Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[Morat20]

On a semi-related note: Actually quite relieved it was apparently a foreign nutcase, no matter his motivation, than a local crazy.

Why?

Honestly? Because I don't want to believe domestic politics have gotten that bad.

I mean, obviously it has -- there's ricin mailings and militias and shit like the Oklahoma bombings, but....*shrug*. I'd like to live in denial.

This? Hand to god, based on absolutely nothing except the fact that these chuckleheads apparently never expected to get caught (and thus panicked, raided a 7-11, and stole a car) -- I don't think it's terrorism. Or Islam. Or anything really, but basically just a sociopathic kid who thinks he's way the fuck smarter than everyone. (Honestly, I figure one of the brothers manipulates the other like a damn puppet. Probably the one that didn't die last night).

I think this is basically a spree killing. A school shooting by a guy who wanted to keep going. Sorta like the Beltway snipers. "Because I can and the idiot sheep won't catch me and also I'm fucking narcissistic as shit, lack the ability to empathize, and am a sociopath". (Or Psychopath. Fuck if I can keep them straight. There's a charming type that sees other people as not real, tools for enjoyment).

Fuck the bullshit Islam crap. I don't buy it. I think this is just a creepy little spree killer who was getting his jollies, not some fucking strike against the Great Satan. (Although he'd probably like everyone to think so, because that'd be just further proof he's smarter than everyone).

[Fabricated]

Here's a fun thing.

Erick Son of Erick: Cowards? Really?

On Monday, two young men planted bombs in Boston and last night killed a policeman before one of them was, himself, killed. The other remains on the run.

Politicians have thrown around the word “cowards” to describe these guys.

Do they not know what the word means?

The basic definition is “a person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things.”

These young men have endured danger and caused unpleasantness.

Call the monsters. Call them evil. But cowards? I don’t think it fits.

Now what he said isn't interesting. He's correct technically. What's strange is that it seems to have disappeared off of the front page and no one else has posted about it past the first 5 people.

[MediumHigh]

The problem is that when the internet fails who is held accountable? Nobody. That's the problem. At least when the FBI or the Police fuck up we can hang someone for it.

[Nevermore]

Now what he said isn't interesting. He's correct technically. What's strange is that it seems to have disappeared off of the front page and no one else has posted about it past the first 5 people.

Didn't Bill Maher get fired from ABC for saying something similar about the 9/11 hijackers?

[Venkman]

Now what he said isn't interesting. He's correct technically.

Nah, what's interesting is he said it, and at way the wrong fucking time.

These kids were cowards not because of what they did, but how they did it. Random targeting for god-only-knows-what reason and seemingly shocked how quickly they had to go on the run from the manhunt (just going by what was covered, they didn't seem to have an escape plan, which implies they thought they'd get away with this for some time... I think someone else mentioned this a few pages back).

That's cowardice: "I'm pissed, but I'm not going to tell anyone why nor try and identify the root cause and figure out a way to fix. I'm going to just blow some shit up like it's fucking GTA."

Fuck the bullshit Islam crap. I don't buy it. I think this is just a creepy little spree killer who was getting his jollies, not some fucking strike against the Great Satan.

I hope you're right. Maybe the three taken into custody in New Bedford are just being brought in for questioning. Local news is reporting it as "arrest" but that's only from neighbors' accounts, nothing official. Given the week this has been, I can't blame anyone who thinks Cops show up + people going away with them = arrest.

[KallDrexx]

Wasn't there a 3rd suspect they saw the two men talking to at the marathon?

[luckton]

And my FB feed is already full of my conservative peeps crying that Obama is parading out on to TV in prime time to either A) claim the victory was because of him or B) that he used a script instead of speaking from the heart   

[Tale]

Re the mistaken identity earlier. I didn't post it, but I don't blame anyone for posting it. Sunil looked like the FBI suspect. They had a similar nose, hairline and eyebrows. He was missing from the same area. It was quite a coincidence.

Even one of Sunil's college friends, who had long been involved in the search for him, tweeted "OMG it is Sunil". I would have put that fact in a story.

[Paelos]

Do they have a good legal case against the kid?

[Ghambit]

Beck gives Obama till Monday, or else   

[Quinton]

Or else what?

[Evildrider]

Or else he'll keep doing his talk show?

[Morat20]

Is Beck still shilling gold?

As to the whole marathon thing -- surprised at how quickly this ended up moving. I figured there was a good chance we'd never have any idea who did it unless they kept doing it -- or started writing in badly worded manifestos.

