benhocking's Journal: Visit the firehose if you can

There's an entry on Halliburton and Dubai that desperately needs to see the light of day. I want to hear someone actually try to defend Halliburton on this one. Really, I do.

Awesome!

[BandwidthHog]

Take Blackwater with ya!

Oversight?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah, Congress. Come and practice oversight in Dubai.

Oh, and screw your taxes, too.

Signed, Big Dick Cheney

I think it's more the taxes

[benhocking]

As far as I can tell there hasn't been any oversight for them to complain about.

Where's the beef?

[skoaldipper]

Is it the entry by theodp? Everytime I click it, I get an empty entry (and I've waited almost 30 secs for it to fill in). Got a direct link? That particular submission is currently at defcon yellow btw.

Anyone else notice the firehose has the same color elevation system as the HSAS [wikipedia.org]?

Yep, that's the one

[benhocking]

Google News [google.com] has got lots on it. I thought it would be revealing to see what Fox News had to say about it, but evidently what's revealing is that they're not saying anything at all about it! Hmm. To be fair (as much as I hate that), other major news organizations are only now picking up on it themselves.

Re:

[skoaldipper]

I clicked on the NPR [npr.org] link - they seem to rationally outline the move as just a practical business decision (and it makes sense on the surface when put in that global context). I found that to be a delicious piece of irony since NPR unfairly receives a liberal tag at times, when I think they're pretty much apolitical myself.

Either way, no matter how one might rationalize or spin this move to Dubai, you'd have to be an ostrich not to recognize the conflict of interest here with our associations in the region

Heard it on NPR this morning

[benhocking]

That's precisely why I looked for it on the firehose. I assumed that someone had already submitted the story.

And yes, it is a good business decision - if they don't get all of their government contracts canceled because of it. If that's the case, then we (as a country) are a sad lot. Forget the fact that Dubai is in the Middle East (if you can). Just the fact that a company with huge defense contracts is moving off shores to avoid taxes is offensive enough. "Oh, sure we'll take money from the US governmen

Re:

[iminplaya]

They give plenty of money back. It's just not on the books. Actually it never really left, because it was never there to begin with. It's just a bunch of IOUs. And in these kind of matters, there is no government. They're merely a group of organizations that most reasonable people would call criminal, where borders and prohibition doesn't exist. The whole thing is a money laundering scheme to cover up more illegal arms and drug(now that Afghan opium production is back up to "normal") sales to, oh, I don't k

Re:

[BandwidthHog]

found that to be a delicious piece of irony since NPR unfairly receives a liberal tag at times, when I think they're pretty much apolitical myself.

I find the news on NPR to be very neutral in terms of political leaning, but some of their higher profile entertainment is rather liberal. Actually, I’m having a hard time thinking of an example other than Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me [npr.org] or Fresh Air [npr.org]. Perhaps something not broadcast in my area.

Don't know if you're liberal

[benhocking]

But if you are, it'll be harder to spot. I'm more liberal than conservative, so I think Fox News' bias is more obvious to me. Some conservatives I know like to claim Fox News has no bias. Seriously.