Re: boston marathon bombing
 

Yeah, I'm just asking. I watched the videos and heard the cops yelling at people and pulling people out of their homes with their hands up. Just thought it was a little extreme and somewhat pointless, the aggressiveness with civilians, that is. I'd think they'd be a little more quiet and sneaky about all of it.

I think the lockdown was a successful strategy though, I mean, they got him.

Last summer during NATO, my town was taken over by cops and it was fine, but I didn't like it. I was around it a lot mainly because the protestors had a home base around the corner from my work, so there were heavily padded and armed law enforcement just kinda hanging around on street corners. It's just a gross feeling, like they're watching everyone and waiting for you to do something suspicious. And my boyfriend was playing a show downtown and it just so happened that dozens and dozens of white vans filled with very bored-looking cops were around the corner from the club. And an army of bicycle cops kept circling the area. Nothing happened, it just felt weird. I'm less of a hippie than some of my friends who complained a lot about it, so I get it, the show. It's meant to intimidate and it does.


As for the whole situation, I'm kinda with Kid P. Plus like people get killed around me all the time and it's not national news...well, sometimes the sheer number of murders is (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/c...te-2013)...but the other day some regular teenage boy was found stabbed to death and thrown in a pond in a park. They're never gonna figure out who did that shit. The FBI isn't shutting down the city to hunt for these killers. Two people got shot and stabbed just two days ago about a mile from my apartment. It's fucked up, honestly I'm almost always worried about getting robbed or killed when I'm out at night. I HAVE to worry, so I can high tail it if I sense something's about to go down.

It's different though, I get that. Random bombs at an event where people were actually exemplifying excellence. Working hard and not even remotely practicing any of the stuff that people tend to hate America for. I think everything was made worse by all the speculating too, treating it off the bat like it was an act of war intensified everything.

I'm just rambling now. sorry. Lots of thoughts swirling around in my head, some of which are contradictory.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

I would love to see tons of police in my city

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

^why?

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

a few years ago my city was ranked the 15th most dangerous or something like that. considering it's a city of only 150,000 that's a really high rank.

two summers ago when a tornado ripped through my city and my neighborhood, the national guard was everywhere. big dudes in fatigues with assault riffles driving around in Humvees. it made me feel safe. I liked it.

there seems to be more and more dirtbag hoodrats each and every year. last summer some high school kids where setting cars on fire and tossing motolov cocktales into people's property just for haha's and just other random mayhem. that lasted a few weeks. I hear gunshots on a regular basis and nobody bats and eye to it.

last spring I heard something downstairs. so I went to take a look. whoever was down there must have heard me coming down the stairs and bolted out the door because the door and the backyard gate were wide open. who the fuck breaks into a house in mid morning when there's a car parked in the driveway? then a few months later somebody set a car on fire next to the fence. it fucking exploded and nearly burnt the stockade fence down.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

There’s no shortage of police in my city. I don’t mind it. They can be quite annoying sometimes though. But I would rather have an annoying police presence then none at all.

I thought they were aggressive on Friday but it was a major terrorist attack on their people and our nation. Their blood was boiling and they were so focused on capturing that kid who had just murdered one of their own in a shootout. They took it very personal. Emotions were at their highest. I think the citizens understood to just stay out of the way!

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/bosto...k20apr13.shtml

wow this is conspiracy stuff to the fullest


true or not but i still find it highly interesting and i try to keep an eye on the the conspiracies and the official versions

i wonder if laws get changed because of such happenings or if they let such things happen on purpose so they can change the laws

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

nutty.

it's actually kind of funny to see it broken down into frames like that when most cameras shoot at TWENTY FOUR frames per second -

that's some Flash Gordon shit

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

internet conspiracy theorist reeeeaaaaach for whatever suits their ideas.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

I dunno, the kid was hiding outside of the perimeter they were searching. And then it took them to lift the lockdown for one of the civilians to finally find him. Yeah, one of the people they were locking down and shouting at had to find the bad guy. IMO that sounds like an epic fail. If I suspended an entire community's 4th amendment rights to achieve absolutely nothing, just to be shown up by one of the people being treated like a caged animal - well, I'd be kind of embarrassed if I had been a part of that.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

yup. confirmation bias.

dumb naive conspiracy theorists lap up everything they see on Internet and call the believers of the actual details the sheeple for believing the mainstream media.


when the Craft International theory gets destroyed by photo evidence of the so called government operatives still holding on to their backpacks after the explosion, they move on to the next theory someone conjures up.

they question everything and pull the Glenn Beck routine- "I'm just asking questions- all I'm saying is that people out there are speculating..."

they do the same with 9/11, Sandy Hook, and now Boston.

