Hop-Scotch the Herafter on the Heinous Halliburton Hydraulic Cement
Filed Under Energy, Environment, Media, Politics, Technology | Leave a Comment
The title quite a mash-up, huh?
A mouthful of alliterated sounds beckoning forth a bat-shit-crazy.
However, if according to the US Supreme Court and corporations are indeed people — “…citizens, or associations of citizens…” – then somewhere out there is some giant, asshole of a guy with a name synonymous with hideously-cruel, insane and arrogant incompetence: Halliburton.
This past week, once again the humongous, multi-tentacled body of companies was in the news after the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill reported Halliburton knew there were flaws in the cement used in the doomed well before the April 20 disaster.
Should come as absolute no surprise, that fact.
(Illustration found here).
And of course, Halliburton says there’s just a mix-up in the mixture — a different batch of ingredients is all: saying the cement cited for flaws in February was different from the mixture used to plug the well two months later.
Ha!
The problem lies in the lies.
According the Commission’s report, officials at Halliburton knew the cement was bad.
From the New York Times:
“There is no indication that Halliburton highlighted to BP the significance of the foam stability data or that BP personnel raised any questions about it,” (the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr.) Mr. Bartlit said in his report.
Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well on April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, meaning it was unlikely to set properly in the well, but those findings were never sent to BP, Mr. Bartlit found after reviewing previously undisclosed documents.
Although Mr. Bartlit did not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he made clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressurized oil and gas out of the well bore, there would have been no accident.
“We have known for some time that the cement used to secure the production casing and isolate the hydrocarbon zone at the bottom of the Macondo well must have failed in some manner,” he said in his letter to the seven members of the presidential commission.
“The cement should have prevented hydrocarbons from entering the well.”
Finger pointing on the cause of the oil spill disaster started early.
BP claimed in September Halliburton’s bad cement job was to blame, and Halliburton, in turn, switched fingers, pointed the blame gun at BP — oh, the shame.
Although BP is indeed an ugly corporate snake not at all giving a shit about the “small people,” Halliburton is in a nefarious class all by itself — one nasty piece of industrial waste.
These people are like a cancer: From killing showers in Iraq (trusted to a former Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, another ugly story altogether), gang rape without reprisal, and a long laundry list of criminal behavior.
One must remember The Dick‘s role with Halliburton.
Robert Reich advances that notion more neatly and eloquently than I:
Halliburton, in case you’ve forgotten, is not exactly a model citizen.
It has evaded U.S. taxes and export bans through foreign subsidiaries; admitted to bribing foreign officials (a subsidiary paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian government official in exchange for favorable tax treatment); conceded in an internal memo (leaked to the Wall Street Journal) its cost controls for government contracts in Iraq were “antiquated” and its procurement “disorganized; was found by Pentagon auditors to have overcharged estimated at $27.4 million for meals served to American troops at five military bases in Iraq and Kuwait (in one camp billing for an average 42,000 meals a day but serving only 14,000).
The list of Halliburton’s crimes goes on and on.
And yet, somehow, Halliburton goes on piling up profits. How? Because of its deep connections to Washington.
Dick Cheney hadn’t had any experience in the oil business when he became Halliburton’s CEO in 1995.
But he did have experience in government — as George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense.
And those military ties were invaluable to the company.
Under his reign, Halliburton rose from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon’s list of top contractors, and the money garnered from government-sponsored agencies (such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank) soared from $100 million in the five years prior to Cheney’s arrival to $1.5 billion a few years after.
As vice president to George W. Bush, Cheney made sure Halliburton’s stunning performance would continue (Cheney continued to receive checks from the company).
According to congressional inquiries, Cheney’s vice presidential office was instrumental in forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to remove sections on climate change from reports in 2002 and 2003 (a process Christine Todd Whitman, then the E.P.A. administrator, subsequently described as “brutal.”)
The Bush-Cheney administration also sought to control or censor congressional testimony about climate change by federal employees, and tampered with other reports in order to inject uncertainty into the climate debate.
