Boston Bombing

[pucho812]

I meant twitter feed.

 

[DaveP]

Thermionic,
First I don't smoke.

Yours is the view of most of the people who went on the march and I respect it.
I downloaded the Governments dossier and read it and it seemed reasonable to me at the time.
Just because 1 or 2 million went on that march, it is wrong to assume that you were acting on behalf of the majority who stayed at home.  People who agreed with the war were hardly likely to march in a jingoistic fashion demanding war, now were they?

116,516 Americans died helping us win WW1 and 405,399 died doing the same in WW2. with more than double that as casualties.  When your most important ally needs your help it is difficult to say no with those figures, I guess its because I'm older and my life has been shaped by those events more than yours.

I believe it was the UN which was responsible for the Iraq war.  They stopped Bush senior from carrying on to Bagdad in 91, if Saddam had been deposed then, it would have saved the lives of the 15,000 marsh Arabs he massacred soon after.

Life has taught me this, when there is evil in the world, it can be eradicated but it always exacts a price, usually from the innocent.
We could have left the good old Taliban comfy in Afganistan to develop or buy Sarin from a rogue state or a mini nuclear device from a rogue nation (any ideas there?). We could have waited until they wiped out a major city before we acted, but we didn't and a different set of people died instead.  That's what I meant by a difficult call.
DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

Ban marathons. They're a stupid idea anyway.

[/ ]

Then the criminals will have won.. (not calling it terrorism yet).

JR

I don't think Dan was suggesting banning marathons on the grounds of terrorism risk, more that they're an excruciating hobby that should be banned on the grounds of the prevention of masochism.

I thought it was obvious. Since apparently it wasn't I guess I need to diagram my humor. I was making a satirical paraphrase of "the terrorist have won" with the substitution of criminals for terrorists, to make fun of the political correctness so prevalent in modern discussion.  : : :  (here's a few extra emoticons for the next time.  True to form a newscaster for Al Jazera yesterday observed that it wasn't terrorism unless there is a political motive. ... not going to go there either...

I prefer a 5K myself.

1995

The fact the bombs were timed for the 4 hour mark just shows how premeditated the whole attack was.

or how flaky their timing was... Why do we assume they were so smart or precise.

When I ran Atlanta, they pulled all the support from the road course at 5 hours.

You need to pre-qualify to even get a race bib and number to run Boston so entrants younger than 54 YO had to prove that they ran faster than 4 hours in another marathon within the the last year and a half.  Perhaps they were targeting 60-80 YO marathoners, who can enter with slower times than 4 hrs (joking)? Or perhaps it doesn't mean anything (serious)..  Maybe an ex-girlfriend or single person target, expected to finish around then.  8)

When I heard about the bombing, my thoughts turned to a running buddy who was there. I actually wondered if it might have gone off at the 4hr mark, on account of this being the mean time for peak traffic flow at the finish. Fortunately for Roger he came in under 3 hours (I predicted 2:45 for him, which was a little optimistic), so wasn't caught up.

Glad he's OK.. When I lived a few blocks away I used to walk over to watch the elite runners finish and I was struck by the old Harley Davison police motorcycles burning oil and blowing thick blue smoke in the runners faces as they "protected" them from traffic at the end of 26.2 miles.

It boggles my mind that Bliar and Bush could be walking around freely, earning copious amounts of money, without reaping any consequences for their appalling foreign policy... The average Joe who wants to run a marathon or get a bus to work risks being blown up by fanatics created by their policy uke icon:

Do you think they are protected from prosecution because of their high office? There is another simpler and logical explanation (do I need to diagram that too?). 

One puke on TV this morning tried to draw a linkage between this event, and OK City, the first assault rifle ban, and current gun debate. arghhh

Sticking to matters of fact.  One or more miscreants blew up 2 bombs rigged to cause serious personal injury at a high profile international event on Patriot's Day, a state holiday in MA, presumably to maximize news coverage. The press are doing their part like willing accomplices.

My thoughts are with those affected - especially as a fellow runner.  :'(

Justin

I ran 5 miles yesterday, I didn't realize we were so alike.  8) 8) 8)

My thoughts go out to the Boston residents who are probably targeted to experience economic harm, and of course the innocents killed and mained.

