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 Post Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:25 pm 
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There were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon just before 3 today. They have caused at least severe injuries, and given the extent of the damage I would be surprised if no one was killed.

I happened to be about 3 blocks away in the subway at the time (not close enough to hear anything when it happened), and I'd been considering doing some business right there.

Any other sluggites in Boston?

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 Post Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:18 pm 
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Holy **** Drache. Talk about dodging a bullet. I checked Sorceress' twitter, she's fine. Gregnier is based in or around Boston I think. I can't think of any other sluggites in the area though.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:27 am 
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The reports say 3 killed, over 100 injured. I suppose it could have been a lot worse. Glad you're safe, drachefly.

My first thought was to feel all stabbity about the worst of humanity.

My second thought was the sinking feeling that the perpetrators might have seen Four Lions, a dark buddy comedy about incompetent terrorists who try to blow up the London Marathon.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:24 am 
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The reports also state that one of the three dead was eight years old.

News reports here, of course, concentrate on the South Africans who were in the area (apparently there were a few, some among the injured, they even had a eyewitness-recorded-audio bit from one on the news).

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:28 am 
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A friend posted this on Facebook last night. I can't verify authenticity since she got it from imgur, but they claim it's a screenshot of a memorial page set up for the victims of the explosions. If this is real, someone(s) is very, VERY sick.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:20 am 
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Did a catalog check of everyone I know IRL in Boston - only one was racing, and not near the finish line, thank goodness.

I'm pleased you're safe, drache. Also - and I know it's terrible to speculate or hope - but I really, really hope this was something homegrown. I absolutely do not want a return of the lockdown culture and pointing out of our "enemies" that happened after 9/11.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:00 am 
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giggles wrote:
A friend posted this on Facebook last night. I can't verify authenticity since she got it from imgur, but they claim it's a screenshot of a memorial page set up for the victims of the explosions. If this is real, someone(s) is very, VERY sick.


Or the site's date/time system is messed up?

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:38 am 
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giggles wrote:
A friend posted this on Facebook last night. I can't verify authenticity since she got it from imgur, but they claim it's a screenshot of a memorial page set up for the victims of the explosions. If this is real, someone(s) is very, VERY sick.

My guess is that it's a glitch rather than anything more sinister.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 11:56 am 
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weatherwax wrote:
Also - and I know it's terrible to speculate or hope - but I really, really hope this was something homegrown. I absolutely do not want a return of the lockdown culture and pointing out of our "enemies" that happened after 9/11.

I kind of thought the same thing. The American political environment is already poisonous enough, the last thing we need is to give racists and xenophobes a reason to crow and strut. But then I felt kind of bad about thinking about politics at all, when people are dead and injured.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:17 pm 
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Kea wrote:
But then I felt kind of bad about thinking about politics at all, when people are dead and injured.

The kind of stuff weatherwax is talking about hurt people, and I don't think there's any need to feel bad worrying whether the repercussions might hurt even more people. Best wishes for the people in Boston, who all things told seem to be handling this very well.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:32 pm 
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I would bet at very very steep odds that this was homegrown, and, conditioning on that, noticeably less steep odds that it was right wing rather than left.

Why?

- It was done on tax day.
- This year, that happens to have lined up with Patriot's Day, the MA / ME-observed holiday in remembrance of the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revolutionary war reference!
- One of the major leads was from the police finding someone who kept cruising in front of a police station - the obvious story to explain this is that they were dithering on whether to report the plot, which suggests they were conflicted on the subject in a way that foreign agents might not be.
- It was not aimed at a symbol/instrument of American international hegemony (e.g. WTC, Pentagon), which international terrorists would be relatively likely to try. Though federal targets are hardened, a lot of corporate ones are still relatively vulnerable.
- It was not aimed at a symbol/instrument of American corporate hegemony (e.g. a stock exchange, a large corporation), which left-wingers would be relatively likely to try.
- Left-wing terror groups such as Weather Underground typically tried to maximize property damage while minimizing casualties (not a defense - their efforts to minimize casualties weren't exactly outstanding, and they were trying to terrorize rather than just vandalize). This attack was nearly the opposite.

On the other hand, it wasn't aimed at a symbol/instrument of overreaching Federal government either. However, a lot of those are hardened targets now, more so than corporate targets. The lack of ideal symbolic targets helps explain the non-symbolic target. Unless they're radical anti-fitness crusaders or something. I think we can neglect that explanation.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:45 pm 
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I've heard increased security in airports has begun with people being detained. Can anyone confirm this?

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 12:37 am 
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Actually, someone probably just changed the name of their like site.


Quote:
Facebook allows admins of “like” pages to retroactively change the names of their pages as long as the page has less than 200 “likes.”


This article describes part of it.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 12:43 am 
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drachefly wrote:
- It was not aimed at a symbol/instrument of American international hegemony (e.g. WTC, Pentagon), which international terrorists would be relatively likely to try. Though federal targets are hardened, a lot of corporate ones are still relatively vulnerable.
- It was not aimed at a symbol/instrument of American corporate hegemony (e.g. a stock exchange, a large corporation), which left-wingers would be relatively likely to try.

I wouldn't put too much stock in this. There was no symbolic reason for the London terrorists to blow up buses, for example. There was no symbolic reason for the Madrid terrorists to blow up trains. The New York subway was targeted. At this point, Al Qaeda is more of a brand than an actual organization, and tends to attract domestically grown ideological fanboys (for lack of a better word) who may be purely opportunistic in their target selection. The Boston Marathon was a large crowd with little security. That may be all there was to it.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:02 am 
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I didn't weight those too heavily in my thinking. Still, there are many crowded places out there, some more symbolic than this.

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