Posts from — April 2013

Over at the Tchotchke News Network they have the the latest developments: They have determined Tamerlan’s cause of death; female DNA was found on the fragments of one bomb; and a fingerprint was found on a fragment. They don’t know what the cause of death is, only that is has been determined. No one knows who the DNA or fingerprint belong to, and it doesn’t actually prove anything useful to anyone except a defense attorney wanting to stir up doubt among the jurors, but it was headlined.

Tomorrow is the first of the month, so maybe things will get better if their budget for part-timers is replenished every month.

There is a profile of the newest member of Jokhar’s Federal defense team, Judy Clarke, but it was written when she was appointed to defend the Arizona shooter, so they are just updating an old piece, not doing anything new.

McClatchy carried a story from the Austin American-Statesman: Officials investigating Texas blast looking to see what was missed

When the West Fertilizer Co. blew up earlier this month, it killed 15 and injured another 200, shattering the all-American town of only 2,800. The Insurance Council of Texas estimates insured losses could reach $100 million.

Now, as state and federal officials sort through the rubble left behind to determine a cause, they have begun looking at what they themselves missed.

On Monday, officials with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers arrived in West to assist investigators in assessing the crater – 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep – at the explosion site.

As a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing anyone who has more than 400 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on site is supposed to file a report with the Department of Homeland Security. In 2012 the company told the state of Texas that it had 270 tons of the chemical at the plant, but didn’t tell the DHS anything. In the company’s Federal Risk Management Plan, they only address the dangers of corrosion and toxic release, ignoring the sections on fires and explosions.

So long as the worst that can happen is a fine, these disasters will continue to happen. If CEOs and directors start going to jail, things will get better.

It’s Hexennacht and the moon is waning gibbous [between full and last quarter, but there is no Blocksberg available for dancing down here and local fire officials frown on bonfires during “Fire Weather Warnings”.

Of course the Church grabbed this holiday too and called it Walpurgisnacht in honor of one of their Anglo-Saxon saints, rather than good German witches [Hexen].

The Celts celebrate Beltaine at this time of the year.

Law enforcement should stop screwing around and bring in the one person who can explain the Tsarnaev investigation to the media – Emily Litella 👿

Marcy Wheeler digs up two hints of the farce this has become – 1) the megabuck facial recognition software couldn’t identify the Tsarnaev brothers despite their identity photographs in the immigration files and the Massachusetts DMV; and 2) the NYPD claims about a plan to target Times Square would appear to be based on a photograph Jokhar posted on his VKontact [Russian version of Facebook] page of his trip with friends to NYC, and comments heard by the car hijacking victim.

Most people aren’t aware that the FBI has thrown billions of dollars at various computer systems, and still has nothing that actually functions. That the photo recognition system is worthless is hardly surprising with their track record, and the general functionality of things purchased in response to the War on Terror™.

Then Charlie Pierce locates an interview with “Misha”. Mikhail “Misha” Allakhverdov, son of an Armenian mother and Ukrainian father, has already been in contact with the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom he knew when he lived in Boston three years ago. He moved back to Rhode Island to care for his parents and has not had any contact with Tsarnaev since his move.

Why can’t people accept that Tamerlan is a homicidal whacko, just like the guys to did all of the killing at Sandy Hook, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, etc. His bombs weren’t as sophisticated as those of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, or Ted Kaszynski, so why are so many people convinced that he had to be part of a conspiracy?

It is definitely time for “Never mind” …

Now you have politicians wanting to know why the FBI didn’t do more about the Tsarnaev brothers. How about – there wasn’t a hell of a lot any law enforcement agency can do that will discover an individual bent on havoc. How would they justify the resources needed to put an audio bug in Tamerlan’s apartment, because that’s the only way they might have found out anything? As Tsar Vladimir put it, these politicians are speaking gibberish.

Meanwhile there are no arrests, nor any prospects of arrests in the much bigger and more deadly explosion in West, Texas. I guess murder is OK if it is committed by a corporation in pursuit of profit.

Dave Johnson notes that the “Spreadsheet Error” Economists Blame “The Left” Not “Science”. Well it could have been a plot by that well known terrorist group, al Gebra. It must be true that facts have a liberal bias.

