Two huge explosions at finish line of Boston Marathon

[Vandal]

This is what Boston looks like right now:

[littlebeast13]

This is what Boston looks like right now:

The Citgo sign reminds me, and I realize this is a real WGAS/WTF question to ask in this situation, but I'm gonna ask it anyway because obla-di obla-da life goes on....

Any word yet on the status of the Royals/Red Sox series this weekend? I have two starters going in the series and debated pulling them both this morning figuring the games would be in jeopardy until the lockdown is over...

lb13

[Vandal]

@nickcafardo: Red Sox COO Sam Kennedy said no decision on tonight's Red Sox-Royals game "until we hear from city officials.

[Vandal]

Two military helicopters have landed at UMass Dartmouth




ETA: They took off soon after. No word if anyone got on or off.

[Vandal]

Nick Cafardo ‏@nickcafardo
David Ortiz said he was informed that tonight's game has been cancelled.


ETA Update:

David Ortiz ‏@davidortiz
Everyone be safe- we're still waiting to hear about tonight's game, no news yet. #BostonStrong

[Vandal]

A window view of the streets of Watertown:





Brave new world...

[Spock]

My 6 degrees of Separation.

Son of neighbor's-he is about my age and he worked for us growing up and stuff and we rent land from his folk's and we sometimes hunt together. Anyway, his daughter goes to Harvard(I do not know the daughter and did not know she went to Harvard). Anyway-her roommate lost both legs.

FWIW-when they showed the pics yesterday-I was thinking Chechens.

[Bob Juch]

My 6 degrees of Separation.

Son of neighbor's-he is about my age and he worked for us growing up and stuff and we rent land from his folk's and we sometimes hunt together. Anyway, his daughter goes to Harvard(I do not know the daughter and did not know she went to Harvard). Anyway-her roommate lost both legs.

FWIW-when they showed the pics yesterday-I was thinking Chechens.

Despite the surviving brother having the name of the capital they never lived in Chechnya.

[Estonut]

They have found #2. Here's a pretty good multi-media feed:

http://news.yahoo.com/control-room/?vp=1

ABC Live feed:

http://news.yahoo.com/video/abc-news-pl ... 00361.html

[Vandal]

Reports say suspect #2 is alive and in custody.

[jarnon]

ABC News confirms that Dzhokhar is in custody.

In the last few days, law enforcement has solved their three biggest cases: the Texas prosecutor murders, the Ricin mailings, and the Boston Marathon bombing. It shows that when they apply all their resources, real-life cops can be as effective as the ones on TV.

Unfortunately, capturing these scumbags often comes at the cost of heroic police officers' lives. From J.D. Tippet (murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald) to Jeremiah MacKay (killed by Christopher Dorner) and Sean Collier (killed by the Tsarnaevs), and so many in between, they're prepared to sacrifice themselves to capture these assholes and protect the rest of us. They'll live forever in our grateful memories.

[Bob Juch]

ABC News confirms that Dzhokhar is in custody.

In the last few days, law enforcement has solved their three biggest cases: the Texas prosecutor murders, the Ricin mailings, and the Boston Marathon bombing. It shows that when they apply all their resources, real-life cops can be as effective as the ones on TV.

Unfortunately, capturing these scumbags often comes at the cost of heroic police officers' lives. From J.D. Tippet (murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald) to Jeremiah MacKay (killed by Christopher Dorner) and Sean Collier (killed by the Tsarnaevs), and so many in between, they're prepared to sacrifice themselves to capture these assholes and protect the rest of us. They'll live forever in our grateful memories.

Not to make like of it at all, but they were redshirts.

[plasticene]

Not to make like of it at all, but they were redshirts.

What ever would possess you to post something so patently and gratuitously offensive? I'm disgusted!

[BackInTex]

Not to make like of it at all, but they were redshirts.

What ever would possess you to post something so patently and gratuitously offensive? I'm disgusted!

You have to ask?

Of course, I don't understand the reference, but given the source, I will trust you that it is offensive.

[littlebeast13]

Not to make like of it at all, but they were redshirts.

What ever would possess you to post something so patently and gratuitously offensive? I'm disgusted!

You have to ask?

Of course, I don't understand the reference, but given the source, I will trust you that it is offensive.

Red Shirts is a reference to Star Trek. In movie and TV parlance, it refers to expendable, unimportant members of the cast who can be (and often are) killed without emotionally impacting the viewer.

I took a deep breath before I asked about the status of the ballgames this weekend. That statement by Bob was despicably low even by his standards. I am speechless...

lb13

[Vandal]

First shot of suspect as he was taken into custody:





Hey, somebody had to check if he was packing a suicide bomb.




