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I'm sure that's nothing to do with jealousy or partisan politics. It's not like his political opponents had any

I'm sure the political right is so clear, honest and straightforward that they'd never resort to ad hominem attacks.

I'm sure Reverend Gore has received lots of awards for his AGW Theology. And I'm sure each and every one is at least as valid as this: Adolf Hitler: Man of the Year, 1938

Feel free to Godwin me...

Yeah, Al Gore is basically the Town Joke around Nashville, TN. During the three years I lived there, I never once heard his name mentioned in a respectful manner, and that includes on the local radio stations.

Most of the time you could get a laugh just by dropping his name into a conversation.

I'm sure that's nothing to do with jealousy or partisan politics. It's not like his political opponents had any bias or anything.

I'm sure the political right is so clear, honest and straightforward that they'd never resort to ad hominem attacks.

I'd like to think that more people would have an idea of what is actually in these fluids. There is a lot of information out there. Don't say "BUT.. BUT... THE COMPANIES DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW WHATS IN THEM!" because that's not necessarily the case. Southwestern Energy has a nice inforgraphic as to what can go into a frac fluid, and in approximate quantities. You can find many more online. Even Halliburton tells you what's in their fluids!

We make a host of additives for frac fluids, like viscosifiers (the chemicals guar or xanthan gum), friction reducers like PHPA (the chemical partially hydroxylated polyacrylamide), and sand (the chemical silicon dioxide) or ceramic beads (typically bauxite based).

The items mentioned in the article make it sound like "they are adding benzene and barium to the fluids, and we had no idea that they do this!". I'll help you guys out. Barite (barium sulfate ore) is added to every oil well in the world as a weighting agent for the drilling mud. It's solubility in water is nil. Would water that is flushed down a well that has been drilled capable of picking up barium that has formed a filter cake on the walls of the bore? Sure, but it's also in EVERY WATER OR OIL MUD USED IN EVERY WELL IN THE WORLD.

Benzene in the frac fluid? Nobody adds benzene to frac fluid. Here is most likely how it got there: oil based drilling muds use diesel as a carrier fluid (if the drilling is done on land, not the case offshore). Diesel has 30% aromatic content (ie. benzene, toluene, xylene). IF the well was drilled with an oil mud AND the well was recently finished being drilled AND it was recently cleared out, then the first part of the "waste" frac fluid will probably contain benzene.

They don't care right? WRONG. They do on site testing to make sure the sample doesn't sheen or have any type of oil based fluids in the water. If it does, then the water has to be treated before being disposed (i.e. sewage, lakes, rivers, etc). So my question to the people testing these fluids: At what point did they test for benzene? Did the frac water come from a well that was drilled using diesel? Did the frac water come from a well using water based fluids? Were these random frac waste samples? What part of the country did these frac water samples come from? Did the frac water encounter aromatic hydrocarbons in the formation?

These things are needed to come to a conclusion as to where did these chemicals come from.

I'm with you; I'd rather see hydrocarbons used as lubricants/raw materials for manufacture than burned as energy. Which makes my job at Halliburton somewhat ironic, but life's funny that way.

The good news is that energy companies (and energy service companies) are eying the alternative energy market as an exit strategy from oil-as-energy. Halliburton does geothermal well cementing, and is trying to advance the art so the wells and plants can be more productive. Challenges include seismic instability, high permeability of the rock layers (you pick places where there are lots of natural fractures), and balancing the need for insulation/strength/durability of the cement. None of these problems are insurmountable, but making geothermal cost competitive with oil is challenging.

I'm personally surprised that we don't see closed-loop geothermal power systems. It seems like they're all farcture-and-collect style systems. Admittedly, fracture-and-collect exposes the water to more surface area of rock, and the wells are cheaper to drill. On the other hand, the operator wouldn't have to deal with produced sand/salt/corrosives that will invariably result from mingling water with rocks downhole, and there wouldn't be any issue with water losses.* If I had to take a guess, though, no-one does it for the same reason that oil/gas operators in the Rockies don't buy downhole sand control solutions - it's an upfront cost that they have to justify to a beancounter rather than an operating cost they can balance against ongoing profits (cost of doing business and all that...).

*Seriously, who approves these lossy geothermal systems in deserts? When there are crops to irrigate and drinking water needed for houses (not to mention sensitive ecosystems) I have trouble seeing how the water use of (big pdf warning!) nearly a gallon per kWh is practical.

The main component by volume of fraccing fluid is water.