New World Order, Illuminati, reptilian bullshit.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

Conspiracy theory losers have to do something to make themselves feel important - they're unloved narcissists who crave that feeling of importance.

The worrying thing is that the other 3 people I have the (dis)pleasure of sharing an office with 8 hours a day were all banging on about all that Alex Jones and Glenn Beck shit like it was real the other day, even after I told them about all the 9/11 conspiracy shit that they spout.

I'm afraid when easily led people (colleague 1), introverted net-addicts (colleague 2) and self-important "the BNP seem like a decent bunch from what I've seen on TV" closet right wingers (colleague 3) get in a room together, they make for a lethal combo.

I fear for the future of this planet when someone can blow up innocent bystanders without reason and all people can say is "yeah, but you know it's an inside job don't you?"

How can there possibly be a top-secret cabal of Government spooks when most officals can't even do something as simple as use a train properly.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

it's easy to say that and feel self-righteous now that we can look back in retrospect and see how it played out, but i don't think it's fair at all to be so dismissive of the people who had to make the decision as the (extraordinarily chaotic) situation was developing (extraordinarily chaotically). these guys murdered a cop and started hucking grenades in a residential neighborhood, the people in charge of stopping that had to think fast--"how do we keep the people safe and catch these guys before more people die?" locking down the area was the idea they came up with

it's super easy to read about it on the internet days afterwards and say "well obviously this was an egregious and unnecessary breach of liberty because look what happened" but at the time there was no way to tell what was going to happen. or for that matter, what would have happened if they hadn't locked the city down. maybe more people would have died, or it would have developed into an ugly hostage situation. you don't know now, and nobody could have known then.

it was a difficult situation, and a difficult decision, they did what they thought they had to do. i see what you're saying, and i'm not saying that you don't have a point, but i don't think it's fair at all to be so smug about it and call it an epic fail just because the gift of hindsight allows you to point out that it went down a certain way.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

While I think its insensitive and inappropriate to get in the faces of people who have experienced a tragedy by yelling "conspiracy", I still don't think it hurts to look at alternate news sources and ask questions.
And I also don't think that not believing 100% of what mainstream reports makes you "right wing conspiracy nutjob."
I mean, is it that great a conspiracy to consider that the government may not be working in our interests the entire time? To me, I don't know.
I'm not talking about going down the David Iyke/Lizardpeople rabbithole here, just keeping an open mind. But keeping an open dialogue, maybe try and understand WHY people have alternate theories, not swallowing all the insanity though.
Some of these conspiracy bloggers want so badly for what they believe to be true, that they'll intentionally fabricate and look for ANYTHING to fit their agenda.
This whole Boston Bombing thing was awful. So sad. Sandy Hook too. And all of the others. I don't know all the details. I don't know why it happened. I don't know why any of these things happen. I don't know why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

i think there's a difference between asking questions/keeping an open mind (healthy) and saying "ok, the mainstream media reported it this way, so let's pick apart everything i can find on the internet on my own and figure out the truth and shout down anyone that disagrees because they're a sheeple mind slave" (less healthy)

that kind of bullshit does more harm than good, because if there's ever a situation where the government/media/oligarchy/whoever is lying about something (which has happened, and will almost certainly happen again and again), and someone figures it out, nobody's gonna believe them because everybody's so goddamn burnt out on these goddamn lizardman conspiracy theories

sometimes a man with both his legs blown off is just a man with both his legs blown off

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

also, at the risk of trying to sound like a tough guy, i would really like to see the writer of that link that randy posted run that "Bauman in the photos seen below is surely an amputee actor who is pretending that his legs were blown off from a staged bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon" theory by Bauman himself and see how that pans out

and this line: "My guess is that no one was actually killed in the Boston Marathon 'explosions'"

is this a joke that i'm missing? is this like, the onion of conspiracy websites and i've just never heard of it?

someone on another internet forum i post on is neighbors with the family of the 8-year old child that died. he even used to babysit him. the kid's father ran the marathon, and his family was waiting at the finish line for him. when he finished, the kid ran out to hug him, then ran back to his family. then the bombs went off. the kid died. his sister (also about the same age) lost a leg. the mother was hurt too.

the bombs were real. the explosions were real. people lost their legs. people fucking died. climb out of that rabbit hole before it's too late randy, you're better than to be reading that shit

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

Yo serious business, but what other forums are worth posting on?

