Marathon bomb suspect in custody: now media backpedals

Update: Now CNN and NBC are backing off saying there are suspects police want to bring in and talk to but no arrests have been made.

Not much to add, details are sketchy, and remember the Centennial Olympic bombing where they guy they strongly suspected turned out to be completely innocent:

TPM — A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Wednesday in a breakthrough that came less than 48 hours after the deadly attack, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said Wednesday.The official spoke shortly after several media outlets reported that a suspect had been identified from surveillance video taken at a Lord & Taylor store between the sites of the two bomb blasts, which killed three people and wounded more than 170.

The official was not authorized to divulge details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The suspect was expected at a Boston courthouse under heavy security, the official said.

So now we all wait. Hoping the psycho’s can’t be linked to our specific ideology even loosely with some licking their chops hoping to link them to the other guy’s politics and causes.

Letter to President tests positive for ricin

White House spokesman Jay Carney revealed that a letter addressed to President Obama tested positive for ricin. It’s a nasty substance:

USA Today — The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a letter containing a “suspicious substance” that was addressed to President Obama, the agency confirmed on Wednesday, and at least three U.S. senators also reported receiving suspicious mail. FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the letter to Obama tested positive for the substance ricin. The letter was sent to Obama on Tuesday, and was intercepted at the White House mail screening facility, according to Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary.

Ricin is toxic at the microgram level because it disrupts the ability of RNA to maintain and repair cells. It acts like a low abundance protein, actually it is a low abundance protein, just a deadly one rather than a helpful version. Other letters have also tested postive, one sent to Sen Shelby (R-AL). If those results are confirmed, this is not a partisan effort. It remains to be seen if these letters have anything to do with the Boston bombing.

Nice diary on capitalism

I enjoyed this diary because it had two important info age features: it was short and informative. This part was well written especially and it brings up something — a way corporations are exploiting employees at every level except, of course, the very tippy-top — I may do a full feature article on in the next month or two: [Read more…]

Explosions in Boston updated w/video: graphic content

 

Twitter hashtag #Boston; FBI Tipline is 1-800-CALL-FBI prompt #3

The festive atmosphere of the Boston Marathon has turned into a grisly murder scene this evening after shrapnel ripped through hundreds of excited onlookers and joyous partipants, killing at least three people. The toll stands at 2 3 confirmed dead with 23 at least 113 injured from two timed bombs that went off seconds apart at the packed finish line, presumably as intended, and a third that was intentionally detonated by a police bomb squad (Yet another bomb has been reported at the JFK library in Boston). The only silver lining is there were significant medical assets at the attack site, so many victims lives’ were saved from what would otherwise have been fatal injuries. It is widely reported emergency responders treated victims on the scene who suffered partial or full traumatic amputations. The injured now being treated at local area hospitals span the gamut, from a two year-old with head trauma to several elderly victims with injuries ‘threatening life and limb’.

I checked with a couple of friends who live in Boston and work downtown, one said he heard it across 20 blocks. Tax day, Patriot Day, Boston, and JFK; all consistent with targets hit by terrorists looking to maxmimize casualties and therefore news coverage. FWIW I am seeing speculation from demo experts saying the smoke shown in video suggests black powder or some other flaggelany and not explosive C4 or TNT. Nevertheless these bombs were designed and carefully placed to kill and maim, no question about it.

A number of groups may try and take credit for this, be true to your skeptical roots folks. Also bear in mind that in the past — the Centennial Olympic bombing comes to mind — the early and strongly suspected person, a local police officer named Richard Jewell, turned out to have nothing to do with the attack[s], Jewell was in fact a hero on that scene in 1996. The actual perp was a right-wing anti-abortion terroist who remained at large for years afterward.

Marx’s revenge

I’ve always thought the communists made a big mistake, especially the Soviets. Well, they made a bunch of mistakes in retrospect, not the least of which included the transfer of power. That was never worked out very well, paving the way for allegories like Animal Farm and real-world tyrants like Stalin. But another mistake — purely from an experiemtnal history view mind you — was the exclusion of religion. Suppose, instead of becoming the global face of a perverse form of atheism, Lenin and Marx had embraced those elements of religion that supported their ideology in the same way fundamentalists here and elsewhere have done for capitalism? Suppose, instead a state sponsored link had been established and heavily hyped between the Sermon on the Mount or analogous words found in the Koran, uniting the teachings of Jesus and Mohammed, bearing on the benefits of socialism as seen by down trodden peasants, promising social justice and economic equality for all? It might have been a very different cold war, leading to a very different outcome.

We’ll never know … or will we? [Read more…]

Hawking is too generous

Giga-brain Stephen Hawking gives the species a millennia to get our shit together and get off the planet, presumably with heavy industry to avoid Easter-islanding the entire planet and all of us. I’ll go with the Elysium trailer above as far as predicting the time and look of the looming disaster: [Read more…]

There are no transitional fossils!

739px-Australopithecus_sediba_and_Lucy

So goes the creationist mantra, perhaps sung to hymnal-like notes on an organ or flute or something both deliciously neolithic and middle eastern. But if there were transitional fossils, and we happened to have an example of a transitional fossil specimen bridging the gap between modern humans and more ape-like ancestors, we’d want something roughly 2 to 3 million years old with features from both clades. Say for example: [Read more…]