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Saturday Late Morning Reads

Posted: April 20, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , |28 Comments

informationoverloadcartoon

 Good Morning!!

I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed and paralyzed at the moment, so I’m going to have to limit myself to a link dump this morning. Otherwise I’m never going to get started.


Stories that may fill in some blanks on the Tsarnaev brothers.

A very helpful piece from the Wall Street Journal: Life in America Unraveled for Brothers, By ALAN CULLISON and PAUL SONNE in Moscow and JENNIFER LEVITZ in Cambridge, Mass.

The New Yorker’s David Remnick on The Culprits provides some background on the Chechen connection.

At Crooks and Liars, Boston Bombing Suspects Recall Home-Grown Terrorists in Madrid, London Attacks
By ProPublica

CBS News: FBI interviewed dead Boston bombing suspect years ago

Henry Blodget at Business Insider: The FBI Needs To Explain Why It Failed To Monitor Boston Bombing Suspect Despite A Clear Warning

FBI Press Release on their Investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Tsarnaev Brothers


A little more news related to the Boston bombings

Report: 3 arrested in New Bedford in connection to bombing suspect

Neighbors say three have been arrested in New Bedford in connection with the Boston Bombing suspect.

Police apprehended suspects from the Hidden Brook Apartments on Carriage Drive in New Bedford. Neighbors say they think that the girlfriend of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have lived in the complex and they have seen him in the area as recently as yesterday.

The National Memo: Lindsey Graham Does A Quick Trashing Of the Constitution On Twitter

Slate.com on the high tech methods used to catch the second suspect

Police used a robot, flashbangs, and a thermal camera to apprehend second Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday night, as Boston police recounted in a press conference shortly afterward. But it was a citizen’s alarming encounter with the suspect that proved to be the key in finding him.

Russ Baker at Who What Why: The Marathon Bombing: What the Media Didn’t Warn You About

Seth Mnookin at The New Yorker: Watertown Diary

I have lots more, but I’ll leave the Boston story there for now.

west_texas_fertilizer_plant_blast_map


The Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion

NBC News: Investigators: Texas plant explosion death toll raised to 14

CBS News: Majority of deaths in West, Texas explosion were first responders

HuffPo: Texas Explosion: 60 People Still Missing According To Report

NYT: Texas on Fire, Again and Again

NBC News: Texas fertilizer plant also stored explosive chemical used in Oklahoma City bomb

Reuters: Texas fertilizer company didn’t heed disclosure rules before blast

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate – which can also be used in bomb making – unaware of any danger there.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.


In other news…

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Across America, a week of chaos, horror — and hope

the International News: Pervez Musharraf transferred to farmhouse

Christian Science Monitor: Judge orders Musharraf held for 14 days before next hearing

PC Magazine: Transcript of Julian Assange, Eric Schmidt Chat Posted on WikiLeaks

Foreign Policy Magazine: Eric Schmidt: Money is the only reason Julian Assange redacted WikiLeaks files

The Guardian: Inside the mind of Eric Schmidt

That’s about all I have the energy for right now. I’ll post more links in the comments. What are you focusing on today? Please share your recommended reads, and have a great Saturday!

28 Comments on “Saturday Late Morning Reads”

  1. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 9:55 am

    Sorry this post is so late. I’m really suffering from information overload and the events of this week have reactivated my PTSD.

    • Beata's avatar Beata says:
      April 20, 2013 at 12:12 pm

      Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself, BB, even if it means not writing about the bombings. Your well-being is foremost.

      I have PTSD too ( as I think a number of Sky Dancers do ), and although I’m far from Boston, the events of this week have triggered those old feelings of being unsafe. I can only imagine what being there has been like for you. XOXO

    • mjames's avatar mjames says:
      April 20, 2013 at 5:42 pm

      BB, I noticed your distress this past week but had no idea you had PTSD. I extend my sympathies for the suffering you must be going through. My own PTSD was reactivated a while ago – from a different trigger – which is why I have been commenting only minimally. I will be back when I am at full strength. Take care. The best advice I have is: try to stay in the present. I believe you have some young nephews nearby who you love to pieces, and I have a one-month-old granddaughter who has brought great joy to my life.

      • Beata's avatar Beata says:
        April 20, 2013 at 6:07 pm

        mjames, how fortunate you are to have a new granddaughter to bring joy into your life. Congratulations! Best wishes to you. May you find healing and peace.

