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So what is your point? No failure and no one to blame?
If anything there's some good questions around train safety, outdated infrastructure and the remedial response. Why was it decided to burn up? Couldn't a clean up, then burn be attempted?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit (and now HN) is the only source that shows this on the front page - I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. Corporate news outlets have kept it from the front page.
That's an extraordinary allegation. Any evidence of this conspiracy?
I can think of a billion things going on right now that are vastly more important than anything about a celebrity pregnancy.
> Residents are concerned about long-term effects of low-grade exposure. > “There’s all that smoke and all those chemicals in there,” said Mason Shields, who lives in East Palestine and visited an aid center outside the evacuation zone. “I’m wondering if it’s even going to be safe for people to return within the next week or month or however long.” Generally speaking, I read the news because I want to learn facts abo…
> If I wanted to read the thoughts of some random person who is feeling anxious about something they’re ignorant about, I would go on social media. It's one thing to ask random Joe on the streets if he's fine with immigration. That's pretty pointless. But asking someone directly affected from a natural disaster or industrial accident by living right next to it? That's the kind of journalism that is needed, because it…
1. Rail companies slashed their workforce for short-term profits and share buybacks, cheered on by Wall Street [1]. Rail workers do not get paid sick leave because of those cuts, prompting Congress to step in an kneecap industrial action aimed at improving safety and working conditions [2];
2. Obama era rules were proposed for safer brakes (that would've prevented this incident). After lobbying by rail companies, those rules were weakened. The Trump administration scrapped them entirely. The Biden administration and Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg declined to reinstate those rules, let alone make them as tough as originally intended [3];
3. There are legitimate concerns that this has poisoned the water supply (eg [1]). There are other reports of animals left in East Palestine during evacuation have died;
4. One of the chemicals released (and burned) is vinyl chloride, which becomes hydrochloric acid in contact with water (including moiture in the air).
5. The EPA is doing air testing (eg [5]). Note the company contracted to do the test results: Tetra Tech. This is the same company the US government sued (and some individuals went to prison for) fraud ie falsifying testing to make things appear safer [6].
6. When a reporter starting asking questions at a news conference about the derailment, such as whether efficiency practices like PSR contributed to the accident, he was arrested [7];
7. There seems to be little media coverage for what could be an environmental catastrophe.
8. All this while just last week, Biden in the State of the Union address said "Corporations ought to do the right thing" [8]. The only way they will is if you, the government, make them or they sufficiently fear the consequences of not doign the right thing. Why would they when the entire political establishment defends corporate interests (eg against rail workers)?
Fines and possibly some payout after a decade of litigation are just the cost of doing business. The leaders responsible for this should end up in jail.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/railroads-ar...
[2]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/why-congress-is-interve...
[3]: https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-tra...
[4]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90848025/ohio-train-derailment-t...
[5]: https://response.epa.gov/sites/15933/files/Roving%20Air%20Mo...
[6]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/U-S-sues-Tetra-T...
[7]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/us/ohio-train-derailment-...
[8]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don’t worry - norfolk southern, the company responsible, gave the town a whopping $25k to help out. Five dollars for everyone! https://finance.yahoo.com/news/norfolk-southern-giving-25-00...
Whoever did that should hide. It's so insulting that it must be dangerous.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/19/while-fighting-...
I see all the staunch supporters of deregulation across the board that normally come out of the woodwork on HN are strangely absent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not that I disagree with you, but me and many others are planning our retirements accounts around assumptions of 8-9% growth. Actions have consequences. When the entire retirement plan of everyone in the country able to set money aside in a 401k (which isn't applicable for a lot of low-wage employees) is tied to the stock markets, politics is effectively held hostage by the companies in the S&P 500 - politicians si…
When I was young, I assumed the 401k had been around forever. But it was introduced in 1978! We're nearing the end of the 50-year period that the guys who invented it would really need to get staggeringly rich off of the concept, and now that they're getting ready to die everyone's overreliance on the system they set up is causing total gridlock in American life. You can't do ANYTHING that threatens the stock market.…
I see all the staunch supporters of deregulation across the board that normally come out of the woodwork on HN are strangely absent.