Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Senator James Inhofe(Sociopath, OK)

Commentary By Ron Beasley


While peak oil may threaten our civilization peak water threatens our species. Hydraulic fracking is seen by some to be the next solution to the fossil fuel shortage but what about it's impact on water resources.  While we are told that it can be done safely experience tells a different story.  This from yesterday:


Gas Drilling Emergency in Bradford County



Officials said thousands of gallons of fluid leaked over farm land and into a creek from a natural gas well in Bradford County.



This of course is just the latest example of contamination resulting from fracking.  Just hours after this latest contamination event Oklahoma's sociopathic senator, James Inhofe said this:



Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is perhaps Congress� most reliable defender of dirty energy and evangelizer against the �hoax� of global warming. This morning, he took his message to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade�s radio show, where he extolled the virtues of hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas known widely as �fracking.� Fracking is a relatively new and untested technique, but Inhofe insisted that there�s nothing to worry about, as he claimed fracking has �never poisoned anyone� nor ever contaminated groundwater:



Here's the audio:











Of course this is pure bull shit:



While fracking has the potential to create vast new American energy supplies, Inhofe�s claim that it is completely without risk is either stunningly ignorant or intentionally dishonest. Just yesterday, a blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas well engaged in fracking spilled thousands of gallons of toxic chemical-laced water, �contaminating a stream and forcing the evacuation of seven families who live nearby as crews struggled to stop the gusher,� the AP reported. Inhofe referenced the Pennsylvania spill in his interview, but said that it has �nothing to do with fracking� because it was a stream, not groundwater that was contaminated.


But fracking has contaminated groundwater. As a recent New York Times investigation confirmed, waste from fracking has contaminated groundwater and even drinking water with toxic and radioactive chemicals. The process relies on pumping toxic chemicals deep underground to break rock, and between 2005 and 2009, �hundreds of millions of gallons of hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals� have been pumped into wells. Large amounts of radioactive material have been found in water supplies near fracking sites, many Pennsylvanians have gotten sick, the tap water in homes near fracking sites have caught on fire, and a home in Celveland, Ohio blew up.


It�s worth noting that the oil and gas industry has been Inhofe�s top contributor over his political career, giving him over $450,000 in the last election cycle alone, even though Inhofe wasn�t up for reelection. Inhofe�s single largest campaign donor is oil conglomerate Koch Industries.



Inhofe is a sociopath who will sell his soul to the highest bidder.  That of course makes him a Republican Christian.




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4 comments:

  1. John BallardApril 21, 2011 at 2:37 PM

    He was also a supporter of Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Ivory Coast. FP had an article about that a couple weeks ago. He's associated with that tawdry sub-Christian outfit called the Fellowship. Theirs is the slimy underside of beltway politics at its most disgusting.

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  2. HyperIonApril 22, 2011 at 9:19 AM

    I watched him on cspan recently and IIRC his claim there was strictly about fracking in OK, which has evidently been going on for years. Somehow THEY know how to do it correctly!?! (I listened to the "tape" and didn't hear Inhofe include "in my state" as a qualifier of his remarks.)
    In cspan he seemed quite smugly happy to imply that only a PA moron would end up polluting the water supply. There was also testimony from a fellow who works for the OK agency that regulates the gas industry. He said the same thing as Inhofe and acknowledged that OK is very short on water and thus has to be careful to not pollute it.
    Yes, Inhofe is an idiot. But something doesn't add up. I myself do not understand how fracking can be new if the state of OK has been doing it for years. And if OK has been fracking for years, why haven't we heard complaints from folks living there? Maybe Inhofe and the other guy who testified are just lying their asses off; but if so, IMO that could be determined but has not yet been. YMMV.

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  3. HyperIonApril 22, 2011 at 10:59 AM

    I googled but I still don't understand. WHAT IS REALITY?
    ====================================================
    "During more than half a century of hydraulic fracturing experience, there has not been a single documented instance of contamination to groundwater or drinking water as a result of hydraulic fracturing," Cloud told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. That record, he said, covers more than 100,000 wells in Oklahoma.
    *snip*
    Oklahoma requires the fluids used in fracking to be either recycled or injected into wells. Cloud repeatedly offered assurances that those fluids never get into the state's water.
    Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110413_16_A9_CUTLIN944671

    ReplyDelete
  4. HyperIonApril 22, 2011 at 11:17 AM

    link to the EPA study, etc.
    i still don't understand.
    WHAT ARE THE FACTS OF THE MATTER?
    http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/26195e235a35cb3885257831005fd9cd!OpenDocument

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