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Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

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Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#551

Post by pyre »

paganel wrote: post #395
podperson wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anything much has changed. It's interesting to look at Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" -- published in 1907 -- which is based on a true story (of an anarchist attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894). All the elements of modern "terrorism" are there back then: a half-wit dupe bomber, nutjobs with a crazy ideology (anarchism in this case), and national actors manipulating them from behind the scen…

> All the elements of modern "terrorism" are there back then: a half-wit dupe bomber, nutjobs with a crazy ideology (anarchism in this case), and national actors manipulating them from behind the scenes. And before that there were of course the Russians, where I think everything started ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Russia#19th_centu... ): > Nechaev argued that the purpose of revolutionary terror is no…

  | "infiltrating and influencing revolutionary
  | groups"
This happens in the US now, but usually the undercover official isn't attempting to convince them not to do something bad. They are either encouraged to do something bad, or allowed to, so that they can be caught in the act and everyone can get a good pat on the back for a job well-done in capturing the 'bad guys.'

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#552

Post by damncabbage »

spitx wrote: post #489
SODaniel wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Boston Globe ‏@BostonGlobe 34s BREAKING NEWS: Police getting multiple reports of unexploded devices around Boston 3.38 pm Central time. Update: The Boston Globe ‏@BostonGlobe 28s RT @billy_baker: "It's not safe to be here." - Boston Police evacuating Commonwealth Avenue mall at Gloucester. 3.45 Central time. Update: The Boston Globe ‏@BostonGlobe 1m Boston Police: If anyone knows of any information call about exp…

NBCNEWS: "Boston police say there was no specific intelligence warning of any kind of attack, and federal officials tonight say there is no reason to think that this is part of any larger threat. At this point they believe it is confined to Boston, but a meeting tonight will decide whether any kind of national alert will be sent out. There is no suspect in custody, authorities say, but some people are being questione…

  "One of those, a person in whom there is some interest, is
   a young person who was here on a student visa,"
  "Being aggressively questioned now."
I hope this is just NBC News being over the top.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#553

Post by manish_gill »

uptown wrote: post #250

Authorities ID suspect as Saudi national in marathon bombings, under guard at Boston hospital http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/authorities_under_susp... EDIT: Two media outlets reporting conflicting information, so not sure if this is reliable information.

Yeah, pretty sure it was the case of being a Saudi nearby the explosion.

10-to-1 this is a domestic issue. If it was international terrorism, wouldn't someone have claimed responsibility by now?

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#554

Post by Permit »

RivieraKid wrote: post #503
darkarmani wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disproportionate media attention and hysteria. What is disproportionate about it? Large bombs don't go off in US cities every day. Are you surprised that there are bombings in Iraq? Is that something you don't expect?

Disproportionate to how many people died. And calm down please.

When has the news ever covered stories solely in proportion to the number of people who died? I don't understand how you could be astonished by this...

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#556

Post by DanBC »

andrewfelix wrote: post #521
RivieraKid wrote: post #453

I'm quite astonished by the disproportionate media attention and hysteria. For comparison 55 people died today in an Iraq bombing and about 80 people die every day on the U.S. roadways.

It's also getting widespread coverage everywhere, especially TV News. So this is entirely inappropriate for HN.

I should flag the submission.

But what happens if I do? Is my flagging affected by me using a flag on something with so many up votes?

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#557

Post by vacri »

andypants wrote: post #493
anigbrowl wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mere seconds after the explosion took place, with the smoke still drifting through the air. Already they've made it to the side of the most obvious casualty; I can't really see the basis for your comment.

They are all facing away from the explosion. The first explosion happened on the side with the flags, you can see the smoke is thickest there. Just pointing out an observation. There could be other officers already on the scene of the explosion, and these guys are handling the crowds.

Generally speaking, the one place a criminal is not is the scene of the crime. Explosion over there? If the criminal is still around, they are not going to be at that site (and if they are, they're not in a state to worry about further criminal action coming from them).

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#558

Post by nitrogen »

Duhck wrote: post #382
buffportion wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking for a solution to the problem of people killing other people.

No, people will always kill other people, that is the unfortunate truth of human nature. That doesn't mean there aren't multiple problems here, and each one with multiple solutions. Our lawmakers know just as well as we do, that more laws won't fix events like these, but better messaging ("See something say something"), better trained police officers, etc.. these are things that are controllable, changeable, and have…

"See something say something" is still far too late in the process. As a society we need to do a better job of preventing people from being abused, neglected, and marginalized.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#559

Post by thadk »

garretruh wrote: post #397
tptacek wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has any named official confirmed the cell service shutdown? I'm hearing the opposite. The original shutdown report I heard was attributed to an unnamed BPD source. This is obviously a particularly easy rumor to spread when the networks are all jammed up with callers.

You might be right. It's contradicted by both Sprint and Verizon here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/official-cellphone-service-sh... Edit: And, it seems, AT&T: https://twitter.com/ATT/status/323915702132150272

You can locally jam cell phone frequencies without involving the operators--seems like that'd be default bomb squad kit. I was along the racetrack at mile 23 and signal and data were extremely poor starting 10-15 minutes after the event--The local cells of the network could also have been simply overloaded.
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