It is right, of course, but also totally irrelevant. So no, in order to counter LoyalOppositions argument, I don't need to cite concentrations. Had I wanted to, I would have cited Haliburton. From there, it seems the typical content of thing other than water, nitrogen and propant is about 0.5-3%. Of this, about 1/10 is surfactants, which is probably where the aromatics will be. Of the surfactants, up to 5% is naphthalene. This means that Haliburtons fluid is up to 150 ppm naphthalene. If we multiply that by the amount of fluid used in Texas, that is around 600 gallons of naphthalene used. That is a heaping lot of carcinogenous PAH, and it is only one of the aromatic compounds in there.

I would add the following few lists to the above.

I would add the following few lists to the above.

From Halliburton media FAQ (link):

Q: What work is the Company performing in Iraq?
A: Halliburton Company has never been contracted for services by the U.S. government, particularly none of the logistics support services frequently discussed in the media today. Also, Halliburton and its subsidiaries have no work in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Instrumental in what?

God forbid someone make a profit. I suppose Google should just survive off of funds from the People's Republic of America while promoting peace and love along with open source software.
If you'd crane your head out of the bong smoke once in a while, you might actually consider a world in which people have a right to invest and produce capitol. Furthermore, people with ideas like yours kill open source- "Oh hey Google supports open source that means they have to adhere to these strict anarcho-communist guidelines or I call them evil", why don't you call out someone who deserves it for once?

I'm sure they think it all went to the right place.

The ones from the Cypherpunks discussion several years ago were bogus.

The poster is talking about the camps being funded by the contract described in this KBR/Halliburton press release (now a KBR press release after KBR was successfully spun off from HAL last year.)

Coming just a few months after Katrina, "The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts", it seems clear that the camps are intended for more than just the Mexicans.

Remember, a concentration camp is not the same as an extermination camp. Buchenwald and Dachau, for instance, were concentration camps. So were the internment camps the US used to house the Japanese. Not happy places, but there's a bed for everyone, even if the Germans immediately turned them into a slave labor camps; the modern equivalent would be the places where Chinese prisoners are used as slave labor. It still beat the hell out of Dachau and Treblinka were extermination camps; the trains show up, and there's only enough housing to keep one or two trainloads of people. For an educational time, take a look at how the buildings were laid out at Dachau and Buchenwald, then take a look at Auschwitz (which served both purposes, gradually turning into an extermination camp towards the end of the war), and finally take a look at the building layouts at Treblinka and Sobibor. Those last two don't seem to have many barracks, do they? :)

$385M buys a lot of camps, but it doesn't buy enough to enslave (or even exterminate, which is cheaper) the Mexican or Muzzie populations in America. That leaves the most likely option: they're intended for housing (and triaging those who will be too sick/wounded to save, which will be misreported in the press as extermination) the swarms of refugees from a Katrina-level catastrophe. There are lots of things, both man-made and natural, that can wipe out a city (or region), and trigger the activation of the camp network. It'll be like the Japanese internment; unpleasant, but the internees will live. Unlike the Japanese internment, the internees will probably find life in the camps an improvement to life in their homes.

Come on seriously????

You want abhorrent? The US is attacked by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, with support from with in Saudi Arabia, inspired to action, in part, by an oppresive Saudi government. The response is a US invasion of...Iraq.

Can you seriously say money had no effect on the US response to 9/11?

Do you REALLY mean to say that if Osama Bin Laden had donated money to George Bush's campaign, the US wouldn't have bothered responding to 9/11?

As crazy as it sounds, isn't that exactly what has happened? I mean, I know it sounds really, really crazy, but let's look at the facts.

Terrorists from Saudi Arabia, with money from people from Saudi Arabia, inspired by the abuses of the Saudi government, attack the US, kill thousands of people.

The US responds by invading...Iraq?? While the president frolics and holds hands (literally) with the oppressive leaders of Saudi Arabia?

Saddam is on trial, Osama is a free man. I think anyone who says the US government took part in the 9/11 attacks, or at least allowed them to happen, to get public support for expanded executive powers is crazy.

But you're equally nuts if you think money had no effect on the US response to 9/11.

Money.

If you believe that this contingency contract for responding to emergencies is, as the author of the piece at your link puts it, another step down the Bush administration's road toward martial law, you can go here.

President Bush has as much chance of staying in power after the next presidential election as Nixon, Reagan, or Clinton had: none. Two terms, and that's it. The tiny fringe of people that actually believe that some sort of anti-Constitutional coup like this is about to be sprung dwarfs the practically non-existent fringe of people that support it.

Your post does leave me a little curious though, what is your thinking here? If the government prepares for displaced persons / disasters, it is evidence of incipient fascism, if they don't, it is incompetence? That sort of gets them coming and going, eh?