[Evildrider]

Is Beck still shilling gold?

As to the whole marathon thing -- surprised at how quickly this ended up moving. I figured there was a good chance we'd never have any idea who did it unless they kept doing it -- or started writing in badly worded manifestos.

I wanna know wtf they were thinking not having an exit strategy.  I'm thinking either they planned on becoming suicide bombers or they really thought they wouldn't get caught.

[Abagadro]

My supposition is that the "mastermind" of this was the older brother whose sole qualification seems to be being able to get punched in the head.  He influences his smarter, younger, susceptible brother into building the devices and carrying out the plan but that's about as far as the "planning" went.

[apocrypha]

As I said before, there is no way that this "crowdsourced investigation" can be stopped now. This is going to happen forever now. We can huff and puff about whether it's a good idea or not until we go blue in the face, it's not going to change.

The danger is when someone innocent is accused by the crowd mob another time that something far more serious will happen to them. When this develops into full-blown vigilantism and brown people with backpacks are getting strung up from lampposts then the world will have taken another step towards chaos and barbarism.

Couple of other things that I find disturbing about this whole event. Firstly, and this isn't new of course but I've not really thought about it before, the accusations at the start from the right that this was a "false flag". Clearly there's a double standard there since now that the suspects have been identified as foreign and brown those claims have disappeared. But just the fact that you have a sizable minority who are so disenfranchised by government and so misinformed by media that they genuinely believe that their government would fake terrorist attacks on it's own population is very worrying. Dismissing them as crazies strikes me as lazy. Sure, some of the people posting shit like that on Twitter may well be clinically mentally ill, but not all of them by a long shot.

Secondly there's a serious double standard being expressed by pretty much everyone talking about it, even on this board and in the liberal media, and that's the way that white, American suspects are referred to as "lone wolves" and foreign suspects are referred to simply by group - "muslim", "Chechen", etc. The implication is that if the perpetrators had been white Americans then nothing much would have happened as a result. The individuals responsible would have been caught, tried, vilified (or more likely just killed by police etc) and that would have been that. If however, as it seems is the case, they were brown or foreign or both then the entire religion or country from which they originated would be targeted - possibly militarily, at least there would have been strong pressure for that to happen.

[Goumindong]

Re the mistaken identity earlier. I didn't post it, but I don't blame anyone for posting it. Sunil looked like the FBI suspect. They had a similar nose, hairline and eyebrows. He was missing from the same area. It was quite a coincidence.

Even one of Sunil's college friends, who had long been involved in the search for him, tweeted "OMG it is Sunil". I would have put that fact in a story.

First off no it did not look like him. Sunil has a hooked nose and the bomber does not. You saw the noses as similar because you wanted to see the noses as similar.

Second off no it was retarded. Full on motherfucking retarded that Sunil was a bomber. The reasons are obvious if anyone actually bothered to look at sunil's case. Sunil's disappearance was mysterious in a way that was sure to attract attention and the fact they he left his wallet would have made carrying out the bombing harder.

Basically in order for the Sunil story to make sense Sunil would have had to decided to act in such a way as to create law enforcement manhunts for him only weeks before he planned to bomb a major sporting event. Anyone should have seen that and said "not credible" just like the "guy on the roof" and the other 8.5 million suspects reddit identified

[Furiously]

So are they enemy combatants who get waterboarded in gitmo or do they go to trial in a three ring circus?

[Merusk]

Now what he said isn't interesting. He's correct technically. What's strange is that it seems to have disappeared off of the front page and no one else has posted about it past the first 5 people.

Didn't Bill Maher get fired from ABC for saying something similar about the 9/11 hijackers?

Yes.  But that was about brown people not Caucasians so it wasn't acceptable.

[Arthur_Parker]

Congrats on getting them both, shutting down an entire city, just to get someone who has fucked with you is something I approve of, it might even make future idiots think twice.

Now they'll want to know why they did it and that's much less interesting.

[Simond]

So are they enemy combatants who get waterboarded in gitmo or do they go to trial in a three ring circus?

Pretty sure Obama's said civilian trial, which is good for a number of reason including the lack of 'glamour' i.e. effectively saying to the surviving bomber "no, you're not an enemy of the state that needs to be locked up in a special extra-judicial prison camp, you're a murderer".

Have a nice, legal, public trial, find him guilty, and lock him up in Supermax for the rest of his natural.

[Tale]

And kudoes, Tale.  Australian news scoops the billion-dollar "infotainment" colossus, and thank you for cluing us in.

