Conquer Club

http://news.yahoo.com/police-report-fer ... 59240.html

Susprised it hasn't been posted. So far, dozens reported dead, at last 100 more injured, and dozens of homes and buildings demolished.

Terrorists sell more papers.

Lootifer wrote:Terrorists sell more papers.

I knew the guy at my local shop looked dodgy.

Its been all over the news here. I just did not post because I find do much bad news to be depressing, and this one hit very "close to home", both in that several small town firefighters were killed and because I have known people who lived down that way in the past.

Yeah, this has been all over the news around here. West is just a little ways up I-35 from here. Crazy.

This is pretty horrific.

Typically these kinds of incidents tend to be preventable and usually a failure in terms of H&S policy* from the top. There is really no excuse for something like this.

* before you all jump on me, I am not some political correctness, health and safety nutjob. I am not talking about lame shit in your office that will see you getting sued for millions because you ran a cord accross a meeting room and someone sprained their wrist; shit is retarded. What I am referring to here is genuine industrial and workplace safety issues that have continually shown to be systemic failures at the human level (humans fail much more often than gear does).

Where, oh where, are our Glorious Technocrats to set everything right?

The problem certainly could have been a failure ofpolicy or something along the lines of, an Occupational Health and Safety or even just a company rule states, "Use [insert piece of equipment] to prevent arcing and blowing up the fertilizer plant when doing certain task."

Guy running small electrical service company, "I don't have one of those. If we did it would take 15 minutes for you just to set it up. Forget that. I've done it before without one. Just don't make an arc when you do this and hurry up!"

~KABOOM~

BigBallinStalin wrote:Where, oh where, are our Glorious Technocrats to set everything right?

You can jest all you like; but through neglect and poor safety attitude we blew up 29 people a couple of years back, and you guys just blew up another 15 or so (6th major event in the last 8 years or so).

Each and every one of these was preventable using simple changes (some of which do cost money, but even financially the balance sheet still comes positive using hindsight).

Please free market forgive me for doubting you, but can you not please move a little bit faster? People are actually dying here.

(and this isnt just a matter of a lazy tradesman skipping a vital step; part of good safety is ensuring that even the laziest of tradesmen dont skip vital steps)

Lootifer wrote:(and this isnt just a matter of a lazy tradesman skipping a vital step; part of good safety is ensuring that even the laziest of tradesmen dont skip vital steps)

Usually it's the "hard working" ones that skip the safety steps. No time for that shit, we've got too much work to do.

Lootifer wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:Where, oh where, are our Glorious Technocrats to set everything right?

You can jest all you like; but through neglect and poor safety attitude we blew up 29 people a couple of years back, and you guys just blew up another 15 or so (6th major event in the last 8 years or so).

Each and every one of these was preventable using simple changes (some of which do cost money, but even financially the balance sheet still comes positive using hindsight).

Please free market forgive me for doubting you, but can you not please move a little bit faster? People are actually dying here.

(and this isnt just a matter of a lazy tradesman skipping a vital step; part of good safety is ensuring that even the laziest of tradesmen dont skip vital steps)

Oh, you know I love to jest about the technocracy!

RE: free market skepticism, I agree, but whenever these events occur, we have to remind ourselves about the interactions between the business and the relevant regulators.

For example, although it would be cheaper and safer to build new power facilities, refineries, etc. (coal, oil, gas, etc.), it is extremely difficult to do so due to the regulatory environment. Instead, the private sector heaps on upgrades and additional capital onto older (and obsolete) structures. It's less safe and more expensive, but the regulations have set the rules of the game into a route which inadvertently promotes more dangerous investments.

I'm not sure if this story applies to the fertilizer plant, but if I cared enough to research it, it's where I'd look.

Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

At my plant we have yearly safety education meetings that last about 2 hours. People literally sleep through it. At the end, you're given a safety and regulation quiz, with the answers to the safety and regulation quiz. It's some real professional pencil-whipping.... so...
Next thing you know, we got one moron mixing 5 gallons of straight acid with 10 gallons of chlorine (deadly mustard gas) "to create a super-cleaner," and another turkey removing safety guards and sticking his whole goddamn hand into a giant scissors without locking out the power source. Guess what happened to his hand? At least with the mustard gas nobody got hurt, we just froze our asses off in the parking lot in January.

