Houston: A Shining Example Of Conservative Deregulation

[OKTexas]

So tell us fagot, how do you regulate for a once in a thousand year event. The plant has 4 systems in place to prevent this from happening, mother nature didn't care.


.

Have you noticed they don't build nuclear power plants in the middle of major cities, where the power is being used.

Why do you think that is?

Yet they put them in aircraft carriers with more than 3000 people on them, why do you think that is? Could it be that city dwellers are just pussy assed bitches?


.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

The Perils Of Deregulation

So, conservative ideas have triumphed in Texas. A business-friendly environment has been created, based on free-market principles, deregulation, and a return to 10th amendment freedoms just as the Founders designed them, because the best government is the one that is closest to the people.

Basic chemistry doesn't care, via NBC News:

A flooded chemical plant near Houston exploded twice early Thursday, sending a plume of smoke into the air and triggering a fire that the firm plans to let "burn itself out." Arkema Group, which is one of the world's largest chemical companies, had warned Wednesday that the plant would catch fire and explode at some point — adding there was nothing that could be done about it.


Awfully blithe for a company whose massive chemical plant just exploded because the company was unprepared for a completely predictable meteorological catastrophe, I'd say.

Of course, over the past two days, the Arkema people have given us a master class in Not Giving A Damn.

Anyone who saw the essential Matt Dempsey of the Houston Chronicle on the electric teevee machine with Kindly Doc Maddow on Wednesday nightknows exactly what I'm talking about. (And, if you're not following him on the electric Twitter machine—@mizzousundevil—you should be.)

They played a tape of a conference call on which Dempsey pressed the CEO of Arkema, Rich Rowe, about what substances were in the company's plant that would be released if the plant blew, as it apparently did Thursday morning.

Rowe refused to answer, which was his perfect right within Texas' business-friendly environment. They could be hoarding nerve gas in that place, and be perfectly within the law not to tell anybody about it.

AP
In fact, and this is the delectable part of the entire farce, there apparently is a law in Texas that specifically forbids many cities and towns from designing their own fire codes. Hell, the state even passed a law forbidding cities and towns from requiring fire sprinklers in new construction.

Freedom!

Two years ago, Dempsey and his team put together a staggering eight-part series about the lack of rudimentary safety precautions that exists in what has become the petrochemical capital of the country. The series took a chunk out of both the recklessness of the Texas state government and out of the spavined state of the EPA and OSHA even under President Obama, the latter problems having gotten worse under the current administration.

You should read the whole thing, but Part Six of the series is particularly relevant. It describes how the city government of Houston, and its responsible officials, are flying completely blind as to what is being manufactured and stored in the hundreds of plants in and around the city. From the Chronicle:

A black plume big enough to show up on weather radar touched the sky that Thursday morning in May. Explosions echoed through Spring Branch. Students fled a nearby school. A substance like tar coated cars in the neighborhood. Blood-red fluids spilled into a creek, choking fish and turtles. More than 400 firefighters responded over two days, and when they were done, piles of torched barrels and melted plastic tanks lay in a snow-white blanket of fire-fighting foam. Days later, they still didn't know what they'd been fighting. No city inspector had been inside the place for years, and the owner's records burned up in the blaze. The firefighters didn't even know there was a chemical facility in the neighborhood, one surrounded by houses and apartments, a nursing home and a gun shop full of ammunition…The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

This is no accident. This is a political philosophy put into action, and a triumphant one at that.

Basic chemistry doesn't give a damn.

Matt Dempsey, data reporter on the investigative team at the Houston Chronicle, talks with Rachel Maddow about the immediate peril from the damaged Arkema chemical plant northeast of Houston and the lack of regulations in Texas complicating the problem.The segment that aired last night explains how this happened.

There's a special place in hell for Texas Republicans and their POS governor.

Harvey-damaged Arkema chemical plant explosion expected

We are talking about 500 year rainfall here. You think that is a predictable event??
Grow up and stop being a sheep.

They were predicting 50" of rain several days before it hit, dope.

You better go back over the timeline because I live right outside Houston, and can tell you it was not several days. A few days would be correct and nobody knew which way Harvey was going.

The expected amounts were twenty to forty inches at worst and not fifty.

Also it was not until Wed thay they knew it was going to be a major hurricane when it was coming in and not until Thursday they guessed it would be a cat 4 hurricane.

Even with that you can not evacuate five million people from Corpus to Beaumont and if you believe you can then you do not remember Hurricane Rita where nearly 200 people died during that event.

