Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombing?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombing?

Anyone got any thoughts on the Boston Marathon bombing?

My conspiracy theory muscle is suddenly in serious overdrive and twitching like a road construction frog compactor.

So I'd rather not say anything right now except that really, really sucks.

I'll wait until I know more and my paranoia juices stop spurting through my soul so hard.

What do you think?

Michael

[dennislmay]

Several people have already chimed in on Facebook. Keep your eyes on the gun debate and immigration. If things are pushed through without debate because of the bombing you will know we are in 1933 Germany.

Dennis

[Mike82ARP]

Several people have already chimed in on Facebook. Keep your eyes on the gun debate and immigration. If things are pushed through without debate because of the bombing you will know we are in 1933 Germany.

Dennis

I was thinking the same thing. The media hounds will be all over this. Obama will likely recall Rahm “never let a good crisis go to waste” Emanuel and try to slide gun control through in the frenzy.

[BaalChatzaf]

I am betting this is a Muslim job.

[FuturistNow]

I would be surprised if this event provided us with any insightful information. The sensationalism of the event shouldn't distract people from more important information.

[Selene]

I am wondering whether to bring marshmallows to the fire...

Firefighters struggle to extinguish the fire. Participants Marinus van der Lubbe (officially) Location Reichstag building, Berlin, Weimar Republic Date 27 February 1933

[Mark]

It would be rash to speculate at this point, so I’ll be rash.

Five bombs in separate locations suggests a group was responsible rather than a lone nut. That in turn suggests, though doesn’t necessarily imply, sophistication and competence.

Yet three of the five bombs were duds. [ADDED: An updated story is being put out that there were two bombs and no duds. No reason is given for the error regarding the alleged duds. I don't know which story is true. (As with OKC, the initial story might contain more truth.)]

One possibility is that they were duds intentionally. The duds’ existence increased the terror, yet minimized the casualties. If the duds were intentional this means the act almost surely was "homegrown" – in the sense of perpetrated by the U.S. government or some other gang wanting to increase government power or keep the "War on Terrorism" going.

It’s good to see people here who understand this motivation.

Regarding Muslim terrorism, which is certainly a possibility, it’s the price of the U.S. having entered Israel’s wars in the Middle East. If you enter a war, expect to be treated as a combatant.

Was it worth it, is a question.

[Reidy]

Yes, but things won't be pushed through without debate because of the bombing. The Obama administration and its allies tried to do this with the Newtown shooting, and it was a bust. This would be a bigger bust.

[Mark]

UM Coach: Bomb Sniffing Dogs, Spotters on Roofs Before Explosions

University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon ... there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.

　

"They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson [said].

Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before.

　

"... I don't believe they were just having a training exercise," Stevenson said. "I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in."

CNN reports a state government official said there were no credible threats before the race.

Stevenson had just finished the marathon before the explosions. ...

www.local15tv.com/mostpopular/story/UM-Coach-Bomb-Sniffing-Dogs-Spotters-on-Roofs/BrirjAzFPUKKN8z6eSDJEA.cspx

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a real cool message by an actor, Patton Oswalt, I caught on TheBlaze. He posted the following on Facebook and was showered with likes.

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

That last line bears repeating.

"The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Michael

[caroljane]

Thank you, Patton Ewalt, and thank you Michael.

And amen.

[BaalChatzaf]

I knew it would not be long before someone brought up the Riechstag fire. I is like sunrise. On schedule and inevitable.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mark]

Mr. Kolker doesn't state his point openly, he only insinuates. Stated openly he would be seen as ridiculous.

We will never be able to fight for liberty effectively without knowing the corruption of current government, corruption as in gangsters. They are easily capable of murdering and maiming to further an agenda. Some links about this in a post of another thread.

[Selene]

I knew it would not be long before someone brought up the Riechstag fire. I is like sunrise. On schedule and inevitable.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob:

Are you stating it should not be considered a probability?

Gulf of Tonkin ring a bell?