Now we're kicking off our new "safety awareness week."

Also, the original name of Dr Pepper soda pop was "The Waco."

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

If that's true, then it's not surprising given that OSHA has a monopoly on that trade.

I wonder if OSHA will be sued for any of this...

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

At my plant we have yearly safety education meetings that last about 2 hours. People literally sleep through it. At the end, you're given a safety and regulation quiz, with the answers to the safety and regulation quiz. It's some real professional pencil-whipping.... so...
Next thing you know, we got one moron mixing 5 gallons of straight acid with 10 gallons of chlorine (deadly mustard gas) "to create a super-cleaner," and another turkey removing safety guards and sticking his whole goddamn hand into a giant scissors without locking out the power source. Guess what happened to his hand? At least with the mustard gas nobody got hurt, we just froze our asses off in the parking lot in January.

Now we're kicking off our new "safety awareness week."

See to me thats fucked up.

I am one of the [relative] safety skeptics in my organisation. However here I am arguing on this side of the debate...

Safety should be the number 1 priority in any [industrial/risk facing] organisation.

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

At my plant we have yearly safety education meetings that last about 2 hours. People literally sleep through it. At the end, you're given a safety and regulation quiz, with the answers to the safety and regulation quiz. It's some real professional pencil-whipping.... so...
Next thing you know, we got one moron mixing 5 gallons of straight acid with 10 gallons of chlorine (deadly mustard gas) "to create a super-cleaner," and another turkey removing safety guards and sticking his whole goddamn hand into a giant scissors without locking out the power source. Guess what happened to his hand? At least with the mustard gas nobody got hurt, we just froze our asses off in the parking lot in January.

Now we're kicking off our new "safety awareness week."

wtf. I hope that moron mixing the shit was fired. I wonder how some people can be so fucking dense.

-TG

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

If that's true, then it's not surprising given that OSHA has a monopoly on that trade.

I wonder if OSHA will be sued for any of this...

That's not true. OSHA doesn't have a monopoly on safety. They just set national federal guidelines and requirements. Each state has the authority to require more, and each company has the moral obligation to protect their employees. However, when safety starts costing a company more money than they think they could be held accountable for in an accident, they stop caring.
The deal is, every company should have multiple redundant safety procedures. But that costs money, and business is a competition to see who can make the most money. So that's why so many states get lax and don't do inspections. Also, Unions are great for enforcing safety guidelines, but they're on the wain.

Lootifer wrote:See to me thats fucked up.

I am one of the [relative] safety skeptics in my organisation. However here I am arguing on this side of the debate...

Safety should be the number 1 priority in any [industrial/risk facing] organisation.

I agree, but it's not. I'm on day 4 of our "safety week," with meeting every day, and it's been nothing but more pencil whipping. Each company has 'recordables' to send to OSHA, which is essentially anytime someone needs to go to the hospital. So long as we keep that under 5 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR, nobody cares.
We've had only one so far this year, and a second which was uhh... fixed in-house.

But as far as personal safety goes; that's nothing. You should see the food safety aspect for once in your life. You'll never eat again. Our lab techs used to take extra cultures and send them to another lab for private analysis. But then the economy took a hit and they stopped doing that. The state of Illinois still requires weekly cultures though, so the lab techs are instructed to only send the best ones. I mean, we find E.Coli all of the time, listeria sometimes too, and other terrible micro organisms... but there are operable limits to it. So long as we hang below a 10 on the 14 scale (if you understand) then we're still legal.
And then there's the other problem; in the US, the government doesn't require that a company provides sick days. So if you get sick working in a food production facility, you're still required to work. All of these companies put up a front. They say that they encourage workers to take time off if they are sick. But it's a lie.
If I get sick, with say.... the flu,... I have to have a doctors notice for any time that I take off. That's a $20 copay at least, plus it's unpaid time so I'm losing money each day that I take off. Also, the days count against you when you have your yearly employee review, and can be used to fire you. So, at least in the three factories that I've worked in, I've never seen anyone who isn't a manager take sick time. I am honestly quite certain that the lack of sick days gets millions of American sick each year. If my company produces 10,000 unites of peanut butter a day, and one of my workers is on the line with flu, that could be 10,000 units of flunut butter.

