Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

[Canadian_watcher]

You notice that the announcement was from well before the first bomb went off, right?

Are you sure about that?

I guess I'm as sure about that as I am that that one guy got his legs blown off, to be honest.

You should question yourself more then. You might be surprised by what you find.

um, what?

[stillrobertpaulsen]

^^^ Well, thing certainly got weirder: While probably unrelated to everything that's going on, the body of missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, who was misidentified last week as one of the bombing suspects by the Reddit crowd, was pulled out of the waters near a park in Providence, Rhode Island. Very odd.

Body found in water that of missing Brown student
By ERIKA NIEDOWSKI | Associated Press – 1:16 p.m. Thursday April 25

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A body pulled from waters off a Providence park was that of a 22-year-old Brown University student missing since last month, the Rhode Island medical examiner's office said Thursday.
Sunil Tripathi was identified through a forensic dental exam, but a cause of death has not been determined, said Dara Chadwick, a spokeswoman for the state health department.
The announcement put an end to the mystery of Tripathi's disappearance, which became doubly painful for his family when amateur online sleuths wrongly identified him as a possible suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Tripathi's family, of Bryn Mawr, Pa., said it was overcome with grief but grateful for the outpouring of support relatives got over the last month.
"As we carry indescribable grief, we also feel incredible gratitude," the Tripathi family said in a statement on a Facebook page set up to help find Tripathi, who went by Sunny. "To each one of you — from our hometown to many distant lands — we extend our thanks for the words of encouragement, for your thoughts, for your hands, for your prayers, and for the love you have so generously shared."
Tripathi's body was found Tuesday by members of the Brown crew team off of India Point Park and was brought to shore by its coach, Providence Police Cmdr. Thomas Oates said. He said the body had been in the water for "some time."
Tripathi's family had been searching for him since mid-March with help from the FBI and fellow Brown students. His sister, Sangeeta, said he left his phone, wallet and other belongings in his apartment near campus and simply disappeared. He was on leave from the Ivy League school, where he was studying philosophy, and had been going through a difficult time, she said.
Last week, speculation swirled on Twitter and the website Reddit that Tripathi was the second of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings because some thought he resembled one of the people in photos released by the FBI. That person turned out to be 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, authorities said.
Reddit later apologized to Tripathi's family for fueling "online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties."
Tripathi's family responded to the speculation in a Facebook post that read: "A tremendous and painful amount of attention has been cast on our beloved Sunil Tripathi in the past 12 hours. We have known unequivocally all along that neither individual suspected as responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings was Sunil."
The family said in its statement Thursday that the last month "has changed our lives forever, and we hope it will change yours too."
The family went on: "Take care of one another. Be gentle, be compassionate. Be open to letting someone in when it is you who is faltering. Lend your hand. We need it. The world needs it."
Brown President Christina H. Paxson sent a message to the campus community Thursday, saying Tripathi — the brother of two Brown graduates— would be remembered for his "gentle demeanor and generous spirit." She described him as an accomplished saxophonist and a "serious, thoughtful, intellectually curious student and a brilliant writer."
http://news.yahoo.com/body-found-water- ... 48588.html

So Reddit apologized. That's classy. Did that Bain fucker Thorndike apologize for trying to finger Mr. Shredded Pants?

[elfismiles]

Now we learn Dzhokhar was unarmed in the boat.

The Watertown police chief doesn't seem to know that, though:

Then why-the-fuck THIS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ETJJr4eH4

[Simulist]

I'd guess that tweet was captured by someone on the west coast. Time is adjusted for the viewers local time zone setting.

Bingo. But one wonders why a clearly-intelligent person like Canadian_watcher couldn't figure that out for herself. But Canadian_watcher isn't the only person to do this in this thread, and I myself have been guilty of this on numerous occasions in the past.

The reason, it appears to me, is that beliefs aren't being driven by facts in this and some other discussions, but that "facts" are being cherry-picked to fit preconceived beliefs or tendencies to believe.

