Friday Cat Blogging

by Bryan

14 comments

1 Badtux { 04.19.13 at 1:06 am }

Now *that* is a feral-lookin’ cat. Nobody’s gonna say Lulu needs a scritch behind the ears. They’d be too scared of losing a finger.

2 Bryan { 04.19.13 at 1:26 am }

She’s just half asleep and a bit dazed at the sound of walking on the leaves, not that she wouldn’t slice and dice you if reached towards her. [Let’s hear it for Nikon’s mild telephoto on the camera, because I’m at least 15′ away from her.]

3 Jim Bales { 04.19.13 at 6:03 am }

From the title, I thought that this post was about my morning here in Boston. So far we’ve had three robocalls and a slew of text messages.

In short, we are safe, at home, and not going anywhere today!

Jim

4 Bryan { 04.19.13 at 10:45 am }

When I saw the report on the MIT officer killed last night, I wondered if the suspects had been flushed.

At home behind locked doors is the best place to be until the second suspect dies. If they are, as reported, Chechens I’m not confident that arrest is a real possibility.

5 Badtux { 04.19.13 at 9:19 pm }

Turns out that the younger brother is an American of Chechen descent and the other never lived in Chechnya and had no real connections to people there. It appears more like a Colombine-type event than an Islamic terrorist type event. The younger kid was just arrested, so that tells you something. We’ll find out more as the younger kid is interrogated though. It’s not as if there’s any doubt that he dropped one of the bombs, there was a witness who saw him do it only a minute or two before the bomb went off and took out the witness’s legs.

6 Bryan { 04.19.13 at 10:21 pm }

The older brother played it like a real Chechen, including the suicide vest to prevent capture. The only real link between the Chechen separatists and Islamic ‘jihadists’ is Putin’s imagination. The Chechens certainly knew most of the organizations that were part of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, took the opportunity to kill Soviets, but they were/are interested in an independent Chechnya, not a pan-Islamic Caliphate ruled by upper-class Saudis or Egyptians.

I have serious doubts as to whether the younger brother knows anything worth pursuing, but he will probably talk a lot, no matter what his attorney tells him.

The good news is that Jim can now leave his house and go to work because a woman knew there shouldn’t be blood stains on her boat cover.

7 Badtux { 04.19.13 at 11:16 pm }

I have a sneaking suspicion that the younger brother didn’t even know that they were dropping explosives, his older brother may have told him that they were just smoke bombs. But as you say, I expect the younger brother to be talk, talk, talk, since it’s not as if there’s a whole lot for him to lose at this point, given video evidence and eyewitness evidence that he plopped one of those bombs in place. We’ll find out more after the prosecution leaks to taint the jury pool begin (why doesn’t anybody ever seem to notice when this happens? Due process? For realz?!).

8 Bryan { 04.20.13 at 12:57 am }

Actually I’ve been amazed at the absence of real leaks on this case, which is a feature of most big cases. The media have been so consistently wrong that I also suspect a set-up by the Feds and locals to feed them crap. They may have had suspicions about who was going to leak and fed them bad information.

The main question at this point is where they are going to try him, i.e. the Federal or state courts. It might be safer and less of a political headache to let the state do it. If they go for a Federal prosecution, Congress could muck about with things. There have already been two Senators calling for a violation of the Constitution to move the case to the military tribunals.

The state case is simple and straight forward, but the Federal prosecution would involve flaky laws. They could also split it and let the state take care of the murder charges, and then have the Feds deal with the other charges. That would ensure that he doesn’t see the outside of a prison.

9 hipparchia { 04.20.13 at 8:46 am }

There have already been two Senators calling for a violation of the Constitution to move the case to the military tribunals.

i hadn’t heard this one yet, not that it’s a surprise, really. otoh, it was a bit of a surprise to find that apparently susan collins is one of those senators. who’s the other one?

The media have been so consistently wrong that I also suspect a set-up by the Feds and locals to feed them crap.

i was idly sort of wondering if the reddit photo hunt was a red herring deliberately thrown out there to distract the anon-types.

10 Bryan { 04.20.13 at 9:51 am }

Lindsey Graham is the second. He wants the US declared a battlefield for ‘terrorism’ cases and everything handled by the military, who don’t want to do it, and don’t have the resources to do it. The military by law and tradition has minimal power to act within the US and a Senator from South Carolina should certainly know why that is part of the law.

The photo hunt gave people something to do, but it was useless as an evidentiary exercise because there is no ‘chain of custody’ attached, as there is with the Lord & Taylor surveillance video. It might have proved useful if things hadn’t moved so quickly.

11 hipparchia { 04.21.13 at 3:37 pm }

… and a Senator from South Carolina should certainly know why that is part of the law.

you would think so, wouldn’t you? but i guess being an ally of defense businesses, instead of the actual government-run military, makes it ok.

from another post on that site:

But it’s hardly the end for Obama and his administration. Local and federal law enforcement officials, in a nationally televised press conference, acknowledged they opted against reading the suspect his Miranda rights. Federal terrorism laws allow such moves in situations of national security, the officials said. Soon, the commander in chief will face a crucial decision that will shape U.S. counterterrorism and legal policy for years to come.

Influential GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, who have met with Obama lately on several occasions, are pressing the president to withhold Tsarnaev’s Miranda rights.

john mccain joins in, what a surprise. /s

It might have proved useful if things hadn’t moved so quickly.

the police can’t be everywhere, and who would want to live in a police state anyway? so, sure, the police should be able to ask for help from the public and the public should be willing to help in appropriate situations. otoh, i’m as big a fan of vigilantism as i am of police states, so i generally view the “usefulness” of reddit-photohunt-style “help” with the ol’ jaundiced eye.

just for good measure, i think i’ll go stick my head out the front door now and yell you kids get off my lawn! 🙂

12 Bryan { 04.21.13 at 6:09 pm }

Actually what the ‘kerning kiddies’ and media were doing is helping in that it keeps them occupied while the cops actually do the job. When the real photo analysts got a solid lead from the admissible surveillance video from Lord & Taylor, then they asked for help in identifying the suspects.

The private photos are a problem because the person who took them would have to appear in court at the trial to get them introduced into evidence, which is why crowd sourcing isn’t actually effective in a criminal case as anything other than a lead. It would provide ‘probable cause’ to get a warrant but not much else. It would fall under the same heading as an anonymous tip.

Part of the process of an investigation is gathering evidence for trial. It does you no good to find out who committed a crime if you can’t convict them. I am concerned that Carmen Ortiz is the US Attorney in charge of the case. She is too political and aggressive for my taste. She does things that are good for Carmen Ortiz, rather than good for the cases she deals with. I fear she will turn this into a political show trial, rather than a solid criminal trial with a lot solid evidence. This could be a very short trial because of the L&T video and victims’ testimony, but I feel certain she is going to drag it out and pile on extraneous charges.

I would be much happier with a state murder trial.

13 oldwhitelady { 04.24.13 at 8:04 pm }

I sure love bluegray cats. Lutu has such a nice coat, and she’s cute too! If you get close, will she run away?

14 Bryan { 04.24.13 at 8:30 pm }

Oh, yes, OWL, she will run if she isn’t cornered. Sometimes when I’m feeding them they will brush against my legs, but if I bend over, they evaporate.

I’m so sorry to hear about Mango. Even though he had been ill for a while there is always hope that it wouldn’t get worse. The orange tabbies are a favorite because they are so rare down here.