Not sure if it has come to light yet in this thread, but NPR this morning reported the schools was built after the fertilizer plant.
In the future, can you wait to craft your narrative until you actually know the facts? You wouldn’t want people to get the crazy idea that you are more interested in pushing a particular viewpoint rather than getting at the truth. Would you?
I think it was the chess champion Alekhine (coulda been someone else) who explained why he made a bold sacrifice early on in a game. He said, “After studying the board for a time, you realize there is a winning combination there for you, you may not know the exact sequence of all possible moves, but you know the combination exists, so you make your initial move, knowing that there was a win at the end.”
Similarly, while I did not know EVERY detail of the situation in West Texas, I knew that deregulation had to play a hand … no or little safety equipment … school and nursing home close to plant, history of violations … complaints not followed up on … " A pretty clear pattern had emerged of some rural fertilizer plant not paying a hell a of a lot of attention to the regulations, in Texas, a state in the thrall of Republicans, who are all for deregulation. It was not a no-brainer … but I knew the combination was there.
Wait a second? Its somehow smarter or more legitimate to build a school next to a dangerous chemical plant if its already there? What?
No, but if your goal is to prove that government can save us from evil businessmen, it doesn’t help that it was government that made the bonehead decisions in the case you are holding up as proof of your assertion.
OK, but who else? Batman? If the point of your exercise is to score one on Evil Captor, well, OK. JM 1, EC 0. There. Done?
Government protecting the people from uncaring, unscrupulous businessmen. I take it you’ve not been to Texas, John?
Would sprinklers have helped?
I tried. They don’t speak English. (They keep saying “jaudiyal” – is that from some Tex-Mex border dialect of Spanish, or what?)
:dubious: I beg your pardon, sir. Most more-than-family tragedies, including natural disasters, demand a political response of some kind or other; because there is usually something government could have done to prevent or better prepare for it, and almost always something government can do now to prevent or better prepare for similar tragedies in the future. That “something” might not always be advisable and might in some cases be controversial, but it should always be an option open for discussion.
So how many kids tested the boundaries by going in?
Off topic I know, but I just can’t picture a situation where at least some of the kids didn’t try to test it, at least until the first one got turned into chum.
This is a debate forum on a website whose mission is to fight ignorance. When I see someone spreading ignorance, I call them on it. You do the same, sometimes.
This is a complex issue that does not easily fall into “business = evil, government = good”, which is how the OP framed things. If he wishes to reframe the issue, so much the better for him.
Well, me and several others that I know of. Cause getting blowed up would never happen to US.
I don’t think I framed it in EXACTLY that way, John, but I don’t mind you calling me on whatever grounds you want to call me on. You do seem interested in using the flaws in you see in my argument to damage my credibility. I think my this is a natural, logical line to take, so I don’t think my credibility was damaged. My actual frame was, “This is EXACTLY why deregulation is not always a good idea. The whole libertarian/conservative advocacy of deregulation just falls too neatly in line with the interests of companies whose only real interest is in saving some bucks. I see a casual attitude toward anhydrous ammonia linked with lax oversight and … kaboom!”
Unless you’re going with the “I had no credibility to begin with” argument, you may wish to revise your opinion. Your line of argumentation is always so ridiculously ideological that I find it difficult to take anything you say seriously. FWIW.
Looks like they were holding double the anhydrous ammonia they had permits for. The extra anhydrous ammonia was therefore… illegal?
Which proves why regulations are a waste of time: criminals will just ignore them.
You are the one making the claim. It’s your job to prove it.
You said specifically, “no one has demonstrated that they even understand the terminology,” implying that you did. Or did I misread you?
Here’s a thorough report by the Huffington Post. Very lax regulatory enforcement, apparently common in small town industrial facilities.
The impression I get from the article is one of extreme regulatory incompetence going back to 1976. Not deregulation. If you want to debate how regulation and regulatory agencies usually tend to be like that, and what we can do to try and improve matters, I will happily join in the discussion.