Bzzt, you lose. It's a totally different corporation. ZERO Halliburton is part of Zero Corperation which has nothing to do with the Halliburton of Vice President Dick Cheney fame.

I'm sure this will make many moderators unhappy, and they will call it a troll even though the points made are well-documented. However, it needs to be said: The problem is unhappiness. Unhappiness causes obesity and other diseases.

If you kill other people, you should expect that it will make you unhappy. If you are a U.S. taxpayer, you have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the past 10 years. Sure, you didn't kill them yourself, but you paid someone to do it: The U.S. government.

There is so much U.S. government violence that it is not possible for one person to to document it all. However, here is an article that gives a few examples: History surrounding the U.S. wars with Iraq: Four short stories. The U.S. government has invaded 24 countries since the Second World War!

Other reasons people in the U.S. are unhappy:

The U.S. is the most viciously sexist developed society. Any day on U.S. TV you can see women being violent toward men, in situations in which it is expected you will take it as a joke. Most men in the U.S. don't recognize the adversarial behavior of U.S. women for what it is. Most men in the U.S. think that the anger of U.S. women is "justified"; they aren't really partners with their wives, their relationship is "yes dear". "Yes dear" does not help women be happy; it only gives them further opportunity to act out their anger. Sociologists have done 17 studies, all of which show that women are responsible for slightly more domestic violence than men.

A huge percentage of young men in the U.S. spend a large part of their time playing computer games. That usually means they spend a large part of their time pretending to kill other people. Think about it: That can't be good. The years from 3 to 33 are years when people learn to socialize. For example, that's when people learn to deal with the problems of a sexist society. In the later years, people learn to accept more responsibility and to be managers and other leaders of society. They learn how to know and express their own needs and to think about and satisfy the needs of others at the same time. People who fill many hours playing games don't spend those same hours learning about themselves and others, and the world. How could they expect to be happy?

The state and federal governments in the U.S. have a higher percentage of their citizens in prison than any country in the world. Vice-President Cheney's company is building prisons for the U.S. government.

The U.S. government pays more for secret surveillance than any country in the world, ever. There are the NSA, CIA, FBI, and several other U.S. government agencies who are authorized to operate in any country of the world, and kill people there. U.S. taxpayers are not allowed to know even the names of some of the agencies. They are expected to pay, but they are not allowed to know how the money is spent.

If you consider conflict of interest, the U.S. government is the most corrupt in the developed world. See this article: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. Is it any wonder that two men whose families and friends and business associates have investments in oil and weapons companies have started a war and raised the price of gasoline?

Those are a few of the reasons why people are unhappy in the United States. People overeat when they are unhappy. Overeating is one of the reasons that people in the U.S. have medical problems.

--
... waiting for anrtx.tacoda.net. Why?

The U.S. government is showing many signs that it is not a government BY and FOR the people.

Cheney's company is building prisons for the U.S. government.

World Trade Center building 7 fell in exactly the same exactly symmetrical way as WTC 1 and 2, and it was NOT hit by an airplane. ALL the collapses looked like controlled demolitions. See the news footage in the movie Loose Change. It is a work in progress, but already very informative.

Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?

The "Social Security" plans are designed to get amateur stock investors into the stock market, where the professionals, who back the plan, can take the amateur's money. To make money in the stock market, it is necessary to find buyers at a higher price than was paid. The social security plan would insure that there are many new, inexperienced buyers.

A government that does some things in secret cannot be a democratic government. Citizens cannot supervise what they don't know. Yet many actions of the U.S. government are through secret agencies like the CIA and NSA, and some whose names citizens are not allowed to know. But the citizens are expected to pay.

Quote from the One or Zero web site: "The OneOrZero Task Management and Helpdesk software is licensed under the latest version of the GPL."

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Cheney's company is building prisons for the U.S. government.

Please don't comment on stories in which you have no interest. I'm enjoying the discussion, and learning a lot.

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Cheney's company is building prisons for the U.S. government.

Agreed: If you want Mac malware, you have to go to a store and buy it.

It's completely unacceptable that Slashdot editors would post this garbage. From the referenced article:

"In the past two weeks, information-security companies like Symantec Inc., Sophos PLC and McAfee Inc. have identified several security issues related to the latest version of Apple's Mac operating system, called OS X. Among the concerns: two "worms," programs written by unknown hackers that were designed to spread themselves to other Macs through Apple's iChat instant-messaging software and Bluetooth wireless-communications capability."