So as those like you claim several days of warning was given, it was a few days and even then nobody from the weather service was sure how bad and were guessing!

By definition they are dumbasses.
These are, after all, the same people who couldn't find anything else wrong with Trump's visit...made issue of his hat and Melania's shoes!!
Just dumb....asses.

 

[Bruce_T_Laney]

The Perils Of Deregulation

So, conservative ideas have triumphed in Texas. A business-friendly environment has been created, based on free-market principles, deregulation, and a return to 10th amendment freedoms just as the Founders designed them, because the best government is the one that is closest to the people.

Basic chemistry doesn't care, via NBC News:

A flooded chemical plant near Houston exploded twice early Thursday, sending a plume of smoke into the air and triggering a fire that the firm plans to let "burn itself out." Arkema Group, which is one of the world's largest chemical companies, had warned Wednesday that the plant would catch fire and explode at some point — adding there was nothing that could be done about it.


Awfully blithe for a company whose massive chemical plant just exploded because the company was unprepared for a completely predictable meteorological catastrophe, I'd say.

Of course, over the past two days, the Arkema people have given us a master class in Not Giving A Damn.

Anyone who saw the essential Matt Dempsey of the Houston Chronicle on the electric teevee machine with Kindly Doc Maddow on Wednesday nightknows exactly what I'm talking about. (And, if you're not following him on the electric Twitter machine—@mizzousundevil—you should be.)

They played a tape of a conference call on which Dempsey pressed the CEO of Arkema, Rich Rowe, about what substances were in the company's plant that would be released if the plant blew, as it apparently did Thursday morning.

Rowe refused to answer, which was his perfect right within Texas' business-friendly environment. They could be hoarding nerve gas in that place, and be perfectly within the law not to tell anybody about it.

AP
In fact, and this is the delectable part of the entire farce, there apparently is a law in Texas that specifically forbids many cities and towns from designing their own fire codes. Hell, the state even passed a law forbidding cities and towns from requiring fire sprinklers in new construction.

Freedom!

Two years ago, Dempsey and his team put together a staggering eight-part series about the lack of rudimentary safety precautions that exists in what has become the petrochemical capital of the country. The series took a chunk out of both the recklessness of the Texas state government and out of the spavined state of the EPA and OSHA even under President Obama, the latter problems having gotten worse under the current administration.

You should read the whole thing, but Part Six of the series is particularly relevant. It describes how the city government of Houston, and its responsible officials, are flying completely blind as to what is being manufactured and stored in the hundreds of plants in and around the city. From the Chronicle:

A black plume big enough to show up on weather radar touched the sky that Thursday morning in May. Explosions echoed through Spring Branch. Students fled a nearby school. A substance like tar coated cars in the neighborhood. Blood-red fluids spilled into a creek, choking fish and turtles. More than 400 firefighters responded over two days, and when they were done, piles of torched barrels and melted plastic tanks lay in a snow-white blanket of fire-fighting foam. Days later, they still didn't know what they'd been fighting. No city inspector had been inside the place for years, and the owner's records burned up in the blaze. The firefighters didn't even know there was a chemical facility in the neighborhood, one surrounded by houses and apartments, a nursing home and a gun shop full of ammunition…The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

This is no accident. This is a political philosophy put into action, and a triumphant one at that.

Basic chemistry doesn't give a damn.

Matt Dempsey, data reporter on the investigative team at the Houston Chronicle, talks with Rachel Maddow about the immediate peril from the damaged Arkema chemical plant northeast of Houston and the lack of regulations in Texas complicating the problem.The segment that aired last night explains how this happened.

There's a special place in hell for Texas Republicans and their POS governor.

Harvey-damaged Arkema chemical plant explosion expected

We are talking about 500 year rainfall here. You think that is a predictable event??
Grow up and stop being a sheep.

They were predicting 50" of rain several days before it hit, dope.

You better go back over the timeline because I live right outside Houston, and can tell you it was not several days. A few days would be correct and nobody knew which way Harvey was going.

The expected amounts were twenty to forty inches at worst and not fifty.

Also it was not until Wed thay they knew it was going to be a major hurricane when it was coming in and not until Thursday they guessed it would be a cat 4 hurricane.

Even with that you can not evacuate five million people from Corpus to Beaumont and if you believe you can then you do not remember Hurricane Rita where nearly 200 people died during that event.

So as those like you claim several days of warning was given, it was a few days and even then nobody from the weather service was sure how bad and were guessing!

By definition they are dumbasses.
These are, after all, the same people who couldn't find anything else wrong with Trump's visit...made issue of his hat and Melania's shoes!!
Just dumb....asses.

