Explosions at the Boston Marathon 1105
Reports are coming in that the headquarters at the Boston Marathon have been locked down after two explosions were reported near the finish line. According to reports "dozens of people have been seriously injured." CNN has live coverage. Google has a Person Finder up for Boston.
Update: The Boston Police Dept. says 2 people have died and 23 are injured. News conference scheduled for 4:30 ET.
Update: The Boston Police Dept. says 2 people have died and 23 are injured. News conference scheduled for 4:30 ET.
On TV now (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On TV now (Score:2, Insightful)
Heh (Score:0, Insightful)
Sports are good for your health, they said, but I'm the one laughing now in the basement.
Re:the world is so full of jerks... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, some people go to foreign countries and shoot people from flying drones, others place bombs. Everyone thinks they are the good guys.
Well, crap (Score:5, Insightful)
I just felt a tremor in the force, like the Bill of Rights being stripped from hundreds of millions of Americans...
Now then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said -- if this isn't an accident -- there are so many ways to go with this one. First, it's April 15 - which is the TEA party day of action. (got to listen to a "what will you do to defend your country" speech at lunch today). Second, the last mile of the Boston Marathon was dedicated to the victims of Newtown -- so there's that lead in. Third, various politicians et al attend the race -- so there's the assassination angle.
Best course -- pray it turns out to have been a big gas leak.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
If we wanted to read about ALL news, we would go to news.google.com or something.
Actually, I was reading about it at google news just a few minutes ago, and slashdot tends to be a bit late to the party in reporting stories like this. I'd agree that it's a bit of a waste of bandwidth, disk space, etc. for /. to bother with it. Unless, of course, it turns out eventually that there's an interesting tech component to the story. It's likely that anyone interested in such "public interest" stories has a window open to one or more of the general news sources. So /. shouldn't bother.
OT prediction: If it turns out that the act was committed by an American nutjob, as with the Oklahoma City bombing the media and political system will quickly forget about it. If it turns out that it was done by a "furriner", we'll hear lots about those awful "terrists" for some time, everyone will make vicious pronouncements, and they won't forget about it. In either case, little if anything will be done that's relevant to preventing future such acts.
(But this is just based on history. I could be wrong, so stay tuned. ;-)
Re:On TV now (Score:5, Insightful)
Reported third device found - gas line explosion sounds improbable especially considering the timing...
Re:tell me again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:radiation (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Gonna be interesting to see who they nail for this.
Same as every other time this happens: Lady Liberty.
Explosions (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmmm...
I wonder what other parts of the constitution they will rip up to protect us from explosions?
-Hack
Isn't it sad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jumping to conclusions (Score:2, Insightful)
What is this wait and see you're talking about? Let's bomb some country and then ask the questions! It worked last time didn't ti?
No, it's called "not jumping to conclusions"
We ONLY know two facts: there were two explosions and people injured - maybe explosions.
For all we know, some truck with tanks of CO2 for soda machines lost its strap and a couple tanks fell off and exploded when they hit the ground.
I mean really, are you that much of a scare whore that you want to put people into panic?!
And let's say - just say - it's a fucking terrorist attack - douzens of people were hurt. That sucks but ... big fucking deal! It's not like it's 3,000 jumping there deaths!
Cooler heads Prevail!
Repeat that 10,000 times.
Repeat 100 billion times - the media ALL THE MEDIA - are a bunch of cock sucking whores and will make a flea bite out to be a terrorist attack.
/. has servers that stay up - that's why, nerds. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone remembers 9/11, most US media websites could not handle Internet traffic. slashdot was able to scale traffic and keep information flowing in a time
of horror and chaos. this is before the day of social media and citizen journalism.
maybe, if you were in Boston now or had friends or loved ones who might have been near the finish line on Boylston Street at the time of the explosionsyou'd be concerned when you could not reach the local newspaper website. maybe then, you would not ask what this has to do with news for nerds.
>> What does that have to do with this?
Re:Well, crap (Score:5, Insightful)
I just felt a tremor in the force, like the Bill of Rights being stripped from hundreds of millions of Americans...
Bingo. Never let a good tragedy go to waste.
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every rational person had that exact sequence of thoughts.