Translation: Some public relations drone, with no technical knowledge, paid the Wall Street Journal to post the article. The Wall Street Journal is a "What the rich want you to think" publication, and, in my experience, usually unreliable for anything useful. Note that the article jumps from subject to subject rapidly, apparently to hide the fact that there are no actual incidents of Mac infections to report.

Another translation: Symantec, a maker of very buggy security software of poor design, and other "security" companies want Mac users to buy their products.

Some people, in my opinion, spend their entire working lives being dishonest, trying to trick other people. In my experience some of them work for WSJ.

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Cheney's company is rapidly building prisons for the U.S. government.

Halliburton.com told me about the camps.
okay. where's the link?

Halliburton - Financial News

* KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security's United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs. (Emphasis mine.)

From:
http://ir.halliburton.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=67605&p= irol-newsArticle&ID=809356&highlight=

Halliburton.com told me about the camps.
okay. where's the link?

Halliburton - Financial News

* KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security's United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs. (Emphasis mine.)

From:
http://ir.halliburton.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=67605&p= irol-newsArticle&ID=809356&highlight=

Do you really think that could happen during this administration?

OMG LOLZ!!! Wow, take that CHENEY and Halliburton CORPORATE BASTARDS!! You sure showed the system, what a biting indictment of the American political system.

Wait, you mean Halliburton does construction on Offshore Windfarms too?? Well shoot, that's 6 seconds of googling for you..back to the basement!

http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2004/kbrnw s_011204.jsp

Actually, it is Halliburton. And yes, I do have some information on them:

You can probably look for that CEO job here: http://www.halliburton.com/careers/index.jsp

Here is what you will be in charge of: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/07/w e_455_01.html

But, be warned, as the CEO of Halliburton, you have those pesky democrats spreading lies about you.

So that makes two of us who are opposed to a unified world government. [un.org]

Don't you mean unified world government [halliburton.com]?

A friend of mine used to rant and rave about how evil GWB was because of his political connection to Halliburton.

That all changed of course now that he landed a job with Halliburton back in Houston TX that is paying twice what I'm making and gets full benefits.

So rather then bitch and moan about it, you would be more productive to find opportunity with that company. Last I heard, they are still hiring.

Still interested? Check out the link.

http://www.halliburton.com/careers/index.jsp

What does it profit America to gain the whole world, and lose its soul?

I don't think
those are
the type of
profits
they are
worried
about.

Ok, keep in mind I'm a jaded, paranoid conspiracy nut... and a Canadian to make it worst. But the reality of the war was to gain resources in particular oil.

Iraq was no threat to theat the US, what could they do? Honestly, maybe Saddam could have said a few nasty words about George W's daddy (but then again who hasn't).

If you want to know what this war really is about look at who profits http://www.halliburton.com/index.jsp and then start looking at the connections between those who profit and those who make the decisions.http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0331 -01.htm

Honestly isn't it a conflict of interest when your leaders are making more money from corporate interests than by their own job?
I suggest to anyone to really look at some of the news out there that is being suppressed and question now whether good people who are willing to defend their country are now being used as corporate bodyguards while Iraq's oil is being plundered.

Not to say Canada is so great we have similar problems but not on the same scale of course.

I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, but this is just more anti-Microsoft FUD from slashdot. Remember boys and girls, Microsoft == evil, Bush == evil. Make sure you tow the line with your liberal/Linux groupthink and you'll rack up the karma. Christ, you'd think the readers would have caught on by now and stopped reading the leftist mouthpiece that is slashdot. Moving slightly off-topic, Dick Cheney needs our help. He's running a little low on funds and we'd all appreciate it if you'd make a donation. Just make the check out to Halliburton Inc. Word out on the street is that the first fifty donators get a gmail account. Think technology, people, think technology.

Really, to blame Europe now for its past imperialism is silly. And in all fairness, America did expand itself to stretch across a continent. And then when we did that, we found new frontiers like China, Hawaii, and the Philipines.

As far as I know, European countries no longer have any colonial holdings, and the most America has is Puerto Rico.

When people talk about imperialism now, they're often referring to corporate imperialism, because it's a lot harder to come up with a moral justification (i.e. "uplifting and Christianize" our "little brown brothers" -Mckinley) nowadays, though Bush is sure giving it a hell of a try ("axis of evil" "spreading democracy").

Also, what major technological divisions are there? Out of curiosity. I don't have much knowledge on the subject, but it seems to make sense that allies would keep each other fairly updated on advancements, so a large technological disparity seems a bit odd.

Armed Forces personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan increasingly use the Internet to communicate with their familes back home, but there are not nearly enough computers and connections for them.

