Gem of the day

It's the holiday season and we should all be at home--or very close to getting home, barring cancelled flights across Europe--celebrating the festivities.

Unfortunately today is a day I must come out of the holiday zone to address one of the most important gems I've seen yet this year. Headline below:

"Big Oil Money Working to Rewrite History of Gulf Oil Disaster"

Why does this not really surprise, shock or astonish? Don't we expect an industry-wide effort, supported by various networks of privately funded academics and institutions, to minimise the impact of the Gulf of Mexico spill over time?

Well, it still hurts. Case in point: an excerpt below from a lovely pseudo-news article published in our old favorite, the charming Weekly Standard, by none other than a public policy professor from University of Maryland, Robert Nelson (say what?) And yes, the title of the article really is Oil Spill Hysteria.

"The ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage from the continuous gushing of oil into the water from April 20 till July 15, when the leaking well was capped."

But wait! It gets even better. Here's a proof point Nelson offers to support the above:

"By mid-August, the NOAA was having trouble finding spilled oil."

Because it was creating a ginormous plume beneath the surface, right? No, stupid. Because, according to the folks at NOAA who are always right (ahem):

"It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico."

Awkward. But here's the real gem, no explanation needed:

"The search for damage to the Gulf, it seems, is a bit like the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Zing! Long live ExxonMobil's academic funding arm.