Getting wind of an Australian angle, actually. Our newses tonight went nuts for the fact Tamerlan Tsarnaev's apparent YouTube account reveals he was into sermons by controversial Sydney cleric Sheikh Feiz Mohamed. Nobody knows where the Sheikh (Aussie born and raised) is at the moment.

And now apparently Fox News is claiming that apart from the Russian government referring Tamerlan to the USA for something, the Australian government did too, two years ago. Not sure why that would be the case, but our spy agency ASIO was reported to have briefed our Prime Minister earlier (I'd have thought that's just standard procedure, not about an Australian link). Not the best of sources so far...

[MediumHigh]

He is getting a civilian trial because the kids an American citizen.  No deliberate message there, if he gets tried and the family still gives a shit to afford him a lawyer, he'll get a few years for resisting arrrest, probably served in a pysch ward. He'll see the sun light when he is 30 or 25.

[IainC]

....he'll get a few years for resisting arrrest, probably served in a pysch ward. He'll see the sun light when he is 30 or 25.

Not a chance. If there's any evidence linking him to the bombing then he'll get charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism and he'll never see the outside of a cell again.

[Numtini]

Even if they can't link him to the bombing, he's going to get life for killing a cop. The only way this kid is going to avoid spending the rest of his life in Walpole is if he dies in hospital or the feds take over the case and give him the needle.

[MediumHigh]

Or if they pin the blame on his brother. 15 years tops.

[DraconianOne]

Even if they can't link him to the bombing, he's going to get life for killing a cop. The only way this kid is going to avoid spending the rest of his life in Walpole is if he dies in hospital or the feds take over the case and give him the needle.

They better fucking not. I'm anti death penalty at the best of times but particularly so in this case because it'll be the easy way out. He needs to live so that he can spend the rest of his wretched life coming to terms with what he did.

[MediumHigh]

He won't get life.

[Arthur_Parker]

That's an odd opinion to hold.

Domestic terrorism is punished extremely harshly everywhere in the world, especially if it takes place on "home soil".  Plus a future amnesty or peace deal with anyone aligned with these guys looks remote as US policy would more likely involve massive retaliation.

[UnSub]

I would have put that fact in a story.

Someone else who will point to the 'facts' will be Alan Jones, who was proven part right in his ugly stereotyping:

"I wouldn't be surprised if this was a conspiracy amongst students, left-wing radical students in Boston, and I think we have to think also very seriously here about our own student numbers," Jones said on Sunrise.

"We're very keen to have foreign students pay the way of universities in this country without a lot of discernment about who comes in. But I think the fact that we've been spared this kind of thing, touch wood, for so long highlights, as I said, the relentless work done by ASIO and all our police organisations."

[Lakov_Sanite]

If you say something three times on the internet it comes true, or so I hear. 

[Merusk]

I would have put that fact in a story.

Someone else who will point to the 'facts' will be Alan Jones, who was proven part right in his ugly stereotyping:

"I wouldn't be surprised if this was a conspiracy amongst students, left-wing radical students in Boston, and I think we have to think also very seriously here about our own student numbers," Jones said on Sunrise.

Called that one.

[Paelos]

Now they'll want to know why they did it and that's much less interesting.

Agree. It's always stupid and pointless reasoning. The fact that people have a sick obsession with killers makes it even more depressing.

[Venkman]

As I said before, there is no way that this "crowdsourced investigation" can be stopped now.

So I agree with this, but I also don't know why some consider this a big deal. Sure, the magnitude of information provided and dissected was bigger than usual. But they've been crowd-sourcing this kind of thing since they started posting missing pictures on telephone poles. So I don't know if we saw any sort of quantum shift in the way some people are talking about it.

Maybe it's just as that Wired article said: it's that law enforcement is more open to accepting citizen submissions?

And sorry to derail here, but this is one of the few things I do feel strongly about:

He needs to live so that he can spend the rest of his wretched life coming to terms with what he did.

I respectfully disagree

Why do I need to pay for that? Guy's broken. He's not going to become an upstanding mortgage holder soccer dad except by divine intervention. So now he gets indoctrinated into the social rules of whatever prison he ends up and eventually accepts that that is all there is in life on my dime?

Fuck that.

When we can actually turn people like that around successfully and consistently, then I'll be opposed to the death penalty. For now, I'm fine with that being what we've got for the truly busted people.

[IainC]

Life without parole is generally cheaper than the average death sentence.