Boston Marathon Bomb Attack?!?!?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I just heard on the radio that they have someone in custody. But that rumor/fact could all be coming from the same source and the rest are just repeating it.

[RayThom]

Well, we've learned a few things...

But these bombs weighed 20 pounds a piece, and it's unlikely that one person could have walked around casually with 40 pounds of bomb on them and released them separately and set them off that way..."

And then there was this web news item:
http://now.msn.com/soldiers-at-boston-m ... on-bombing

If this contingency of National Guard troops could run a full marathon with 40 pound backpacks (the weight of two pressure cooker bombs) then I'm sure the bomber(s) would have had no problem carrying object of similar weight and size... and quickly.

Conspiracy Theory Alert:
So I posit to you that the actors were dressed in military camo and walked freely through the crowds, OR, someone in the NG is totally disappointed in the actions of their leaders and/or government officials and felt compelled to show their disagreement in the worst possible way.

[Lord Jim]

-as I recall, the times square bomb was a bunch of firecrackers surrounded by gasoline, set to explode some propane gas cylinders that would (and I'm not sure if this would have worked) set off some fertilizer. While the firecrackers (or gasoline, I can't remember) were in a container sealed with duct tape, it does not appear to be the same as the pressure cooker bombs here, which were more like pipe bombs as I understand them.

Big RR, I haven't researched this, but I have seen several reputable retired FBI experts who appear on the cable news channels, (including MSNBC's Cliff Van Zandt , who is usually both quite knowledgeable and quite cautious about what he says) describe these pressure cooker bombs as very similar in design to the one that failed to go off in Times Square in 2010.

[Jarlaxle]

1. Timing. The bombs went off within 30 minutes of when most of the athletes running finished the race -- max time for spectators to be at the finish line, at just under the 4 hour mark of the race (BTW, a sub-4 hour marathon on this course isn't elite but it sure isn't shabby and it is indeed "serious.").

My best time is 3.29.20 (Cardiff 85,) I always wanted to break the 3 1/2 hour barrier. Don't know the course at Boston so it may be harder than the Cardiff one.

Unless you're 50+, that's not good enough to qualify.

Boston is often hard...probably because of the hills between miles 16 and 20, culminating in "Heartbreak Hill", a 0.4 mile (~600m), 4.5% grade between miles 20 and 21.

Also, April weather in Boston can vary widely...I have seen conditions ranging from 60 & beautiful (like this year), to 80+ (last year), to cool and windy, to cold, raw, windy, raining, and sleeting. (Needless to say, no records were in danger that year!)

[Gob]

Unless you're 50+, that's not good enough to qualify.

Never known that, a qualifying time, in all the ones I've run. Shame.

Most UK ones are open to anyone,

The London City Marathon (branded Virgin London Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is a long-distance running event, the world's largest marathon as of 2012 with 36,748 finishing the race, held in London, United Kingdom.

The race attracts amateur runners who make up the bulk of the thirty thousand or more participants; commonly running in fancy dress for charity causes.

you even get nutters like this "running" it;

In 2002, Lloyd Scott completed the marathon wearing a deep sea diving suit that weighed a total of 110 lb (50 kg), with each shoe weighing 24 lb (11 kg); he also set a record for the slowest London Marathon time

[Grim Reaper]

Some more information about one of the victims has been released, Lingzi Lu was one of those killed in the blast.

And officials at three of the hospitals expect all of their patients to survive. Although there are still several patients in critical condition.

[dales]

WASHINGTON — A letter sent to a Mississippi senator tested positive for the poison ricin, federal authorities revealed Tuesday, adding to security concerns in the Capitol after the Boston Marathon bombing.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, confirmed that an envelope addressed to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, a Republican, had been tested twice for ricin in a mail facility away from the Capitol with positive results both times. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was briefing senators on the Boston attack when she told them about the ricin.

The letter was postmarked in Memphis and had no suspicious markings or return address, the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms reported.

A federal official said the letter had been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratories in Quantico, Va., for further examination because field tests for ricin can be unreliable.

Ricin can be fatal if ingested or inhaled. In 2004, Senate offices were closed for days after the poison was found in the mailroom of Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, who was the majority leader then. And detection of ricin carried echoes of the anthrax attack on the Senate just days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, told reporters after the Napolitano briefing that the letter had come from someone who frequently writes lawmakers. She said the person had been identified, but she declined to divulge the name.

Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said: “Obviously, I’m concerned. It’s not just members concerned. It rarely gets to a member before it goes through a lot of staff, and that’s a big concern, obviously, for all of us. We’re very anxious to get more details.”

As a precaution, Senate post offices on Capitol Hill were shut down and will most likely remain closed for the rest of the week. Senators were told that there was no evidence of contamination inside the Capitol or on the grounds, but investigators were still looking into whether any similar envelopes had been sent to anyone in the House.

As Senator Angus King left Ms. Napolitano’s briefing, he said, “It’s now been confirmed that ricin was found in an envelope at the screening facility, which is off-site, not here at the Capitol.”

“I don’t have any information that it’s in any way connected with what happened in Boston,” Mr. King, an independent from Maine, said. “It may just be an unfortunate coincidence.”

They caught the son of a beech!

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man was arrested Wednesday, accused of sending letters to President Barack Obama and a senator that tested positive for the poisonous ricin and set the nation's capital on edge a day after the Boston Marathon bombings.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen said Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested at 5:15 p.m. at his apartment in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line about 100 miles east of Memphis. It wasn't immediately known where he was being held.

Authorities still waited for definitive tests on the letters to Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Preliminary field tests can often show false positives for ricin. The letters were intercepted before reaching the White House or Senate.

An FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said those two letters were postmarked Memphis, Tenn.

Both letters said: "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance." Both were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

As authorities scurried to investigate three questionable packages discovered in Senate office buildings, reports of suspicious items also came in from at least three senators' offices in their home states.

Sen. Carl Levin said a staff member at his Saginaw, Mich., office would spend the night in a hospital as a precaution after discovering a suspicious letter. The staff member had no symptoms, Levin said in a statement. He expected to learn preliminary results of tests on the letter by Thursday.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said suspicious letters at his Phoenix office had been cleared with nothing dangerous found. A package at Sen. John Cornyn's Dallas-area office also was declared harmless, a fire department spokesman said.

All three packages in the Capitol complex turned out to be safe, Capitol police spokeswoman Makema Turner said late Wednesday. But a man was still being questioned after being stopped in connection with the packages, she said.

All the activity came as tensions were high in Washington and across the country following Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured more than 170. The FBI said there was no indication of a connection between the letters and the bombing. The letters to Obama and Wicker were postmarked April 8, before the marathon.

Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, said mail sent to the White House is screened at a remote site for the safety of the recipients and the general public. He declined to comment on the significance of the preliminary ricin result, referring questions to the FBI.

Capitol Police swiftly ramped up security, and lawmakers and staff were cautioned away from some parts of the Hill complex. After hours of jangled nerves, officials signaled it was safe to move throughout the area and people settled back to normal, if watchful, activity.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer said that an individual who was responsible for simultaneous suspicious-package incidents in the Hart and Russell Senate office buildings on Tuesday was detained and released on Wednesday. The packages were not hazardous.

Gainer said the man was "not particularly harmful, although terribly disruptive."

At a House hearing, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe noted there had been ricin alerts since the notorious 2001 anthrax mailings and procedures are in place to protect postal employees and help track down culprits.

"Over the course of years we've had some situations where there have been ricin scares," Donahoe said. "Until this date, there's never been any actually proved that have gone through the system."

Even during the flurry of concern, normal business continued across most of the Capitol and its office buildings, with tour groups passing through and visitors streaming in and out of Wicker's office.

Amy Keough of Stow, Mass., and her family were searching for an open entrance to the Russell Senate Office building and walked by a U.S. Capitol Police hazardous materials vehicle. The Keoughs had been visiting Washington for several days, but Monday's marathon bombing was on their minds.

"We don't know really what it is that's going on," Keough said. "We're from Massachusetts, so right now anything is possible, with all the events in Boston."

[Lord Jim]

And officials at three of the hospitals expect all of their patients to survive. Although there are still several patients in critical condition.

That is a true miracle, given the extent of some of the injuries...

[Guinevere]

And officials at three of the hospitals expect all of their patients to survive. Although there are still several patients in critical condition.

That is a true miracle, given the extent of some of the injuries...