        Children and pets provide a wonderful way to “stay in the present” which I agree is so important to people suffering from PTSD. No children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews for me, but I do thank G-d for my cat!

        BB, if you can get a fur baby, I highly recommend it. Also spending time with your nephews, as mjames suggested.

  2. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 9:59 am

    Mark Ames is the true inheritor of the mantle of Hunter S. Thompson, not his former colleague Matt Taibbi.

  3. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:05 am

    Footage of yesterday’s shootout, posted by (non-liberal) Watertown resident (scary)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=796UFHldHM4

  4. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:13 am

    This LA Times story suggests to me that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have been a professional car thief.

    Two weeks ago, said 44-year-old Gilberto Junior, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had brought in a white Mercedes 1967 station wagon to have the damaged rear bumper repaired. He said it belonged to his girlfriend.

    That was not unusual: Tsarnaev often brought in cars for wealthy friends from Boston University and MIT, Junior said, and always paid in cash.

    What was strange was that the man showed up Tuesday wanting the car back early, clearly agitated.

    “He was very nervous, biting his nails, agitated,” Junior said. “I thought he was on drugs, medication.” Junior didn’t report it to police. Tsarnaev took the Mercedes without having it fixed.

    He “often brought in cars for wealthy friends from Boston University and MIT”?

    Tsarnaev’s friends were all wealthy and Turkish, Junior said, and drove Range Rovers, Porsche Cayennes and BMWs.

    On his last visit, the young man was wearing Louis Vuitton shoes and Burberry pants, and wore his hair shorter.

    Sounds kind of suspicious to me…

  5. mablue2's avatar mablue2 says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:35 am

    Thanks BB, Kat and all my fellow Skydancers for a spectacular job during these difficult days. This whole thing really hit me hard because it’s home and I got touched on a much more emotional level.
    I got my info from here and form my relatives. I’m glad the worst is over.

  6. List of X's avatar List of X says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:52 am

    I’m originally from Russia, and I live in Boston area. While there is a large Russian-speaking community in Boston, it’s not that large, so I can’t help thinking that it’s almost certain that I know somebody who knows them…

  7. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 11:05 am

    Glenn Greenwald: What rights should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get and why does it matter?

  8. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 20, 2013 at 11:36 am

    Charles Pierce: Guns Along the River: A Late Night in Watertown

  9. fiscalliberal's avatar fiscalliberal says:
    April 20, 2013 at 11:38 am

    Just a side note on Fertilizer explosives – The bombing of the Physics Building at U of Wisc-.Madison was with a fertilizer bomb in a oil drum. part of the Texas explosion had to be that the fire dept. did not know how to handle the fire. I know that a person who has a hazardous material in his plant. He went to the local fire dept to tell them about the hazard of pouring water on those chemicals

  10. gp's avatar gp says:
    April 20, 2013 at 12:45 pm

    I’ve been reading some articles about that Fertilizer explosion and am very concerned that the Dept. of Homeland Security had no idea that the place existed. If a terrorist organization was sharp enough and they learned something from McVeigh and co. they would just break into one of these unregulated places that is storing massive quantities, steal what they wanted, and then set fire to the rest to cover their tracks. How much damage could a terrorist organization do with three or four truck loads of bomb making material not on anyone’s radar? I shudder to think about it. Plus, because it would be stolen there wouldn’t even be a paper trail to track. It is essential that all of these companies comply with the law. The key members of this particular company need to be prosecuted to the fullest if it turns out they didn’t.

  11. ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
    April 20, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    I realize this is the end of the thread and completely OT but I just had to share in case someone here reads this & is interested. Dr. Alan Rabinowitz’s, founder & CEO of Panthera, interview on On Being is being rebroadcast from April 18th – 21st. The podcast is available online. Here’s a link from Panthera: http://www.panthera.org/blog/april-18-21-reairing-voice-animals-interview-pantheras-ceo-dr-alan-rabinowitz His story and work with big cats is inspirational, at least for me.

  12. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    April 20, 2013 at 3:15 pm

    Hey I had no idea this happened:

    ty sky dancers! wtg!! Notice that we have the top 100 honors in three AREAS!! Top 100 politics! Top 100 US politics and TOP 100 WORLD politics! Think this is the first time we’ve hit a triple!

    Hot damn!

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