Look Rush, We Struck Oil!

Almost 2 weeks ago, I showed an excerpt from a Rush Limbaugh show where he talked about how they can't find any of the oil spilt. From a single source, he went on a tirade about how the spill was overblown.

At the the top of that show, he quotes from the New York times, and follows with a little commentary of his own.

"-- that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated -- and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm." I told you all this on day one and certainly the first week I pointed out this is light crude, it will evaporate quickly, that it will be dispersed.

Sorry Mr Expert, but it seems you were *shock horror* Wrong Again! Who woulda thunk it? Experts are saying that the oil is on the sea bed, and at toxic levels, clearly they're not dittoheads


New research my the University of South Florida shows that that there is harm, and it's not so diluted. In a 10-day study, that started AFTER Rush's assertion that it's all safe, dispersed, and not a problem any more, they found oil on the sea floor that was of toxic levels.

Here's the CNN video of their findings


There seems to be no end to the lies Mr Limbaugh is willing to spew, in order to sound like a know-all, and to convince his audience (called Ditto-heads, because they repeat everything without checking - which shows he's has as much contempt for his listeners as he does for facts)

If the video doesn't work for you, or you don't want to watch, here's the key phrase (it starts at the 40-second mark)

The USF scientists say they found toxic levels of oil and dispursants infecting marine organisms just 40 miles south of Panama City, Florida. The organisms, called phytoplankton, and other microscopic bacteria in the ocean, are the foundations of the food-chain. 

Not that things like facts will matter to his army of followers, who are often too busy blaming Obama (and I'm not a fan of him myself) for things that the US Congress is responsible for to do any kind of fact checking. Funnily enough, understanding the basics of how the US Government works, is one of the requirements for citizenship, meaning that most of his listeners would only be citizens thanks to where they're born, which those people tend to derisively call 'anchor babies'.

Why can Rush keep getting away with this sort of thing, and why is he so popular? Well, the problem is many consider his show to be 'news reporting', which it isn't. It's an Opinion Show, which showcases the many wacky and illogical rants of someone with a great imagination. Perhaps if the lines hadn't been blurred by the Akron decision (as I discussed back in November, we'd get more informed people. Something like a tagline every half hour (similar to the 'advertisement' that many print adverts have at the top, or the legal disclaimers TV and radio adverts need to run when selling legal, financial or medical services) saying

"This segment of the Rush Limbaugh show (or any other similar show) is opinion-based and NOT news reporting. The factual accuracy of the shows contents is not guaranteed."

. It doesn't interfere with anyone's free speech, but just informs people that it's not factually-based news reporting.  I can't see Rush having a problem with it either, unless this factual description of his show, is contrary to the image he likes to portray. If so, then he's even lying to himself, and that's not good, for anyone.

Update 8/17/10 21:00
I've also been made aware of some more news, which is that a University of Georgia (Which is just up the road from me) study has found that most of the oil still hasn't been recovered and is still at large in the Gulf.

It starts off

A report released today by the Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia concludes that up to 79 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem. 

The report, authored by five prominent marine scientists, strongly contradicts media reports that suggest that only 25 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill remains.

“One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless,” said Charles Hopkinson, director of Georgia Sea Grant and professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are.”

and later on states

Hopkinson said that his group also estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded or weathered as of the date of the report. Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70-79 percent of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

So clearly rush was right, "it's been eaten alive, it's evaporated, it's dispersed or what have you."
Except it hasn't.