Washington, D.C., 4 August 2004 - Forty years ago today, President Johnson and top U.S. officials chose to believe that North Vietnam had just attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, even though the highly classified signals intercepts they cited to each other actually described a naval clash two days earlier (a battle prompted by covert U.S. attacks on North Vietnam), according to the declassified intercepts, Johnson White House tapes, and related documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Compiled by Archive senior fellow and Vietnam expert John Prados, today's 40th anniversary electronic briefing book includes Dr. Prados's detailed analysis of the intercepts - only declassified in 2003 - together with audio files and transcripts of the key Tonkin Gulf conversations between President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The latter are excerpted from Dr. Prados's book, The White House Tapes (New York: The New Press, 2003). The posting also contains photographs and charts from the Tonkin Gulf incident courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center, a detailed documentary chronology compiled by the State Department's Office of the Historian for the Foreign Relations of the United States series, a CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate on possible North Vietnamese responses to U.S. actions from May 1964 (just declassified in June 2004), and links to previous and upcoming Archive publications on Vietnam.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/

[caroljane]

One thought I had was that to cause maximum carnage, the bombers could have targeted the Red Sox game earlier in the day, or the Bruins game scheduled for that night. But I suppose those would have to be suicide jobs, and maybe the so-far unknown murderers did not care to sacrifice their own precious lives.

This eerily reminds me of a Val McDermid thriller in which the VIP section at a football game in Britain is bombed. Of course in the novel the bomber (a Muslim btw) does it to kill his lover's husband.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now, this one is cute:

Axelrod: Obama Thinks Boston Bombings Could Be Related to 'Tax Day'
by Daniel Halper
April 16, 2013
The Weekly Standard

In explaining why President Obama didn't call the Boston bombings a "terrorist attack," former adviser David Axelrod said, "I'm sure what was going through the president's mind is -- we really don't know who did this -- it was tax day"...

Now why didn't I think of that?

The next thing you know, they're going to outlaw bombs.

Michael

[caroljane]

Now, this one is cute:

Axelrod: Obama Thinks Boston Bombings Could Be Related to 'Tax Day'

by Daniel Halper

April 16, 2013

The Weekly Standard

In explaining why President Obama didn't call the Boston bombings a "terrorist attack," former adviser David Axelrod said, "I'm sure what was going through the president's mind is -- we really don't know who did this -- it was tax day"...

Now why didn't I think of that?

The next thing you know, they're going to outlaw bombs.

Michael

And remove the individual right to construct bombs in the privacy of your home? If those spectators had all had their own bombs this would not have happened.

[syrakusos]

Much to think about and reflect on...

First, there were no other dud bombs. Or so it was said this morning.

Second, the "Saudi man" was cleared of involvement. I looked immediately to the Atlanta Olympics bombing in which the man who found them was wrongfully "profiled" as the perpetrator and eventually committed suicide from depression.

Also, I get "Amber Alert" messages on my phone all the time. Nothing about this. I found out about 6:00 PM (CDT), when on patrol in an office break room, I saw a TV report. Nothing from my supervisor when I checked in at 3:00 PM CDT. There was no nationwide alert. With 9/11 and the Invasion of Iraq, there were. In fact, I was posted to a railroad bridge in the desert the night of the invasion and in the morning found out why. This was handled totally differently.

None of the news outlets had any facts despite having reporters on site at the moment. I had to read through CNN, Reuters, and MSNBC and watch Fox to even find out the time of the explosions.

Five: Mark cites a Mobile, Alabama, runner who saw "bomb-sniffing dogs." (How did he know what kind of police dogs these were?) But on Fox at about 10:00 PM CDT, I saw a "former agent" expert being "grilled" by the anchor as to why there were no bomb-sniffing dogs and his reply was (oddly) "we do not know when the bomb was placed. It could have been placed days ago." The anchor asked again and the expert replied that it is impossible to secure a 26-mile corridor. Myself, I never trusted Fox. They are puppets, too.

Sixth, with something like this, someone takes credit. Someone calls in a threat ahead of the event. So far, nothing. All of the news outlets have the same lack of facts.

I also immediately considered Tax Day and Patriot's Day as a motive, but, again, when you consider the Phoenix shootings, and similar outlier events, motives are often unclear even to the perpetrator. And, as above, no announcements or credit taken.

[Mark]

Mark cites a Mobile, Alabama, runner who saw "bomb-sniffing dogs." (How did he know what kind of police dogs these were?) But on Fox at about 10:00 PM CDT, I saw a "former agent" expert being "grilled" by the anchor as to why there were no bomb-sniffing dogs and his reply was (oddly) "we do not know when the bomb was placed. It could have been placed days ago." The anchor asked again and the expert replied that it is impossible to secure a 26-mile corridor. Myself, I never trusted Fox. They are puppets, too.

The article doesn't say how the man (Ali Stevenson, a college running coach) knew. Perhaps he drew a conclusion: he saw police officers leading dogs that were sniffing around and asked himself what the dogs were for. Maybe they needed a walk, maybe they were bomb sniffing dogs, ...

