Halliburton = Oil Rig Explosions, Why Do Israelis Think Obama Hates Them?

Paul Krugman
Mark McKinnon
Barnaby Phillips

"In my 25 years in politics, I’ve never seen an issue as explosive or divisive as immigration reform." - Mark McKinnon

"This new law is pretty strict. You can't use the slogan 'what can brown do for you?' anymore. Can't even use that." –Jay Leno

"Ironically, after they passed this new law, you know how they celebrated at the statehouse? Shots of tequila." –Jay Leno

From the initial analysis of the explosion of the oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, in the Gulf of Mexico, it seems that Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton may be responsible. Huffington Post reports: "Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the "cementing" process -- that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon.


"The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement," said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry. The problem could have been a faulty cement plug at the bottom of the well, he said. Another possibility would be that cement between the pipe and well walls didn't harden properly and allowed gas to pass through it."

"Halliburton, Halliburton... hmm... why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah... the corporate beast that leaves deaths and destruction everywhere it goes or around anything it touches." - deparis

British Petroleum has also been criticized for not using the latest technology on the oil rig, and Halliburton has a shaky past track record in working the rigs. They were implicated last year in a similar oil rig explosion off the coast of Australia, which took ten days to cap. Faulty pouring of cement was one of the root causes of that explosion, too.

It's bad enough that BP lied to the world and that the amount of oil leaking from the bottom of the ocean is 10 times the amount than originally stated, and that the spreading oil slick has now reached the coasts of Florida and Louisiana, and President Obama has called a halt to all off-shore oil exploration. Expect major Congressional investigations, tape the events on CSPAN, especially after a second oil rig platform has toppled over near Morgan City, Louisiana...

"I wouldn’t put anything past these buffoons. They performed shoddy work in Iraq and other places and to top if off, they have not been brought to justice in the electrocution deaths of some service personnel." - airforce vet

It may be that lax Federal regulators are partly responsible for allowing a situation like this to develop, especially after the same thing happened in Australia. We have lax Federal regulators letting mines in West Virginia get away with over 200 offenses, and a contemptuous coal company intentionally putting the lives of its workers at risk, no big deal until it resulted in the largest mining disaster in years and the lives of many men. We have Federal regulators looking at porn on their computers instead of looking at Wall Street, resulting in the largest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. I'm beginning to notice a trend here, and maybe we need to have a Congressional hearing asking why the Bush administration condoned hiring these morons as regulators, why they intentionally put people into departments to sabotage their efficiency, and why their official policy was to create a climate of non-regulation. We already know the answers, but it would provide us with some catharsis, to watch the murdering sons of bitches squirm under the hot lights while facing the cameras... Even though I like George Bush as a nice guy, he needs to confront what his avoidance of responsibility under Dick Cheney produced, ruining and even murdering the lives of so many innocent people here in this country, as well as in so many countries around the world. Well, on to Massachusetts and building a farm of wind turbines near the Kennedy compound, close enough to spoil their view and piss them all off...

"When I was young, I was taught that the purpose of religion was to foster compassion through lovingkindness, to seek peace by example, to perform with human hands the work of angels.


Then I moved to the Holy Land." - Bradley Burston

Proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will begin next week, with the US acting as intermediary and running messages back and forth. It's BS, I know, but it's a way to begin the grind again. I was surprised to learn that a lot of my attitude towards the peace talks is similar to those of Zbignew Brezinski's, that the US's lack of follow up and letting Israel do whatever they want has led to a sick atmosphere. So, it's time to man up and cut all foreign aid to Israel and Palestine until they finish hammering out an agreement...

Meanwhile, the Jewish lobby is asking the UN delegates to walk out when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks next week. The US has said that it will not meet with hime while he was here, although that's exactly what Obama should do, if nothing else than to size up the little guy. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer...

There have been demonstrations against Obama in Israel, we may call them the Kosher Partyers, may be more intense than here. Burning him in effigy, calling on him to rot in hell... So many people assume because his demeanor is cool, calm, and collected in public that he hates them. This is a phenomena that goes back to childhood, and speaks more about a person's immaturity, their reaction to criticism than it does about Obama as a person. And just like here in the US, people who ordinarily think of themselves as religious, have taken up the most mean spirited, violent language to protest their imagined slights.

"What is it in the hearts of these people, who call themselves religious, whom the love or the fear of God should have filled with an openness toward humankind, that makes them hate this man with such fury?


Why is this President different from all other presidents?


They call him every manner of names - Communist, Muslim, racist, Jew-hater. They call him all manner of names, and he is none of these.


Curious, isn't it, that they never mention what he actually is. Which is, for many of them, enough reason to revile him, all by itself: Black" - Bradley Burston