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it sad that the first thought I have after, "those poor people, I hope they're OK!", is, " Oh, great, *now* what civil rights is the US government going to shit all over?"
All the ones they haven't already.
Re:On TV now (Score:0, Insightful)
Actual device or just some mooninites they missed last time?
We're talking about Boston, they've already proven themselves incompetent at stopping actual terrorist attacks (see: 9/11), and they've already proven themselves incapable of maintaining their infrastructure (see: glued concrete panels becoming unglued and crushing people).
This also wouldn't be the first time a gas main has exploded in Boston, the last one was five months ago.
Gas explosion due to unmaintained infrastructure and misidentified "third device" that turns out to be a Nintendo DS sounds entirely plausible for Boston.
Re:don't hurt the terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)
> water board the bastards all day if we have to
Only problem is, you already did that. What's the civilian body count in the "war on terror" now? Including the Afghan and Iraq invasions, and continuing drone attacks all over the Middle East. Half a million? One million? And then you're surprised there are a few people who are looking to retaliate?
Violence only produces one result: more violence.
Re:the world is so full of jerks... (Score:0, Insightful)
are you seriously comparing targeting civilians to military drone attacks?
Re:slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
I usually disagree with the stooges who ask why stuff of legal or societal interest is on slashdot, but why is this on slashdot?
News for nerds, stuff that matters.
Good chance that this is stuff that matters.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me again how gun legislation would have prevented this???
Why stop at gun legislation, I would like a full accounting of all laws that are completely unrelated to an explosion (whether intentional or not), and how those laws could have prevented this.
Re:tell me again (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bombing not an explosion (Score:4, Insightful)
The timing is precisely when the world would be watching, and the location is precise as well at the finish line.
Re:Most likely this will be Far right wingers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Congratulations, you have been awarded the Wolf Blitzer award for the most reprehensible evidence-free speculation about the causes of a mass killing.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
Today I think you have it backwards. If it does end up being an american, it will be all over the media, used as an excuse to take away more rights. If it is a "furriner" it will be all over the media, used as an excuse to take away more rights.
There, fixed that for ya. A common mistake to think our current Government in any way wants to serve us, defend our rights, and generally do the right thing. You're not the first to make that mistake.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
>Best course -- pray it turns out to have been a big gas leak.
A war on decrepit infrastructure would probably be a good thing.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
In either case, little if anything will be done that's relevant to preventing future such acts.
You seem to be implying that there are things we should be doing that would prevent future such acts. So what should we be doing? I can understand hardening specific point targets like critical infrastructure, and general intelligence gathering. But we are already doing those things. In fact, many people feel that we are already way past the point of diminishing returns. What additional action could we have taken that would have prevented this?
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it sad that the first thought I have after, "those poor people, I hope they're OK!", is, " Oh, great, *now* what civil rights is the US government going to shit all over?"
Followed by "I wonder if they - the government - was somehow behind this." Not themselves, not directly, but involved. Perhaps prompting and arming some stupid schmuck in order to entrap him for terrorism, and not catching him in time. Or turning a blind eye to foreign operatives so they could make a dramatic arrest to further some political goal.
Because while I don't believe most politicians or government employees are so corrupt and disloyal as to let an attack pass on American soil, I increasingly am of the opinion those officials aren't taking a long-enough view to see how their individual actions may affect the nation in the long run. Too often they are so focused on their immediate goal - be it the reduction of crime through semi-legal tactics, ensuring one's agency's budget next year by misallocating funds this year, or improving one's standings in the polls - that they sacrifice the bigger picture, and people are getting hurt because of it. They overlook little evils to pursue what they hope is a good goal, forgetting that not only don't the ends don't justify the means; but that the end itself can become unexpectedly corrupted by those methods.
So, sad as it is, I hope it is just some nut-job who got his hands on too much explosives, but the increasingly cynical part of me worries that it's not. Because the former is just some dumb idiot who thinks this is going to convert people to his cause, while the latter is evidence of just how fucked up our society is.
Either way, the media is going to have a field day with this. It's better than Christmas for them.
I'm sorry. I'm not in the cheeriest of moods today, and then something like this happens that makes me see the worst in the world.
I hope the families are okay.