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

i really agree there

bob i was always interested in conspiracy theories but that doesnt mean i believe them all (not even close), it shows how fucked up peoples minds can be but other times people also come up with quite some interesting/making sense stuff

i dont know whats more messed up... thinking that those real victims get blamed for acting this or that actors would be playing those fake victims

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

i'm sorry, and it might be a language barrier, but that doesn't make any sense to me, can you explain that a little bit more?

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

would it be worse that these so called actors PRETEND to be injured by the bombings and get mad cash from the government or whomever for faking it and get our sympathy for nothing

or is it worse that some fucked up minds THINK those seen bombing victims are just faking the "injuries" and "pains" for media while in fact those victims are real and they are getting "stones thrown" at because of some fanatic conspiracy freaks make up some fucked up theories that some people believe
is what i was asking

i hope thats more clear


i posted the link cause i was wow! wow like omg what if this is true and also wow like omg how below the belt can you go.. intense for sure

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

i think looking out for the greater good trumps the 4th amendment sometimes. this is one of those times.

when the government, police etc. act on something and its not fast enough and they don't do enough (Katrina) the American public does not take kindly to that. especially in this instance i think the Police had to do something. they can only go off their best guesses. no one is a genius or has a crystal ball to see exactly what criminals are doing.

its too easy to sit their and rip on them for him being outside of their search radius. and shutting things down like transit or having people stay in their homes.

dont you think if their is less people out its safer for all of them? along with making it harder for the other guy to travel in plain sight? just because he was not snagged in the search area does not mean that it is not beneficial and that safety should not be a top priority.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

t-h-e-r-e, you dullard... GAHHHH:rolleyes:

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

You gotta be careful with the conspiracy theories. I listen to a lot of talk radio and Michael Savage has been quite interesting to listen to lately. His theories are so OUT THERE yet I still find interest in hearing what he and many others are saying.

I don’t care if it was a conspiracy or not. What I do know from the information we have is that this 19 year old kid and his whacko religious brother did the unthinkable. I hope they get what they need from the kid and then put him to death.

I do not sympathize with the bombers. I know some who do and feel bad or think the kid was brainwashed. I don’t care to be honest. He’s old enough to know that it wrong to set a bomb next to an 8 year old boy and walk away smiling. If he wants forgiveness leave that up to GOD. I just want justice.

And really though. They had no idea what the suspects were planning next. Better be safe than sorry. They got EM and no civilians were hurt or killed in the process of it. I am surprised. Usually negotiations with a terrorist end much worse.

Boston police have my respect!

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

I'm not saying they were wrong in doing what they needed to do at the time. I am saying that the fact that they took the most drastic of measures and didnt even come close to finding the guy is a fail. Because they didnt find the guy, and they wouldnt have found the guy. You can say "derpy derp derp safety!" all you want, the fact of the matter is the lessening of those safety measures is what caused the dude to get caught. No offense to the brave people who had to carry out that operation, but there is some incompetence somewhere.

Looking at situations like this in hindsight is most important, because that is the only time you will see what went wrong, what went right, and what were the real reasons for going about things in that manner. The real reason was panic, fear, and never having to deal with such a situation before. Understandable, yes. But as for the people in charge, who come up with these strategies, you failed. You didnt catch the guy. You wouldnt have caught the guy. Why? We're talking about a half dead, bleeding to death, 19 year old kid. That inspires no confidence whatsoever in me.

Fact of the matter is, the whole operation was inappropriate for the situation at hand. They went about it as if this were a situation where someone was harboring a terrorist, not as if this were a manhunt. Instead of setting up a perimeter and raiding each and every house within that perimeter, simple infared sweeps of the entire area could have led to a capture much sooner, and without the suspension of amendment rights. Of course, a terrorist loose is an appropriate situation to suspend those rights. But its no excuse to use ineffective measures when other measures would be far more effective and less fear generating.

