What is this all about:

Halliburton price gouging in Iraq alleged


CityBusiness staff reports

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two senior Democratic congressmen are questioning whether Halliburton is overcharging the United States government for gasoline and other fuel for Iraq, which is now importing oil products to stave off shortages.

In a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget, Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John D. Dingell of Michigan contend "Halliburton seems to be inflating gasoline prices at a great cost to American taxpayers."

"The overcharging by Halliburton is so extreme that one expert has privately called it `highway robbery,' " the letter said.

According to the two lawmakers, Halliburton has charged the government $1.62 to $1.70 a gallon for gasoline that could be bought wholesale in the Persian Gulf region for about 71 cents and transported to Iraq for no more than 25 cents. The fuel was sold in Iraq for 4 cents to 15 cents a gallon, the letter said.

Wendy Hall of Halliburton declined to address the specific calculations, saying the company's KBR unit in Iraq, "continues to negotiate fair and competitive prices to provide fuel to the Iraqi people."

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I guess the Bush administration wasn't lying -- apparently this wasn't a war for oil -- it was a war to generate a captive consumer market for amerikan corporations to bully. I am ashamed of this country.

Some great Rush Limbaugh quotes, researched by the people at Wisdom Today :

"We're going to let you destroy your life. We're going to make it easy and then all of us who accept the responsibilities of life and don't destroy our lives on drugs, we'll pay for whatever messes you get into."

-- Rush Limbaugh show, Dec. 9, 1993

"I'm appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say people are going to do drugs anyway let's legalize it. It's a dumb idea. It's a rotten idea and those who are for it are purely 100 percent selfish."

-- Rush Limbaugh show, Dec 9, 1993

"If (Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders) wants to legalize drugs, send the people who want to do drugs to London and Zurich, and let's be rid of them.

-- Rush Limbaugh show, Dec 9, 1993

"There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."

-- Rush Limbaugh show, Oct. 5, 1995

"You know I have always tried to be honest with you and open about my life. So I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I am addicted to prescription pain medication.



-- Rush Limbaugh, Oct 10, 2003

"OxyContin. Hydrocodone. Highly addictive opiates. A gargantuan number of pills over several years — almost 100 a day on one 47-day binge. His 42-year-old housekeeper, Wilma Cline, says she dealt the closely controlled pills to America's top-rated syndicated radio host. Some were hidden under his mattress so his wife wouldn't find them. Others were passed in a Denny's parking lot. Another public moralist had been caught in a personal jam. And Rush's words were coming back to haunt him. The constant digs at Bill Clinton not inhaling. The heartless shrug when Jerry Garcia died.

"'When you strip it all away," Rush had said of the Grateful Dead guitarist, "Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks."


-- Ellis Henican, Newsday, Oct 3, 2003

It's time to start championing old-fashioned virtues like fidelity, chastity, sobriety, self-restraint, self-discipline and self-reliance, and responsibility. Is that so unthinkable? Is that too much to ask?"

-- Rush Limbaugh, from his book, "See I Told You So"