Note: No red shirts to be found.

[etaoin22]

First shot of suspect as he was taken into custody:





Hey, somebody had to check if he was packing a suicide bomb.




Note: No red shirts to be found.

no one got to check if he had an explosive device in his rectum? really really high up?

[TheConfessor]

My 6 degrees of Separation.

Son of neighbor's-he is about my age and he worked for us growing up and stuff and we rent land from his folk's and we sometimes hunt together. Anyway, his daughter goes to Harvard(I do not know the daughter and did not know she went to Harvard). Anyway-her roommate lost both legs.

FWIW-when they showed the pics yesterday-I was thinking Chechens.

Despite the surviving brother having the name of the capital they never lived in Chechnya.

Huh? The capital of Chechnya is Grozny. The surviving brother is named Dzhokhar.

[Bob Juch]

My 6 degrees of Separation.

Son of neighbor's-he is about my age and he worked for us growing up and stuff and we rent land from his folk's and we sometimes hunt together. Anyway, his daughter goes to Harvard(I do not know the daughter and did not know she went to Harvard). Anyway-her roommate lost both legs.

FWIW-when they showed the pics yesterday-I was thinking Chechens.

Despite the surviving brother having the name of the capital they never lived in Chechnya.

Huh? The capital of Chechnya is Grozny. The surviving brother is named Dzhokhar.

In Russian, "Grozny" means "fearsome", "awesome" or "redoubtable". During the existence of the separatist republic, the city was renamed Dzokhar-Ghala in 1996, and Chechen separatists sometimes continue to refer to the city as Dzhokhar or Djohar (Chechen: Джовхар-ГIала, Dƶovxar-Ġala); it was named so after Dzhokhar Dudaev, the first president of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

[ghostjmf]

Sean Collier was reportedly gunned down while sitting in his MIT Campus Police car. Contrary to initial reports, the bomber brothers were not the ones "creating the disturbance" (thought to be a robbery) at the 7/11 on or near the MIT campus that Collier may have been responding to. The bomber brothers apparently saw Collier & decided they needed his car. So they killed him. Contrary to local suspicions, including mine, I'm sad to say, that this was a campus cop trying to act like a real cop when they shouldn't have, Sean Collier was not sticking his neck out unnecessarily; he probably never knew what hit him & he actually was a real police officer; had been through the same training as real police & was 1st in line for the next position to open on the Somerville police roster. Says the mayor of Somerville.


Later in their attempted escape the bomber brothers hijacked an SUV but let the driver go, or the driver escaped. The nonstop reporting that went on locally from start of it all in the early hours of Friday morning until the younger brother was discovered hiding in the boat Friday evening has not covered that SUV driver, presumably in police custody & talking to police.


Note I'm not saying "suspects" because I'm not in the official media, or law enforcement so I don't have watch letting my opinion seep into my language on this one.


CBS's 60 Minutes gave out a couple pieces of info that also were not on the nonstop local media coverage, including the CBS affiliate. The one that pops into my mind right now as most important is "how did the FBI etc single this pair out of pictures of a huge crowd, many of whom were also carrying or wheeling large backpacks/suitcases that would have fit the description of the pieces of luggage found among the bomb fragments”. The answer is “they were looking for people who did not look surprised *after* the blast”.

[silverscreenselect]

Sean Collier was not sticking his neck out unnecessarily; he probably never knew what hit him & he actually was a real police officer; had been through the same training as real police & was 1st in line for the next position to open on the Somerville police roster. Says the mayor of Somerville.

Yet another sad recent example of a well armed, well trained victim unable to defend himself against armed assailants who, as usually happens, have the element of surprise in a fatal confrontation. Yet the NRA continues to spin the yarn that the only thing we can do about this is to give ordinary law abiding citizens a rather illusory opportunity to arm oursevles as well as the Tsarnaev brothers so we'll have a sporting chance to outdraw and outshoot them. I'd rather we take more steps to deny them the firepower to engage in massive shootouts with police.

And by the way, the shootout didn't end with the cops outdrawing and outshooting the Tsarnaevs. It ended when the older brother ran out of ammunition and tried to surrender before the younger brother ran him over with the SUV.

[BackInTex]

Yet another sad recent example of a well armed, well trained victim unable to defend himself against armed assailants who, as usually happens, have the element of surprise in a fatal confrontation. Yet the NRA continues to spin the yarn that the only thing we can do about this is to give ordinary law abiding citizens a rather illusory opportunity to arm oursevles as well as the Tsarnaev brothers so we'll have a sporting chance to outdraw and outshoot them. I'd rather we take more steps to deny them the firepower to engage in massive shootouts with police.