And this is nothing against the brave people who have to carry out operations like this. They're heroes. My anger is at the fact that we do not seem to know what to do in domestic terror situations. Its easy for the FBI to search out potential terrorists, provide those terrorists with ideas and supplies, and then shut down the terror operation before it goes through.

Apparently, its not so easy when a real terrorist slips through the cracks. In that situation, fear and panic seem to inform those in charge just as much as it does the civilians. And that is a problem.

Also, I'm not referring to some far out conspiracy theories about the FBI. Facilitating terror plots has been a large factor in many - if not most or all - domestic terror plots that have been foiled since 9/11. I guess its a smart strategy, if not a little Minority Report-ish.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...ucceed/273537/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/op...nted=all&_r=2&

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

again, you're making all these judgments with facts that weren't available to the people in charge at the time they had to make the decision.

"But as for the people in charge, who come up with these strategies, you failed. You didnt catch the guy. You wouldnt have caught the guy. Why? We're talking about a half dead, bleeding to death, 19 year old kid. That inspires no confidence whatsoever in me. "

there was no way to know that at the time, and it's not remotely fair to smugly call it out now as though they were supposed to know that. to the best of their knowledge, with the facts that they had available, there may have been a dangerous murderer on the loose within the search perimeter, who wouldn't hesitate to shoot or throw grenades at anything that got in his way (because if you'll remember, in the hours leading up to the manhunt, that's exactly what happened)

if there had been some memo going around saying "it's just a 19-year old kid bleeding to death in a boat" i'm sure they would have behaved differently, but there was no way to know that. i was listening to the police scanner in the final hours, when they had him cornered on the boat, and right up until the end they were treating it like he could have had a bomb strapped to his chest (which again, wasn't an unreasonable assumption given the events of the day so far--it turned out he didn't, but there was no way to know it at the time). they had no way to know what they were dealing with until it was done, and it's not at all fair for you to use facts that nobody had at the time to say "well clearly their plan was never going to work, and it reeks of incompetence"

if you disagree with how they handled it, if you, with your apparent experience in conducting manhunts, would have handled it differently if you got the call at 1 in the morning about shots fired and explosions in watertown and we can't find one of the suspects, what do we do?, that's fine, you're entitled to that opinion. but what's rubbing me the wrong way is how smug you're being about it, as though they somehow should have known all the things that we know now

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

sorry, your wrong.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

Jeff Bauman (the guy in the famous picture who was wheeled away after losing both his legs) seems to be doing better. Here's a picture of him giving another injured victim a gift. http://i.imgur.com/e8fCR7x.jpg He looks much better in this picture.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

I predict we're going to see amazing things from that guy. What's that Shakespeare quote, about how some are born to greatness, some achieve it and some have it thrust upon them? He may have had it thrust upon him in the most horrible way, but my gut tells me he's going to go out and be a tremendous force for good in the world. Maybe not, may be he just goes on and has a quiet, somewhat ordinary life - no shame in that. But I just have a feeling.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

I would tend to believe that the owner of the boat wouldn't have particularly focused on anything amiss if he had been going about his day normally. The lockdown made everyone hyper focused on the situation.

Honestly, it wasn't even 24 hours. They didn't round anybody up (as far as I know), they were focused on a task.

They really didn't know if there were co-conspirators or other bombs planted, so they were trying to anticipate the worst.

Again I don't like the house searching part, or the yelling, but I think if there was a suspected bomber running around my neighborhood, a big scary military style sweep would make me feel protected, not violated.

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

well to be fair, i think it would have been pretty impossible to go about your day normally, even without the lockdown. everybody in the greater boston area was already pretty hyper-focused on the situation on account of how dangerous people with bombs appeared to be on the loose

Re: boston marathon bombing
 

Ok. "normally" isn't the best word. I meant more like it would've been harder to notice things without the stillness of everyone being indoors. And the stillness made it so the kid couldn't slip away unnoticed, which is why he could only hide and wait. The lockdown forced him to hide, so therefore even though it was lifted, the lockdown enabled his capture

Just trying to explain why I think the lockdown worked.