it may be possible to see Chinese oil rigs from the shores of the Florida Keys."

"Suffice it to say, China is not drilling for oil off the coast of Florida."

"How much oil is there, anyway? The EIA says U.S. waters in the area contain 3.82 billion barrels, half our annual national consumption of 7.6 billion barrels. But it would take decades to extract. If the offshore drilling ban were removed in 2012, the EIA states, it "would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."

"Alaska has more oil than the Middle East!"
"Have you heard that there's enough oil in Alaska to supply the United States for the next two centuries, more than in the entire Middle East, but a government plot is keeping it underground? If so, attribute it to Lindsey Williams, a kind of oil evangelist, who's been making these claims since the 1970s."

"Does this sound like a place that will produce more oil than the Middle East? Alaska is about the same size as Iran, four-fifths as big as Saudi Arabia, and huge portions of the state consist of mountain ranges where drilling is impossible. The EIA estimates that about 10.4 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from ANWR, just over a year of American consumption. Saudi Arabia alone has about 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The verdict here: Get real."

"North Dakota is the new boomtown!"
"Forget Alaska. Lately drilling advocates have been dreaming about a lifetime supply of cheap American oil coming from the Bakken Formation, a layer of rock underneath North Dakota, Montana and southern Canada. In April, Rush Limbaugh cited estimates that "175 billion to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil" are located in the Bakken, meaning it "is expected to be one of the greatest booms in oil discovery since oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938."

"That's the catch: Geologists believe there are more than 4.3 billion barrels in the region. But obtaining them would require new drilling technologies, which would demand greater investment. The Bakken hardly heralds a return to cheap oil. Indeed, it suggests America has little cheap oil left. Some discoveries touted today would have produced shrugs decades ago."