Be Excellent To Each Other

Screw it this deserves its own topic:

Explosion in the Boston marathon:

Wall Street Journal ‏@WSJ
Breaking: Two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon result in injuries, according to the AP

Looks like the explosion occurred in a crowded section at the finish line.



Disturbing image:




Jackie Bruno ‏@JackieBrunoNECN 4m I saw people's legs blown off. Horrific. Two explosions. Runners were coming in and saw unspeakable horror.

The Boston Globe ‏@BostonGlobe 1m
BREAKING NEWS: At least dozens of people have been seriously injured, a Globe staffer on the scene says..

Investigating other suspect packages.

Sad, sad news that there are people in the world who have the mind to cause things like this.

Just seen this on BBC, nasty stuff.

Happened 3 hours after the first people crossed the finish line as well.

Just seen this. Horrid. I just hope that it doesn't get any worse. Poor peeps.

Looks like the work of pipebomb scale explosives, just like at the Atlanta Olympics. Eric Robert Rudolph was the nutjob who did those, his justification was as follows:



I'm hoping it's an isolated nutjob with some bizarre grudge and not some Islamic cell. The fact that there was three devices in all is a bit chilling though.

Sad stuff.

Terrorists are bastards.

Horrible. Sounds like there were some bombs that didn't go off too. I bet the organisers of the London Marathon are checking their arrangements now.

This makes me feel ill. You just can't imagine it. A marathon is full of runners trying hard, often for charity, in the culmination of months of hard effort. The finishing line is packed full of people who are there to do nothing but support and wish well.

I mean, really, what the fucking shit.

Just horrible.

Why? Just why?

Exactly. Fucking horrendous.

In the footage of the explosion, you can see a group of men running with a clearly heavily disabled person in a wheelchair. That really hit home about the inhumanity of these scenes.

The arrangements in London will already have far higher security than Boston would have. Remember there have been many London Marathons through the IRA mainland campaign and also post 2005.

And if you've seen Four Lions, as usual Chris Morris thought of it first.

It's also unlikely that there's some sort of crazed anti-marathon terrorist on the loose who was going to pop over to London and repeat his efforts because he hates fit people.

Anyway.

Horrible stuff - I hope the American Crusade lot don't start thumping the "get the arabs" tub over this and instead the whole thing gets dealt with in a level-headed way.

Horrible. Could've done without clicking on this thread and seeing the ragged remains of someone's leg on that last photo, too.

Hmm, Michael Moore just twatted:

Most of those things are because Patriot's Day is associated with militia groups.

BBC reporting that one of the dead is an 8yo child.

Fucking Hell

Jumping to conclusions is obviously a bad thing, but it certainly has all the hallmarks of a home-grown right-wing nutjob effort.

Yeah, there to see his dad finish the marathon I think it said this morning. So sad.

As various politicians do the absolute minimum conveyance of their regrets and thoughts towards the victims of this attrocity. George Galloway, the terrorist sympathiser, says nothing at all about it. In fact, the only thing he did was retweet this news article after someone told him that it had occured yesterday, but hadn't received any press in Western media.

The article in question is 11 years old, and is from 2002. So, the only thing that shuddering fuckcunt Galloway does is feign outrage at biased reporting practices about a story that isn't even a current news story.

Of course, he's probably waiting for it to be confirmed as one of his friendly terorrists pals being responsible, at which point he can tell America it's all its own fault again for meddling in the middle east.

It's horrible, felt sick when I heard it yesterday

and today? first hoax pictures on FB, "This girl died, share this for respect" random child doesn't know her face is plastered all over FB.
Who starts these things? I know the people sharing are gullable, but at least well intentioned...

I've just seen one of these things as well.

"This guy was going to propose to his girlfriend after the marathon"

And there's a picture of a guy holding a woman who'd clearly been injured in the blast. Bloody splatters on the floor - the lot.

10k+ "Likes"

Utterly abhorrent.

I despair at not only the people who start these things, but also the people who believe and "like" them.

Oh, I didn't mention that the Facebook page indicated that the woman in the picture was dead.

