WTF? Boston Marathon Explosions??

[Chicago Jake]

What the hell is going on in Boston? So far, the reports are very sketchy. Guess I'll have to keep combing the web.....

[Merlot Joe]

Just heard of it. WTF, street bombings here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Irish Stu]

Been watching live news since a few minutes after it happened. Some horrific scenes in the immediate live broadcasts that haven't since been repeated, including a shot from a helicopter showing a thick pool of blood in the blast zone the size of a double bed.

A truly despicable act targeting innocent people celebrating people's individual acts of personal achievement and human endurance.

[Chicago Jake]

There are some sick fucks in this world, that's for sure.

[Tex]

We need to ban garbage cans for sure.

[Merlot Joe]

Apr 15, 2013 17:31:24 GMT -6 Irish Stu said:

Been watching live news since a few minutes after it happened. Some horrific scenes in the immediate live broadcasts that haven't since been repeated, including a shot from a helicopter showing a thick pool of blood in the blast zone the size of a double bed.A truly despicable act targeting innocent people celebrating people's individual acts of personal achievement and human endurance.

The whole thing makes me sick. This can not become a regular occurrence in this country.


What's next, suicide bombers in shopping centers?

[Irish Stu]

Apr 15, 2013 19:46:38 GMT -6 Tex said:

We need to ban garbage cans for sure.

Because of the IRA all garbage cans were removed from the streets of central London many years ago. It doesn't stop terrorists but it does make it that much harder for them to plant a bomb to be detonated remotely or by a timer. And again, due to the constant threat from the IRA, and the atrocities they committed on us both in Belfast and on the British mainland, it is culturally ingrained in us to notice and report any unaccompanied bags in the street, malls, stores, train stations etc. If someone notices a shopping bag that has been left under the table in a cafe or in a store nobody ever needs to be asked twice to clear the area.

I do wonder that, if yesterday's bombs were indeed planted in garbage cans, were the atrocitities of 9/11 and Oklahoma carried out on such an enormous scale that measures and awareness to prevent threats on a micro-level are perhaps overlooked?

[Tex]

Simon, your country has had two or so more decades of this than have we. The IRA targeting of Louis Mountbatten had to be the low point.

[Chicago Jake]

Simon - so there are no garbage cans in the public areas of central London? What do people do with their trash? Actually carry it until they get home?

[Irish Stu]

Exactly Jake. Except for the lazy bastards who drop it on the ground. It's annoying but a small price to pay for being a little safer. Two young boys were once killed by an IRA bomb planted outside a McDonalds on Mother's Day because like Al-Qaeda the IRA were essentially cowards, and would hit 'soft' targets such as civilians and army bandsmen. I have lived a military town for most of my life and although I grew up highly aware of the threat it was always unlikely they would hit a 'hard' target such, as here in Colchester, as soldiers have a habit of shooting back!!

Shortly before midday on 20 March 1993, The Samaritans in Liverpool received a bomb warning by telephone. According to police, the caller said only that a bomb had been planted outside a Boots shop.Merseyside Police sent officers to branches of Boots in Liverpool and warned the Cheshire Constabulary, who patrolled nearby Warrington. About 30 minutes later, at about 12:25, two bombs exploded on Bridge Street in Warrington, about 100 yards (91 m) apart.[5] The blasts happened within a minute of each-other. One exploded outside Boots and McDonald's, and one outside the Argos catalogue store.[1] The area was crowded with shoppers. Witnesses said that "the first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later".[1] It was later found that the bombs had been placed inside cast-iron litter bins, causing large amounts of shrapnel. Buses were organized to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics and crews from 17 ambulances were sent to deal with the aftermath.

Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene. He had been in town with his babysitter. The second victim, 12-year-old Tim Parry, received the full force of the blast and was gravely wounded. He died on 25 March 1993 when doctors switched his life support machine off, having asked permission to do so from his family, after tests had found minimal brain activity. Fifty-four other people were injured, four of them seriously.

The day after the bombing, the Provisional IRA admitted that its members had planted the bombs. In a statement, it said:

Responsibility for the tragic and deeply regrettable death and injuries caused in Warrington yesterday lies squarely at the door of those in the British authorities who deliberately failed to act on precise and adequate warnings.

A day later, an IRA spokesman said that "two precise warnings" had been given "in adequate time", one to the Samaritans and one to Merseyside Police.[6] He added: "You don't provide warnings if it is your intention to kill".[9] Cheshire's assistant chief constable denied there had been a second warning and said: "If the IRA think they can pass on their responsibility for this terrible act by issuing such a nonsensical statement, they have sadly underestimated the understanding of the British public"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks

[Merlot Joe]

Apr 16, 2013 9:04:26 GMT -6 Chicago Jake said:

Simon - so there are no garbage cans in the public areas of central London? What do people do with their trash? Actually carry it until they get home?

Same question that I was thinking about.

Remove the gargage cans from the streets here and people will just throw it on the street.

There has to be another way to control these type of events from happening. You can't remove everything that looks like a place that someone would put a bomb. It's just not possible.