JR

PS I dislike any re-writing of history, I recall paying close attention and watching several decades of it go down in real time the first time around. Yes, mistakes were made, but all the imagined motives and deception is not proved by the historical record. Lets stick to facts and things that can be proved. If Bush did half the things attributed to him, he'd need to be drawn and quartered. His failure to defend himself leads his detractors to one up each other in an attempt to rise above the noise. I still expect history to be kinder to Bush than his contemporaries, but that depends a lot on how regions still in flux end up. 

 

[Kingston]

My thoughts are with those affected - especially as a fellow runner.  :'(

Justin

I ran 5 miles yesterday, I didn't realize we were so alike.  8) 8) 8)

I ran my first marathon last year, another one coming up this year. I wanted to go to Berlin but missed the bookings. Damn these big events sell out fast! It's a very flat route too. Hills and marathon don't go together well.

Anyway, since I run at least every two days this thing gets into my dreams. Yesterday morning I woke up having just had another dream about running. I was about to finish under 4 hours (a decent time for me) but since it was a dream I couldn't find the goal post.

So imagine my surprise watching the evening news! 

PS. my target for an end of the summer marathon is 3h 45min. I'm in decent shape already and it's like 4 months to go, maybe I'll do even better.

PPS. I've a nagging feeling this bombing was quite precisely targeted at the 4 hour mark. Most runners fall under this sector of the Gaussian curve.

 

[Kingston]

Some juxtaposition, also from yesterday: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/15/iraq-bombings-wave-attacks.html

Think about the media coverage and how they've basically desensitized us to these things. Bombing on US soil is a bit rare, but now they are saying this kind of attack on a "soft target" has been expected. I suppose that's one way to keep people living in fear. I hate the way death is disassociated from these killings.

 

[JohnRoberts]

My thoughts are with those affected - especially as a fellow runner.  :'(

Justin

I ran 5 miles yesterday, I didn't realize we were so alike.  8) 8) 8)

I ran my first marathon last year, another one coming up this year. I wanted to go to Berlin but missed the bookings. Damn these big events sell out fast! It's a very flat route too. Hills and marathon don't go together well.

Congrats, most people have no idea what that takes. and couldn't run the .2 miles.

Atlanta has a bunch of hills, the spectators took great amusement from saying each hill was the last one, knowing it wasn't. ;D Boston has some serious hills early in the race way out beacon street, the finish is flat enough. Chicago is known as a mostly flat marathon., New Orleans, and I think Pensacola, are flat too but I'm not a big marathon guy... run one- brag forever after that.  Training for marathon distance consumes a lot of hours a week out there actually running (if you do it right, I didn't). The thing I like about running is that you can get a decent workout without committing a lot of time.  If I were to do another marathon maybe NYC, that sounds like a big party, perhaps new orleans for same reason. I've run a lot of 10Ks down in New Orleans with 30,000 + runners. A good vibe.

Not to change the subject to running, but I see a parallel between running hills, ohms law, and getting the most energy from a battery or transformer winding. If you adjust your speed (voltage) slower for an uphill (lower impedance) section and faster (higher voltage) for the downhill (higher impedance) portion you can keep your energy output (power) relatively constant and keep running efficiency high (internal losses low). I've been in short (5k) races where runners blast past me on the uphill sections, only for me to catch back up to the same guys on the downhill side, where I am moving at a better clip than level road pace, and they are walking or moving slow trying to catch their breath from the extra effort they consumed going too hard uphill. Races are about the best average speed. Hills can be an opportunity to reel in less experienced runners, while I've never been better than middle of the pack or even slower runner.  At 4 hours I would still be a couple miles from the marathon finish line, so they would have missed me..  :-[

Anyway, since I run at least every two days this thing gets into my dreams. Yesterday morning I woke up having just had another dream about running. I was about to finish under 4 hours (a decent time for me) but since it was a dream I couldn't find the goal post.

So imagine my surprise watching the evening news! 

