Patrick J. Michaels--the aforementioned talentless hack--attempts to pull the hood over our eyes early on in his elementary hit piece by beginning with: "As a scientist," . . . As if, as a scientist, he will actually live up to their age-old credo of being married to the facts unveiled in the neverending curious probe of the dimensions around us. It isn't until the end where we see the real angle he's schilling from: the Cato Institute.
As Norman Solomon lets us in on:
Financial firms kicking in big checks to Cato include American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Citicorp/Citibank, Commonwealth Fund, Prudential Securities and Salomon Brothers. Energy conglomerates: Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Cato's pharmaceutical donors include Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc.
As Norman Solomon points out, the Cato Institute has also been a longtime paid supporter of the tobacco industry. Charming. We can always ask ourselves why some men and women take money from tobacco companies to promote their killer product, or why some men and women take money from oil and gas companies to try and discredit the overwhelming evidence as related to global warming. Could be money. Could be no soul. Could be some religious-fundamentalist grasp on the world which perverts their entire worldview wherein, among other perversions, Jesus and the red cow are coming so fuck the trees, fuck the A-rabs, etc.
Of course, Patrick J. Michaels, within the hallowed pages of USA Today, is writing for the stupid people. How else could you explain such phrases as "'Nuff said"? Patrick, I may be mistaken, but I don't believe you're an 8th grader writing from the eighties, are you? If so, I'm gonna book.
Why get into Patrick's prose? Typical Oil Company Sheeyeet: call everything else "propaganda," disparage the source, disparage by association, and go as deeply into Opposite Day as your shallow-ass pen will get you: "Lies cloaked as science should never determine how we live our lives."
This from the oil company employee. Well, buck up Bronco, 'cuz the people, armed with the truth, are coming to get ya.
(Update: the ever-resourceful Bill C. of TOTEOTA gives us this link which really says it all better than me: Pat Michaels: Scientist, Energy Industry Lackey . . . also, I understand that pointing out one piece in the river of crap that is corporate media might be a little absurd, but what the hell.)
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