And by the way, the shootout didn't end with the cops outdrawing and outshooting the Tsarnaevs. It ended when the older brother ran out of ammunition and tried to surrender before the younger brother ran him over with the SUV.

I'll take the sporting chance, how small you may think it be, vs. no chance at all.

And the decision to draw on an unsuspecting individual includes the analysis of while I'm shooting this one who has only an illusory chance to outdraw me, I wonder how many of the others nearby who will have a very real advantage (should they be armed) of getting their sights on me before I can finish off Joe #1 and re-target.

In Boston, that decision is pretty easy. No chance of others getting the advantage on me. In Houston, not so much.

And no law on the book, proposed, or imagined by your small mind would have prevented these guys from getting guns.

[flockofseagulls104]

Yet another sad recent example of a well armed, well trained victim unable to defend himself against armed assailants who, as usually happens, have the element of surprise in a fatal confrontation. Yet the NRA continues to spin the yarn that the only thing we can do about this is to give ordinary law abiding citizens a rather illusory opportunity to arm oursevles as well as the Tsarnaev brothers so we'll have a sporting chance to outdraw and outshoot them. I'd rather we take more steps to deny them the firepower to engage in massive shootouts with police.

And by the way, the shootout didn't end with the cops outdrawing and outshooting the Tsarnaevs. It ended when the older brother ran out of ammunition and tried to surrender before the younger brother ran him over with the SUV.

I'll take the sporting chance, how small you may think it be, vs. no chance at all.

And the decision to draw on an unsuspecting individual includes the analysis of while I'm shooting this one who has only an illusory chance to outdraw me, I wonder how many of the others nearby who will have a very real advantage (should they be armed) of getting their sights on me before I can finish off Joe #1 and re-target.

In Boston, that decision is pretty easy. No chance of others getting the advantage on me. In Houston, not so much.

And no law on the book, proposed, or imagined by your small mind would have prevented these guys from getting guns.

And then there is this thing called the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. It is part of a thing called the Bill of Rights. Our Rights. It kind of says that the Federal Government is specifically not allowed to infringe upon OUR rights to keep and bear arms. What they are trying to do seems an awful lot like infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms to me.

If a state or locality wants to ban firearms, then they can go for it. If the Federal Government wants to make ANY law that has to do with limiting the right of a citizen to have a firearm, regardless of their background check or perceived mental state, they need to first amend the Constitution. Obama and Congress do not care about the Constitution that every one of them has sworn to protect, defend and uphold.

And, even that aside, the law that is proposed, which includes all the unrelated crap they always add to it, would not have prevented Newtown or anything like it. People that break the law will not comply with any of it and they will get their weapons regardless of any law. The guy who attacked Sandy Hook School stole his weapons from someone who got them in accordance with the laws.
The only thing making a new law does is create more people who may not be in compliance with the new rules. So it basically just creates new criminals.

But the talking points that Obama is creating blames the defeat of his gun control bill on the NRA and attacks the lawmakers and citizens who realize it does not address or fix anything. Obama's rants on this subject are particularly offensive, even by his standards. He does not represent me, and he seems to have no regard for my values and point of view. Obama is the most partisan and mean spirited President I have seen in my lifetime.

[silverscreenselect]

In Boston, that decision is pretty easy. No chance of others getting the advantage on me. In Houston, not so much.

And no law on the book, proposed, or imagined by your small mind would have prevented these guys from getting guns.

I'm not sure how close Houston is to Kaufman County, but being armed in Texas didn't stop the DA from being shot 20 times.

And by your logic, we shouldn't have any criminal laws because laws against murder didn't stop those guys from killing people. Gun control laws won't stop all criminals or would-be criminals from getting guns but it will stop some of them and make it easier to catch others.

[flockofseagulls104]

In Boston, that decision is pretty easy. No chance of others getting the advantage on me. In Houston, not so much.

And no law on the book, proposed, or imagined by your small mind would have prevented these guys from getting guns.

I'm not sure how close Houston is to Kaufman County, but being armed in Texas didn't stop the DA from being shot 20 times.

And by your logic, we shouldn't have any criminal laws because laws against murder didn't stop those guys from killing people. Gun control laws won't stop all criminals or would-be criminals from getting guns but it will stop some of them and make it easier to catch others.

Only if you enforce them. Ask Chicago how that is working out.