PS. my target for an end of the summer marathon is 3h 45min. I'm in decent shape already and it's like 4 months to go, maybe I'll do even better.

PPS. I've a nagging feeling this bombing was quite precisely targeted at the 4 hour mark. Most runners fall under this sector of the Gaussian curve.

perhaps... The finish line of a distance race seems a poor target for inflicting mass injury. They should have popped it at the starting line when everybody was closely packed into a dense group. Of course the staging areas for the start and overflow areas after the finish line were watched by security more closely. I still don't want to give them too much credit. Where they did it may have just been because security was slack there. In this day and age they didn't need to worry about video cameras (at a race), but this is pure speculation on my part.

JR

 

[sahib]

I downloaded the Governments dossier and read it and it seemed reasonable to me at the time.

Does it still?

Life has taught me this, when there is evil in the world, it can be eradicated but it always exacts a price, usually from the innocent.

It seems the price never includes the ones in democracies.

 

[thermionic]

Thermionic,
First I don't smoke.

Yours is the view of most of the people who went on the march and I respect it.
I downloaded the Governments dossier and read it and it seemed reasonable to me at the time.
Just because 1 or 2 million went on that march, it is wrong to assume that you were acting on behalf of the majority who stayed at home.  People who agreed with the war were hardly likely to march in a jingoistic fashion demanding war, now were they?

116,516 Americans died helping us win WW1 and 405,399 died doing the same in WW2. with more than double that as casualties.  When your most important ally needs your help it is difficult to say no with those figures, I guess its because I'm older and my life has been shaped by those events more than yours.

I believe it was the UN which was responsible for the Iraq war.  They stopped Bush senior from carrying on to Bagdad in 91, if Saddam had been deposed then, it would have saved the lives of the 15,000 marsh Arabs he massacred soon after.

Life has taught me this, when there is evil in the world, it can be eradicated but it always exacts a price, usually from the innocent.
We could have left the good old Taliban comfy in Afganistan to develop or buy Sarin from a rogue state or a mini nuclear device from a rogue nation (any ideas there?). We could have waited until they wiped out a major city before we acted, but we didn't and a different set of people died instead.  That's what I meant by a difficult call.
DaveP

So, just because the USA supported us in WWII (nothing to do with Pearl Harbour), we should support their policy, however wrong-headed? It was blatantly obvious to any sane person that Bush and Bliar's policies were playing into the terrorists' hands, having exactly the desired effect.

Your ad-hominem assertion that the other 58 million Brits supported the invasion because they stayed at home is laughable, and suggests you know your logic is flawed.

The bottom line is that the safety of millions of innocent people has been jeopardised, probably for decades, because of the decisions of a handful of psychopathic zealots that manipulated their way into power (as I commented in a recent thread: we live in an elected dictatorship, not a democracy). I, along with 2 million who marched, could see this was the case. Two wrongs do not make a right. The resources spent on the totally unjustified invasions should have been applied at home, to prevent attrocities such as that which Boston has experienced.

It's clear that no logic is likely to remove the blinkers from your eyes, so I'll leave it there. Your logic is so critically flawed it can be seen by all, without the need for further dissection. 

 

[DaveP]

Sahib,
No it doesn't now with the benefit of hindsight.

"It seems the price never includes the ones in democracies"

Except the 3000 who died on 9/11 you mean? ???
And all those in WW1 and WW2 or are you just talking recently?
DaveP

 

[thermionic]

My thoughts are with those affected - especially as a fellow runner.  :'(

Justin

I ran 5 miles yesterday, I didn't realize we were so alike.  8) 8) 8)

I ran my first marathon last year, another one coming up this year. I wanted to go to Berlin but missed the bookings. Damn these big events sell out fast! It's a very flat route too. Hills and marathon don't go together well.

Anyway, since I run at least every two days this thing gets into my dreams. Yesterday morning I woke up having just had another dream about running. I was about to finish under 4 hours (a decent time for me) but since it was a dream I couldn't find the goal post.

So imagine my surprise watching the evening news! 

PS. my target for an end of the summer marathon is 3h 45min. I'm in decent shape already and it's like 4 months to go, maybe I'll do even better.