Well according to them all of us in Texas are just simple minded idiots and they know how to fix our problems, so why the fuck did they not fix them before the Hurricane or when Obama and the Democrats had the power from 2009 - 2011!?!

Where was the damn failure!?!

The people and companies have been here for years, but now they tell us it was done all wrong, and boy how foolish I feel for not knowing This!

So damn it when will today Einstein's come down here and lead us to this socialist glory land and when their way fails because of historical event can I blame them or will they blame Adam and Eve or is it Steve for their failure!?!

( Sarcastic Mental Midget Rant )

 

[miketx]

Tell us, what regulation would you like to see in place that would have prevented this?

Fire codes, zoning laws, safety regulations.

Looks to me like the flood waters ignored all the zoning laws. LOL!

 

[Bruce_T_Laney]

Tell us, what regulation would you like to see in place that would have prevented this?

Fire codes, zoning laws, safety regulations.

Looks to me like the flood waters ignored all the zoning laws. LOL!

Let me guess the flood waters were fringe left and you know those zoning laws should be consider oppressive if the zoning laws deny the flooding waters their right to flood...

( again mental midget rant )

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Tell us, what regulation would you like to see in place that would have prevented this?

Fire codes, zoning laws, safety regulations.

Looks to me like the flood waters ignored all the zoning laws. LOL!

I didn't think TX had zoning laws... shit, in N. Houston up around Tomball, you'll see a trailer, then a nice home, then a mechanic's shop, then an apartment complex... it's bizarre.

 

[skews13]

Tell us, what regulation would you like to see in place that would have prevented this?

I see the usual suspects of feces for brain matter didn't watch the video and I'll bet didnt even read any of the article. If they did they would know that it wasn't about the rain. You can't reply to this kind of stupid.

 

[Meathead]

Tell us, what regulation would you like to see in place that would have prevented this?

I see the usual suspects of feces for brain matter didn't watch the video and I'll bet didnt even read any of the article. If they did they would know that it wasn't about the rain. You can't reply to this kind of stupid.

You have really no idea why you're being ridiculed, do you? Actually none.

 

[Yarddog]

The Perils Of Deregulation

So, conservative ideas have triumphed in Texas. A business-friendly environment has been created, based on free-market principles, deregulation, and a return to 10th amendment freedoms just as the Founders designed them, because the best government is the one that is closest to the people.

Basic chemistry doesn't care, via NBC News:

A flooded chemical plant near Houston exploded twice early Thursday, sending a plume of smoke into the air and triggering a fire that the firm plans to let "burn itself out." Arkema Group, which is one of the world's largest chemical companies, had warned Wednesday that the plant would catch fire and explode at some point — adding there was nothing that could be done about it.


Awfully blithe for a company whose massive chemical plant just exploded because the company was unprepared for a completely predictable meteorological catastrophe, I'd say.

Of course, over the past two days, the Arkema people have given us a master class in Not Giving A Damn.

Anyone who saw the essential Matt Dempsey of the Houston Chronicle on the electric teevee machine with Kindly Doc Maddow on Wednesday nightknows exactly what I'm talking about. (And, if you're not following him on the electric Twitter machine—@mizzousundevil—you should be.)

They played a tape of a conference call on which Dempsey pressed the CEO of Arkema, Rich Rowe, about what substances were in the company's plant that would be released if the plant blew, as it apparently did Thursday morning.

Rowe refused to answer, which was his perfect right within Texas' business-friendly environment. They could be hoarding nerve gas in that place, and be perfectly within the law not to tell anybody about it.

AP
In fact, and this is the delectable part of the entire farce, there apparently is a law in Texas that specifically forbids many cities and towns from designing their own fire codes. Hell, the state even passed a law forbidding cities and towns from requiring fire sprinklers in new construction.

Freedom!

Two years ago, Dempsey and his team put together a staggering eight-part series about the lack of rudimentary safety precautions that exists in what has become the petrochemical capital of the country. The series took a chunk out of both the recklessness of the Texas state government and out of the spavined state of the EPA and OSHA even under President Obama, the latter problems having gotten worse under the current administration.