Throughout this thread, as now, I've been scratching my head over what I was perceiving as appallingly-poor critical thinking skills manifesting in the posts of several people I normally consider notably intelligent.


[Edited twice to correct grammar.]

[Hunter]

I just want to clarify that the tweet about the CONTROLLED EXPLOSION was made AFTER the bombings and it referred to a controlled explosion that the bomb squad was taking part in of a suspicious package that was laying around after the bombs went off, as it turns out the package was not a bomb, they were just being careful.

If you look closely at the tweets they were made AFTER the bombings went off, not before as some seem to be confusing.

[Hunter]

Forgive me, but what exactly is your point here?

I'm not Mac (obviously) but I think it's odd too. the bomb squad was going to detonate a controlled explosion during the marathon? it indicates a 'drill' of some sort was going on or that there were other bombs that no one is talking about. And did this detonation happen? You notice that the announcement was from well before the first bomb went off, right? It's strange, as is the fire in the JFK library.

It wasnt before the bombs went off though, the time stamps on twitter can be tricky but I have confirmed it and the tweet was made after the bombs went off, of course people should confirm that for themselves im not here to dictate anyones views, but for my part I can assure you that tweet was made AFTER the bombs and it was a bomb squad controlled explosion of a package that was laying around after the bombs went off and they were suspcious of it, but it turns out it wasnt a bomb afterall.

The time stamps on twitter show in whatever time zone the person who is signed in and looking at it, is in, that is why it looks confusing, but it was DEFINITELY made after the bombs went off, I have confirmed that and I am 100% certain of it.

I am a strong believer something smells very badly with this whole thing but that isnt part of it.

[FourthBase]

Hey y'all, thanks to Bruce for letting me back early. I'll be nicer, fairer, calmer.

Thanks to crikket, too, of course. Fearless.
(No, folks, we are not the same person, lmfao.)

Thanks to c2w? for being a force of reason.
(I will no longer address any police-state-y, martial-law-y things.
If asked for info directly only, will I answer.)

Thanks to anyone else, too. Jerky, barracuda, anyone who supported me even just a little.
(Pablo Chandler, is my Facebook handle. Be ready to prove your RigInt identity, lmao.
Well, at the very least, send me a message along with the request, "Hey, I'm ------!"
If I just see a name and a stranger's profile, I won't know whether to accept, etc.)

Crikket, this is amazing stuff from Fourthbase's facebook. Why the hell wasn't he posting all this here instead of going on a verbal jihad spasm? The stuff Crikket is talking about is the sort of deep state
meta-play that RI should be about.

For the record, it was just because I couldn't.
That was all stuff I had gathered up and written in the last few days.

That said, I'm not sure if there's any connection between the Boston bomb brothers and *that* circle of intrigue, but it does provide context.

Not so fast, lol, my excellent associative friend.
There may yet be a connection. Let's find out.

(That rumor I heard last Friday night? Before the Elvis dude was released?
Cops investigating Braintree Motel 6 and Braintree post office.)

Some questions I had over my mini-respite:

- How long had Sunil Tripathi been dead?
Was he ever spotted by anyone when missing?
What was the deal with that blogger who doubted the airbrushed Sunil story?
If the coroner determines Tripathi was alive up until last week...
Will the coroner wind up strapped with a bomb and barbed wire?
If the scanner ID of Tripathi led to his capture...
Would there be photos found of him on Boylston St.?
Would the few early #2 pics look enough like Tripathi?

- Did Tyler Wood and Chris Kyle ever meet? Talk?
Why does Wood keep spontaneously lying about being a veteran?
Why does he seem so...shady...shifty...faux-benevolent?

- Did the two MA National Guard dudes see anything in front of LensCrafters around 2:50?
What was their specific assignment that day? Respond to the aftermath of a WMD attack? (Nods.)
The one with the Craft hat...where did he get it? Online? Training? Employment? Friend? Boss?
(It's definitely a Craft hat, see the little flag on the right side.)