PPS. I've a nagging feeling this bombing was quite precisely targeted at the 4 hour mark. Most runners fall under this sector of the Gaussian curve.

Good luck to you if you pursue the marathon goal. I run for enjoyment and I don't enjoy the long runs necessary for good 5K endurance, let alone marathon, so I stick to the quicker stuff (I get more of a runner's high out of quick stuff, anyway). Before you set your heart on the marathon, I'd suggest checking out this link: http://m.runnersworld.com/rt-columns/marathon-race-too-far?page=single

 

[DaveP]

Thermionic,
By your logic, if the vast majority were with you in spirit on that march, then who the hell voted Tony Blair in for another term?
Or is everyone that disagrees with you to be rubbished, because thats what dictators do actually.
You are lucky to live in a democracy where most people are honest and not "psychopathic zealots", (really do you want to be taken seriously with language like that?) try living anywhere else than the West and using that kind of language and you'll soon find out that what we have is not so bad.
DaveP

 

[thermionic]

I downloaded the Governments dossier and read it and it seemed reasonable to me at the time.

Does it still?

I can't say I've ever met someone I'd like to spend more than a couple of minutes with who couldn't see that the pro-war argument was a contrived work of fiction, designed to justify the intentions of Bliar and Bush by any means. The fact that Bliar's been citing all manner of bizarre reasoning in recent days to justify his decision backs this up.

It was an act of wanton thuggery, so I took a day off of work to demonstrate this. As I'm sure most here know, the statistics for innocent deaths are staggering. They're disputed, but it must be well over the million mark now, and over 2 million according to some sources.  On top of this, we now have to live in a surveillance state.

 

[thermionic]

If you put 'tony blair cleckley's list' into Google, this is one of the first links that comes up: http://jockcoats.me/tony_blair_unwitting_libertarian_champion_or_psychopath

If you can't see that the vast majority of politicians in this country are psychopaths, then you ought to do some reading. Pyschopaths come in many forms. In fact, the most successful don't get their hands dirty - they get others to do that work for them.

 

[Kingston]

Good luck to you if you pursue the marathon goal. I run for enjoyment and I don't enjoy the long runs necessary for good 5K endurance, let alone marathon, so I stick to the quicker stuff (I get more of a runner's high out of quick stuff, anyway). Before you set your heart on the marathon, I'd suggest checking out this link: http://m.runnersworld.com/rt-columns/marathon-race-too-far?page=single

I meant I have ran one already last year (and failed another two years back for trying a bit too fast). Now is simply the time to improve my record. I get to do plenty of 5-10km runs every week, and even a half marathons roughly every two weeks. Part of any decent regime. Lots of runners high!

But there are effects more important than that in long distance running. Like slower overall heartbeat, more efficient oxygen intake, quick rebound from just about any physical exercise. And I pretty much no longer have to worry about the common cold.

 

[sahib]

Sahib,
No it doesn't now with the benefit of hindsight.

"It seems the price never includes the ones in democracies"

Except the 3000 who died on 9/11 you mean? ???
And all those in WW1 and WW2 or are you just talking recently?
DaveP

Hi Dave,

I mean the price paid by innocent never includes the evils that exist in democracies. Today's fashion for evil is some boo boo men with towels on their heads. Yet the ones that live among us wearing shirts and ties always pulled out of our eyes.

I recently bought some old Wireless World Magazines off e-bay. I am reading a reader's letter in one dated mid 70s. The guy is complaining that why we were (UK) supplying hi-tec navigation equipment to Libya when they were openly feeding IRA with weapons. 

I am sure you guess what I am thinking.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Some juxtaposition, also from yesterday: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/15/iraq-bombings-wave-attacks.html

Think about the media coverage and how they've basically desensitized us to these things. Bombing on US soil is a bit rare, but now they are saying this kind of attack on a "soft target" has been expected. I suppose that's one way to keep people living in fear. I hate the way death is disassociated from these killings.

From a global perspective one might say only 3? but that would not be well received here, where the news cycle was dominated by gun control legislation that was losing steam by the minute, before the marathon mayhem. 

