Chevron Gives Residents Near Fracking Explosion Free Pizza

Lasrick writes "Chevron hopes that free soda and pizza can extinguish community anger over a fracking well fire in Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania. From the story: 'The flames that billowed out of the Marcellus Shale natural gas well were so hot they caused a nearby propane truck to explode, and first responders were forced to retreat to avoid injury. The fire burned for four days, and Chevron currently has tanks of water standing by in case it reignites. Of the twenty contractors on the well site, one is still missing, and is presumed dead.' The company gave those who live nearby a certificate for a free pizza and some soda."

Comments

Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[FatdogHaiku]

Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

But that pizza is served just about room temperature. Now, if you store it close to that natural gas well site you could have some fracking HOT pizza!

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Anonymous Coward]

These Slashdot pizza stories cry out for the return of Pizza Analogy Guy

http://slashdot.org/~PizzaAnalogyGuy

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Cryacin]

Man, I don't want soda, I want brawno! Because it contains electrolytes!

And they doused the fire with water? Like, from the toilet?

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[nobuddy]

Brawndo

www.brawndo.com

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[ketomax]

The company gave those who live nearby a certificate for a free pizza and some soda.

What would they have given for free to the residents of Chernobyl?

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Anonymous Coward]

> Chevron Gives Residents Near Fracking Explosion Free Pizza

This headline is misleading. It should actually say:

Chevron Gives Residents Near Fracking Explosion Free EXPLODING Pizza.

There, fixed it.

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Rei]

Cooked with natural gas, no doubt!

Seriously, though... I mean, "NEWS FLASH: Mass production of gas sought for its high energy and ease of combustion poses a fire risk!" Who here is surprised by this? Are there people in town going around saying, "My god, I knew they were producing *natural gas*, but I had no idea they were producing something that could *catch fire*!"

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Badger Nadgers]

Not in merry olde Englande - we're still trying to understand rain and gravity.

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Luckyo]

Moonshine.

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[Anonymous Coward]

The company gave those who live nearby a certificate for a free pizza and some soda.

What would they have given for free to the residents of Chernobyl?

Mushroom (Cloud) Pizza.

Re:Scientists Create Pizza That Can Last Years

[sociocapitalist]

Man, I don't want soda, I want brawno! Because it contains electrolytes!

And they doused the fire with water? Like, from the toilet?

They tried but then the water caught fire too and just made things worse...

What the

[Anonymous Coward]

See, guys! Fracking isn't a bad thing at all!

Re:What the

[Tailhook]

Because wellhead fires, explosions and dead workers are entirely unique to fracking. Nothing like that has ever happened in the oil/gas recovery business ever.

Re:What the

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I don't think it is. I think it's mainly just NIMBY syndrome; same with nuclear power.

Greenpeace likes to cite Fukushima as evidence for why there should be no more nuclear power, but the actual results of Fukushima don't bear that out.

Fukushima taught us that living in an earthquake zone at the time of an earthquake/tsunami hurts a lot more people (16,000 confirmed dead, 2,500 missing) than a meltdown at a modern nuclear power plant (zero dead, liberal estimates of 1,000 potential cancer cases in the future - may never see a single one though.)

Are there risks with fracking? Other than the safety risks common in every other industrial work environment, not really. Some people suspect earthquakes, but so far there isn't anything other than confirmation bias to suggest it actually happens.

Re:What the

[AlphaWolf_HK]

And by the way, I live 50 miles from the largest nuclear plant in the US. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Re:What the

[dbIII]

People were fine 50 miles from Hiroshima so you are setting the bar pretty low :)
IMHO the biggest problems people had with the US nuclear lobby were the "clean" and "too cheap to meter" lies instead of the reality that is impressive enough in itself. The "clean" thing was counterproductive and held up nuclear waste management for over two decades on synrok alone (I saw an example of it in 1987, almost identical to the finished product when they finally got some funding about five years ago) not even considering other solutions. The rabid response to anyone that questioned safety resulted in the cancellation of a thorium project after the person in charge of it pointed out the potential safety benefits over existing reactors.

Re:What the

[r1348]

There's a difference between natural disasters and man-made ones.
If anything, Fukushima thought us we shouldn't build nuclear plants in an earthquake zone (I know, all Japan is, this should push us towards better international cooperation, in a perfect world).

Re:What the

[MightyMartian]

I'm saddened to hear there are ACs in the future. BTW, how does Beta turn out?

Re:What the

[Cryacin]

This topic is about fracking wells, not being well fracked.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

Fukushima is a perfect example why the world does not need HAARP.

Re:What the

[no-body]

Are there risks with fracking? Other than the safety risks common in every other industrial work environment, not really. Some people suspect earthquakes, but so far there isn't anything other than confirmation bias to suggest it actually happens.

So, what happens to all that dirty water pumped pumped in deep injections "wells"? Maybe it's "spare" water when surface water becomes even more scarce then in some areas of US already?

I think all this activity is playing poker with the future where one side in the present holds the better card.

Re:What the

[thesupraman]

Fukushima WAS a natural disaster, stop trying to pretend otherwise. It was caused by the earthquake!

Or do you consider large numbers of the deaths also to not be natural, because people were hit by debris from buildings that broke up, trapped in
cars, etc? Pretty much the same thing.

The point is it has caused next to no deaths, whereas the main disaster did - and yet people rant on about the one that really didnt impact.

Get some damn perspective.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what happens to all that dirty water pumped pumped in deep injections "wells"?

Over thousands of years it slowly seeps through the rocks and just kind of hands around down there. These wells are far, far deeper than the deepest wells drilled for pumping water up from underground aquifers and the water table. By the time the 'dirty' water ever makes it anywhere important the rocks will have filtered all the crap out of it.

The actual point of concern from fracking is not about the fluids, the water, or any of the bullshit you see people ranting about. The problem is that they are re-using old wells which were drilled a long time ago, and those wells go through the water table and natural aquifers in many cases. Those old wells tend to have shoddy and/or degraded casings (the walls of the wells are lined usually with some type of concrete or metal tubing to prevent them from collapsing), so when they are pumping the shit down the well they can tend to leak somewhat.

Maybe it's "spare" water when surface water becomes even more scarce then in some areas of US already?

Surface water is becoming "scarce" because of the massive demands which come from agriculture, large industry, and most of all large population centers.. especially when you put a city somewhere that doesn't normally have water (like the Nevada Desert) and have to pipe a shitload in from elsewhere.
But the water isn't getting more scarce, it's just ending up in the oceans faster than the weather is recycling it up into the high elevations in the form of rain and snow.

The solution to water shortages isn't to cry about frakking, it's to start advancing our de-salinization technology. Or start catching some icy comets and dropping them into the atmosphere. We pump far more water out of underground aquifers which do not naturally replenish quickly than we will ever put back into frakking wells, and if the global warming alarmists are right we could stand to put a dent in the ocean levels.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your comment is pretty insightful, but you are mistaken on one point.

Fukushima taught us that [...] a meltdown at a modern nuclear power plant (zero dead

Fukushima taught what happens when an ancient nuke plant melts down, not a modern one. Fukushima was due for decommissioning... it was a second-gen design that had been in operation for over four decades! That's the original planned total lifetime of the design. (Although with upgrades it is possible to keep operating a gen-II past the four-decades mark.)

I want to see a large buildout of gen-III+ or fourth-gen design nuke plants, and yes you can build one near me if you like. Even a crappy old nuke plant doesn't kill everyone when a giant tsunami hits it, so I'm even less worried about a modern "inherently safe" design, and plus I don't live in a tsunami zone.

Anyone who honestly believes in human-caused climate change must be in favor of nuke plants as they release no CO2. We should be building modern nuke plants and closing down coal plants. And yes, build modern nuke plants and closing down the four-decades-old nuke plants. And invest in research on thorium, traveling wave, etc.

And go ahead and build solar power too while you are at it. Just shut down the damn coal plants.

Re:What the

[firewrought]

Are there risks with fracking?

Groundwater contamination, for one. Especially, flammable tap water. Perhaps you dismiss that as anecdotal, but it's not as if scientist have been given the access, data, and funding to run these claims to ground... that will take another ten or twenty years, by which point the perpetrators will have long since taken off with the profits while the general public gets stuck with whatever environmental catastrophes this created.

Don't get me wrong... I wish fracking was as safe and plentiful as proponents claim. And maybe it's worth some amount of contamination even if it isn't safe. I just wish these things could be determined objectively and scientifically in the best public interest instead of this same old sh*t where the powerful simultaneously exert influence over corporations, media, government, and public opinion to effect the fattest profit instead of the utilitarian good.

Re:What the

[camperdave]

This topic is about fracking wells, not being well fracked.

Bravo. Well played.