Re:the world is so full of jerks... (Score:3, Insightful)
"You're a fucking cunt. These were innocent people, at a wedding".
see how it works now ? sit down fatty and learn something
Re:tell me again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:On TV now (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't there 17 explosions in Iraq every Monday?
Re:/. has servers that stay up - that's why, nerds (Score:3, Insightful)
The world has changed in the last 12 years, Slashdot is now a little fish in a much bigger pond. In case you haven't noticed, there's now many sites with live video coverage that suck waaaaay more bandwidth and server power than this little mostly text based site.
Wrong quote (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html [brainyquote.com]
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." -Rahm Emanuel
Former aid to President Obama and current mayor of Chicago which is undergoing major budgetary and violent crime crisises as we speak.
Here's the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Drones killing civilians is an accident; people thought there was a military target there. Sometimes mistakes happen, and innocent people die, but the intent is to target military forces and largely that is what happens.
Civilians being killed as in Boston - there is no possibility of it being a military target, the target is as explicitly non-military as you can get.
Can you truly not discern any kind of difference?
Re:Well, crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
Lay off the weed a bit, "ganjadude," it's making you paranoid but doing your analytical skills no favors. Benghazi was "never spoken about at all," except by just about every media pundit and political campaigner for months (whining on every prime-time TV media show about how there was no media coverage). Do you know anyone in this country who didn't hear endless re-hashes of the Benghazi attacks? So far as the Benghazi incident didn't prompt calls for immediate changes in domestic policy like Sandy Hook did, have you considered that might be because Benghazi isn't in the USA so there's fuck all changes to domestic policy that would be relevant to "preventing the next Benghazi"?
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
Today I think you have it backwards. If it does end up being an american, it will be all over the media, used as an excuse to take away more rights. If it is a "furriner" it will be all over the media, used as an excuse to take away more rights.
There, fixed that for ya. A common mistake to think our current Government in any way wants to serve us, defend our rights, and generally do the right thing. You're not the first to make that mistake.
This. I'm actually far more afraid of what the government will do in response to stuff like this than actually being a victim of something like this.
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, we sure do love conspiracy theories. I'm betting more on that this was just some guy, not part of any "network" or "cell", just another mentally unstable individual that fell through the cracks of our selfish "I got mine, screw the rest of you" culture. Already the first thing people are talking about is what rights will the government deprive them of. Yes individual freedoms are important, but nothing is truly black and white.
And soon it will be the right screaming that the left isn't tough on criminals and can't protect us the way they can, and the left screaming at the right that they're ignorant and savage and cause more harm than good.
Preppers will step up their efforts and stockpile weapons, occupiers will chant some more to a drum circle, and the majority who simply shake their head at both will continue to be ignored in favor of ratings. Divisions will grow, flame wars will commence, and I can't help but wonder what it will take to get everyone to grow up and start thinking clearly.
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's liberal doublespeak. They talk out of both sides of their mouth because they know the populace has been so dumbed down by public education that they'll never know the difference. Oh and should anyone actually point it out the news media will just ignore it anyway because it doesn't advance the new world order agenda.
Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
According to whom, the government that won't officially acknowledge the program exists?
Re:slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's stuff that matters to me and I'm in Romania. it's important because it is likely to affect much more than a few Bostonians (Bostonese?).
Re:Here's the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not Iran? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On TV now (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really something that Boston deserves to be singled out for? It seems to me that the 9/11 terrorists probably could have gotten through security at just about any airport in the US. And look what happened afterwards: how long did it take them to just do the most sensible thing to prevent these hijackings, something they somehow never thought of doing before: installing locking doors for the cockpits, so that no one can enter. Even now, we still have ridiculously expensive and ineffective security measures (the TSA), despite all kinds of evidence that it isn't working.
And Boston isn't the only place with shitty infrastructure; that condition exists all over the country.
Don't blame Boston for incompetence and corruption: blame the USA. Blaming Boston for the USA's problems is like blaming your chubby hand for your health problems when you're 200 pounds overweight.
Re:Here's the difference (Score:2, Insightful)
Drones killing civilians is an accident; people thought there was a military target there.