To improve your attitude, read a Terry Pratchett novel. Via Avedon, here’s the opinion of another author: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Might Be The Highest Form of Literature on the Planet. BTW, he isn’t kidding and justifies the claim.

McClatchy reports that a senior law enforcement official said the bombs show some expertise and Tamerlan must have attended a training camp in Russia.

The bombs demonstrate the ability to follow written instructions and nothing more. Tsar Vladimir does not tolerate terrorist training camps on Russian soil. They didn’t have to etch circuit boards and construct receivers, they bought them at a hobby shop. With printed instructions anyone who can read can build that type of bomb easily. If they had had any expertise they could have built more powerful versions of that bomb for a hell of a lot less money and no paper trail.

Then we have MSNBC telling us about the complaints of Mike Rogers [R MI-8], the Chairperson of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that Jokhar Tsarnaev was ‘Mirandized’ before being thoroughly ‘Cheneyed’. Of course, you have to listen to Mr Rogers because every introduction of him includes the fact that he is a former FBI agent. The introduction doesn’t mention that it was only for 5 years in Chicago working on public corruption cases.

If public safety was really a concern they could have offered not to use anything Jokhar told them against him in the trial. They had him rock solid on charges that carry the death penalty, so they didn’t need any more evidence.

Digby found another grievance that Tamerlan had with the US. His boxing career was cut short by a rule change that disqualified resident aliens like him from competing in important tournaments. He couldn’t become a citizen because of a domestic violence charge that was dropped before trial, and he couldn’t box competitively because he wasn’t a citizen. That is a lot for some people to deal with, and it may have been enough if he couldn’t see a new path forward.

So I was listening to a collection of ‘pundits and experts’ on my Mother’s television and they all had their knickers in a twist of the ‘training’ that Tamerlan Tsarnaev absolutely, positively had to have received during his six-month stay in Russia.

Let’s see, the only component of the bombs that Tsarnaev built that would likely be available in the Russian Caucasus would be the pressure cooker in a very large city. The Chechens have always used captured military explosives and cell phones for remote detonation. Tsarnaev used American components, as one would expect given the genesis of Inspire magazine. There is no evidence that Tsarnaev followed any of the basic rules of a terrorist in building the bombs or setting them off.

He didn’t get false identification, so we know the source of the explosives. He didn’t have an escape plan. He made no effort to disguise himself. He obtained a handgun with an obliterated serial number that is a felony in its own right. He showed no indication that he was aware of the surveillance cameras on the street. They hijacked a high-end vehicle that was almost guaranteed to have GPS tracking built-in. This was amateur hour from beginning to end, so it is highly unlikely that he had ever received any real training in any aspect of this attack.

The Russian FSB was suspicious of him, so there is near zero possibility that he wasn’t being watched the entire time he was in Russia. If he had disappeared long enough for real training, he would still be in Russia. He was 15 when he left for the US – old enough to have learned how to do what he did in the unsettled Caucasus of the time.

Weird

Zzz…zzz…

[Editor: Ms Blue is actually napping in that position.]

Friday Ark

So, the second post also closed on this two month old discussion. The software is using UTC instead of local time, so I discovered the problem when I went to comment.

The practice stops spam from being dropped into old posts, but it complicates following the discussion.

It is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to the American Veterans Day, in that it began as a remembrance of World War I, and has become more generalized over the years.

“Anzac Day commemorates the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops in a World War I campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.”

The Gallipoli Campaign began as a Winston Churchill [then First Lord of the Admiralty] plan that spun out of control and got a lot of people killed on both sides with nothing much changing, but then, that was quite common in World War I.

Peter Weir made a movie, Gallipoli, which, if nothing else, proves that Sergeant Alvin York, and T.E. Lawrence weren’t the only people who fought in World War I.

CBS is reporting on the source of the explosives that were used to construct their bombs.