And that, indeed, is a nasty-tasting mouthful.
GTO Gone
Filed Under history, Musings | Leave a Comment
Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine
Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin’ up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine
C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO
– Little G.T.O., Ronnie and the Daytonas
(Illustration found here).
One of the great cool, and violent cars, of my youth and most likely also of a big group of baby boomers was Pontiac’s GTO — or Gran Turismo Omologato, but nobody, and actually nobody at all, ever used that elite term — and although Pontiac’s official demise ends today, the great, grand GTO died a long time ago.
From the New York Times:
It was 84 years old.
The cause of death was in dispute.
Fans said Pontiac’s wounds were self-inflicted, while General Motors blamed a terminal illness contracted during last year’s bankruptcy.
Pontiac built its last car nearly a year ago, but the official end was set for Oct. 31, when G.M.’s agreements with Pontiac dealers expire.
…
Its biggest triumph was the GTO, developed by Mr. (John Z.) DeLorean, the brand’s rebellious chief engineer, in violation of a G.M. policy dictating the maximum size of a car’s engine. The GTO was a hit, and the age of the muscle car had begun.
Although the public was awash with the Pontiac Firebird, the car Burt Reynolds manhandled in 1976′s “Smokey and the Bandit,” the GTO set the stage for muscle being cool.
My first job was for Avis Rent-A-Car — I washed and cleaned out the cars — and by far the neatest and best built were the Pontiacs, they handled so good with power to spare.
Although Avis didn’t have the GTO, we did have the Tempest, which was just a streamlined, lesser-powerful version of the GTO, in fact the original template for it.
And like everything else nowadays, that was long ago in a place far, far away.
Eventful Events
Filed Under Cloud gazing | Leave a Comment
On the weekends, my blogging window-of-performance-opportunity is kind of whacked. During the ‘work week’ its early and quick, but Saturday and Sunday presents a longer, more-lazy approach to venting my writing obsession (blogs are a most delightful means to maintain writing, the whole Internet, really — I’ve been writing near-serious in all different kinds of ways since about the age of 12 or so [50 years or so] and this blog is much-like when I wrote as a kid. Junk out a short story or poem, then eventually, or maybe quickly, assign it to a big cardboard box containing all shapes of literary artifacts in various stages of completion. This blog is similar as so few eyes read it, the entire contents could most-easily be transferred to that weighty box in my teen-age bedroom) and what could be written in an hours, takes sometimes all day Saturday.
(Illustration found here).
In that sphere of influence, I’m going to see what the big news is today, maybe get pissed off and depressed all at once — it’s become fairly apparent the earth is moving toward some heavy-duty cataclysmic event/events in the extreme-near future, and of course, the US has the torturous midterm elections this Tuesday, which could reveal the upcoming violent underbelly of American war, politics and life.
And to demonstrate the upside down life/reality: The US has as its “most trusted” journalist, Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, a mock TV news program, who with his nefarious alter-ego, the mocking Stephen Colbert, holding the massive Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear today in DC — Watch the whole thing here — and what’s near-implausible, the event might effect the neurotic US election in three days.
Talking Points Memo, which is usually dead on the weekends, has been carrying some good descriptions of the event from all sources, from iPhones to Tweeter.
And as one reader shared: They were really unprepared for the size of the crowd. No secondary speakers or jumbotrons set up...It’s insane down here.
Knew it!
(Illustration found here).
When I first heard of Stewart’s rally, I felt certain the thing would be enormous and would make last summer’s Palin/Beck grotesque day on the Mall tiny, weeny in comparison — hopefully, the vast number of Americans have sense and will get-in/be-in on the joke.
Many of TPM‘s readers seemingly reflect similar views as this one, a telling detail: My 5 yo and I just bailed because of crazy metro issues, but I can tell you that we were on a train near packed with boomers and older. And they were more excited than anyone else–giddy, even. Definitely an all ages event.
