Haliburton "Worst Example of Contract Abuse Seen"

[Kevin_Lowe]

Actually, it's trolling.

I think of it as pre-emptively burning away the bad arguments which will otherwise sprout, leaving a nice clean field for good arguments to be brought up.

I am open to new, good arguments as to why this kind of corruption is good or is necessary. I am only impatient with old and/or bad arguments.

There exist actual facts like Halliburton's success/failure at winning contracts before and after Dick Cheney became Vice President, the profitibility of those contracts, how other large services contractors have fared, etc. Some of those facts are even unfavorable to the company and/or to the administration.

Sure, for certain values of "some" and "even".

You're a "skeptic" like those skeptics who beleived that any faster-than-sound aircraft would break up. It's often said that one shouldn't open one's mind to the point where one's brains spill out. There's a corollary. One shouldn't close one's mind so tightly that new information can't find its way in.

You won't know if I have closed my mind in the way you describe until and unless you present some new information that makes the behaviour we are discussing here look good.

It sounds like a fun experiment. Pony up the information and we will see if I have a closed mind.