- Was the Mehanna kid right re: being persecuted (by Carmen Ortiz) for not turning informant?
How many, if any, of these previous Boston mosque militants ever met Tamerlan?
Who in the ungodly fuck is "Misha"? A white guy? A convert? Converted when?

- When do we get to see the clip of #2 setting down the backpack?
Sure, it might spoil testimony in a trial, but, the video is good enough...no?

- All the reminiscers of #2 (and #1), again: Who are they? (All of them...who.)

- A townie cab driver picked up both at Malden T; they seem to have just picked up a bomb...where?

- Wait, so now they only had a single pistol???? WTF?????

- Can we get a clear picture of people who were legged one moment, legless the next?
(Just to nip this sad hoax thing in the festering bud...but maybe it will just keep going, anyway...
Would a pic of the decomposing fragments of Martin Richard do the trick, then? One part, mailed?)

So many more questions...good ones, great ones. So many. Some less directly-related. Like...

- Did anyone notice that Sacco and Vanzetti shot those two guys on April 15th, around 3pm?

Speaking of, and to save this from inundating the thread with multiple posts (ahem)...
Two posts which have a tangential connection (Boston terrorism and 4/15 3pm; MIT) to this thread:

April 15, around 3pm.

In 1920, that's when some crew of thugs robbed and murdered Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter. It happened in South Braintree, in exactly the place where I've been buying groceries (pasta, vegetarian meat-substitutes, lemonade, etc.) for the last 17 years. Parmenter was a factory paymaster, buried with full Masonic rites. Berardelli, though, was simply a working-class Italian. For many decades, his death has been overshadowed -- if not ignored and utterly forgotten -- by champions of the working-class and defenders of Italian honor. Which, frankly, is a disgrace. He was murdered by either one crew of thugs, or another. Either some crew from an Italian mob, or another crew from that age's Italian anarchist equivalent of Al Qaeda.

"All disgrace should be forever removed from their names." Dukakis, in 1977, referring to a couple of Galleanists who contributed in spirit if not materially to a campaign of terror, murder, physically-violent sedition. Let's get real, though: Sacco and Vanzetti were a disgrace. Very much so. A disgrace to dissent and resistance, a disgrace to their ancestors and fellow Italians, a disgrace to all unequivocally-innocent people who've ever been on death row. Were they innocent of that particular shooting? Possibly. Did they get a fair trial? Probably not so much. Were they a disgrace? Absolutely. As were their bomb-dropping cohorts, as are the intellectuals who defended them unequivocally and have treated them like heroes since. Berardelli was a father, he had two young children, he worked for a living, and he never killed anyone or advocated for terrorism. The guys who probably murdered him...they're the heroes? Screw that.

September 2010.

The month of my...errr...walkabout. Every day, every night, back and forth, shuffling between and within the campuses of Harvard and MIT. I must have been quite a sight, "that husky unshaven white dude in sandals wearing the Sox cap with the backpack and a wild thousand-yard stare", is how I imagine being seen. But, thousand-year stare is more like it. I haunted a few other campuses around town, too, and a multitude of other neighborhoods. But it was at Harvard and MIT where my hours and miles added up the most, where I endlessly paced the sidewalks and corridors, where I conspicuously read Camus and Weil for attention I never got, where I used the few publicly-accessible computers with an internet connection and many a publicly-accessible restroom, where I pestered a few professors and loitered in several bookstores, where I crashed a Hare Krishna Q&A and a Korean student film festival for the free vegetarian grub, where I even found a couch or chair to sleep some nights and where I occasionally stole brief naps in the daytime, one of which was interrupted by a gathering of world-class black-history scholars, whom I still owe a gratitude for introducing me to a now-forgotten hero named Julian Mayfield. I even bumped into a BLS classmate on one of those afternoons.

