Missouri town breathes easier after crews clean up wrecked semi carrying rotting tofu 9%

By Sarah Fentem75%

3/26/2026, 12:30:00 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 5 faulty reasoning types, including Quote-first Misdirection, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Emotion, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 11.8% saturation with 39 hits. Analysis detected 120 faulty-reasoning hits from 330 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.5% and a BS Rank of 9% (27,898 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 91.20% of the article peer group.

Residents of a Missouri town can finally breathe easier. 
Crews have removed a wrecked tractor trailer carrying tofu that had been stinking up a stretch of highway near Jerome for several weeks. 
The driver of the semi left the roadway March 1 near mile marker 172 on Interstate 44 in Phelps County. 
The truck’s load  at least partially consisting of tofu  became increasingly pungent as temperatures rose. 
Local authorities said no one was injured, but the crash scene remained in place for weeks. 
One resident wrote online that the rotting tofu smelled similar to catfish bait. 
“For those of you who drive by this everyday and wonder to yourself ‘why is this still sitting here three weeks after the crash?’ 
You are not alone,” wrote officials from the nearby Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District, which responded to the wreck. 
Pictures of the site on the fire department’s Facebook page showed the semi buckled in a ditch below a low bridge. 
The front part of the trailer had burst open, spilling dozens of rectangular boxes of tofu. 
The Missouri Department of Transportation contracted a towing company that finally hauled the truck from its smelly resting spot earlier this week. 
Big Boy’s Towing and Recovery, based in Pacific, arrived at the scene Tuesday afternoon and began removing the semi from the ravine. 
MoDOT Central District Communications Manager Marcia Johnson confirmed the truck and the trailer have now been removed. 
“The crew is working to clean up the rest of the debris from the crash, and they hope to have everything wrapped up by the end of the week,” she said. 
Officers said the agency had been negotiating with the carrier’s insurance company, which caused the hold up. 
For nearby residents, the cleanup was long overdue. 
“In case you were wondering, tofu tends to stink pretty bad after sitting out for three weeks!” 
said the fire department’s post. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.4%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.2%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 3.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.7%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.7%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.4%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 6.7%Sarah Fentem: 6.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 7.3%Framing Effect6.7%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.3%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.1%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.0%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.3%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 4.3%Belleville News-Democrat: 4.8%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 5.7%Belleville News-Democrat: 7.1%Negativity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.9%Belleville News-Democrat: 3.0%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 2.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.2%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.4%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.9%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.0%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 4.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 3.6%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.3%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.3%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 11.8%Sarah Fentem: 3.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 3.7%Hasty Generalization11.8%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.3%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.5%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.7%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 6.7%Sarah Fentem: 5.9%Belleville News-Democrat: 6.5%Appeal to Emotion6.7%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.7%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.8%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 2.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.1%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.3%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 3.9%Sarah Fentem: 3.2%Belleville News-Democrat: 2.6%Anecdotal3.9%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.7%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.3%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.4%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.7%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.8%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 7.3%Sarah Fentem: 0.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.9%Quote-first Misdirection7.3%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 1.1%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.8%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 3.0%Belleville News-Democrat: 1.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.8%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.8%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.5%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Sarah Fentem: 0.6%Belleville News-Democrat: 0.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

330 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers34%attributed speech217writer words
63%flagged-word coverage
65 attributed words58% of attributed speech16% writer coverage
0%20.0%40.0%Quote-first Misdirection+36.9 ptsWriter: 0.0%Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District: 36.9%36.9%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.