Re:What the

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Groundwater contamination [vanityfair.com], for one. Especially, flammable tap water [youtube.com]. Perhaps you dismiss that as anecdotal, but it's not as if scientist have been given the access, data, and funding to run these claims to ground... that will take another ten or twenty years, by which point the perpetrators will have long since taken off with the profits while the general public gets stuck with whatever environmental catastrophes this created.

The thing is, in large groups, secrets are extremely hard to keep. Is it bothersome that they are quiet about these kinds of things? Yeah. But at the same time, I know exactly why they do it: PR is a very delicate thing. A lot of companies are tight lipped about even the most innocuous things that go on within their company because it's stupid easy for somebody to misconstrue it and damage your reputation horridly.

For examples of this, see the recent events where Gabe Newell openly talked about the DNS cache issue, or that MS UX designer who admitted even senior executives at the company are reluctant to talk about internal happenings. Sometimes it's not just the concerns over their bottom line, sometimes it's concerns over just how stressful it can be to deal with public opinion on a large scale. The developer of that game flappy bird was bringing in $50k a day but stopped because he couldn't handle the PR stress, the developer of Fez quit the games industry for the same reason.

Something more closely related to this: Why did the Hadly CRU keep their data so tightly restricted before the email scandal? That's why. Some journalist whose life mission is to get a Pulitzer prize will comb for just the smallest bit of interesting data to create a media shitstorm, no matter how meaningless that data might be. Even when it is debunked, the damage is still done and it is permanent, mainly because of the way urban legends never die. (People still think Bill Gates said we don't need more than 640k of memory, or that Richard Gere put a gerbil in his butt, but neither of these things ever actually happened.)

Likewise, I'm sure the energy companies involved keep their data hidden for similar reasons. Meanwhile hundreds if not thousands of engineers and scientists work for these companies. I'm pretty sure that if there was something going on, one of them would say something. I mean shit, if it can happen to the NSA, it can happen to anybody.

They aren't going to outright deny any of these claims either, because that can make things worse. Here's a perfect example: I'm sure you've heard of that "unfair campaign" before, where they say you can't see racism if you're wrhite. Speak all you want about how that's such a bullshit claim, (which it is) but if you're a white guy you automatically have no credibility. And worse, if you go around calling BS on it, then people will point fingers at you calling you a racist for denying racism. It's a shitty situation, but unfortunately that's how you have to deal with stupid people.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

" but the actual results of Fukushima don't bear that out."

Says you? Go live there idiot.

Re:What the

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

Well, the risk of environmental contamination is pretty real and the consequences severe. Fracking works by injecting ridiculous large quantities of chemicals and water into bedrock and then the pressure from the heat and gas sends a lot of those chemicals and water back to the surface where it is collected in ponds. While there might not be clear evidence of the fracking process itself contaminating the groundwater, leaks of chemicals at the surface have happened and the consequences can be particularly nasty. To add insult to injury, many of these fracking companies have traditionally considered the cocktail trade secrets, so local residents, first responders, and regulators don't always know exactly what the contamination risk might. Fracking leading to fire shooting out of your faucets might be an urban legend like nuclear explosions at power plants. That does not mean that there is not a real risk of a significant catastrophe. The nuclear industry is tightly regulated. Fracking regulations, until recently, have been largely nonexistent.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

start catching some icy comets and dropping them into the atmosphere

Solving global warming. Two birds with one stone!

Re:What the

[pspahn]

The Colorado floods were a natural disaster, but there were only a few deaths. The environmental consequences are much higher, part of which are all the fracking fluids that got spilled.

Talk about a lack of perspective.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

No idea. In 2052 Beta still isn't feature complete and the rollout has just been delayed for another decade. They just called in a company called "CGI Federal" (who apparently have years of experience with this kind of thing - nobody's heard of them before) to help speed it up. Previews before posting should be implemented within the next year.

Re:What the

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

do you get super-cheap electricity?

Re:What the

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

when it was built, they probably didn't realize it. Really, the sodium and thorium reactors should be built to replace it somewhere else, but at least those are far safer, smaller, less waste, etc.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the Chernobyl exclusion zone is only 30 kilometers.

Re:What the

[Scarletdown]

See, guys! Fracking isn't a bad thing at all!

Well, that's a load of felgercarb. Muffit? Sic 'em!

Re:What the

[sFurbo]

Especially, flammable tap water.

Great, an example of flammable water where they actually have established that something has changed. This puts it leaps and bounds beyond most such claims.
However "the amount has changed" is not a proof that it is caused by fracking (correlation and causation and all that). It would be pretty easy to measure the amount of C-14 in the water, which would immediately tell whether it is old methane or methane from recent biodegradation. Until such a test has been performed, this goes in the "interesting, but not conclusive" category.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

"even more scarce then"

It's "more THAN", you American idiot...

Re: What the

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find most interesting is that since 2005 the EPA has specifically excluded the fracking industry from following regulation or reporting results. Until republicans remove this specific exclusion, all we have available is correlation as causation.

Re:What the

[Rei]

I'm not sure I'd call a sodium reactor more safe. Heck, liquid sodium explodes in contact with concrete, and the very reactor itself is built out of concrete. They have to clad it in thick steel as a precaution, and after a sodium leak in Japan, the sodium ate over halfway through the steel. Liquid sodium is not nice, friendly stuff.

And I don't think there's anywhere *near* enough data on thorium reactors. All the happy-go-lucky stuff sounds all too much like the sort of sales pitches that accompany each new generation of nuclear reactor.

If I had to pick one that I thought had the most promise, it'd be lead-bismuth. Now, they have their own set of corrosion problems, no question. But at least there's a damned lot of data from the former USSR on how to prevent it. Beyond that, leaks are pretty harmless (apart from economically) - your worst case scenario is that your reactor entombs itself in lead, which most people would consider *desirable* in a worst-case reactor leak. There's no explosion risk from lead-bismuth. It's a breeder approach like sodium, so little waste and highly efficient fuel usage. And the emergency circulation in modern designs is mostly passive.

But honestly, the biggest issue I have with nuclear is cost. The nuclear industry is one of the few industries out there that has demonsingtrated a long-term *negative* learning curve in terms of cost. That is, the longer we run nuclear power plants, the more added risks we learn we have to address (which costs money), the higher the disposal cost estimates versus earlier estimates, and on and on. Scaling factors mean that plants usually have to be very large which means that you don't learn as much from building lots of them with varying approaches. And the generally best way to deal with a problem of escalating costs on a design - start anew with a radically different design - means you start the learning curve over, which takes decades on nuclear due to the slow pace. And the newer approaches are often more complicated in order to solve the previous problems, which introduces new potential avenues of failure.

It's a real problem. All issues of safety and the environment aside, if nuclear can't address the cost issue, it has no future. Cost kept investors out of nuclear more than NIMBY for three decades. They've been trying again with this latest round of nuclear construction (often with citizens picking up the financial risk if not outright the tab), but the results thusfar haven't been very appealing, with lots of cost overruns.

Re:What the

[Rei]

The actual point of concern from fracking is not about the fluids, the water, or any of the bullshit you see people ranting about. The problem is that they are re-using old wells which were drilled a long time ago, and those wells go through the water table and natural aquifers in many cases. Those old wells tend to have shoddy and/or degraded casings (the walls of the wells are lined usually with some type of concrete or metal tubing to prevent them from collapsing), so when they are pumping the shit down the well they can tend to leak somewhat.

Well put. It's important to realize that by the very nature of there being trapped gas, that means that there is at least one (generally several) layers of highly impermiable cap rock above the natural gas, so thick and durable that they've contained a highly-mobile gas for millions of years (despite earthquakes and the like), all of which is several kilometers down - versus the groundwater which is a couple dozen to a couple hundred meters down. Creating cracks a couple dozen centimeters long several kilometers well below the cap rock down has essentially no effect on the leak rate from the reservoir up through *kilometers* of rock (which would take ages for anything they're injecting now to reach anyway). The problem is the well, which by its very nature must pierce through each layer on its way down - including your groundwater layers. Even new wells aren't perfect (as we well know). Reusing old wells is a recipie for leaks.

The solution to water shortages isn't to cry about frakking, it's to start advancing our de-salinization technology

I don't know... desalinization generally takes crazy amounts of energy to produce enough for agriculture, just by the very nature of the energy state of saltwater versus fresh. There is one concept I read about a few years back which I thought was pretty clever that might work around that, though - it was to use open evaporation pools to create super-saline water and to have it flow past two ion-specific membranes (one for negative ions, the other for positive) connecting to adjacent pools, creating a salt gradient pressure into those pools. Each of those pools in turn have their opposite ion-specific membrane connected to a final regular-saltwater pool. For an ion to follow the diffusion gradient and leave the super-saturated pool into an adjacent pool, that adjacent pool must suck an opposite ion from the final saltwater pool - which it will do if the gradient from the super-saturated pool is strong enough. The final pool stays balanced because ions are being lost to each adjacent pool. Eventually the final saltwater pool will become freshwater.