There were two other people, though, whose paths I now wish would've intersected with mine that month. Actually, we might have inadvertently crossed paths at some point, and I would never know because I passed thousands and thousands and thousands of people that month, and none of the three of us were recognizable people then, and only one is now, and the other seems only barely-known to a subset of philosophy-junkies, and I am still a total nobody, lol. On the bright side, though, I'm still alive. And those two aren't. I think about it now, what might have been.

Maybe I see Mitchell Heisman walking across Harvard Yard that morning in late September, on Yom Kippur, all dressed in white, and I say, "Hey dude, looking sharp!" and maybe we strike up a conversation, and after several uninterrupted hours of hardcore philosophizing, after finally persuading him, "No dude, you're wrong, and that is a terrible idea", I head back out to Mass. Ave. to pound the pavement all night, and maybe he heads home to write a new chapter and re-title his book to something a shade more uplifting than Suicide Note.


Maybe one night that late September in the wee hours I notice Aaron Swartz sneaking around MIT, and maybe I follow him inconspicuously, and maybe he notices me because I suck at spying, and he asks me what the hell my deal is, and I tell him, and I ask him what his deal is, and maybe he tells me because I'm both thoroughly harmless and hip enough to his agenda to share his plan with, and after an hour of trading ideas I finally persuade him, "Yes dude, you're right, but that is a terrible idea", and then I depart to take the scenic route back to Central Square, and maybe he rides home to re-think his strategy and to imagine a less-illegal way to unlock the world's secret knowledge.

Maybe I also get each of their numbers and, once my walkabout is over, I call them up, and maybe later that fall, in some shabby apartment, sitting around a bong, there would be the trio of Paul Chandler, Mitchell Heisman, and Aaron Swartz enjoying life and trying to figure out how to maybe make it even easier, even better, even freer.

[Someone asks if Heisman's book is worth reading.]

He concludes that life is meaningless. So, no: Not worth reading. At all. Not saying it's rubbish, he seems to have been an excellent thinker. Just an atrocious judge. It's funny, I think I might be the exact mirror image of Heisman. I, too, have probably written about 2000-3000 pages' worth of intense, life-evaluating thought. But poor Mitchell wrote his million words secretly, for himself only, sinking deeper and deeper into a life-negating pessimism. I've written my million words publicly, for the sole purpose of communicating with others, rising higher and higher out of a long-term existential crisis into a life-affirming optimism. He punctuated his moment of trespassing on elite college grounds with a gunshot to his head. I punctuated mine by filling a chalkboard at the front of an architectural school's auditorium with a rant explaining why it was unethical for the budding architects present to construct useless prototypes of theoretical housing when just 50 feet away homeless folks slept on granite.

[Simulist]

Forgive me, but what exactly is your point here?

I'm not Mac (obviously) but I think it's odd too. the bomb squad was going to detonate a controlled explosion during the marathon? it indicates a 'drill' of some sort was going on or that there were other bombs that no one is talking about. And did this detonation happen? You notice that the announcement was from well before the first bomb went off, right? It's strange, as is the fire in the JFK library.

It wasnt before the bombs went off though, the time stamps on twitter can be tricky but I have confirmed it and the tweet was made after the bombs went off, of course people should confirm that for themselves im not here to dictate anyones views, but for my part I can assure you that tweet was made AFTER the bombs and it was a bomb squad controlled explosion of a package that was laying around after the bombs went off and they were suspcious of it, but it turns out it wasnt a bomb afterall.

The time stamps on twitter show in whatever time zone the person who is signed in and looking at it, is in, that is why it looks confusing, but it was DEFINITELY made after the bombs went off, I have confirmed that and I am 100% certain of it.

I am a strong believer something smells very badly with this whole thing but that isnt part of it.

Alchemy, this is all about a rush to judgment — presuming we know something when we do not yet know fully — and this thread is shot-through with numerous examples of this tendency.

