Tragedy today in Boston

[Landshark]

WMDs are generally used in reference to foreign leaders, like Saddam in the Iraq war.  Again, not to diminish the loss and injury in Boston, but nobody is coming after Saddam for a pressure cooker full of nails.

^^Agreed.

Everyone has a different view of "mass", however.  The intention of those pressure cookers versus reality was gravely different.  I'm not trying to compare a pressure cooker to a chemical weapon, but...some of the items we were looking for were also smaller weapons to be deployed in a larger mass distribution level.

Apparently the people who convicted Tim McVeigh considered what he used to blow up the Murrah Building a weapon of mass destruction.  IMO, any explosive device that can cause significant damage to a structure qualifies as one.

[Dave Gray]

Maybe this is a meaningless semantics argument, but none of those things are what the rest of the world calls WMDs.  Regular missles or bombs are not.  Bombs or chemical warfare that is designed to indiscriminately wipe out entire populations is what is traditionally called a WMD.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Apparently the people who convicted Tim McVeigh considered what he used to blow up the Murrah Building a weapon of mass destruction.  IMO, any explosive device that can cause significant damage to a structure qualifies as one.

Tim McVeigh blew up a FEDERAL building, killing FEDERAL law enforcement agents. 

[Landshark]

Tim McVeigh blew up a FEDERAL building, killing FEDERAL law enforcement agents. 

Still used a weapon of mass destruction

[Dave Gray]

From the wiki page (which must be true )

it has come to distinguish large-scale weaponry of other technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Tweet of the day.....

If you expect #Boston ease up, you are not aware of how we treated Bill Buckner for 18 years after a baseball rolled between his legs.

[Brian Fein]

Something has struck me as odd about this whole thing...

Two kids who everyone says are awesome guys, suddenly turn terrorist and blow up a race.  Odd, but plausible.  I fully believe that the older brother (who is now dead) was the mastermind, or possibly that some third party was the mastermind, and these kids were just mules.

But, furthermore, these same 2 kids (who are supposedly awesome guys who everyone loves) then go rob a convenience store, kill a security guard for no reason, then carjack a car.  All random violence that doesn't seem to fit the description of terrorist bombers, other than the rampant disregard for life.

But here's the part that gets me - they tell the guy they carjacked "we are the Marathon Bombers" - revealing their identity to a random stranger.  And then, later that night, they just stop and let the guy go.  The same guy they confessed to a few minutes ago.  After murdering so many other random strangers.  This strikes me as particularly peculiar, because why would you put the dogs on yourself if you were fleeing? Why wouldn't you have hurt or killed that guy too?

Unless they WANTED to be caught?

If that is so, why can't they find the younger brother?

I fully believe that he has already fled.  They are feverishly searching Watertown, MA, but there's no guarantee he is still there.  He could be in Mexico or Russia by now.

They are starting a press conference, I am interested to hear what they have to say...

[Dave Gray]

I think the 2nd guy is already dead somewhere.

[Brian Fein]

interesting.  Mr. Boston police guy just said they were NOT the ones that robbed the convenience store.

[Dave Gray]

I could be going off of bad info, but going on what CNN was reporting this afternoon:

The cops had a shootout and killed the one brother when he got out of the car.  The two guys were throwing explosives at the cops.  Then, the younger brother took the wheel and ran over his brother's body. 

How did he get away from a bunch of cops that were shooting at him?  How did he manage to flee?

[Spider-Dan]

That was the older brother's robbery accomplice, not the younger brother.

[Phishfan]

That was the older brother's robbery accomplice, not the younger brother.

Everything I'm reading say it was the two brothers.

Also I hear the "robbery" was unrelated to these two now.

[Landshark]

Second suspect is in custody. Hopefully they can get some info outta Him

[el diablo]

Depends on Satan's interrogation practices.

[bsmooth]

Still used a weapon of mass destruction

Truck and car bombs are not considered WMD's....period. They are closer to VBIEDs. There is a select category of weapons that under WMD's. The ones that can do more damage with a single weapon than the largest conventional weapon system.