That which I find really neat about this concept is that it doesn't use electricity beyond basic water pumps and the like - the energy powering it is simply evaporation of seawater, which is ridiculously easy to achieve in many desert locations. In many places a mere jetty is enough to turn hundreds of square miles of ocean into an evaporation pool. The challenge is of course mass production of sufficient flow rate ion-selective membranes and keeping them from clogging.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Though in a more direct fashion. After that, I saw Newsweek and had to roll my eyes.

Re:What the

[tomhath]

Those burning faucet videos have been proven to have no connection to gas well drilling. Many, many water wells are drilled into rock formations that contain natural gas. My own great uncle had one that produced so much gas he tapped it and used the gas to heat his house; had to drill a water well somewhere else.

Re:What the

[Pascoea]

To bad the article doesn't actually mention how Hydraulic Fracturing could have had anything to do with the explosion. We could change the title to "Oil well, that happened to be hydro fracked, exploded." I'd still have a problem with it because, according to the lack of info in the article, the fact that it was fracked before it exploded had nothing to do with it exploding.

Re:What the

[Sarius64]

You should give him his medal, bitch!

Re:What the

[Nehmo]

This topic is about fracking wells, not being well fracked.

That's a well established frack.

Re:What the

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Either Polish people are uniquely predisposed to thyroid problems around the turn of every millenium, or there's some indication that Chernobyl's effects on human health extended quite a bit beyond 50 miles.

I made it out in 1984, so I guess I dodged that bullet. Any Polish expats I know that left after 1986 have had thyroid surgery and/or will be taking thyroid meds for the remainder of their lives. All this, just from living hundreds of miles away from Chernobyl when it blew its top.

Re:What the

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with almost everything you said. BUT that was the GE mark 1 reactor. The first commercially available nuclear reactor without all of the safety upgrades installed. So.... Yeah. The more modern ones are supposedly safer as well. Just to underline your overall point.

Re:What the

[coinreturn]

I'm saddened to hear there are ACs in the future. BTW, how does Beta turn out?

He had to post AC because his account hasn't been activated yet - he's from the future, remember?

Re:What the

[ConceptJunkie]

Forget Fukushima, the greenies managed to turn public opinion against nuclear power when Three Mile Island happened, even though that was almost a textbook example of how the safety systems _prevent_ dangerous things from happening.

Re:What the

[ConceptJunkie]

Especially, flammable tap water.

Free Flaming Moe's for everyone!

Re:What the

[surd1618]

My grandpa was 50 miles from Hiroshima, in the navy. He died of thyroid cancer in 2008.

Re:What the

[surd1618]

but unfortunately that's how you have to deal with stupid people

not the only way!:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

Re:What the

[stooo]

>>a modern nuclear power plant (zero dead, liberal estimates of 1,000 potential cancer cases

No. it was 573 official deaths, 10 months after.
http://enenews.com/yomiuri-hea...

Re:What the

[stooo]

No need to worry. Usually it takes some years for the first symptoms to arrive.
Near Hanford : http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...

Re:What the

[fluffynuts]

I would have thought that groundwater contamination was enough of a risk? Perhaps you need to go check out what happens when groundwater becomes unfit for human or animal consumption and what crap is pumped into the bedrock to force out the gas?

Whilst you're completely right about nuclear, the question "Are there risks with fracking?" combined with the answer "..., not really", has to be one of the most stupid things I've ever had the misfortune to read.

I must, however, congratulate you on your ability to mix completely sane logic and reason with utter crap and sell that dish as a package.

Re:What the

[hsu]

It is not about testing for gas in the well, the issue here is the fracking fluid, which, courtesy to excluding the fracking companies from environmental protection, contains number of poisonous or carcinogenic substances. There is no way to get that stuff out from the ground once it is there, and it will slowly move around and spread with groundwater movement. If they just used water and sand, the issue would be just CO2 emissions which can at least be mitigated by plant life, but as it is now, the long term effects are destructive, and profit-makers will leave the mess to others to clean up. This would be equivalent of allowing nuclear industry to dump the the used fuel to rivers and sea and leave any possible accident costs to taxpayers. Oh, wait...

Re:What the

[RockDoctor]

He had to post AC because his account hasn't been activated yet - he's from the future, remember?

What ? In the future they don't know how to read (because of text-to-speech and text-to thought technologies), so he couldn't work out what to do with the Captcha?

(Actually, I don't think I know if there's a captcha on the sign up page; it was probably before captcha came along,

Re:What the

[coinreturn]

He had to post AC because his account hasn't been activated yet - he's from the future, remember?

What ? In the future they don't know how to read (because of text-to-speech and text-to thought technologies), so he couldn't work out what to do with the Captcha?

(Actually, I don't think I know if there's a captcha on the sign up page; it was probably before captcha came along,

I think you misunderstood. He signed up in the future, so now that's he's back here in this time, he hasn't signed up yet, so his login doesn't work and he's commenting AC.

Cold Pizza?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a bonus, Dunkard Township residence can reheat the pizza with their kitchen faucets

Situation room...

[Overzeetop]

[everyone stares at the skinny guy in glasses]

Skinny guy: What?!? Everybody likes free pizza?

Re:Situation room...

[Anonymous Coward]

[everyone stares at the skinny guy in glasses]

Skinny guy: What?!? Everybody likes free pizza?

Big boss at head of table: I'm sold. Time to get back to my hookers and blow.

Bread and Circuses

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess out with the old slogan, and in with the new! Pizza and soda for the Plebes!

The irony here being, the 'accident' is for a market that is the lifeblood of modern civilization, rather than entertainment.

Pizza bread

[AK Marc]

What they really needed to go with the pizza bread is a community performance of the Cirque du Solei. Why bother with figurative bread and circuises, when you can get literal ones?

Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

. . . that is just part of life, especially something as dangerous as extracting oil or natural gas. When that happens, it only seems reasonable to do something to generate good publicity. However, it is better to do nothing at all (except apologize) than to attempt some insulting gesture. It makes it seem like the residents' exposure to potentially toxic smoke is worth nothing more than a coupon for free pizza. It is insulting. Maybe they should actually pay to send out some doctors or some other meaningful assistance for the residents.

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[DigiShaman]

Insulting when it's on the cheap, at least. From a PR perspective, paying off the community in the form of gifts can actually work. Human nature and all that. The correct way of pulling this off is to not be so cheap as to backfire. Perhaps a new XBox or some such for each resident family that would be effected nearby. Take the total cost of the political fallout and divide by family count to get the value that the gift should be.

Now between you and me, we might feel that a bit condescending. But money talks and we are the minority voice here. It works for politics, no difference here.

Re:Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Krishnoid]

It makes it seem like the residents' exposure to potentially toxic smoke is worth nothing more than a coupon for free pizza.

It is insulting. Maybe they should actually pay to send out some doctors or some other meaningful assistance for the residents.

Assistance such as, you know, actually sending out the pizza itself.

Re:Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

When that happens, it only seems reasonable to do something to generate good publicity.

Really. What person or group of them in damage control decided sending a pizza after nearly killing you would be image improving? I want to know so I don't accidentally hire them one day.

Nothing says sorry we nearly baked you like we baked you this pizza!

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

so some residents were mildly annoyed and should get brand new entertainment systems

this is why our country is shit

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[viperidaenz]

It pays off even better if the small print on the voucher says acceptance of the voucher means they can't sue.

Re:Industrial accidents happen . . .

[rubycodez]

that was floated as trial balloon but unfortunately the local pizzeria was in fact blown up, thus happily limiting costs for the coupon program

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[TrollstonButterbeans]

"Perhaps a new XBox or some such for each resident family"

What basement-dwelling numbnuts up-modded this?

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

So many places to go with this!

"We are Anonymous Coward. Death is only a mild annoyance. Fear us!"

"If a mild annoyance gets one person killed, I'd hate to see what a major annoyance is like."

"If I post this, will you be mildly annoyed?"

this is why our country is shit

It's hilarious that you think you have some basis for comparison.

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

The same monkeys that are happy to get an Obamaphone.

I want it FREE, and I want it NOW!!! Obama said so. Gimme gimmie gimmie!

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Is that the same Obamaphone that was being distributed three months prior to Obama's election? Those damn Kenyan Muslims, always time traveling when you least expect it...

I guess Bushphone sounds too creepy?

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure it can work like that. The way I thought it was, if someone sends you a GIFT, you are not obliged or legally bound by it. Otherwise, I could send you something and say "if you keep it, you pay me $" (which you cannot do).

It is a simple CHEAP attempt to calm people down. Due to the cheapness, it'll fail for sure.

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

What basement-dwelling numbnuts up-modded this?