There are real conspiracies to be sure, but most "conspiracy theories" are the results of this exact mistake being duplicated numerous times.

And it comes down to a failure to question ourselves — not just once or twice, but persistently.

[Hunter]

Forgive me, but what exactly is your point here?

I'm not Mac (obviously) but I think it's odd too. the bomb squad was going to detonate a controlled explosion during the marathon? it indicates a 'drill' of some sort was going on or that there were other bombs that no one is talking about. And did this detonation happen? You notice that the announcement was from well before the first bomb went off, right? It's strange, as is the fire in the JFK library.

It wasnt before the bombs went off though, the time stamps on twitter can be tricky but I have confirmed it and the tweet was made after the bombs went off, of course people should confirm that for themselves im not here to dictate anyones views, but for my part I can assure you that tweet was made AFTER the bombs and it was a bomb squad controlled explosion of a package that was laying around after the bombs went off and they were suspcious of it, but it turns out it wasnt a bomb afterall.

The time stamps on twitter show in whatever time zone the person who is signed in and looking at it, is in, that is why it looks confusing, but it was DEFINITELY made after the bombs went off, I have confirmed that and I am 100% certain of it.

I am a strong believer something smells very badly with this whole thing but that isnt part of it.

Alchemy, this is all about a rush to judgment — presuming we know something when we do not yet know fully — and this thread is shot-through with numerous examples of this tendency.

There are real conspiracies to be sure, but most "conspiracy theories" are the results of this exact mistake being duplicated numerous times.

And it comes down to a failure to question ourselves — not just once or twice, but persistently.

Yes I understand, lets say bombs went off at 1 pm, that would be 11 am my time, then at 130 they announce bomb squad is gonna do a controlled explosion on a suspcious package they found at the scene, that would show up on my twitter as 1130 AM, and I could post that and tell everyone its foreknowledge of some sort because my twitter time stamp shows that announcement at 1130, well before the real bombs went off, that is what happened here.

[Simulist]

Yep, pretty much.

[compared2what?]

Emad Muntasser was not just behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but supported Chechen and other jihadi causes through CARE International, until its closure and his prosecution for tax fraud in 2005. He was based in Boston.

Muntasser was not convicted for tax fraud. He was prosecuted for not declaring that his charity published a newletter and operated a website on its Form 990. Technically, that's perjury. Because just like every other person who fills out a tax form and signs it in the entire country, he did so under penalty of perjury.

That's not usually something that incurs a fine or penalty, let alone triggers a federal prosecution. If it were, there wouldn't be more than a few dozen charities in America that weren't on trial. I mean, Operation Blessing is an international relief charity. And per its 2009 filing, it spent $254, 397, 598 on "indigent, disaster relief" on six continents during the preceding tax year. That's a lot of money and very little detail. So I'm willing to take a chance on there having been some activity that wasn't disclosed. So why isn't the federal government trying Pat Robertson for his ties to terrorism?

Seriously. Muntasser was tried on those charges because the government didn't have a better case to make against him, in the absence of proof that he'd committed any crimes. If they could have proved he was giving financial or other support to terrorism, they would have charged him with doing it. It's against the law. Instead, they prosecuted him for something that's literally routinely beneath the state's notice for everybody else who does it. .

Telling the IRS it was a non-political charity, CARE applied for and received a tax exemption, but its operations continued as before -- supporting jihad overseas with money and men.

That's true when the state proves it. Not when the state alleges it while proving a failure to disclose newsletter-publishing.

Has the presumption of innocence been formally abolished in America?

CARE's tactics included dinner speeches and events at local mosques and universities, among them MIT, Boston College, and Boston University, usually slipping them in under the auspices of the local Muslim Students Association, sometimes as part of Friday services. They ran "phonathons" to contact potential donors at home with urgent appeals for generosity.