TA1LGUNN3R wrote:wtf. I hope that moron mixing the shit was fired. I wonder how some people can be so fucking dense.

-TG

No, they sent him to work with me for a while.
But sadly this stuff is pretty common. He's the third one to make mustard gas in the 4 years I've been at this plant. And yeah, he's pretty dumb, but I don't really blame him. What do you expect when you pay someone $2 above minimum wage and give them a shitty redundant job with no safety training? Some of these guys, myself included, are also forced to work absolutely ridiculous hours. For example, I was promised that I would work 8-5 Monday through Friday, with no weekends. But instead, now I work
Mond - Wedns 11am - 8 pm,
Thurs - Friday 7am - 3:30 pm,
Saturday first or third shift
And mine isn't as bad as other's, especially shipping & receiving. You can't adjust to any time shift, so you're always tired. You're tired, doing a redundant job for shitty pay. Sometimes it's like you're set-up for failure.

Juan_Bottom wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

If that's true, then it's not surprising given that OSHA has a monopoly on that trade.

I wonder if OSHA will be sued for any of this...

That's not true. OSHA doesn't have a monopoly on safety. They just set national federal guidelines and requirements.

So, they got a monopoly on that trade.

Anyway, do you think the State should be held culpable for failing to enough inspections?

You literally cannot have a monopoly on safety. It's impossible. Setting guidelines is not the same as enforcing safe practices.
And OSHA actually tells companies that they will not mother them, and that they will therefor be held accountable for any accidents.

Nobody should be held accountable till we know what happened.


Hypothetically speaking, if the company was following OSHA's gmp's, then it's OSHA who is to blame, along with anyone who might have noticed the unsafe practice and did nothing to end it.
But honestly, I really doubt that this was the case.
And if the company wasn't following OSHA's guidelines, then the business managers are to blame, along with anyone who might have noticed the unsafe practice and did nothing to end it.

Juan_Bottom wrote:You literally cannot have a monopoly on safety. I

I didn't say that.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

If that's true, then it's not surprising given that OSHA has a monopoly on that trade.

I wonder if OSHA will be sued for any of this...

That's not true. OSHA doesn't have a monopoly on safety. They just set national federal guidelines and requirements.

So, they got a monopoly on that trade.

Anyway, do you think the State should be held culpable for failing to enough inspections?

Does the government have a monopoly on the judicial system?

I say let free enterprise take over the judicial system.

A state that brags about its ability to get rid of regulation,sadly not surprising to see this happens.A refinery in Texas will have a fire or blow up next.

notyou2 wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote::|
Last time it was inspected by OSHA was 1985.

If that's true, then it's not surprising given that OSHA has a monopoly on that trade.

I wonder if OSHA will be sued for any of this...

That's not true. OSHA doesn't have a monopoly on safety. They just set national federal guidelines and requirements.

So, they got a monopoly on that trade.

Anyway, do you think the State should be held culpable for failing to enough inspections?

Does the government have a monopoly on the judicial system?

I say let free enterprise take over the judicial system.

Yeah, it does---so far as the provision of courts, justices, and all that goes.

I'd be down for that.

It's funny that we know almost everything about the Boston bombers but so little about the person or persons responsible for not conducting inspections, skirting inspections and stock piling this much fertilizer even though their actions killed and injured many more people.

Woodruff wrote:It's funny that we know almost everything about the Boston bombers but so little about the person or persons responsible for not conducting inspections, skirting inspections and stock piling this much fertilizer even though their actions killed and injured many more people.

And basically leveled the town that was right there.