The "former agent" interviewed on FOX probably knows less about this than the man who was there. And I would trust the man before I trusted a random former federal agent.

Note the more important point. The man (Stevenson) said: "They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise." (It's not clear if this refers to the dogs or to the policemen on the building roofs.)

[Mark]

... the Atlanta Olympics bombing in which the man who found them was wrongfully "profiled" as the perpetrator and eventually committed suicide from depression.

That would be Richard Jewell, only he died of natural causes and not depression.

[caroljane]

One thought I had was that to cause maximum carnage, the bombers could have targeted the Red Sox game earlier in the day, or the Bruins game scheduled for that night. But I suppose those would have to be suicide jobs, and maybe the so-far unknown murderers did not care to sacrifice their own precious lives.

This eerily reminds me of a Val McDermid thriller in which the VIP section at a football game in Britain is bombed. Of course in the novel the bomber (a Muslim btw) does it to kill his lover's husband.

Obviously I am distracted by hockey today (and no better distraction there is). I actually heard about the bombing on sports radio when the game day show was interrupted with the news, which then took over the show...today they had a couple of stories from the Senators reporter who was there for the Bruins game.

Four of the Ottawa players who were healthy scratches decided to go to the Marathon finish line after morning practice, but after lunch only one of them was still gung ho about it, but he didn't feel like going alone. So they all stayed at the hotel and rested. tThe time frame would have put them at the time of the explosion.

[tmj]

I've only been to Boston once (great town) it was last year and we stayed at the Lenox odd to see the news footage.

[Selene]

Much to think about and reflect on...

First, there were no other dud bombs. Or so it was said this morning.

Second, the "Saudi man" was cleared of involvement. I looked immediately to the Atlanta Olympics bombing in which the man who found them was wrongfully "profiled" as the perpetrator and eventually committed suicide from depression.

Also, I get "Amber Alert" messages on my phone all the time. Nothing about this. I found out about 6:00 PM (CDT), when on patrol in an office break room, I saw a TV report. Nothing from my supervisor when I checked in at 3:00 PM CDT. There was no nationwide alert. With 9/11 and the Invasion of Iraq, there were. In fact, I was posted to a railroad bridge in the desert the night of the invasion and in the morning found out why. This was handled totally differently.

None of the news outlets had any facts despite having reporters on site at the moment. I had to read through CNN, Reuters, and MSNBC and watch Fox to even find out the time of the explosions.

Five: Mark cites a Mobile, Alabama, runner who saw "bomb-sniffing dogs." (How did he know what kind of police dogs these were?) But on Fox at about 10:00 PM CDT, I saw a "former agent" expert being "grilled" by the anchor as to why there were no bomb-sniffing dogs and his reply was (oddly) "we do not know when the bomb was placed. It could have been placed days ago." The anchor asked again and the expert replied that it is impossible to secure a 26-mile corridor. Myself, I never trusted Fox. They are puppets, too.

Sixth, with something like this, someone takes credit. Someone calls in a threat ahead of the event. So far, nothing. All of the news outlets have the same lack of facts.

I also immediately considered Tax Day and Patriot's Day as a motive, but, again, when you consider the Phoenix shootings, and similar outlier events, motives are often unclear even to the perpetrator. And, as above, no announcements or credit taken.

Folks:

Beware selective retention wherein we believe what fits our internal profiling and belief system.

Second, the "Saudi man" was cleared of involvement.

There are no accurate sources that confirm that this statement is accurate.

However, their is a credible report from a local Fire Department website that they were called on to stand by while an apartment was searched with a warrant.

Additionally, it is alleged that there were the "proverbial" several bags of material taken out from the apartment. It also may have been the apartment of the "Saudi" man, who is alleged to be here on a student visa.

A...

[caroljane]

The other feel-good story from Ian Mendes is about Jason Simmonds of PEI (land of incredible women's field hockey). He was planning to spend the day staking out the finish line of the Marathon with his wife and stepson, but he met Dave Cameron, assistant coach of the Senators, who invited them to watch the morning skate instead. So Simmonds lived to tell the tale.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pressure cookers were used to make the bombs?

Dayaamm!

This proves it wasn't your typical American.

We eat out of processed food packages and cans, in restaurants, and mostly use the microwave in the kitchen these days.

I don't think the younger Americans (immigrants excepted) even know what a pressure cooker is except as some kind of ancient artifact like the Franklin stove.

(I'm exaggerating, but it's something to think about when the left goes hollering it has to be angry old white guys.)

Michael