Things go boom

[Cain]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/17860373-boston-marathon-bomb-suspect-charged-with-using-weapon-of-mass-destruction?lite

When I was a kid, a "weapon of mass destruction" was a nuke, gas, or germs.

Now it has been expanded to include kitchen impliments.

I know, right?

Shit, I don't even consider the sarin attacks in Tokyo to be proper WMD attacks, they only get in on the technicality of using a nerve agent.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Leak detector for the Sarin nerve agent that we, the USA, certainly doesn't have, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal sarin manufacturing facility that we don't have.

[Junkenstein]

Kind of a modern canary in a cage. Scarily believable.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Kind of a modern canary in a cage. Scarily believable.

I expect that pic is from the 60s/70s.

I also like how he's blundering down between cannisters with a bulky cage in his hands.

[Junkenstein]

I guess it's marginally better than just having it by the neck and waiting for it to stop kicking.

Marginally.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I guess it's marginally better than just having it by the neck and waiting for it to stop kicking.

Marginally.

And there's nothing like sticking your protective gloves through chickenwire when you pick heavy things up in a potentially lethal atmosphere.

[Junkenstein]

Oh yeah. That's a nice way to age you prematurely.

[Cain]

Leak detector for the Sarin nerve agent that we, the USA, certainly doesn't have, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal sarin manufacturing facility that we don't have.

It's a research facility for defensive purposes.

But seriously, this whole WMD for terrorism charges thing has been bugging me for a while now.  It's Orwellian as shit.  CBRN or GTFO.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Leak detector for the Sarin nerve agent that we, the USA, certainly doesn't have, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal sarin manufacturing facility that we don't have.

It's a research facility for defensive purposes.

But seriously, this whole WMD for terrorism charges thing has been bugging me for a while now.  It's Orwellian as shit.  CBRN or GTFO.

Yep.  It's fucking pathetic.

[Cain]

Looks like this little exploit in the programming language of the National Security State has still not received a fix:

"He went over to Russia, but apparently, when he got on the Aeroflot plane, they misspelled his name," Graham, a South Carolina Republican said on Fox television this morning. "So it never went into the system that he actually went to Russia."

Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in answer to a follow-up question that he did not know whether Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old terrorist suspect who died early Friday following a shootout with law enforcement, had misspelled his name on purpose.

The FBI "said Aeroflot gave us the information" that Tsarnaev had traveled there, Graham said, though he did not specify when that occurred.

May not mean anything, in the grander scheme of things, but it just shows this problem, which has been going on for decades, has still not been solved.

Oh, and the White House has confirmed the trial will be a civilian and not military one.  Rejoice, for your junta is still an optional one.

[Suu]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/17860373-boston-marathon-bomb-suspect-charged-with-using-weapon-of-mass-destruction?lite

When I was a kid, a "weapon of mass destruction" was a nuke, gas, or germs.

Now it has been expanded to include kitchen impliments.

This has the added bonus of turning many households into potential strongholds of terrorist supplies.

Bet something like that turns up on a warrant within the year.

I can make Great War-level mustard gas out of what's under my sink right now. Just sayin'.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The mother has claimed the FBI fingered Tamerlane as a suspect on Thursday:

Their mother went so far on Sunday to claim that the FBI had contacted her elder son after the deadly bombs exploded at the marathon. If true it would be the first indication that the FBI considered him a suspect before Boston descended into violence on Thursday.

At FBI headquarters in Washington, spokesman Michael Kortan stood by the bureau's public statement of two days ago in which the bureau described a 2011 FBI interview of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Kortan said the 2011 interview was the only FBI contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The FBI statement from two days ago says that the FBI did not learn of the identity of Tamerlan and his brother until Friday after the gun battle in which Tamerlan was killed.

The mother's claim could not be independently confirmed, and she has made statements in the past that appeared to show a lack of full understanding of what occurred in Boston.

There's a lot of potential reasons for misunderstandings here, but I wanted this to be noted.

very very interesting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/16891602-canada-thwarts-plot-to-blow-up-us-canada-rail-line?lite

The men were receiving support from al-Qaeda elements in Iran, according to officials.

AIN'T WE GOT FUN?

Wow, will you look at that. Actual would-be terrorists,  concocting a plot entirely without FBI assistance, thwarted by law enforcement before anyone got hurt.

It's a mad world.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/22/16891602-canada-thwarts-plot-to-blow-up-us-canada-rail-line?lite

The men were receiving support from al-Qaeda elements in Iran, according to officials.

AIN'T WE GOT FUN?

Wow, will you look at that. Actual would-be terrorists,  concocting a plot entirely without FBI assistance, thwarted by law enforcement before anyone got hurt.

It's a mad world.

Dogs and cats will be fucking in the streets for weeks.

[Cain]

Well, this puts a different spin on Uncle Ruslan:

The uncle of the two men who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon, who struck the only grace note in an otherwise horrific week, worked as a "consultant" for the Agency for International Development (USAID) a U.S. Government Agency often used for cover by agents of the CIA, in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan during the "Wild West" days of the early 1990's, when anything that wasn't nailed down in that country was up for grabs.

But the biggest red flag, the one pertinent to murder in Boston, was Oligarch Kukibayev's use of money laundered through a network of offshore companies to attempt to hide his purchase of Prince Andrew's crib, which emerged during a legal battle between another billionaire Kazakh oligarch, Mukhtar Ablyazov, and BTA Bank, from which Kazakhstan claims Ablyazov embezzled a very cool $6 billion dollars.

And this is where "Uncle Ruslan" Tsarni comes in.

The purchase of the Prince's estate was put together, according to prosecutors in Italy and Switzerland, by a group of oil executives who comprise "a network of personal and business relationships" allegedly used for "international corruption," reported The London Telegraph.

Tsarni, called "a US lawyer who has had dealings in Kazakh business affairs," by the Sunday Times, clearly appears to be a member of that network.

The Sunday Times reported, "A statement by Ruslan Zaindi Tsarni was given in the High Court in December, claiming that Kulibayev bought Sunninghill and properties in Mayfair with $96 million derived from a complex series of deals intended to disguise money laundering."

"Tsarni alleged that the money came from the takeover of a western company, which had been used as a front to obtain oil contracts from the Kazakh state."