If DC is the city of lawyers, Boston is the city of hospitals. There are more hospitals and medical personnel per square mile here than anywhere I can think of -- and many of them were either volunteering at the marathon, or running it. And they are very very good at what they do. It made a huge difference.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/n ... ready.html

[Guinevere]

1. Timing. The bombs went off within 30 minutes of when most of the athletes running finished the race -- max time for spectators to be at the finish line, at just under the 4 hour mark of the race (BTW, a sub-4 hour marathon on this course isn't elite but it sure isn't shabby and it is indeed "serious.").

My best time is 3.29.20 (Cardiff 85,) I always wanted to break the 3 1/2 hour barrier. Don't know the course at Boston so it may be harder than the Cardiff one.

Unless you're 50+, that's not good enough to qualify.

Boston is often hard...probably because of the hills between miles 16 and 20, culminating in "Heartbreak Hill", a 0.4 mile (~600m), 4.5% grade between miles 20 and 21.

Also, April weather in Boston can vary widely...I have seen conditions ranging from 60 & beautiful (like this year), to 80+ (last year), to cool and windy, to cold, raw, windy, raining, and sleeting. (Needless to say, no records were in danger that year!)

I walked the second half of the course (13.1 miles) last September, in a fund-raiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer center, in honor of two friends fighting cancer. Those hills keep on coming, and just when you think they are done, there are more. Then you're going downhill, and the pain in your quads starts up. Obviously it is very different when running and on the full course, but I had my taste. And I just may do it again this fall . . . .

[Guinevere]

Unless you're 50+, that's not good enough to qualify.

Never known that, a qualifying time, in all the ones I've run. Shame.

Most UK ones are open to anyone,

The London City Marathon (branded Virgin London Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is a long-distance running event, the world's largest marathon as of 2012 with 36,748 finishing the race, held in London, United Kingdom.

The race attracts amateur runners who make up the bulk of the thirty thousand or more participants; commonly running in fancy dress for charity causes.

Like I said before, there are plenty of bandits, and many many runners who don't quality, who still run for charity. But in this country to "BQ" is the gold standard for almost every distance runner. London and NYC may be bigger, but there are none better.

[RayThom]

Great medical science and practice does not constitute what you claim as "miracles." None of these so-called miracles would have been possible without all the wonderful doctors, nurses, and EMTs found in a large metropolitian city. A God-like miracle -- the kind to which you allude -- would have been these bombs blowing up while their maker was sitting alone with them in a concrete bunker. Now there's your miracle.

Now under these circumstances, even an avowed atheist as myself, would be running to the nearest church nave begging the priest for forgiveness and instant baptism. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Of course the chances of this happening are as remote as the "miracle" to which I allude.

Now excuse me while I change some tap water into a jeroboam of Dom Perignon. Cheers!

[Gob]

Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American

As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_ho ... _american/

[oldr_n_wsr]

What a bunch of baloney.
Sure there have been more than a few white men who have carried out terrorist attacks however, most have acted alone or with a few accomplises. The UNA bomber (loner), McVeigh (one or two accomplises, I forget). Even the nutjobs who gunned down mass amounts of people were loners or had one pal who helped. Seems those who are not white and are Muslim extremists get help (money, knowledge, supplies) from their "network" in and out of the country.
And the writer should have included (but probably purposely excluded) that he hopes the bomber is a white guy AND a member of either the Republican, Conservative or Tea Party.

[liberty]

Well there is a pressure cooker, in my opinion that is a mistake on the part of the bombers. It they made one mistake hopefully they made others. A pressure cooker had to be made somewhere and sold somewhere, sold by someone and purchased by someone. Some where someone is missing a pressure cooker. Perhaps a wife or a maid will notice that the cooker she has been using for years is missing and start wondering.

[Guinevere]

http://www.fbi.gov/boston/press-release ... s-briefing

FBI and US Attorney presser at today at 5PM.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Or if it's like many a pressure cooker, they got it as a wedding gift and it sat in the attic for years and years til they forgot they had it.

[Gob]

Oh well, someone had to....

[liberty]

Or if it's like many a pressure cooker, they got it as a wedding gift and it sat in the attic for years and years til they forgot they had it.

I use mine, works well. It cooks fast and tasty

[Guinevere]

You really want to promote such racist claptrap? Those are *not* the photos the FBI released tonight. Do as they asked and ignore everything else.

FBI photos here: http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/04 ... story.html