This is some real awesomesauce:
Last month, when coal execs read the report linking birth defects to mountaintop removal mining, they weren’t exactly thrilled. One rebuttal, penned by four attorneys with the firm Crowell & Moring, which represents the National Mining Association, accused the study’s authors of using cherry-picked and misleading data. But that apparently wasn’t convincing enough, so they went a step further and employed a discredited stereotype about inbreeding in West Virginia.
“The study failed to account for consanquinity [sic], one of the most prominent sources of birth defects,” the attorneys’ statement said. It then went on to advertise the firm’s services to coal companies looking to “counter unfounded claims of injury or disease” from potential lawsuits sparked by the study.
The statement, which had been on the firm’s website for more than a week, was quickly removed yesterday after Charleston Gazette blogger Ken Ward Jr. pointed out its insinuation that inbreeding hicks, not mountaintop mining, were to blame for spikes in the rate of birth defects, which it also said didn’t exist in the first place. Wrap your head around that one. (Thanks to Ward, you can still read the statement here.
It’s not the pollution causing those non-existent birth defects, it’s the inbreeding.
Assholes. You know what would fix this problem? Deregulation and tort reform.
Baud
To be fair, the study probably should have used the British royal family as a control group.
Edit: By the way, the real insult is the suggestion that inbreeding in W.Va. is getting worse, thereby causing the spike in birth defects.
Cat Lady
There’s a joke in there somewhere, but frankly it’s all been on us. Wait til all of the fracking shit really hits the collective fan – what will be the excuses then?
beltane
If they want to study the effects of inbreeding, they should do the rounds of the Beltway cocktail party circuit. That’s some serious consanguity right there.
It’s amazing how easily some people chose the path of evil when they’re paid to do so.
Keith G
@Cat LadyThe larger lesson: Intra-family fracking can be quite dangerous, it seems.
Charles
Don’t forget tax cuts!
Maude
@beltane:
WIN
Just Some Fuckhead
When incest is outlawed, only inlaws will be outlaws.
James E. Powell
Can’t help but wonder if that will have any effect on the decent, God-fearing, Real ‘Murican, West Virginians tendency to vote with their bosses.
Jeffro
Um, Keith G wins…for me at least. I will be throwing out “intra-family fracking” for at least the rest of the month at the water cooler.
opit
A fellow who keeps a file of water stories knows about mountaintop mining. From opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/p/topical-index.html in the ‘Water’ and ‘Energy’ files catch these notes of special interest
SourceWatch Portal sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_waste
My Polluted Kentucky Home
Since it was first used in 1970, mountaintop removal has destroyed some 500 mountains and poisoned at least 1,200 miles of rivers and streams across the Appalachian coal-mining region.
nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20House.html
ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/
desdemonadespair.net/2009/12/kingston-coal-ash-slide-then-and-now.html
Brian
The lawyers knew they were full of shit, that’s why they didn’t proof-read. Or, they are as dumb as they are evil. Either way, it stings me to see such beautiful examples of why people hate lawyers.
Nonstoprocka
“Assholes. You know what would fix this problem? Deregulation and tort reform.”
John, you forgot to add lower taxes.
kindness
Hey John, those Lawyers must think the movie ‘Deliverance’ is a real depiction of Appalachian life. It’s a sad statement.
You write ’em & tell them the pigs you like are on the BBQ.
Paul in KY
Just Some Fuckhead, you’ve been waiting a while to use that one, haven’t you ;-)
John Weiss
Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that argument before, once or twice. Well, Cleopatra was an idiot, right?
I suppose those fuckers will stop at nothing. Sorta like a teabagger.
Gus
By then because of tort reform and a compliant Supreme Court they won’t need an excuse.