You should read the whole thing, but Part Six of the series is particularly relevant. It describes how the city government of Houston, and its responsible officials, are flying completely blind as to what is being manufactured and stored in the hundreds of plants in and around the city. From the Chronicle:

A black plume big enough to show up on weather radar touched the sky that Thursday morning in May. Explosions echoed through Spring Branch. Students fled a nearby school. A substance like tar coated cars in the neighborhood. Blood-red fluids spilled into a creek, choking fish and turtles. More than 400 firefighters responded over two days, and when they were done, piles of torched barrels and melted plastic tanks lay in a snow-white blanket of fire-fighting foam. Days later, they still didn't know what they'd been fighting. No city inspector had been inside the place for years, and the owner's records burned up in the blaze. The firefighters didn't even know there was a chemical facility in the neighborhood, one surrounded by houses and apartments, a nursing home and a gun shop full of ammunition…The fire department in the nation's fourth-largest city has no idea where most hazardous chemicals are, forgetting lessons learned in a near-disaster 21 years ago, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

This is no accident. This is a political philosophy put into action, and a triumphant one at that.

Basic chemistry doesn't give a damn.

Matt Dempsey, data reporter on the investigative team at the Houston Chronicle, talks with Rachel Maddow about the immediate peril from the damaged Arkema chemical plant northeast of Houston and the lack of regulations in Texas complicating the problem.The segment that aired last night explains how this happened.

There's a special place in hell for Texas Republicans and their POS governor.

Harvey-damaged Arkema chemical plant explosion expected

Houston?

Conservative?

Houston is not, he was talking of the laws of the conservative state of Texas. No way to be prepared for this kind of natural disaster.

sometimes shit just happens, if it would have been a normal hurricane that moved on through, Im sure all the preparations would have been sufficient

 

[radical right]

Have you noticed they don't build nuclear power plants in the middle of major cities, where the power is being used.

Why do you think that is?

Yet they put them in aircraft carriers with more than 3000 people on them, why do you think that is? Could it be that city dwellers are just pussy assed bitches?


.

You're comparing cities with 3 million people, with a boat with 3,000 people.

 

[radical right]

I didn't think TX had zoning laws... shit, in N. Houston up around Tomball, you'll see a trailer, then a nice home, then a mechanic's shop, then an apartment complex... it's bizarre.

You can also find plants with explosives, next to a school.

 

[radical right]

sometimes shit just happens, if it would have been a normal hurricane that moved on through, Im sure all the preparations would have been sufficient

Here's a thought. Zoning laws, where they don't put explosives factories in highly populated areas.

It's common sense you don't put something capable of killing thousands, close to a lot of people.

 

[JimH52]

AMEN! No zoning, urban sprawl, building in the flood plain, chemical plant in residential area.

Freedom loving Texass folk are now paying.

 

[OKTexas]

Have you noticed they don't build nuclear power plants in the middle of major cities, where the power is being used.

Why do you think that is?

Yet they put them in aircraft carriers with more than 3000 people on them, why do you think that is? Could it be that city dwellers are just pussy assed bitches?


.

You're comparing cities with 3 million people, with a boat with 3,000 people.

Nope, just pointing out that nuclear power plants are safe, the US wouldn't be using them on multi billion dollar ships if they weren't.


.

 

[radical right]

What Can't Sex Offenders Do in Texas? | Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer | Law Offices of Billy Skinner

Texas law currently prohibits registered sex offenders from living or even visiting a residence that is within 500 feet of a “child safety zone.” A child safety zone is considered any place where children frequently gather, and can include:

• Schools
• Parks
• Youth Centers
• Athletic Fields
• Day Care Centers

But you can build a factory that has tons of explosive chemicals in it next to a school.

 

[radical right]

Nope, just pointing out that nuclear power plants are safe, the US wouldn't be using them on multi billion dollar ships if they weren't.


.

They're putting nuclear reactors (which are dangerous) on ships that enemy ships and planes and missiles are trying to sink (extremely dangerous)

If nuclear reactors were so safe, why don't they put them on cruise ships?

 

[OKTexas]

I didn't think TX had zoning laws... shit, in N. Houston up around Tomball, you'll see a trailer, then a nice home, then a mechanic's shop, then an apartment complex... it's bizarre.

You can also find plants with explosives, next to a school.

I bet you have explosives in your house.


.

 

[radical right]

I bet you have explosives in your house.


.

Let me check, combustible
flammable
inflammable
Nope, I don't see any explosives.

 

[boedicca]

Deregulation didn't cause a storm dumping 52 inches of rain.

Just sayin'.

 

[OKTexas]

Nope, just pointing out that nuclear power plants are safe, the US wouldn't be using them on multi billion dollar ships if they weren't.


.

They're putting nuclear reactors (which are dangerous) on ships that enemy ships and planes and missiles are trying to sink (extremely dangerous)

If nuclear reactors were so safe, why don't they put them on cruise ships?

Cruise lines can't afford them.


.