[Irish Stu]

Joe, we're used to it, and it is really that big of a deal to have to carry your empty cigarette pack, candy wrapper, water bottle, newspaper etc etc to wherever you are going? Sadly we live in a world where these sick fucks do indiscriminately kill and maim innocent civilians, and a trash can is such an ideal place to hide a bomb... all you have to do is stroll past and casually drop it in. How can you prevent that? Aim a CCTV camera at every trash can and pay someone to monitor each one 24/7? Even in London where you can be tracked around the entire area of central London and never once not have at least one CCTV camera pointing at you (a network that was built due to the Cold War and the IRA) it is an impossible task.

Yes some people drop their trash, but in reality they are in a very small minority.

[Merlot Joe]

Simon thanks for the reply.

What surprises me is that this is the first sporting event that has been attacked. If you want to kill lots of people at once why not hit a baseball, football, or basketball game. Point in fact, at AT&T park in San Francisco they check your back pack or purse but they don't check you person, they don't have metal detectors, and they don't have any other bomb detector equipment. What they are looking for is booze that you might try to bring into the park. That does not do any good because all you have to do is put a flask in you pocket and in you go.

Jake,Tex, Nola,Bob, and Simon you both have ballparks or stadiums in your city. I don't know what the protocol is there but I am sure it is the same as here. They do not check your person. I also know they that they do not do it in Oakland, Seattle, or at Yankee Stadium. Just imagine 40,000 in a stadium watching a baseball game and 10 to 15 nut job suicide bombers walk into the park with explosives strapped to themselves and in the middle of a game at the same time they all blow themselves up. How many people die and how many would injured? The same goes with shopping malls, or other busy events.

Is this what we have to look forward to in this country? Yesterday could be just the beginning of lots of sad situations to come.

[Irish Stu]

There is a considerable risk trying to get a bomb into a sporting event however hit or miss the security is and, unless you are planning to sit with it on your lap or between your feet and get blown to kingdom come along with it, you then have to plant it in your chosen spot, make your getaway, and hope that nobody discovers it before you are ready to trigger it. How much simpler to go for an easy target like a marathon where you can just drop your bomb in a trash can.

[Chicago Jake]

I can only imagine how filthy the streets would be around here with no trash cans. Right now, maybe half the people bother to use the trash cans (when they are not overflowing already). I doubt more than a quarter of them would carry the trash home, if that.

Maybe we need laser trash cans that instantly vaporize anything dropped into them? We already have solar-powered trash compactors on the street corners. It's only a small step further in the same direction.

[nolaflacav]

I live with enough little inconveniences in life that I can certainly add no trash cans to the list. And I know that if you build a better mouse trap that the mouse will eventually figure it out.

That being said, where is it written that we need conventional trash cans? I don't need a metal 55 gallon drum type sitting on the corner. Design a chute that drops the trash 10 feet below ground in an encased holding device until it is collected. There is money to be made on such a device. Where is our good old fashioned American ingenuity?

[Chicago Jake]

How about a "Mr. Fusion" trash can that generates electricity from the detritus dropped into it? And even gives a little reward when you drop stuff in (lotto tickets, coins, etc.). You'd soon have bums homeless people combing the gutters for trash to bring to the generators. Cheap energy AND clean streets! And fewer panhandlers hitting you up. Win-win-win.

[Tex]

Just got an email from Circuit of the Americas that everyone attending the United States Moto Grand Prix this weekend will have to go through airport style security checkpoints. Over 100,000 are expected. This may be a long wait.

[Irish Stu]

I went to the Olympics women's soccer final last year at London's Wembley Stadium (USA beat Japan and took the gold). 90,000 of us got in through airport style security. People were understanding and co-operative, as they were with the high levels of security throughout the Olympics and Paralymics. So long as people appreciate the need for these measures then they are nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

[Tex]

Apr 16, 2013 18:11:24 GMT -6 Irish Stu said:

I went to the Olympics women's soccer final last year at London's Wembley Stadium (USA beat Japan and took the gold). 90,000 of us got in through airport style security. People were understanding and co-operative, as they were with the high levels of security throughout the Olympics and Paralymics. So long as people appreciate the need for these measures then they are nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

It beats getting your ass blown up. The track is pretty well organized and I expect they will make it work.

[Merlot Joe]

Anything beats your ass getting blown off. If done right and if people pay attention to the rules they can put airport style security in at all sporting events. What I have noticed at airports is that most hold ups are caused by idiots who don't follow the rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Irish Stu]

Well it's all been happening in Boston over the night while you've all been asleep! Been watching the continuous coverage on the news channels here all morning. Incredible events.

[Chicago Jake]

Yeah, it's quite the story. If somebody had written it as a screenplay, it would have been rejected as too unbelievable.

[Merlot Joe]

They have the city on lock down. At least they will get them.

[Irish Stu]

A whole city on lock down over one wacko! But as Jake alludes to, you couldn't make this shit up.

[Merlot Joe]

Well they caught the little fuck. I doubt if he will every say why they did it.