What NON-NERDS up-modded THIS?? I guess your normals who are now slashdot's core "audience" would have been happier if he would have said "mountain bike" or "a pair of skis"? One speaks in one's audience's language, and obviously the GP was under the strange, wierd idea that this was a nerd site.

Nope, use to be, now we nerds are outnumbered 100 to one. It's sad and pathetic.

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Bushphone sounds too creepy?

I think it was ReaganPhone before it was BushPhone...

Re: Industrial accidents happen . . .

[NoImNotNineVolt]

ReaganPhone ran on landlines though, so it merits no outrage.

I think that's how it works...

I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

But... if I boycotted every corporation that did something so outrageous as this, I would have no car, no gas to put in it, no clothes to wear, no shoes, nothing to eat or drink nothing to see, hear, or read. we as a people are deeply indebted to evil, and/or depraved assholes. so thank you, you despicable worms... thanks for making our modern world possible.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the problem right here, you say that everyone is evil so I have to be evil too. There are other choices, if you don't make a stand nothing will change. Oh I "have to buy my gas from Chevron, because their all the same, well no they are not and if you can't do that then make your own. It will require lifestyle changes but you can do it.

(links are the first on the list, there are many, many more.)

You can make Gas (its not hard, http://www.alcohol4fuel.com/index.html
You can Build a Car, from scratch, http://www.rqriley.com/plans.html
You can make clothes, http://www.simplicity.com/c-153-men-boys.aspx
You can make shoes, http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Footwear-Projects/
You can make/grow you own food, http://self-sufficiency-guide.com/Grow.html

You don't need millions of dollars to do this, it won't have the latest features or stylish brands, but you won't be Evil, and you never know others may follow you....

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

And therein lies the problem.... Modern society requires division of labor in order to accomplish anything of significance (let's assume that the "anything" in this sentence is only "good" and not "evil" - I won't even try to define good and evil here). Unfortunately, there are enough people out there who would take advantage of "the system" in order to screw those who are otherwise unwilling or unable to do a particular task in question simply because their hands are already full with other tasks important to them (and likely still relevant to you and others - division of labor).

You say one could make their own gasoline, or make their own clothes and grow their own food, etc., etc. Well, what about those who say you should make your own informed financial decisions? And then there are those who’d belittle you for not configuring your home computer network properly. Not to mention the need to improve our medical knowledge in order to make informed medical decisions, etc., etc.

I could go on for far too long but I think I’ve made my point. It is unreasonable for a person to be responsible for all aspects of one’s own life; there are just too many caveats to life in this modern world – I say that as an American. But even folks of completely backwards, third-world countries face the same challenges – just a different set of rules (e.g., grow food while the hordes around you try to slash the necks of you and your family, while at the same time trying to find a good school for your children in order to lift them out of their current lot in life, etc., etc.)

At some point and as the world’s population grows, civil society will demand much, much more from each citizen. I see no other way for the human species, and the other untold species of the world in which we live. If I can’t rely on you, or anyone else, to do your jobs well or at least to an acceptable degree, then what hope is there for all of us as a whole in the future? Sure, you and I will may “get by” fairly well (to the extent we aren’t severely “injured” by our fellow man) but what of the multitudes of generations to come? “We” (the human species) cannot continue our ways indefinitely without some sort of reckoning – and I’m not talking about some ethereal reckoning (God or whatever), I’m simply speaking about an ever-expanding horde of low-lifes who take, take, take with no regard to the consequences.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[viperidaenz]

not configuring your home computer network properly

You can't realistically make your own computer network without the help of a large company to manufacture the components.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

Point to point lasers work just fine.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree with every point, but that doesn't diminish the fact that people now only rely on other to do their, Thinking/ making. People havent gotten to a point that they don't like what a company is doing but continue to buy their products and services while condemning them for their actions, to large companies money talks if they found out that Sacrificing your first born son would raise their stock by 10% some would implement that as company policy. You dont even look for an alternative now, don't even try....

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Seriously? I mean... to build my own car, I need car parts - or are you suggesting I make those too? Should I start with raw metal or would that be too evil? I guess I could somehow buy a mine and mine my own iron ore and build my own foundry to convert iron ore into steel, which I could then use in the factory I don't have to make car parts. And that's the easy part. Even making spark plugs would entail an unreasonable amount of effort - especially when you can buy them dirt cheap. And gas? From Alcohol? Because that's cost effective. Even if it was, it would hardly be good for high volume. Maybe you distill for a week and then drive for an hour? But I suppose you won't need to drive anywhere since you'll be growing your own food. You won't need a job since you won't be buying any of that evil stuff put out by "the man" either. So... yes, you would be putting up with a *huge* loss of lifestyle for probably no gain of anything at all. It's not that large companies are inherently "evil", they are only "evil" in the sense that a shark is evil for wanting to eat you. Sharks want food for their tummy, and companies want profits for their investors. It's pretty easy to get corporations to change their behavior, though, since they respond to monetary punishments more than individuals (on a percentage scale, at least). And any big organization is made up of individual people, some of which will do good things and some of which will do bad things - that's not limited to companies, but applies to all types of groups.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you were trying to make a separate point but, I believe your statement asserts my post about division of labor above it. Those large companies manufacturing the components all have a part in society. They do their part - we do our part; hopefully, everyone's life improves in some measurable way. However, if the folks at those companies making those components do so with complete neglect for our environment then they are harming us in their own way. It's the same for Chevron - if they are negligent in some way that caused this explosion then buying pizza for a bunch of people is hardly helping "the cause."

Do I have some sort of answer? No, I'm just trying to make the point that we all have a responsibility to our fellow human beings no matter our part in this world. And it would be great if we could depend on others to do their part too without damaging society or the environment in some way. Alas, that is wishful dreaming on my part....

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Bite The Pillow]

Fuck you, It's FREE pizza. Get that shit. Nothing to eat? Eat free pizza! It's free, and its pizza!

And they might give you water instead of soda, so your needs are covered. Shut your piehole, except for the part where you shove pizza pie in it. Like the good lord intended.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[whistlingtony]

I buy all my clothes secondhand. I listend to street buskers. I hang out with musicians. I ride my bike. If you wanted, you could buy an electric car and a lot of solar panels, but I get your point. I buy shoes made in the USA. I buy local food. I drink WATER, it falls out of the sky.

I think you're telling yourself nothing can be done.... so you don't have to do anything. AND you're blaming other people. Bravo. :D

Get off your ass and change your own life. It's not even that hard.

Re: I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they're interrupted by a hood ornament.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[silentcoder]

I would add: and avoid "big brand" clothes.

Seriously - if Calvin Klein wants to use my ass as billboard to advertise his designs he can bloody well pay me rent.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[MightyYar]

I think you are trolling? Alcohol and food are just about the only things you can make on that list of yours without corporate help. So you'd "make" your own car (minus the metals, tires, engine, etc.) and it would be unsafe, expensive, and impractical. You'd "make" your own clothes with a Singer sewing machine and you'd still be buying the fabric. You'd "make" your own shoes with Dow plastics or rubber and glue.

The fact is that we are all part of a society, and corporations are part of that. We all have a duty to have corporations be only what we want them to be - you included.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that you don't even *own* a TV.

A smug, preachy hipster? What an uncommon creature you are!

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[bluefoxlucid]

Making your own clothes with a basic sewing machine is clown shoes. Use a Singer Serger, a 5 spool one with mock-safety (3 stitch overlock and chain) and full safety (3 stitch overlock and double chain) stitch.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[meta-monkey]

Real men build their own chip fabrication facilities.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other ways to fight. For instance, gasoline just shot up twenty five cents a gallon here. My answer? Cost them money. I stop at every gas station on the way to my destination and buy one dollar's worth, and use a credit card. The card fees eat more than the profit, every time I use a CC for a buck's worth of gas it costs the gas station two dollars. Don't boycott, punish.

Re:I would boycott Chevron...

[viperidaenz]

Then you become the evil corporate...

Hot Dogs & Marshmallows

[ebno-10db]

They should have given them hot dogs and marshmallows instead, to roast if it reignites,

Re:Hot Dogs & Marshmallows

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have given them hot dogs and marshmallows instead, to roast if it reignites,

You expect them to wash the hot dogs and marshmallows down with the water that they can no longer drink from their wells?

They need to read the fine print.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

At the back of the coupon that gets them the free pizza, it is written in very faint lettering, in the same font used to list ingredients in the raman noodle soup, the following, "By redeeming this coupon I hereby forego all claims I have against Chevron and accept the pizza as the full and fair compensation for all the damages that might have been caused to me by Chevron, its associates, its lobbyists, its banksters and/or its legislators, including all damages already caused, all damages that could be caused in the future, in this life, (and in the next seven reincarnations if I am a Hindu or a Buddhist)".