I have tried to pay attention to iraq and IMO the work there was not finished. Pro Saddam Sunnis are regrouping and alkaieda is still active in the area, perhaps more so. The Syrian conflict (revolution) and Iran trying to actively support Assad by shipping weapons through Iraq is a source of tension and conflicts.

In Pakistan Mushareff (anybody remember him? ex-general Mushareff) has returned to enter the political process and he may have been arrested for supposed crimes before he voluntarily resigned his military rule. The Taliban has openly assassinated secular candidates running for office (that's one way to control elections), and Karzai has been making such a stink about a new border check point built by Pakistan at the border between the two countries that Pakistan removed it. Not sure what Karzai is so upset about but the border region of southern afghanistan, northern Pakistan is where Taliban come from and not a very law abiding region. Probably more smuggling than legal traffic over that border.  No worries about pulling out of Afghanistan. Pakistan is barely stable.
 
But I am rambling... air strikes in Douma Syria today, but that is the government killing their own citizens not terrorists.

and the beat goes on...

JR

PS: If your are in a room and think everybody else is crazy, maybe you need a personal gut check.

 

[living sounds]

I'll keep out of the politics this time, but let me say that for health or body fat or general fitness reasons a marathon is not the best thing you can do. Intervall training is much more effective for improving all of these measures, it's faster and it takes far less time and exerts less strain on the body. There's a ton of good studies out there to back this up. For women it's even worse than men, since frequent long-distance running (or equivalent strains) will result in downregulation of thyroid activity, thus a lower basal metabolic rate and very often - paradoxically - weight gain.

 

[bieckmusic]

Love this thread!  Congrats to the marathoners I do a half every year and want to do the savannah full marathon this year.  Personally triathlons are my favorite because they don't make you do one thing for too long.  Except ironman which is just pure evil!!

I used to live on comm ave from 91 to 95.  Fun town!!  Horrible tragedy but encouraged to see the medics and good samaratins helping out so quick.

 

[DaveP]

Had to get some sleep.
Now morning.

Just to make myself plain.
Iraq war was a mistake in hindsight, but Bush was always going to finish his father's business with or without our help.
Given our joint history, we were obliged to support the US and it was in our long term interest to do so.  The French did not and were resented.  9/11 was a Pearl Harbour moment for the US.

There was insufficient notice taken of the warnings about the civil strife that would follow, the Saudi King warned of this.

And I certainly take Sahib's point that there are evil men supplying arms in our country who get away with it, George Harrison made that point in "Piggies".

I certainly don't believe in Crusades, but I do know that Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God, but in recent years the latter religion has been hijacked by people with an agenda from the middle ages.

In Afganistan we had to act, but it has destabilsed Pakistan, evil exacting a price again.
It is so much easier to do nothing but that Media industry keeps it in your face.  In Syria we are trying the do nothing approach of the anti-Blair peace marchers, the death toll was 70,000 last time I looked.  Doing something or doing nothing, lots of people die, just different ones that's all, as I said before its a hard call to make.
DaveP

 

[Kingston]

I'll keep out of the politics this time, but let me say that for health or body fat or general fitness reasons a marathon is not the best thing you can do. Intervall training is much more effective for improving all of these measures, it's faster and it takes far less time and exerts less strain on the body. There's a ton of good studies out there to back this up. For women it's even worse than men, since frequent long-distance running (or equivalent strains) will result in downregulation of thyroid activity, thus a lower basal metabolic rate and very often - paradoxically - weight gain.

Interval training is part of any decent regime. I do that maybe once or twice a week in the months leading to the marathon. But around 8-12km distance running is most important in training. Got to get the speed to maybe 5min/km, cooper test times up to 2700-3000meter.

I wouldn't place much weight on any scientific studies for my personal effort. I will probably never do under 3 hour times. It's at those speeds you will start to see "issues". There's a saying in Finnish that translates roughly to "an athlete never sees a healthy day".

But I certainly don't care about training efficiency since it's all for plain fun. I suspect 3:30 might be my physical limit but that remains to be seen if I ever get serious about this (not this year). I don't count +4 hour marathons that serious. The training isn't an impossible commitment either.