Bullshit. What really happened is 1) some Americans thought there was a military target there (such as a young man, who according to US doctrine is automatically a "militant" just because he's male and of "militant age"), and 2) there were a bunch of other people (women & children) around this "target". The Americans don't give a shit about any collateral damage, so they just bomb away, killing everyone around the target.
I'm sorry, but when you target civilians (despite any lame excuses), you can't complain when the enemy targets your civilians.
We brought this on ourselves. Good job, Obama voters.
Re:tell me again (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to prevent all possible violence against all possible targets is by definition a police state.
Dont want that? Accept the possibility that someone could ruin your life at any possible time, and that as a free society we deal with crimes after they happen, not before.
Re:tell me again (Score:2, Insightful)
First, it's April 15 - which is the TEA party day of action. (got to listen to a "what will you do to defend your country" speech at lunch today).
You mean the Tea Party that had the most peaceful protests in the history of this country? The ones who were assaulted by union thugs, called racists by the media and were called every foul name under the sun by the losers in the Democratic party, including Anderson Cooper calling them "teabaggers" on national TV?
I'm sick of pathetic scum bags like you trying to write the narrative on the tea party. They've done absolutely nothing to you and in fact have worked their asses off to specifically preserve your constitutional rights. So fuck you and your ignorant left wing bullshit. You're going to get exactly the type of government you deserver and go fuck yourself when it happens because my wallet will be closed to your sorry ass and mommy and daddy will be broke and unable to help you.
Go occupy wall street and rape some more people in tents, defecate on some cop cars and attempt to blow up some bridges. Asshole.
Re:Isn't it sad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Already the first thing people are talking about is what rights will the government deprive them of.
You're damn right we are. Anyone who's been paying attention to what both parties have been doing to civil liberties in this country post-9/11 is rightly pissed, and knows *exactly* what's coming next. If you don't think there will be gross over-reaction and more curtailment of our rights at ALL levels of gov't, you're either retarded or terribly naive. And if we all don't stand up and say that enough is enough, they'll just keep doing what they're doing, and this country as we once knew it WILL end.
You can't bubble wrap the fucking world. Maybe people will begin to realize that.
Re:/. has servers that stay up - that's why, nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's the difference (Score:5, Insightful)
And the terrorists aren't just doing it to senselessly kill people - they are usually trying to (whether accurately or not) protect thousands or millions of people from threats they perceive.
I'm not a fan of drone strikes. But there's a big difference between the killing of civilians while you're aiming for fighters (even if your aim is super sloppy), and deliberately killing civilians.
If governments earnestly listened to concerned citizens groups from both outside and inside their borders, there would be no terrorism. No happy person wakes up and thinks "Oh, I'll become a terrorist today. It's lovely weather for it". They usually do it because of perceived threats to their family/culture/country/their notion of "us". This is not a mystery. They see it as them having to do it to spare even more misery down the road. Some idiot throwing pipe bombs without political motive is not terrorism, but simple violence. And knowingly using shoddy intelligence to take out what might be a military target is hardly more noble, is it? Drone strikes suck donkey dick. So does terrorism. Solution: honest diplomacy.
I'm all for understanding terrorists and root causes but you're giving terrorists a lot more credit than they deserve. Those reasons you gave lead to societies that tend to generate terrorists. But as for the actual terrorists, they're dysfunctional individuals looking for a purpose. In a healthy society they're join a fraternity, cult, gang, political party hack, or become a spree shooter. In a threatened society they play the hero by becoming a soldier in a war against a great enemy (a terrorist), but the motive is the same, forget your morals and become a part of something.
Re:Jumping to conclusions (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a real problem with the word "terrorist". I have not been terrorized at all by the so called "terrorists". I'm sure I'm not the only one with this opinion. Instead lets call the people who do this type of shit what they really are which is "murderers" or "psycopaths". Then we can get rid of the dipshits proclaiming that one mans "terrorist" is another mans "freedom fighter". The really sad thing is that the world at large and a sizeable but minority of US citizens do not condem these actions, especially when something nasty happens to the US. The failure to condemn all terrorist related actions no matter who the victim is will ensure more attacks in the future. After 9/11 it took around 24 hours for people to start saying the US deserved what happened.
Re:tell me again (Score:2, Insightful)