There lawyers are really really clever.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[volkerdi]

They may not even need any fine print. Accepting compensation can affect your right to seek damages later.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[Immerman]

Somehow I doubt any judge would be impressed by a pizza and soda compensation package for anything beyond a bit of fear and inconvenience though, unless it was a *really* big pizza, or you explicitly agreed to waive rights to further complaints. I suspect even fine print on the back of the coupon would be hard pressed to make the cut.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Someone thought no one would take seriously an arrest warrant for failing to return a video to a defunct video store.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[techno-vampire]

Unlike most people here, I took a moment to RTFA, and the word "compensation" never appears in it. I get the impression that this was more in the form of a way to thank the residents for staying calm and giving Chevron the time it needed to deal with the situation.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[Immerman]

Touche.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[u38cg]

No, the non-returnee knew nothing of the non-returned video until she was in a jail cell for it.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[thegarbz]

In most countries of the world contract law provides protection in the form of an expectation in a contract. I.e. I expect not to be able to sign my house away when I sign for a postal delivery.

It's irrelevant what is written in the fine print. It's irrelevant if I read it and I acknowledge that I read it. In Australia I simply can't sign my house away when accepting a delivery because the contract is void on expectation.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You are from Australia. I am from Pennsylvania. Where farmers sold mineral rights to mining companies, thinking, "Let them burrow underground and mine the coal, I will continue to farm on the surface". The courts ruled the mining companies can use any method to get to the "their" coal, including stripping away the top soil, do open cast mining, dump all the excavated tilings all over the property and leave a 20 to 60 feet deep hole where the farm used to be. The farmers are expected to be eternally grateful to the coal company for giving them a huge swimming pool a gratis.

Re:They need to read the fine print.

[thegarbz]

Did the coal miners get that contract signed on the back of a pizza receipt? If so what does any of that have to do with my comments?

I was talking about unconscionable contract laws. You were talking about specifics of a contract. The irony is that what you call a differentiator is actually something common between us. Farmers do not have the rights to resources on their land and at any time the crown can sell the resources under the land and miners are allowed to come and start digging. Legally the farmers can't stop them, and that's what's driving the whole "Lock the Gates" movement in Australia.

I would boycott Chevron...

[Anonymous Coward]

But... if I boycotted every heartless, soulless corporation who behaved in such an appallingly outrageous, reprehensible fashion, I would have no one to buy gasoline from, and no car to put it in. Also, I would have no job, no place to live, no bed to sleep on, and no conflict-mineral filled computer to read slashdot with.

Now the roof of your mouth is burned too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmm pepperoni....

Ironic Captcha: coupon

Re:Now the roof of your mouth is burned too!

[davewoods]

Mmmmm pepperoni....

Coincidental Captcha: coupon

FTFY

Class action

[Macdude]

A Pizza is more than most people get as the result of a class action lawsuit...

Re:Class action

[Dagger2]

But it cost the company less, so it's less effective than a class action lawsuit.

Re:Class action

[Bing Tsher E]

Also, no lawyers get anything. So it's an outrage.

Re:Class action

[phantomfive]

True story.

Re:Class action

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, yea; on second thought, I'll take pepperoni!

Re:Class action

[Scarletdown]

Surely the lawyers can at least get breadsticks and beer?

Re:Class action

[Anonymous Coward]

A Pizza is more than most people get as the result of a class action lawsuit...

wait lemme fix that:

A Pizza is more than most plaintifs get as the result of a class action lawsuit...

Unless lawyers somehow no longer count as human being, in that case I *gladly* retract my correction and open up a bottle of champagne instead ...

already covered

[Anonymous Coward]

on boingboing, dvorak, fark and reddit, but thanks for bringing us key technological news in a timely manner.

That covers all the pizza I've had

[SuperKendall]

I have to say, in many years I've yet to have a pizza explode - no matter how hard you shake it.

Just another notch in the belt of Pizza as superior food item.

Re:That covers all the pizza I've had

[Anonymous Coward]

"Explosion Free Pizza" -- I can't unsee it now. Mod parent funny.

Re:That covers all the pizza I've had

[davewoods]

"Explosion Free Pizza" was how I read it too, but only after I read it the correct way... Which resulted in my brain seeing "Chevron gives residents near fracking explosion explosion free pizza", and thinking how nice it was of them to compensate for all of the explosions by offering pizza without any.

Which place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, there isn't a place called "Bobtown Pizza" nearby to cash them, not only did they buy them off with "free pizza" it was just another bait and switch to screw them over.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/Pizza/@39.7411645,-79.9751421,14z/data=!3m1!4b1

Re:Which place?

[viperidaenz]

OMG, it didn't show up on a 5 second google search so it doesn't exist!

Bobtown is the name of a town in Dunkard, Pennsylvania.

It's safe to assume Bobtown Pizza is in Bobtown.
The phone number on the voucher also has the area code for Bobtown.

Free pizza ad with article, too!

[Anonymous Coward]

I opened this article and what was waiting for me on the side? An ad for pizza. Well played, Slashdot, well played.

I deserve Pizza

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish slashdot would give me free pizza as an apology for exposing me to Beta.

Re:I deserve Pizza

[rubycodez]

that was tried in limited trial but 80 percent of participants upchucked their pizza upon subsequent Slashdot Beta reloading

Sorry 'bout poisoning your water

[msobkow]

Sorry 'bout poisoning your drinking water. Here, have a pizza and STFU.

Re:Sorry 'bout poisoning your water

[Mashiki]

Oh I see we've got someone swallowing tripe again. Let me guess, you also believe that methane only shows up in the water after fracking. And oil never bubbles to the surface to contaminate the ground either.

Re:Sorry 'bout poisoning your water

[Anonymous Coward]

Not nearly as often as it is happening now. How much contamination does it take before the water becomes 'undrinkable"?

In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbor

[siphonophore]

Chevron has a sizable industrial accident in a community. They take losses in it (insurance likely covers direct losses) and lose a contractor. I'm sure that wherever damages did occur, Chevron is on the hook and is likely paying up. The nearby residents had zero damages and weren't owed a thing. Chevron is not getting off cheap or abdicating responsibility through a pizza giveaway.

The situation is comparable to having a tall tree in your yard that falls over on your car. You don't owe your neighbor a pizza, but maybe you buy him dinner anyway just for giving him the jitters.

Fuck the media

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a hydrofrac company, and frankly, I'm fed up with the media and their bullshit. The only relationship this incident has to 'fracking' is that, the well was likely stimulated at some point in the near-past. The frac company has come, got 'er done, and gone. They didn't cause the fire, nor have anything to do with it.

Straight from the goddamn Chevron website:

Update No. 3: Pennsylvania Incident

Feb. 11, 2014, 10:50 p.m. EST – At approximately 6:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 11, a fire was reported on Chevron Appalachia's Lanco 7H well pad in Dunkard Township in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

The Lanco well pad has three natural gas wells. The wells were in the final stages of preparation before being placed into production. There was no drilling or hydraulic fracturing taking place at the time. At the time of the incident, preparations were being made to run tubing, which is often done prior to bringing wells into production.

Re:Fuck the media

[MightyMartian]

So if I cut your brake lines, but you don't drive the car for a week, and end up smacking up the car, I'm not to blame.

Re:Fuck the media

[Harlequin80]

Of course you are.

But if I service your car perfectly. Leave it in a better state than you brought it to me in, and then you crash it because YOU made a mistake then no I'm not to blame.

Stimulating the well will not cause a fire. You need an ignition source in an oxygen filled atmosphere. I have no idea what caused this particular incident but it could have been anything from an electrical fault causing a spark, a failure in a relief valve seeing heat build up to flash point or something as stupid as someone smoking a cigarette nearby. Just because some rocks got broken up hundreds of meters below the ground (and yes that is what fracking is) previously doesn't mean that caused the problem.

Re:Fuck the media

[u38cg]

No, but if I sell you a set of tyres than six month later your brake lines fail because you didn't service the car properly, I'm not to blame.

Re: Fuck the media

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is so clean, place environmental regulation for hydraulic fracking back into EPA hands and open up the data. Your industry smells of inept self-regulation, especially considering the Bush presidency removed any regulation on your industry.

We're waiting on an American Bhopal.

Re:Fuck the media

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a hydrofrac company, and frankly, I'm fed up with the media and their bullshit.

I work for an asbestos company, and am fed up with lawyers and their mesothelioma commercials. Asbestos is a natural product that has been in use for thousands of years.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Well explodes, big deal. Oh wait, it's a fracking well! Alert the media and Slashdot editors!

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

The situation is comparable to having a tall tree in your yard that falls over on your car. You don't owe your neighbor a pizza, but maybe you buy him dinner anyway just for giving him the jitters.

If my tree falls on my car, why and I buying my neightbor anything?

