Not Credible: T. Boone Pickens Floods Online Poll With Votes, Brags About Results

Around the end of December, the American Consumer Institute, which appears to be a fly-by-night anti-regulation group, posted a poll about The Pickens Plan on their website.

The official Pickens Plan account at the Ning Social Network page immediately posted a link to the poll, practically begging the (175,000+) members of the group to show their support by voting.The American Consumer Institute is hosting a poll asking the public if they support Pickens Plan.

This is an excellent opportunity to show that we do!

Please take a moment and participate in the poll. You can add your vote by clicking here.

Thank you!
Three weeks later, when the results came in, there weren't many surprises:

Over the last couple of weeks, we asked our readers whether they supported the Pickens Plan to achieve energy independence. And, here are the final results:

* 95% YES (902 votes)
* <1% NO (8 votes)
* 4% Partially Support (34 votes)
* <1% Undecided (2 votes)

Based on these results, our readers overwhelmingly support the Pickens Plan.

Imagine that. Not to be outdone, the flacks at the Pickens blog followed up immediately with American Consumers' Support for the Pickens Plan: Overwhelming!:

The organization "The American Consumer" did a survey to test support for the Pickens Plan. According to its website, 95% of those responding said they supported the Pickens plan in full.

Another four percent support portions of the Pickens plan.

Just one percent of those responding disagreed with the Pickens Plan or were undecided

This is intentionally misleading. Pickens has a bad habit of intentionally misleading people about the nature of his plan. Here are a few examples:

• For the Pickens Plan to Work, People Have to Misunderstand It


• Pickens Still Wants Cars to Run on Natural Gas


• Boone Pickens Caught in Several More Lies on Frontline


• Reducing Dependence on Foreign Oil Through Domestic Wind and Solar


• T. Boone Pickens Caught in Two Lies in One Short Interview


• 10 Truths T. Boone Pickens Doesn't Want You to Know about the Pickens' Plan for California

Originally posted at The Seminal.

Follow Josh Nelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/josh_nelson

Comments

[rocketman69]

Best reason to be against T. Boone PickPockets: Nancy Pelosi thinks he makes sense.

[NoCents]

I have a better plan:

Let's have the government build windmill and solar power power through Grants and Subidy.

1) Give Corporations and Rich (foreign or domestic) HUGE tax incentives so it cost them nothing for ownership paid for with TAX on the people

2) Government to Build Transmission Lines paid for with TAX on the People

3) Use GODs power wind, sun for FREE

4) Make the people pay the owners for the electricity so they get RICHER

Yahoo, clean air for dirty open space. The kicker we can haul the crap from the city back to the open space it will be CHEAP when we all live in NYC

[DC Palmer]

What a sour grapes bunch we have here. I support Pickens, even if some of his ideas don't fly.

NG for Interstate trucking makes some sense until we have something better It can be implemented quickly by installing a couple thousand NG fueling stations along the interestates. The chicken-and-egg problem for NG trucking can be fixed for less than one billion dollars and will save us many billions in oil imports.

NG for cars makes no sense at all and I don't think it will ever go.

"Smart" grid makes sense, as do windmills. Just becuase Pickens thinks it is a good idea doesn't make it a bad idea.

Pickens doesn't own a monopoly on good ideas. Check out "Better Place" for a real revolution. I just hope our cars companies wil get with that program.

[rocketman69]

It won't save me a dime, I don't drive a truck.

[Haditup2here]

Pickens is full of it . A number of power plants (which were built during energy de-regulation) are fueled by natural gas since it burns more cleaner than coal. As a result, the cost of natural gas has gone up and there is a growing interest in building Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants that gasifies coal and removes the sulfur since coal is more plentiful. Powering cars with natural gas is asinine since it would compete with home heating and power production -- I guess which would reap more profits for Pickens. However, biodiesel would be more effective since it can be derived from used cooking oil with less energy consumed in developing the fuel compared to ethanol.

I hope people do not fall from Picken's P.R. bull.

[wdw505]

"fall from Picken's P.R. bull" wow pickens owns a bull that one could fall from.....i guess he is name P.R.

cool

[BLinCincinnati]

"However, biodiesel would be more effective since it can be derived from used cooking oil with less energy consumed in developing the fuel compared to ethanol."

There is an average of 4 billion gallons of used cooking oil annually. Compare that to the 150 Billion gallons of gasoline used annually. That's 3% (not considering yield ratio from oil to biodiesel), assuming you could get all the oil going into biodiesel. But the animal feed, pet food, and cosmetics industries also use cooking oil for their products.

There simply isn't enough yellow grease to power enough cars. Biodiesel would be more effective in diesel based vehicles such as tractor trailors, locomotives, ships and other vehicles that would be near impossible to run on electric. But passenger cars should be moved towards completely electric, and effort should be put into building more efficient power plants of varying types.

[LALC]

Pickens donated $1 million in 2004 Swift Boat Veterans & POWs for Truth. Now he's got a plan!
What's not to say he's swift-boating us again!

[wdw505]

that brings his credibility up in my book.....

[JustAHumanOnEarth]

Pickens and company stand to make a lot of money on the greenies...what do you expect?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true&print=true

[CussingNews]

Oh lord, not T. Boone again... didn't he lose a bet to John Kerry and never pay up? I mean, when your 70 something years old and you are already rich... how can you still be this greedy? Hey T. how's about taking a vacation guy? No really, stop chasing the dollar long enough to get some sunshine. I think he owns "the water" in his state somehow. Don't ask.

[Zen0469]

I believe in RESPONSIBLE development of alternative energy sources and support such development. However, I may not not wish to see Boone Pickens leading the development of such an alternative energy plan.

Please consider carefully the lack of appropriate intellectual pedigree of this man. Here are a few other questions bearing on his suitability to lead such development:
1. Is this an honest man?
2. Is this an altruistic man?
3. Would you buy a used car from this man?

Me? I think I'll walk, thanks.

[ObjectiveRealist]

Pickens' flurry of publicity proving the feasibility of rapid development of 100% renewable power sources has been useful but for the coming implementation, he appears too accustomed to the privileges of being "chief" to play a productive role. He is too stubborn about the weakest of his ideas, natural gas as passenger vehicle fuel. There are better options but he refuses to admit it. Favor to his old natural gas buddies? Plain stupid? Doesn't matter, he's incorrect and unable to change his mind, that's what's important. Step aside, T.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn
http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

[KillTheMessenger]

Pickens has a failed business that tries to sell NG as transportation fuel. Since the market said no like three times, he is now trying to force it down our throats by getting it on state ballots by running a federal ad campaign. It's not stupidity but the desperation of the business man who does not take "NO!" for an answer.

[Slabgorb]

Does anyone pay any attention to online polls? They are bad for a variety of reason, including-

- self selection (i.e. who GOES to the page with the poll on it?)
- multiple voting
- outright hacking
- social network campaigns

They really are only useful to find out what the people coming to your site think, and even then should not be held up there as 'proving' anything.

[KillTheMessenger]

"Does anyone pay any attention to online polls? "

The GOP does, especially to those they rigged themselves. They just don't like the outcome of the real polls, so they make their own now.

[NoCents]

KLR, your right GOD says we all are tempted, business and CIA have use this a human motivation.

But GOD has joined the plan. He is giving the power of the wind and sun for FREE. Wonder if he knew they were going to charge his people for it?

[sleepdawg]

This just in: George Bush is a Republican.

In related news of an obvious nature, Pickens is not credible. Astonishing!