A fun event to keep up with all day, and not surprising, an uplift kind of thing, not so sordid and dispiriting as other shit nowadays.
More later, as I gotta run some weekend-type errands.
‘Garlic Eaters’ Dust Up
Filed Under War & Politics | Leave a Comment
From Agence France-Presse this morning:
North Korean troops opened fire Friday at a South Korean army post near their tense border and the South’s soldiers shot back, Seoul’s military said, heightening tensions of next month’s G20 summit.
The North fired two bullets at a frontline guard post at 5:26 pm (0826 GMT) and South Korean soldiers immediately fired three shots in return from a machine gun, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
“There were no more shots afterwards.
We are now closly watching their movements,” a spokesman told AFP.
(Illustration found here).
All we need right now on this stressed-out, boiling planet is an outbreak of actual, prolonged fighting between these two freakish countries — one a progressive member of the modern world, the other a closed-nose of a military encampment belonging more to the war-like medieval ages than the right now.
This incident is part-and-parcel of a nasty on-going 50-year bickering between the two countries, but due to the sinking of a South Korean ship last March, which killed 46 sailors, the latest dust-up could get out of hand pretty quick.
And if war does break out, it would be a mess: North Korean army defectors have described how soldiers take naps in the afternoon instead of training because there is so little to eat, revealing how the country’s chronic food shortage affects not just the civilian population but also the fighting forces.
On top of that, in two weeks Seoul will host the G-20 economic summit where world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will discuss the shitty state of world financial affairs.
One of the most-outlandish countries in all of history, North Korea is a complete military state, an entire country like a Middle Age castle standing alone in a field of ripen wheat — if you want, see a strange, odd-sounding video of a North Korean army parade here.
The shooting does come at an interesting time.
From the AFP story:
The first inter-Korean military talks for two years ended without progress in September after Seoul demanded an apology from Pyongyang for the warship sinking.
Pyongyang refuses to accept the findings of a multinational investigation that blamed the tragedy on a North Korean night-time attack. It says it is the victim of a smear campaign.
The communist state’s military offered to hold a second round of talks on October 22. But the South rejected the offer, citing no change in the North’s attitude.
The rejection of dialogue “precisely meant confrontation and war”, the North’s military said in a statement, adding it would “no longer feel any interest in dialogue and contact.”
The term “garlic eaters,” from what I gather is a derogatory term used by Japanese for Koreans.
I would call my son a ‘garlic eater’ because he loves the shit.
No offense intended.
‘Weather Bomb’ Winter
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Weather | Leave a Comment
Eye witness to climate change.
From ThinkProgress and Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas:
Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a “bomb”, spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr.
That’s 28.14″ of mercury. Bigfork, MN reported 955 mb, about 28.22″ of mercury.
The final (official) number may be closer to 28.20-28.22″, but at some point the number becomes academic. What is pretty much certain is that Tuesday’s incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA.
That’s a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.
And what makes Douglas’ words so special?
He’s been GOPed into shame:
I’m a recovering Republican, and I don’t recognize my party any more.
I’m ashamed so many Republicans don’t recognize the science.
The writing is on the wall.
…
My dad was the biggest Republican that ever walked the earth.
He always said: “Actions have consequences.”
To pretend that a 38 percent increase in greenhouse gases isn’t going to have any impact, that we can have our cake and eat it too, and smear it all over our face, and maybe have our grandchildren deal with the hangover, I think it is immoral.
Apparently, from all indications anyone running Republican — i.e. Tea Party — are climate change asshole-deniers, despite bad weather shit hitting the fan right in the middle of middle America, not Pakistan, or the Arctic.
Climate change, global warming, etc., etc., is the biggest, most ominous threat (among a shitload of lesser, though still horrific threats) facing mankind — and to even think of denying it is way, way-worse than immoral.
Read a good background description of these storms from weatherman, Dr. Jeff Masters here.
(Once again, big h/t to Climate Progress).