For that matter, if said tree fell on his car, I wouldn't be buying my neightbor anything. Unless the tree looked like it would fall over, then it is just "act of nature".

Can't seriously expect us to swallow that tripe

[Ashenkase]

Now as a special treat courtesy of our friends at the Meat Council, please help yourself to this tripe!

When I grow up, I'm going to go to Bovine University.

Re:Can't seriously expect us to swallow that tripe

[ConceptJunkie]

No matter what happens, there is _always_ a relevant Simpsons quote.

Man, now I wish I had some tripe...

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[__aaltlg1547]

When there's a big explosion and fire, there's definitely a possibility that nearby residents were directly affected.

Explosion Free Pizza

[Greyfox]

Is the best kind of pizza. Now if they could just keep my water from exploding, too. In general I like my food and drink to be in the non-exploding category.

Re:DF?

[viperidaenz]

They didn't say the missing worker's family got free pizza.

Can I get it too?

[__aaltlg1547]

Explosion-Free Pizza, that is.

Everyone should get some.

If that's the case.

[Anonymous Coward]

If what you say is the case, then I agree.

The trouble with industrial accidents of this scale, the ramifications my not show for years - well beyond the stature of limitations. And that's the problem. In our society, accidents such as this inevitably become the burden of John Q. Public. We pay for it one way or another. And the owners ALWAYS make out.

I've lived through it. A company polluted the ground water. They (the corporatoin) were found guilty of illegal dumping. The corp says "OK. Take what we have." and then they go bankrupt. The principles of the corp got their money and walk away while the victims get a shell of a company (just a name in the Secretary of State's database) for compensation.

The little people ALWAYS get screwed.

And when I hear bitching about the EPA, I just cringe. And when I hear bitching about the EPA from folks who really need them, I just want to smack them upside the head with their AM radios - because that's where they're getting the propaganda against the EPA: AM Talk radio and Fox news - goddamn propaganda machines for industry.

Re:If that's the case.

[the eric conspiracy]

False analogy. It wasn't that big of an accident, and Chevron isn't a small company in danger of going bankrupt over the damages associated with this case.

Also you might want to clean up your spelling a bit.

Pictures

[the eric conspiracy]

From the pictures of the site Chevron didn't have to give out too many certificates. The area is REALLY sparsely populated.

And don't forget Taco Tuesday is coming next week!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gas not included.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so you're saying that having a fracking well explode is so common as to be unremarkable. Message received.

It's a form of communication - say it with pizza

[dbIII]

It is a sign that the situation is not being completely ignored. That has some value. Contact has been made and it's a implicit opening for communication instead of just being angry and feeling ignored. Maybe they'll get a lot of people ringing them up saying "you think you can buy me off with a pizza" ranting, and that's the end of it instead of a lot of expensive legal action.
I can see the point of "we've fucked up, here have a pizza" as being better than silence.

Re:DF?

[Cryacin]

They get a free ham.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till you have a fracking pizza explode.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[sonamchauhan]

Where there is fire, there is smoke. Where there is smoke from an oil well fire, there are carcinogens in the air

Chevron Read the Research

[retroworks]

Riots correlate to food shortages. http://necsi.edu/research/soci...

Might as well throw gasoline it

[slashmydots]

What were they thinking?! What's the number one thing that picket lines and rioters and protesters want? Duh, pizza and soda! That's just fueling them!

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Chevron has a sizable industrial accident in a community.

At least we agree on this. :)

They take losses in it (insurance likely covers direct losses) and lose a contractor.

If Chevron was a privately owned little mom-and-pop operation and the "contractor" was their son-in-law I'd have some sympathy. But, in this case, it's hard to imagine that anyone with any real decision making power (that is, responsibility) suffered at all. Somehow I doubt the CEO of Chevron will put a picture of the deceased contractor's family on his desk as a permanent reminder to never let something like this happen again: for a company that size, a few human lives here and there are merely the cost of doing business.

I'm sure that wherever damages did occur, Chevron is on the hook and is likely paying up.

With a fire that burned for four days and the loss of life I'm pretty sure that the local government provided some services somewhere along the line.

The nearby residents had zero damages and weren't owed a thing.

I have a young nephew who, when he gets mad, runs around swinging his arms randomly hoping to "accidentally" hit someone. I suppose technically there's nothing wrong with his behavior because he's not guaranteed to succeed in hitting anyone and, even if he does, it's not "intentional". But real life isn't quite so simple and black and white: there's also this notion of negligent activity that puts others at risk.

Chevron is not getting off cheap or abdicating responsibility through a pizza giveaway.

Last year the CEO of Chevron got about $30 million in compensation. In a standard 2,000 hour work year (50 weeks at 40 hours/week), that works out to $15,000/hour or $250/minute (there was time when I thought lawyers who charged $250/hour had it good). Now, Chevron apparently gave away about 100 pizzas at a cost of $12 or so per pizza - for a total cost of about $1,200. So this pizza give-away is equivalent to just a bit less that 5 minutes of the CEO's time.

The situation is comparable to having a tall tree in your yard that falls over on your car. You don't owe your neighbor a pizza, but maybe you buy him dinner anyway just for giving him the jitters.

A better analogy would be that cut down a tree on your property without taking adequate safety precautions and it all goes horribly wrong and falls on a fedex delivery person who was trying to deliver a package to your house and your neigbor tries to give the delivery person CPR but the delivery person dies in your neighbor's arms - not too mention the tree almost fell on your neighbor's house which might have killed your neighbor's family. So you give your neighbor just one single penny to compensate for the distress and risk you caused - and walk away self-righteously feeling that you've given your neighbor far more compensation than your neighbor actually deserved.

Bad Technology Is Bad

[Tetch]

Yup, don't like fracking - it carries too high a risk of polluting my landscape, and quite likely turning a beautiful view into a rubbish-tip. In the UK, the government has even gone on record to say the extracted oil & gas won't reduce anybody's energy bills. It will, however, make a shit-load of money for some people who already have too much, and who seem willing to rig the deck to make sure they get their way.

Don't like nuclear fission power either - it produces *filthy* dirty waste, that we have no idea what to do with. AFAIK, not a single nuclear power station has yet been decommissioned and cleaned up anywhere in the world - quite a few are mothballed, while an alleged "decommissioning" process achieves almost nothing and stretches endlessly into the future at vast expense to the tax-payer (cos poor little private sector can't take the pain, so public sector has to take that task on, or private sector will take its ball home).

Both these technologies are amateurish, half-assed, ill-thought-out, poor examples of our abilities at this climactic moment of the 21st century, and I'm embarrassed to be a member of the same species that wants to do this crap. Come on ... we're capable of better than that.

For some reason, many of my peers in this /. community seem to take umbrage whenever there is any criticism of any industrial process if there is some kind of "technology" aspect to that process. There appears to be a belief that so long as a process makes money and is technological, it must be undertaken, irrespective of the impact on this one uniquely precious planet that we have here. I will continue to try to understand this point of view, but I fear its exponents are blinded by the flashing lights.

Sigh.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[thegarbz]

The problem is that it's not theses companies doing the polluting. It's you. Look in the mirror. No not the bathroom mirror but the side mirror of your car as you stand at the bowser pouring another 55L into your tank and ask yourself where did the previous 55L go? Lie at home in the comfort of a 23degree room at 40% humidity, carefully controlled for your comfort, watching a TV made of precious minerals and manufactured using a dirty process while you're wife has a 4 gas burner stove running in the kitchen cutting up vegetables and exotic herbs imported from far away countries and brought over on a giant ship run on dirty fuel oil.

Supply and demand. I demand *unlimited* energy, and I'll be dammed if I'm going to pay 4c/kWh more than my neighbour in the interest of being green. If I did that I'd never rise to be king rich bastard of the street.

As a matter of interest remember how peak oil never happened? Can you draw any link to the lack of peak oil and the sudden interest in fracking, and scraping every last little bit of natural tar from sands within a natural reserve.

I've seen the big polluter. It's not Chevron, or BP, or Shell. It's not TEPCO, or First Energy Corp.

It's me.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

no comment, just embarrassed that a dunce like you could be British!, learn to read facts not eco warrior bollocks.

The fucking useless windmills wreck the view much more than a bit of drilling.

Once the initial drilling is done (which use's less space than raising a useless windmill, and you'd better be 1 mile+ away in case it throws huge Ice chunks in winter) the head end is then pretty inconspicuous, so your talking utter bollocks!!!.

And the only reason they are saying it won't reduce bills is due to the damn green bollocks that don't work but cost £££££££ for no benefit, means they can keep piling on green tax shit that moves money from the poor to the rich, you right wing twat,

Get out of your mummies mansion and do some proper reading about the engineering dumb shit.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it funny how it's the individual who's to blame, but when society forces (yes, forces) you to go out and work so you aren't a "burden" then you made the choice to do so, and you have to take the consequences of the actions from your choice and blah blah... you get the idea. If you want to place blame, start at the top: if the deck is stacked to someone gets their way, then it's not quite as simple, is it?