In turns out that Tamerlan with his Russian accent and Massachusetts drivers license went to New Hampshire [state motto: Live Free or Die (it’s on their license plates)] and bought two of Phantom Fireworks “Lock and Load” reloadable Mortar kits. Each of these fun-filled kits contains 4 launch tubes and 24 shells. The shells each contain a combined weight of 60 grams of propellant, coloring agents, and black powder. As black powder is 50% of the weight, it amounts to 1.44 kilograms [3.175 pounds] of black powder. The kits cost $200 apiece, and are illegal in Massachusetts [for damn good reasons]. I assume that the shells also contained some timed fuses that would be of use to an aspiring pyrotechnician.

This was all perfectly legal in New Hampshire because “free markets and FREEDOM!” New Hampshire holds the first Presidential primary, and the people who win there are actually considered to be viable candidates. Why?

Watertown Police Chief Ed DeVeau told the local media what happened when his department encountered the Tsarnaev brothers.

First off, the brothers were not aware that the Mercedes SUV had a GPS anti-theft tracker, so police departments with the right equipment, like the Cambridge PD could track it. and Watertown was alerted they were on their way.

A patrolling officer spotted the SUV and the brothers’ Honda and called for back-up. Unfortunately the brothers spotted the police car and stopped to attack.

The patrol officer was joined by 4 on-duty and 2 off-duty officers, and hundreds of rounds were exchanged along with some home-made bombs that were in the trunk of the Honda.

Then Tamerlan decided to go on the attack and rushed the officers. He was wounded, but no one was risking a lot of aiming with all of the bullets flying. When Tamerlan ran out of ammunition, the classic ‘ton of blue’ was dropped on him, i.e. he was tackled and buried under police officers.

While the police were dealing with Tamerlan, Jokhar jumped into the SUV and tore down the road at them. The officers managed to get out of the way, but Tamerlan couldn’t, so he was run over and dragged by the SUV.

Other agencies were responding, so Jokhar jumped out of the vehicle and fled on foot.

Meanwhile the Watertown officers were dealing with two seriously injured people, Tamerlan and Transit Officer Richard Donahoe.

This is the procedure that I learned in the academy – if at all possible you arrest people, you don’t kill them. Guilt or innocence is for the courts to decide, your job is to deliver them to the court.

In a Charlie Pierce piece it is mentioned that the officers involved in the incident have turned in their weapons and are assigned to desk duty until they are cleared by a shooting review board. That’s how it is supposed to be. If you use force you have to justify it. If you shoot your weapon you have to justify it. This is what ‘protect and serve’ is all about – cops shouldn’t endanger people, and shouldn’t use any more force than absolutely necessary to keep the peace and enforce laws.

These guys did the job the way it should be done, the way people want it done, and they survived. That’s as good as it gets.

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia [the country], Bulgaria, Portugal, Catalonia, and the city of Moscow. Orthodox countries tend to celebrate George on November 23^rd.

PETA condemns George for his senseless slaughter of dragons. The YWCA condemns the condemnation and wants to know when PETA is going to volunteer to be DragonChow™

It is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book.

It is also the birth and death day of Billy the Bard, who was a great writer in desperate need of a spelling checker.

Master Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to villains supplying low humor to those who have read the Folio, e.g. the late Senator Arlen Specter quoting Iago, reputedly in support of Clarence Thomas.

There are a lot reports coming to fill out the picture of the Tsarnaev brothers.

Their parents are divorced, and the father returned to Russia after the divorce.

They have a sister who is married to a policeman in Chechnya, which is the connection the aunt was talking about in her interview.

Tamerlan has an American wife and daughter, who are now at her parents’ home in Rhode Island. She is a home healthcare aide and has been putting 70+ hour weeks, while Tamerlan was supposedly caring for their daughter.

The mother says that she introduced Tamerlan to the Koran and Islam to calm him down after he got into trouble a few years ago. Tamerlan convinced his wife to convert to Islam.

The FSB [Russian Federal Security Service] asked the FBI to interview Tamerlan after they discovered supposedly radical videos being linked to on his YouTube page.

Jokhar was arraigned on both state and Federal charges from his hospital bed today and will have public defenders appointed. The Federal charges carry the death penalty, as expected. Massachusetts doesn’t have the death penalty.

I don’t see this going to trial, there is too much hard evidence for a competent defense attorney not to counsel a plea bargain. That said it is highly unlikely that Jokhar will ever be eligible for release.