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White House Edited Oil Drilling Safety Report
bonch writes "The Interior Department inspector general has released a report stating that the White House edited a drilling safety report by reordering paragraphs to make it appear as though a seven-member panel of independent experts supported the six-month ban on offshore drilling. The IG report states, 'The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,' but the panel had only reviewed a draft of safety recommendations and not a drilling ban. The White House has issued a statement saying that there was 'no intentional misrepresentation of their views.' This follows complaints from scientists and environmentalists that the administration has not been holding to its promise of policy guided by science and not ideology."
Nothing really ever changes.
Politicians screw things up again, confuse issues, try to get a certain spin on things!
EXTRA! EXTRA! Read All About it!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Wait a sec.....wrong administration.......
Never mind.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Was there really any doubt that the ban was a purely political decision in the first place?
Except that Kanye was actually onto something for once. The Bush administration didn't take hurricane Katrina seriously, and previous administrations hadn't taken the levee situation seriously. But ultimately, Bush failed to provide the sort of leadership during that which was necessary.
As opposed to the gulf spill during which there was little that any sitting President could do, as virtually all the experts on offshore drilling work for oil companies. But, I'm sure that you'd be perfectly fine with President Obama ordering around private sector entities which aren't employed by the government, right?
Somewhere, at some time in the past, some underpaid, over-motivated intern had a brilliant idea to help save the world by fighting the evil oil companies first hand! He or she was more than excited just to get an internship at the white house, under the Obama administration no less! And then, this! He or she was given the opportunity to audit a world-changing report regarding one of the most publicized environmental disasters in history for typos and grammatical correctness. Being an over-achiever and one who is full of gumption, the intern took it upon him or herself to rearrange some paragraphs and really stick it to BP, knowing that they were doing the right thing to protect the world from eco-terrorists! Captain Planet would be proud, yesiree!
A few months later, a report about the report reveals the tampering, the public becomes outraged, Obama has to answer for it all, and the intern is currently shitting his or her pants in fear of the Pandora's box that they unlocked, perhaps,even developing a nasty cocaine addiction in the process....
Either that or the politico douchebags in the white-house just fucked everyone over again out of sheer boredom.
Either way, it's times like this that make me proud I went to school to become an engineer, rather than getting muddled about in that dark world of hurt that is politics!
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
All this hullabaloo and we don't even have a diff of the two versions. Lots of hot air being blown around, but nobody's seen what the real cause of the problem is. Two words got moved, should be a simple thing to diff.
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Who needs proof when they have a hot air balloon?
You just issued it.
Shouldn't the blame be placed on the Governor?
After all he's the one who, when Bush called to send troops to help, refused to allow them entrance: "It's okay. Louisiana can handle this alone." A president is powerful, but per the constitution still not allowed to overrule a Governor during peacetime. I think we sometimes forget the US is a lot like the EU..... the EU president would not be able to send help either if, for example, Greece's PM refused entrance.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Except there was nothing a sitting president could do about utter incompetence and corruption of local officials during a natural disaster, as virtually all disaster response resources are not controlled by the federal government and Federal powers are extremely limited in that regard. But I'm sure you'd be perfectly fine with President Bush suspending posse comitatus and unseating state and local government officials, right?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Communists and Corporatists are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. You need to start taking your meds.
I am sure majority of American voters (of the time) would have opposed civil rights law or abolishing slavery or vote/equality for women.
That is why referendum on every major decision is a bad idea.
You vote for what you think is the best leaders and let them make decision popular or unpopular and kick them out if you want
later...i think that is better than making decision by popular acceptance which would mean daily electioneering already its terrible every 2 years.
Run for power if you think you'd do a better job than is being done. But the question is: ow come every libertarian or small govt person that gets into power morphs into yet another protect wall street person ? Is Wall St the center of liberterianism ?
I am so terribly sorry, you were looking for the racism thread. Despite you low ID number I feel that I must tell you that here on Slashdot we don't really go in for the whole "Negro Bashing" thing. It might have been different when you started, and I really don't think it was, but now a days we don't actually bother with people's color because, well it has nothing to do with anything.
To help you understand my message I will use prejudicial terms so you can understand.
I know Kikes that are poor, Spics that dont pick fruit, Niggers that suck at sports and Faggots that don't like show tunes. See? Prejudice sucks - it doesn't help anyone at all.
Interestingly though - I now know someone that thinks 'Chocolate' is a special word for people who have dark skin. And I guess I also know someone that thinks the President is the Messiah. No one in the Theological world ever thought he was the Second Coming.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Fuck no, they would probably try them as traitors. Consider the royalist overtones of them advocating "small government" of a few with no checks and balances but close to absolute power. Listen to what is actually being said by people that call themselves "libertarians" at "tea parties" instead of what you think they stood for in 1970.
Half the time it's advocating feudalism with the extremely rich as the nobility but wrapped up in a patriotic sounding title.
I don't think Washington, Franklin and others were advocating a system where the rich nobility could do what they pleased, that is what they were fighting against!