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Don't like nuclear fission power either - it produces *filthy* dirty waste, that we have no idea what to do with.

The only reason the waste is *filthy* is because it's still very radioactive. If it's still very radioactive, it's not waste, it's fuel. Breeder reactors are not new, and they've been in use [outside this country] for a very long time. The primary reason why the US has such a problem storing "spent" nuclear fuel is that the fuel isn't very spent at all. Additionally, your perception that nuclear power is amateurish, half-assed, ill-thought-out, and a poor example of our abilities is in line with the fact that our nuclear power plants are about half a century old. I'd expect any technology that old to be seen no differently.

People like their electricity, and it's not going to be easy to cram them all back into the caves they came from. If you don't like the idea of burning hydrocarbons, then your only other options currently are nuclear power or pre-industrial society. I know, it sucks that you can't power the world with solar panels and wind turbines [yet], but that's just how it is.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[JasperHW]

AFAIK, not a single nuclear power station has yet been decommissioned and cleaned up anywhere in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... Still has the "what do we do with nuclear waste?" problem, but it was decommissioned anyway.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[T.E.D.]

As a matter of interest remember how peak oil never happened? Can you draw any link to the lack of peak oil and the sudden interest in fracking, and scraping every last little bit of natural tar from sands within a natural reserve.

Glad someone else remembers that. I remember back in the 70's when that was first a big issue. Someone came to my school with all kinds of graphs showing how we'd run out totally by 2000.

The brought in an oil industry guy for equal time. It wasn't hard to find good smart knowledgeable oilmen in Oklahoma in the 70's. He said that there wasn't nessecarily anything wrong with the other person's math, but they'd completely neglected to take into account economics. If supplies started to get scarcer, prices would go up, which would drop demand. Also, there were many untapped sources that nobody was yet bothering with (he specifically mentioned shale) because it just wasn't presently worth it economically. If prices rose enough, it would become worth it. If they further rose enough, alternate energy forms would start to become worth using. So we'll never "run out", although we may one day get to a point where other sources make more sense to use.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a big fan of fracking either, but dismissing it entirely and claiming it doesn't make sense anywhere in the world is childish (Not everything is black and white). Then there's:

AFAIK, not a single nuclear power station has yet been decommissioned and cleaned up anywhere in the world

Prefixing "AFAIK" doesn't make you know what the heck you are talking about. Enrico Fermi 1, the world's very first LMFBR is an example of a full decommission and yes, the last of the spent rods are no longer on-site and were sent for reprocessing. This very unit had suffered a partial fuel meltdown and didn't release any measurable amount of radiation. Simply having a nuclear fission station at a site doesn't make it in need of radioactive abatement ("cleanup").

Not reading up and trying to sound smart makes you no better than the sensationalist media that tries to stir public outcry and pour scorn where it isn't truly deserved. Please do the member of your same species a favor and read up on matters before voicing your opinion as fact.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[Tetch]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Thanks - didn't know about that one, and I'm grateful for the information .... It's been worrying me more and more that idiots (i.e. politicians) keep commissioning more and more nuclear power generation facilities without having any idea (and without even wanting to know) how we're going to clean up the aftermath. It's good to know that somebody has made at least one serious attempt to try it. Although ...

Still has the "what do we do with nuclear waste?" problem, but it was decommissioned anyway.

... as you noted, encasing the reactor vessel in concrete foam and burying it under 45 feet of gravel doesn't really cut it.

If you haven't seen it, there's a really instructive documentary ("Into Eternity"), made in 2010, about a nuclear waste storage repository ("Onkalo") being constructed deep underground in Finland, that is tackling - among other things - the extreme difficulty of figuring out how to construct signage ("Stay Away - Extreme Danger To Health") at the entrance to the facility, that will still be adequately durable, legible and understandable to descendant humans 100,000 years from now.

As the narrator says, "Onkalo must last 100,000 years. Nothing built by man has lasted one tenth of that time."

Another instructive documentary covers the herculean efforts made by the Russians/Ukrainians at Chernobyl to avoid a worse disaster than we already had.

It's a horrific story. They used soldiers to go up on the roof of the reactor building, each of whom could only risk being there for 45 seconds before getting their full dose for the year - enough time to chuck 2 shovelfulls of debris over the side, and then run away fast. In the end, they had to mobilise 500,000 (!) workers of all kinds to get the emergency cleanup done - and as we all know, even then it wasn't done very well, so much so that the EU is having to do it all over again.

I don't even want to think about how Fukushima's gonna go - it seems to be a worse mess than Chernobyl (albeit at a somewhat better designed & built power station). One fact that has stayed with me was how, at the time the tsunami took out the power, the on-site engineers had to go get their car batteries out of their own cars, bring them in, and wire them up in series so as to power up the control room instrumentation to find out what was going on in the reactors. We all owe those guys a beer.

It seems to me (somebody else coined this, not me) that our technological capabilities have advanced faster than we have evolved the ability to safely manage them, and we should just take a step back and do some very careful thinking. We can afford to reduce our lifestyles, wait a while, and revisit The Plan repeatedly until its perfect - we only have the one planet. It's the greedy short-termism involved in the rush to have it all that disgusts me.

Personally I imagine the way forward will involve giant solar panels in orbit collecting the Sun's bounteous energy and somehow transmitting it down to the surface. I have no idea whether that's just science fiction :-) .... it does of course require everyone to stop fighting wars, and divert all the money back into a proper space programme.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[cavebison]

Supply and demand.

No, that's only half the picture.

First comes a technology that NOBODY thinks is dangerous and NOBODY knows is detrimental. We're sold the cool-aid. Cigarettes for instance. That's a technology too. Advertisers told us smoking was healthy back in the day. So do you blame people for demanding the product and helping create a huge industry?

Same with cars. You forget that we only started talking publicly about pollution in the 80's or thereabouts. I don't remember any talk of pollution in the news before then. Cars go WAY back. Do you think the current supply/demand for cars would have emerged if the media had been all over atmospheric pollution back THEN? If we had been told lead in petrol was bad back THEN?

You can even take mobile phones as another example. It was only AFTER the worldwide success of the iPhone that we started hearing about labour issues. It was only AFTER we started buying all our clothes from China etc. that we started hearing about sweat shops. It was only AFTER we all had electricity that we heard about fossil fuel issues.

You cannot seriously say it's OUR problem because "oh supply and demand", that's just being simple-minded. The demand was created in the first place, before we knew there were any problems. We trusted the process, and only NOW do we realise it has fucked us all for the benefit of a few. But only AFTER we are hooked and it's almost impossible to change. Our livelihoods now depend on these things. Many of us do the best we can to reduce our usage, but that's about all we can be reasonably asked to do for now.

It's funny how, when other people created these markets through misinformation and manipulation, it's somehow now up to *us*, the people who were duped into these false economies in the first place, to somehow change the world. "Think globally act locally" only goes so far. Those in power who created all these problem are where the buck stops, nowhere else. They are guilty. They are responsible.

We did not "demand" this. All we demanded was a better life. It was up to those with money and power to think up a workable version of "better" but what we got in the end was entrapment into a lifestyle that is killing us.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[thegarbz]

What you're describing is products coming out before we realise there is a problem.

What I'm describing is that we as a society are so used to the technology that we don't do anything but demand more of it. If we didn't do that then the problem would solve itself. But instead here we are talking on slashdot on one of about 6 computers in my house of 2 people. Yes we only heard about the labour problems when the iPhone was released a few years ago, and what has happened? 600k preorders for the iPhone4, 1million preorders for the iPhone4S, 2million preorders for the iPhone5, and while I can't find figures for the 5S the 5C+5S combined set a new record for pre-orders too. Clearly consumers didn't care.

We didn't stop buying leaded cars either. The government stopped supplying fuel with TEL, forced a replacement fuel, increased the octane requirements of unleaded and strong-armed manufacturers to slowly phase out leaded cars in favour of unleaded. Consumers didn't care.

I'm glad you mentioned cigarettes, as it quite clearly shows how little we actually care. Everyone knows they cause cancer, everyone puffs like a chimney. The only reason Australia has such low smoking rates is due to government making it unaffordable to smoke, forcing people to stand in the street to smoke (right now debating about not allowing people to smoke in pedestrian malls), running a gross campaign to guilt people into not smoking, and hiding the products from view to prevent curiosity. Very few people gave up smoking for health reasons.

You say once we're hooked it's impossible to change. No, not at all. Not even in the slightest. We don't WANT to change because we are used to our lifestyle. No one created a market through miss-information. Each product at the time was thought to be just fine. The problem is WE still think it IS just fine.

