Friday, September 03, 2010

Hysteria as Policy

I like Fox News. That's not surprising considering my political ideology. But, that doesn't mean I like 24/7 Fox programming. I have never liked Greta "Where's an Ambulance to Chase" Van Susteren. I have shifted considerably in my opinion of Bill O'Reilly who has evolved into an overly smug blowhard. I can't take more than a few minutes of the hyper-sincerity of Glen Beck. And without Colmes as an incompetent leftist Kool-Aid sipper, Hannity becomes too pedantic.

I do like Bret Baier and I hang on every word from Charles Krauthammer and Brit Hume. The morning show bunch is great and through the day the reporting and features are very good. I wonder how Fox manages to continue to populate the airwaves with beautiful, educated and intelligent women. Shep is becoming a problem.

His warm and folksy approach has deteriorated into a barely subdued hysteria which he seems to equate with empathy for the common man. He tries to put into folksy colloquialism the barely subliminal thoughts we all have flash through our minds in moments of depression and paranoia.

A breeze in the mid-Atlantic with some rain will quickly translate into a Katrina sized disaster as we plot the potential track of the barometric depression...in ten days this breeze could become a category five hurricane which will devastate the low-lying coastal areas of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. We'd better board up and evacuate. We'll be watching this storm closely.

Yesterday Shep was bewailing off-shore drilling as "yet another..." off-shore platform has blown up spewing oil in a mile-long slick with no report of confirmed injuries, blah, blah, blah...or maybe not.

Mariner Platform Different Than Deepwater Horizon

So, as we explore the story we learn Deepwater was a drilling rig. Mariner was a production platform. One floated, the other was fixed construction. DH was in mile-deep waters while MP was in 300 feet. DH had more than 100 men aboard while MP was crewed by a dozen. Deepwater was oil exploration while MP was natural gas production. DH had a malfunctioning blowout protector while Mariner had already shut off all the production valves of all of the wells prior to the fire, which wasn't really an explosion.

And there is no sheen, slick or spill at this time...

What should we be doing? Well, this agenda driven congress-critter from a state 1500 miles away says:

"How many accidents are needed and how much environmental and economic damage must we suffer before we act to contain and control the source of the danger: offshore drilling?" said Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat.


Mind your own business, Frank. You don't have a clue.

1 comment:

bongobear said...

I pretty much agree with you, Ed. Beck frustrates me when he spends so much time worrying about Woodrow Wilson and other long-dead politicians. I know we should try to learn from history but we really need to concentrate on the present-day problems. Perhaps he does this and I just don't know about it.
I disagree with your opinion of Van Susterin. I think she does a good job on her show concentrating on the present and all the problems we face in this country.
Krauthammer is the best and Brit Hume is sorely missed as an every day anchor. Brit's a year older than I am so he certainly has earned his retirement.