File this under “Why Aren’t We Hearing More About This Disaster?”: On Feb. 3, a massive Norfolk Southern freight train crashed near East Palestine, Ohio, while carrying five cars worth of vinyl chloride, a super toxic carcinogenic chemical. The town had to be evacuated, the chemicals had to be burned off, and the EPA and the train company are all, “No, it’s all cool, everything’s safe now, no need to be worried,” while dogs and chickens and other animals drop dead and the rivers fill up with dead fish and frogs and whatnot.
Worth pointing out – when the rail workers were all trying to strike a few months back and Congress stepped in and forced them to stop and stuck them with crappy rules they didn’t want, this is exactly the kind of thing the rail workers were warning us about.
- What we know about Ohio train derailment (Axios, 2/13/23)
- Water safety tops concerns near Ohio train derailment site (NBC News on YouTube, 2/13/23)
- 3 additional chemicals discovered on East Palestine train derailment (WKBN, 2/12/23)
- Residents wonder whether it’s safe to return after toxic train derailment (Washington Post, 2/12/23)
Next up, UFOs, apparently. The smaller, lower-flying objects that have everyone all in a tizzy are almost certainly some kind of balloon/drone, but it’s worth pointing out that the folks in charge are not being helpful with their “We can’t rule out aliens” and “We can only call it an object right now” and other, BS-y, don’t-want-to-committ-to-an-answer-because-they’re-scared-of-being-wrong-on-TV answers.
- What we know so far about the suspected Chinese spy balloon and FBI probe (NPR, 2/9/23)
- The U.S. shot down an object over Alaska. The government doesn’t know yet what it was (NPR, 2/10/23)
- The U.S. military shot down an unidentified object over Canada’s Yukon territory (NPR, 2/11/23)
- Over Lake Huron, the U.S. downs a 3rd unidentified object in 3 days (NPR, 2/12/23)
- What’s going on with the unidentified objects that US fighter planes keep taking down? (Vox, 2/12/23)
Notes & Thoughts 