2013 Fertilizer plant explosion near Waco, TX "result of a criminal act"?

[DINGO Joe]

The next county over is where the District Attorneys (and a wife) were getting murdered.  It looks like the case has been solved tonite.  It was rumored the Aryan Brotherhood had been involved but it turns out it was just an ugly fat pasty husband and wife with a bunch of guns.

http://news.yahoo.com/records-ex-officials-wife-says-husband-shot-da-210124457.html

The fire tonight is likely just an accident.

[Tender Branson]

A lot of anniversaries are coming up in the next days for the nuts:

April 18:

1983: A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.

2007: A series of bombings, two of them being suicides, occur in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.

April 19:

1985 – FBI siege on the compound of The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSAL) in Arkansas

1993 – The 51 day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. 81 people die.

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.

April 20:

1985 – The ATF raids The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas.

1998 – German terrorist group the Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.

1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

Plus: Hitler's 124th birthday.

[MaxQue]

Mid-April seems an awful time of year.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I was watching Craig Ferguson on a Canadian channel, but they were using the CBS feed. It was actually cut off for a special report, but Canada cut the report. WTF is going on?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Maybe it's nothing and I'm just overreacting because I can't actually see what it was. CNN doesn't really have anything new to say.

Odd to actually cut away from scheduled programming on CBS though...

[Mr. Morden]

Probably unrelated, but some guy was arrested last week in Waco when he was found to have a crude improvised explosive device in his truck:

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Intersection-Closed-as-Police-Investigate-Possible-Explosives-Inside-Truck-202647521.html

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[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It's just horrific to look at...

[Eraserhead]

The death toll from this will be much higher than the Boston bombing's.

[King]

I just wish there was picture of a puppy holding a sign saying he was praying for the victims to cheer me up.

[Likely Voter]

Jesus that explosion registered as a 2.1 earthquake according to the USGS. Even if this was an accident, setting fire to fertilizer plants must have moved to the top of the agenda for any nutjob planning an attack.

[NVGonzalez]

It's just horrific to look at...

[Grumpier Than Thou]

I just wish there was picture of a puppy holding a sign saying he was praying for the victims to cheer me up.

I CAN FIND IT

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Awful.  This country has seen so much tragedy.

[Zanas]

Awful.  This country has seen so much tragedy.

Yeah, well, it's the news and all that. Lots of people die every day, even tragically. It's not statistically relevant. Nor is the list of anniversaries Tender Branson posted above : you can find such anniversaries every day all year.


(Wow I just realized I was going to sound like a huge insensitive asshole, so I have to say all my thoughts go to the victims and their families and everything. But I was merely saying that the size of the tragedy is distorted by the news coverage time.)

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Texas is infamous for its lax zoning laws and letting developers do pretty much whatever they want. Surprise! Awful things happen when reasonable regulations aren't in place.

I don't mean to be glib, but there's a critical public policy lesson - and, in turn, additional lives - at stake here. We all ought to be conscious of that.

Don't you think we should wait to see if what you say caused all of this?

[Sbane]

Texas is infamous for its lax zoning laws and letting developers do pretty much whatever they want. Surprise! Awful things happen when reasonable regulations aren't in place.

I don't mean to be glib, but there's a critical public policy lesson - and, in turn, additional lives - at stake here. We all ought to be conscious of that.

Don't you think we should wait to see if what you say caused all of this?

Lax zoning regulations led to a middle school and apartment complexes/nursing homes being built too close to the plant. Whether lax regulations led to the fire, we do not know.

[DrScholl]

Don't you think we should wait to see if what you say caused all of this?

There is nothing to wait and see, a fertilizer plant or any type of plant should never be built near a residential area, period. That's common sense.

[Eraserhead]

They're saying the number of dead is 5 to 15 now. It's also become an active crime scene although they say that they don't have anything yet that specifically points toward criminal activity being the cause.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You see (and hear about) lousy town planning all the time, but it's rare for it to result in mass death. Awful.

[Eraserhead]

Will Obama visit here next? I suppose that would be pretty dangerous...

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Will Obama visit here next? I suppose that would be pretty dangerous...

An accident where 15 dead and hundreds injured (according to the inept media)?  Neh. It's not worth the jet fuel.

[Eraserhead]

The death toll is at 35 now. Even if this was an accident (big if), shouldn't this be getting more coverage than Boston?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The death toll is at 35 now. Even if this was an accident (big if), shouldn't this be getting more coverage than Boston?

It's a lot easier for most people to imagine themselves being caught up in something like the Boston Marathon bombing than the West fertilizer plant catastrophe.

[Eraserhead]

The death toll is at 35 now. Even if this was an accident (big if), shouldn't this be getting more coverage than Boston?

It's a lot easier for most people to imagine themselves being caught up in something like the Boston Marathon bombing than the West fertilizer plant catastrophe.

I think it has more do with the fact that a lot of people care about Boston and very few people care about West/Waco. Still pretty messed up though.

[Blue3]

It would have been getting more news if there hadn't been a huge update in the Boston case.
(or if the police said they were suspicious about what caused the fire)


And when I tuned into the news 20 minutes ago, the death toll was 14.