I was notified this morning, by phone, of a "shelter-in-place" order given by the Boston police.
I don't know anything more than what I saw on TV and the massive ongoing manhunt for one of the suspects, the Tsarnaev bothers, in the Boston Marathon bombing. Apparently other bombs were found in and around the Cambridge/Watertown area. An MIT security guard is dead.
I was ready to travel this AM.
Guess I won't be leaving my apartment soon.
Apparently, the police know where the second Tsarnaev brother is.
The other one is dead.
PS. I am NOT terrified. Just waiting for this to be over and for the s.o.b. to be apprehended and brought to justice.
9:28 AM: Hope they take the s.o.b. alive. We need to know what motivated his dastardly attack on Monday.
10:08 AM: NBC news is reporting police have suspect trapped. I haven't seen anything else to confirm this.
11:02 AM: What is usually a bustling area, Hanover Street in Boston's North End is eerily quiet and empty.
Kenmore Square, Friday morning, April 19, a normally very busy part of Boston.
The Day They Locked Down Boston...
26 comments:
Lock down Boston, I have an eerie feeling we will be seeing more and more of this in the USA.
Can't put my finger on it, just a hunch. Given the current state of society and its lack of respect for the individual, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as the increasing disregard for human life in general that we see today why does this surprise anyone?
The world, including the USA is a violent place. For all our advancement and lofty ideals we do appear to being going backwards.
And the left and right continue to argue over the mundane as well as the small potatoes. In the immortal words of Pogo, we have seen the enemy, and it is us.
Hopefully Boston's ordeal will end sooner rather than later.
We pretty much know what motivated it, based on the fact that these guys are/were fervent Islamists. Islamic extremism has motivated thousands upon thousands of attacks on non-Muslims (or Muslims of the "wrong" sect) all over the world for decades if not centuries -- just as Christian fanaticism motivated murderous violence in Europe back before the West became mostly secular.
Religion shows its true colors again.
RN: Infidel753 is correct.
Just to name two: Think of what motivated the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the terrorist attacks here in Boston.
The motivation in these horrendous attacks is religious fanaticism. Like any fanaticism, political and religious, it brings death and destruction.
Infidel
You have an amazing gift that you need to share. So far there is no evidence they were Islamic extremist.
Over centuries more humans have died because of religion than any other ideology. There is not a religion that practices what it preaches.
I do feel better knowing that Napolitano has said this issue is contained.
Infidel753 is correct, skudrunner. Officials have found and reported on a social network site where the dead brother praised jihadists and al qaeda.
Modern secular Western society has more "respect for the individual, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" than any previous type of society in millennia of history. That's why religious totalitarians reject it and seek to destroy it.
Remember the terrorist attack on the school in Beslan, Russia, in 2004, which killed over 300 children? That was Chechen Islamists too.
We have not "seen the enemy and it is us". We have seen the enemy and it's a couple of thugs from a violent religious extremist tendency that even the majority of Muslims are getting sick and tired of these days.
Chechen jihadists, al-Qâ'idah, the Taliban, the Iranian and Saudi theocracies, etc. are not by any stretch of the imagination "us". They are the last gasp of the darkness from which secularism has liberated us. If you want to see who is "us", look at all the emergency responders and ordinary people who rushed to help the victims after the marathon bombings.
Shit, how I despise cynics.
PS: Wise words here (apologies if it's already been linked here).
I had prepared part of a blog post in which I chided some bloggers who had jumped on the "Muslims did it" bus, jumping the gun. Turns out I jumped the gun myself, and scrapped that. I am a non-heathen secularist, and agree with a lot of what has been posted in the comments (but I would certainly not limit discussion of killer fanatics to just the faithful).
Dmarks, you weren't necessarily wrong about that. Some of these people respond to everything with "Muslims did it". In some cases Muslims did, in fact, do it, but that doesn't prove that those people were right, except in the sense that a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Keeping classy, another conservative gun hugger tweets:
On Friday morning, Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell (R) tweeted that “liberal” Boston residents likely wished for assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, as the manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspects continued.
Bell, a second-term legislator and National Rifle Association life member, has previously supported allowing guns in churches as “removing a state mandated restriction on religious freedom.”
His tweet said:
Nate Bell @NateBell4AR
I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A
We aren't "cowering" asshat, we are cooperating with law enforcement as good citizens do. I've been out on the street and would be on my way to my travels if the area hadn't been closed down by law enforcement.
You, sir, are exactly what is wrong with this country: laughing at your fellow Americans in a difficult time, and politicizing an already horrendous situation.
Don't expect much more from his ilk.
Shaw... And today we see from Sen Grassley that he believes, based on the fact that the Boston bombers were/are immigrants, we need stronger background checks.
Why is that? I thought background checks don't deter crime? Really, how many people have we arrested for filling out false immigration forms?
2 immigrants kill 4 people and we need stronger background checks... 1 gringo kills 26 and we get nothing...
Stay safe Shaw... You've been in my thoughts...
Infidel: And those of that ilk are still jumping to conclusions. I read somewhere one of them state that the Saudi guy who was suspected and released was the controller of the two Dagestani brothers, as part of a vast Islamic conspiracy.
Shaw,
Stay safe!
I see from the television reports that Boston law enforcement people are doing all that they can. Has the trail gone cold?
And there's a guy guest-hosting for Limbaugh today, who is blaming the Massachusetts public schools for how the brothers turned out.
As if he should talk. He mangles one of the brother's names as "Joker", and repeatedly he shows he can't pronounce something as well known as our President's last name or the name of the Muslim faith.
Rush Limbaugh is too stupid to know that the Massachusetts public schools lead the nation in math and science scores and in the world are second only to Singapore, and entire country.
But I never expect anything intelligent from Limbaugh. He's a demagogue who revels in stirring up anger and fear.
AOW, from the reports I'm listening to, the police have the second brother trapped. I don't know if this is accurate, only what's been reported.
I heard the second brother thing too, only a couple of hours ago. The guy hosting the Limbaugh show isn't Limbaugh. But there's probably not much difference.
Just released on CNN: Authorities do not know where he is.
Damn.
Religion is something to practice when you are no good at baseball.
just a thought.
I'm going to disagree, Shaw. I think it's more alienation than fanaticism.
Here the younger was almost certainly influenced by his brother who was religious but not overtly violent that we know.
He probably lived in a no man's land separated from his Muslim roots and adrift in America.
I honestly believe that the profile is closer to Adan Lanza than to Osama bin Laden.
Nate Bell @NateBell4AR
I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine? #2A
-----
Someone tell Nate that the only one killed last night was a police officer and they took his gun.
Unarmed civilians were released.
Go figure. But I figure if it were you at the convenience store they'd have a high capacity AR rather than a 9mm.
Ducky, yeah. Some people see more Columbine than Ft. Hood in these killers.
Does it matter? Certainly not to the families of the dead, I think.
Nate Bell is an asshat and, as I said, exactly what is wrong with this country. Instead of supporting the citizens of an American city under siege, he mocks them.
Luckily, he's a distinct minority, I've had nothing but good wishes and encouragement from people along the political spectrum.
Bell is just a common variety jerk.
Religion is simply one of the justificatios used by the world to foster violence Shaw. There are others as I am sure you realize.
Nate's trying to walk it back
Found on a conservative's blog:
Anonymous said...
God Bless Nate Bell
April 19, 2013 at 9:16 PM
The asshat who wrote that is asking his version of "God" to bless a man who mocked a city under terrorism siege. IOW, the asshat who wrote that supports terrorists and hates Americans.
But that's the sort of person attracted to that sort of conservatism.
Sickening.
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