The charity also arranged public screenings of jihadist videos, long before the advent of YouTube. One letter to CARE supporters promised to "bring to your [mosque] the latest video tape from CHECHNYA showing how Grouznyy [sic] was recaptured by Muslims and how the CHECHENS are struggling to implement the Islamic rule in their land by help of Allah (S.W.T). It will be a fund raising event. For the Donations we have our direct contact to CHECHNYA."

Yeah. Stuff like public screenings, fundraising, news dissemination, speeches and events is usually legal. It can even legally be about something political. That's allowed. Including to exempt organizations.

When the Internet did come along, CARE was an early adopter, using email blasts and websites to further spread its message.

Again: Not illegal!

Although CARE was based in Boston, the radical fundamentalists who ran the charity (a mix of American citizens and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa) were often disappointed with local Muslims, who were not particularly interested in their cause.

"I hate Boston," said Mohammed Chehade, a director of the Global Relief Foundation, one of the charities through which CARE laundered its money, in a phone conversation with CARE's directors that was recorded by the FBI in 2000. "Do you know why I hate it? The men are far from each other, far away, it is a trip between one and another. They are busy. I mean, Boston... if someone wants to stay in America temporarily, it is not a place to be."

In other conversations, CARE's leaders bemoaned the fact that area Muslims refused to cough up money for the network's radical speakers, suggesting that they avoid bringing prominent speakers to the city, or at least characterize the trips as something other than fundraising, for fear of an embarrassingly low result.

Nevertheless, one of those jihadist celebrities traveled to Boston on a number of occasions to raise money and the ire of audiences regarding Islamist conflicts in Chechnya and Bosnia. An American-born citizen of Egyptian descent, Mohammed Zaki sported a long red beard and a broad, engaging smile. He inspired fierce loyalty in those he met. One of his comrades described him as "a man whose like is rare nowadays," telling a comrade, "You will be amazed by him."

Zaki was involved in several so-called charities that actually helped finance and supply the mujahideen in Bosnia and Chechnya, while creating and distributing a steady stream of propaganda to support these efforts.

Based in San Diego, Zaki frequently traveled to Boston to take part in Al Kifah events and fire up crowds with his charisma and tough talk. At one point, a government wiretap overheard Muntasser, CARE's leader, asking him to fly to Boston "because we are looking for a brother who knows about matters [in Bosnia] to give an inciting speech." .

[/quote]

That poor guy. There were probably more serious issues with that wiretap than that it was a waste of money. But if that was the most incriminating thing they caught him saying, it was one. Because it's not incriminating at all. They have no right to listen to people saying stuff when there's no crime or probable cause.

Or they're not supposed to, anyway.

[Hunter]

We have to be careful or we will discredit ourselves, and there are people out there who would post that twitter as I described above, on purpose, for the very purpose of getting people like us who like to question things to discredit ourselves.

I am guilty as anyone of taking the ball and running with it too soon but I learn more and more everyday that in this age of photoshop and controlled media, everything must be questioned constantly, we even have to QUESTION OUR QUESTIONS.

[FourthBase]

Muntasser was tried on those charges because the government didn't have a better case to make against him

Or, perhaps, didn't want to make a better case against him?

Yes, we are subject to libel/slander/whatever laws here.
But then again, it is still just an internet forum, not a courtroom.
Speculate, but speculate wisely, legally.

[compared2what?]

No, no, no. I didn't mean it was a libel issue.

I just meant the tactics we're all decrying the threat of were used on him. That was a political prosecution. I'm totally opposed to that.

Doesn't mean none of the facts brought out by it aren't true, wrt connections, money, etc. Or that they aren't meaningful.

It's basically the flip side of the you-have-rights-or-you-don't argument. The guy was or wasn't doing something the state had a right to put him in jail for. As far as I can see, he wasn't. So it sets a worse precedent than the police using tactical gear does, imo.

[compared2what?]

Muntasser was tried on those charges because the government didn't have a better case to make against him

Or, perhaps, didn't want to make a better case against him?

Or he took the fall for someone better protected.

I guess I take that for granted, actually.