
Since neither side would be particularly interested in telling the truth,
you have to weigh the 'facts' given by each yourself, and weigh it with
the newsreporting if you care.

Many cult members will probably side with the attorney, and if he
is lying, change their stories to match his.  And if the Feds also
lie, the cult members who become disillusioned will change their
stories to match the Feds.  

Neither sides are interested in the truth.  The Media is more interested,
but usually either don't have the time to get it straight or tie themselves
to the ratings and deliberately distort.  

For me, though, the black soot billowing outside the compound added with
how fast the fire spread ponted to *someone* dousing large parts of the
compound with some sort of gasoline or fire-starter.  I doubt the Feds
did that as they were more interested in arresting Vernon.  The real
unbalanced one (at least the one that lost his cool) was Vernon, so
I figured that he was more likely to do it (after all he was Jesus 
being persecuted by the authorities, and had followers to hold onto,
so made the decision.  He and his followers also probably felt that they
were rocketing to heaven by doing this stuff).  Thsi conclusion, I came
to after umpteen million hours of listening to NPR and other radio
shows (I always have the radio going when I am in my office on some
innocuous talk-show or news program as background noise).

