News Street of Dreams
posted by on March 3 at 11:27 AM
The PI:
Explosive devices were found inside multimillion-dollar show homes that burned in a suburb north of Seattle Monday, fire officials said. Authorities also found a spray-painted sign purportedly left by a radical environmental group at the scene.
The story goes on to report that the four houses that burned were for sale, and that, owing to the market conditions, realtors were having a hard time lining up buyers. An explosive device was hidden in a fifth houses, but it failed to ignite. That house has a buyer lined up… a buyer that might be having second thoughts about living in a house that someone else wants to burn to the ground.
Um, insurance fraud, anyone?
Or maybe the fact that one house was soon to be occupied made the bag holders want to take care of the excess inventory before people moved into this development?
No inside info, but this story stinks of fraud.
I wonder if ecoterrorism is considered "war or a warlike act" for the purposes of an insurance claim.
The Earth Liberation Front left cards taking credit at the scene.
Nerf Liberation Front 4EVA!
I'm with #1. As if it's that hard to fake a card from ELF. It's just too much of a coincidence that the one house with a buyer was spared.
Agree with #1
Seriously, wouldn't be the first time someone falsely accused a terrorist organization of committing acts of violence as a justification for their own nefarious deeds.
Anybody know where shrub was this morning?
No-one in their right mind would intentionally leave an undetonated device behind - it pretty much guarantees that they're going to get caught.
Are those houses really un-green enough for the ELF to go after? I mean, compared with a similar house that would be air conditioning 10,000 sq feet 300 days a year and using 1000 gallons of water every day for lawn care in the OC, these ones seem like the SUV you slap a snotty bumper sticker on, not the Hummer whose dealership you torch.
My first thought upon hearing it this morning is that the builders set it up and made ELF the suspect. Sad to be so cynical but stuff like this happens.
I guess they did torch the Urban Horticulture center, which was probably the stupidest excuse for arson since someone decided to see what would happen if they put a match to their ass.
Smells like major insurance fraud.
Hope the arson guys catch them and the CEO and senior execs spend many years in jail along with the previously convicted ELF arsonists ...
I agree with #12. That an explosive device was put in the one house that had a buyer ready makes it harder to call the whole thing insurance fraud. And no good fraudulent developer would leave such a damning clue for police to follow up on.
The faulty bomb, the dumb sign, the poorly picked target, all point to the same kind of incompetent operators that firebombed the UW's Urban Horticulture building. Remember that in the UW case they thought one of the professors was doing genetic engineering, which he was not.
Earth Liberation Front. Good Lord, I'll give each of them $1 if they can prove they aren't the product of a boring suburban neighborhood exactly like the one they tried to sabotage.
What, wasn't there just a Line Out thread about Earth Crisis? They on tour?
The Bush administration does consider ELF to be terrorists. And if ELF did this, then they have once again failed to protect us from terrorism. At least they should stop saying there have been no attacks on US soil.
actually, now that i think about it, wasn't everyone screaming insurance fraud when those houses in west seattle kept getting torched? whatever happened with that?
Comte wrote:
Comte, are you one of those conspiracy theorists?
We need a government minder here pronto. Hello, Fnarf? You there? Please tell Comte to get a life, then go off on some kind of rant about him so that everyone will be distracted from the issue at hand.
see also:
I should point out that the anti-whaling activists successfully sprayed acid on the Japanese whaling fleet - taking them out of commission for the season.
What's next, ambergris?
It was the lawn gnomes.
We had to burn the houses to set them free.
Long live the revolution!
As a Jew I stand against all forms of terrorism. These idiots must be caught and sent to prison. I am glad The Stranger always takes a strong stand against all forms of environmental extremeism and call is terrorism.
Speaking of environmental issues, my cousin is having his bar mitzvah
and only has about $35,000 to spend so it's not going to be anything fancy. But does anyone know of a local caterer that can provide eco-friendly paper plates and food? Also we'd like a personal movie made and have budgeted about $15,000 for that. Anyone know of a sustainable filmaker who would work for that cheap?
Only torching the buildings that haven't been sold would be a trifle suspicious.
@22: As Fifty-Two-Eighty mentioned, leaving an undetonated device behind is a really, really bad idea, unless you want to get caught.
Or, of course, you make a faulty explosive, put it in the one that's sold, and hope to god that "someone tried to blow this house up" isn't something that scares the last buyer off.
Which is really where this idea breaks down.
What kind of an "explosive device" was this supposed to be? Has anyone seen or heard any specifics on this alleged "device"?
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