Bizarrely it was another solicitor who had "liked" it. She was a bit of a numpty though.

Isn't it all a like harvesting resale scam? Get a load of likes and then sell it to a company who can use the positive rating?

It's a good job Dimmers wasn't over there. There would have been great confusion when he phoned home and told people he'd been at the Boston Marathon.

[gets coat]

So, apparently, there has been an earthquake in Iran today that's killed at least 100 people so far, but all you hear about on the news is the Boston Marathon.

Fuck you, the media.

7.8, no less.

Listened to the Radio 4 headlines on the way home. 3 dead in marathon. Argentine person not going to Maggie's funeral. Measles in Wales.

Indeed.

I'm afraid that I feel that this is currently overreported unless and until there is a second bomb.

God = best terrorist

It's horrible to hear about this sort of thing, and any time someone deliberately causes loss of life its terrible.

Explosions with this or a higher level of deaths and injury have been happening in Iraq and Afghanistan on a regular, for a very long time pretty much weekly, basis, and got little to no coverage. White anglosaxons>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dusky people, clearly.

Question: At what point does a murderer become a terrorist? Is is to do with motive, method, or results?

I am guessing method.

Murder in my mind is a specific target. I mean you could blow up a room of people to kill some one. Or sniper a line of folks to get one.

If you just want to kill folks, then it is terrorism.

UK Terrorism Act 2000:


(1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where- (a) the action falls within subsection (2), (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and (c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

(2) Action falls within this subsection if it- (a) involves serious violence against a person, (b) involves serious damage to property, (c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action, (d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or (e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

(3) The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied.


So, the defining point is motive, really.

e.g. invasion of Iraq - regime change is a political aim.
Or the rebels in Syria.

One man's terrorist etc.

Method is irrelevant. A sniper is a terrorist if he's motivated by politics. There were no bombs used in the 9/11 attacks, remember.

Doesn't that cover pretty much every 'serious' violent act?

Freedom fighers / terroists.

Depends on the side of the fence.


ie Rebels v the Empire

I don't think that is particularly fair. I've said this before, here, and I'll say it again, although it was better last time:

Many more people are likely to have been to Boston, or know somebody from the US than they are Iraq or Iran.
They can relate to teh culture of the Americas a lot better than they can to that of the Middle East, everyday life there is something they can picture.

Something like this happening in the US is going to create a lot more interest here than something like this happening in a place where they have little to no idea about. I don't think it is to do with relative value of lives, but the reasons above.

Yes - the defining point is section 1(c). All that makes a difference between a murderer and a terrorist is the motive.

But the Arab terrorists aren't fighting for freedom. Living in the mountains of Pakistan is about as free as it gets

"They're not like us, so they don't matter".

For most, that's exactly right. How many years of scenes from the Middle East in the aftermath of a bombing have we had? When the average Joe sees a muslim grandmother wailing and beating her chest in grief, do they think "poor woman, what an awful thing to have happened"?

"I don't think our readers can relate to story A as much as story B, I think they will be much more interested in Story A, so we'll run more on it. For isntance, I don't really give a shit about beekeeping in Tokyo, but Quad bike terror in Holme Wood is slightly more of interest.

Law aside, is it not more the aim than the motive? You're attempting to create a climate of fear (terror, if you will) for political ends. Blowing up a bus full of schoolkids and assassinating a politician could have the same political motive, but the objective of the former is to cause others to be in fear for their lives, and the objective of the latter clearly isn't.

I heard the news of Boston bombing and thought "That's sad for them" and that was about it. Pretty much the same for many things like this, if it doesn't affect anyone I know.

Ha! It's the only place it's defined with any point to it.


That's 1(b) in the Terrorism Act, but it doesn't matter if that's an aim if you're using weapons. If you're using weapons all that matters is 1(c).

Anyway - even from your statement "You're attempting to create a climate of fear (terror, if you will) for political ends" includes the motive. "for political ends". Would I be a terrorist if I was creating a climate of fear to make sure I got paid for my hostages to get me out of the bank I just robbed? No.