It's ALWAYS been easy enough to find examples of Big Lies and Shell Games and Emperor's Transparent Raiments in the stream of foolishness that passes for "news" in American mass media, but the last few years has been an especially fruitful epoch. Today's OMG OMG OMG (at least so far, and it's not yet 7:30) is from Anthony Swift at National Resources Defense Council, and won't take long to read: Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline to export oil out of the United States. A bit to whet the whistle:
Keystone XL would be Canada’s first step in diversifying its energy market. The pipeline would divert large volumes of Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be available for the first time to buyers on the world market. To sweeten the deal, many of the refineries on the Gulf Coast happen to be located in foreign trade zones, where they can export Canadian oil to the world market without paying U.S. taxes. Oil Change International investigated this issue in a report that found the Keystone XL pipeline was part of a larger strategy to sell increasing volumes of Canadian crude on the international diesel market... Simply stated, Keystone XL is a way to get Canadian oil out of the United States, not into it.Posted by oook at December 21, 2011 07:28 AM