Doesn't Halliburton provide these services (among many others) to the troops? Why not start there and see if a couple of those billions of dollars of tax payer money can be spent meeting this need?

I don't understand why we should focus on the proper capitalization of the word "internet" when we could be spending our time trying to help get Dick Cheney some more money. Cheney is running low and he needs our support. Please send a check for as much money as you can made out to "Halliburton Inc". Think technology, people, think technology.

And many will argue that a good number of those wars after WWII were started, in part, so corps like Lockheed could sell more planes to the gov't. Never underestimate a bottom-feeding scum.

Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.

Or, now maybe we can continue to be dependent on (mostly foreign) oil, established oil companies with little incentive to develop newer and ultimately cheaper energy sources, and politicians who make sure NASA doesn't undermine those vested interests.

"NASA officials cited a policy shift toward the International Space Station and the space shuttle program."

Now, I know the Shuttle has been so tremendously successful, and the International Space Station isn't just the leftovers of the lasts gasps of the old Soviet Manned Space Flight Program, both have been so well funded since the "policy shift" three years ago in 2001 -- so, if you're going to be intellectually honest, you have to ask yourself, "what occasioned this policy shift?"

I'm not just trying to be annoyingly partisan here; I'm trying to make the point that even when it comes to science, politics takes over, and when politics takes over, you have to follow the money.

The US would love it. Ol' Hally could get a no-bid contract to help 'rebuild' wherever the 'roid hit.

Roy Moore 04!

Halliburton think of this?

The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.

Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.

When the Bush administration decided to treat the White House like a football stadium and sell the naming rights to Halliburton.

It's not like Halliburton wasn't getting contracts like that while Clinton and Gore were in office.

It was during the Clinton administration, that Pentagon issued a temporary no-bid contract to a subsidary of Halliburton to continue its work in the Balkans.

You can look it up at the NY Times, or check out the story here.

This crap has been going on for a long time, and it's not this adminstrations fault, as much as you'd like to lay the blame there.

So... basically, by taking things out of context, you're just promoting your little agenda. Don't let facts like the links above get in your way. Don't be upset when other people point out what you're saying is pure crapola either.

"... unless you actually get some financial benefit from it?!?"

Well, it's not the first time for such to happen. Look at it, Orkut, a similar venture by another Ivy League college.
Not something I'd want to associate myself with, given the prophecy of doom another one of these ventures
shows with their photo of them "Leading the Way to Darwin". Fine, I'll be glad to welcome their demise...

I'm fine with it, I'll be smiling when I hear of entire subcontinents being nuked, while Sun Microsystems and Halliburton look in fear, as they will have no other choice, except to go back to the remaining non glowing US residents ready and willing to name their price for their jobs. Probably would take care of some of the folks here too. Sure wouldnt mind walking into an interview and being guaranteed that the elitcorps have zero advantage.

Try here: http://www.halliburton.com/careers/

As opposed to Bush, who ensures his buddies' continued profits by giving tax breaks to people who buy Hummers. Clinton may have raised the temperature in the Oval Office, but Bush is raising the temperature of the entire planet.

Only when it's shipped by no-bid contract run by Bush cronies. (More Links...)

You think those explosions in the Australian outback are a coincidence? That ain't a fractionator mate, it's a launch tower! Those weren't gas explosions, they were rocket fuel!!! Think Dubya is being a mongrel by not signing Kyoto? It's not that he doesn't like it, just that it is irrelevant, 'cause he won't be here!!! Is he a bastard for tearing up the ABM treaty? He needs that gone so he can get his launch vehicles away! Dick's affilation with big business is just a front for the collection of global fatcats who will be riding the rocketship to freedom, away from environmental disaster.

Up until now the only bit we haven't been able to figure out has been the destination. Now we know! It's Mars!!! First stop will be the moon, from where Dubya and friends will move onto their new Martian Utopia while the rest of us fry back here on earth!!!

As I write this, I'm boucing through the outback, in a ute with my comrades, tinfoil akubra on my head. Our objective is to save civilisation from this menace . It's a tough mission, but someone's gotta do it. Wish us well and pray for us as we roll towards our destiny...

And Dick Cheney is licking his lips at that very prospect. Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars Halliburton stands to make if^H^Hwhen they get the job of rebuilding Iraq's oil industry?

Did you know Dick Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton, a huge oil company?

Get your facts straight...Halliburton is not a "huge oil company." It is a supplier of equipment and services to Big Oil, but it is not itself Big Oil. Two seconds' worth of googling would've led you to this.