Guess what, fossil fuels cause pollution! Who knew right? So clearly we should all be making a coordinated effort to reduce our oil dependence right given what we've heard over the past 20 years right? Wrong. Consumption grew by 0.9% over 2012. In fact the only time in the past 15 years oil consumption globally has dropped was for one year when the bottom fell out of the economy, and I can't even be bothered to cycle to work.

Re:Bad Technology Is Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't like nuclear fission power either - it produces *filthy* dirty waste, that we have no idea what to do with.

Which is why we need to build breeder reactors, where the "filthy, dirty waste" produced is simply more fuel, which we definitely know what to do with.

News for Nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmm, why is this news for nerds? Because it involves Pizza? Because everybody loves to rag on fracking?

Are there no decent stories to read?

Pizza for your troubles...

[JWSmythe]

    That's a pretty good deal. Cause a huge explosion, (probably) kill someone, and blow up a truck, and pay the town off with a pizza and 2 liter.

    If *I* caused a huge explosion.. no, lets just say a small explosion, like just the propane truck. Say one person caught a tiny piece of shrapnel that was picked out with tweezers and fixed with a band-aid, I'd be in jail for an awful long time.

    That doesn't quite seem fair.

Re:DF?

[Scarletdown]

You killed my brother, but since you gave me free pizza and soda pop I'll let it go this time.

Surely I'm not the only one who thought of the Lorax upon seeing the headline?

"Now I'm offended by this. But I'm gonna eat it!"

Unfortunately, I could not find a suitable YouTube clip of that little quickie to link here.

Re:DF?

[Scarletdown]

Mmmmm... Ham...

fracking special

[Chrisq]

If they shook the soda bottle up just before handing it over and then added some toxic sludge to the Pizza they could call it a "fracking special"

what said pizza might look like

[hypergreatthing]

http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/pizza-extra-crispy.jpg

Re:Fuck the frackers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fed up with people like you who do the dirty work of these 'a-hole' companies. You are the worst form of human scum out there.

Not Hand-Tossed

[ThatsNotPudding]

Blast-Tossed!

the important thing is someone is making money...

[Kaitiff]

I mean c'mon guys, this is Capitalism at it's finest. The people living in the town are to blame.. if they had capitalized on the liquid gold under their feet then no-one else could have. I mean, someone has to get rich out of this don't they? There is no sense of responsibility or ownership of anything anymore.. it's just a 'faceless' corporation making multi-billions of dollars of profit per quarter.. you simply can't expect anyone to actually CARE do you?

What I think is poetic justice is the fact that the price of gas from this whole 'drill baby drill' bullshit and massive exploitation and ruination of our own backyards has benefited us (the american people) almost exactly zero. Notice the price of gas lately? I think it's actually gone up now that we are actually outproducing the middle east in oil. MASSIVE natural gas shortages too... even tho we are out producing Russia in that too. Prices soaring.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[jittles]

Chevron has a sizable industrial accident in a community. They take losses in it (insurance likely covers direct losses) and lose a contractor. I'm sure that wherever damages did occur, Chevron is on the hook and is likely paying up. The nearby residents had zero damages and weren't owed a thing. Chevron is not getting off cheap or abdicating responsibility through a pizza giveaway.

The situation is comparable to having a tall tree in your yard that falls over on your car. You don't owe your neighbor a pizza, but maybe you buy him dinner anyway just for giving him the jitters.

Not that Chevron is off the hook with this pizza, but I was actually impressed that they bought the certificates from a locally owned and operated pizza place and didn't just run out and buy 100 gift cards from Pizza Hut or something. At least they were dumping money into a local business with this ploy.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

A few weeks ago, a small restaurant in my neighborhood burned down. Do they owe me a pizza?

Of course, software developers think free pizza...

[Applehu Akbar]

...Is an adequate reward for an eighty-hour work week.

Re:Of course, software developers think free pizza

[Shados]

Only the crappy ones who can't get a better job (with a few exception of those who don't live in a tech center and have a good reason not to move...I feel for those people).

That said, I'll take a 80 hour week over living near a fracking site, thats for sure.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially the guy who is missing and presumed dead

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[meta-monkey]

No, "we've fucked up here's pizza" is worse than nothing, because it basically puts a dollar value on the damage done, and they estimated that value as "very little." Reminds me of a movie I saw about the french revolution, and to show how heartless the royals were, their stagecoach runs over some kid and they flip a coin to the parents. "Sorry your kid's dead or crippled, here's a buck for your troubles."

They should have just made a pledge to clean up the damage and brought in some extra engineers.

Pizza

[randallman]

Looks like Papa John's pizza. Mmmmm!

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plants explode too, many containing some real nasty chemicals... But hey - something happens in the 'Fracking' business and it's world news..

Yep.. only in Crony America.

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[dbIII]

because it basically puts a dollar value on the damage done

You cannot possibly be serious. It's obviously a token effort and I doubt many people are going to be stupid enough to see it as any sort of real compensation. Are you pretending to be that stupid just to have something to argue about?

clean up the damage

Are you suggesting that they are not doing that?

Philip Wylie: prophet

[Catbeller]

Philip Wylie, the author of Gladiator, the novel of the first superhero that predated and probably inspired Siegel and Schuster's Superman, wrote a number of admonitory books during his lifetime. In high school, I read one of his last, "The End of The Dream" (1972). In it he cast a future history which ended with the world, hungry for energy, drilling into Antarctica's ice cap to uncover the coal buried deep under the ground. The fossil-fuel mad world, which he nailed, BTW, capped the seams and burned the coal in situ within the ground to generate electricity. Plausible.

The novel ended with the underground fires joining up and expanding, burning out of control. The smoke slowly built up, moving north like the wrath of an unstoppable god of hell, until the earth died under the cloud.
It was the end of a long litany of excellent *science* fiction. He extrapolated future actions of humans acting under the Law of General Stupidity, in which business always triumphs the hippies because, you know, they are hippies. You can call it the reaction of least energy expended, or simply conservative thinking - Everything Is Awesome.

When I head of fracking - it snuck up on me - Philip Wylie's sad voice came back to my memory, singing that same old song of mankind's monkey stupid snarling resistance to change, especially when there are trillions of dollars to be made digging up those ancient forests underground and setting them on fire. It didn't have to be. But it will be. America has no left, no intelligent people in power. We have businessmen. And businessmen don't do science. They do money and power. And Americans like things the way they are: the 1950's eternally reenacted, a never-changing world of cars and new houses and more and more and more... what is coming next is as predictable as those black clouds of Hell coming up from the Antarctic in Wylie's last warning. We will change the world. And it will be another business opportunity: mass relocation, new housing, new agriculture, potable water as precious as gold, cleaning up toxins, disposable houses, so so many ways to make money off overpopulation and the utter bovine imbecility of the human race.

Re:Fuck the frackers

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean "fuck the fscking frackers"?

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[meta-monkey]

You cut off quoting me before you got to the part about the dollar value Chevron gave being very, very low. That's a token, insulting gesture. It would be better if they had done nothing and just said "we're sorry."

Pizza that illustrates the article looks disgustin

[Blaskowicz]

g. It's a slab of bread with thin slices of melted sausage and a small amount of cheese-like substance. Totally not worth it. If you don't have enough money for a good enough pizza, choose other toppings?

What about toppings?

[AndyKron]

Unlimited toppings?

New Times, Old Tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Panis et Circus

Explosions deserve beer

[Anonymous Coward]

enough said.

Re:In all Honesty, Chevron is being a Good Neighbo

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a natural gas well, not an oil well, though given that you saw "Chevron" it's only natural you made an assumption.

IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no lawyer, but if people actually accepted the pizza, wouldn't this hurt their chances of recovering anything in court later? They've already accepted "compensation"

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[dbIII]

The portion I did not quote is not relevant because the idea that this cheap PR effort is actual compensation is incredibly stupid. Please stop pretending to be so dim to create false drama or whatever game you are playing.

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[meta-monkey]

That's what I'm saying. It's not actual compensation. It's a token effort, and an insulting one. It's like saying, "Yes, we realize you should be compensated. Here's an insultingly small amount." I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. It's basic reading comprehension.

They must have read this headline

[Anonymous Coward]

And thought it was real- Sometimes fake can be just as good.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/potential-employee-uprising-quelled-with-free-pizz,2441/

Re:It's a form of communication - say it with pizz

[dbIII]

I'm very sorry, but I do not think that is a reasonable interpretation and I think you are vastly underestimating the intelligence of people by assuming they are going to think it is anything other than a damage control PR exercise.
I also don't get why you are pretending to be so stupid as to think it is compensation yourself. Is this some sort of idiotic debating tactic they teach in US high schools or something? You cannot possibly be as stupid as your are pretending to be.