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I ran across a pretty neat article on the Smithsonian webpage about the car Franz Ferdinand was riding in the day he was shot in Sarajevo. Mainly the article debunks many legends about the car but it does bring up one interesting bit of trivia. The license plate on the car is A III 118, which could be interpreted to mean Armistice 11-11-1918. Apparently the plate has been on the car from when it first went on the road and the coincidence of the plate number was only recently remarked upon by a British visitor to the museum where it is now housed. I have not seen the car personally but find the plate # intriguing but not sinister.
Ok, that reading of the license plate cries out conspiracy theory to me, particularly since the Roman numeral III is split up and treated partly an an "11", while the other eleven is completed by a "1". Anyway, I feel like I have seen actual film footage of Franz Ferdinand in his car that day. Am I just imagining it?
I figured you would have insight into this more than anyone else here. Even aside from Germany, though, there is a fascination with WWII in the States. I'm not positive it is any more than it was, say, 20 years ago, but then again I'm not sure you'd have someone like Quentin Tarantino making a violent comedy on WWII back then like he did in the past few years.
Yes, I doubt that anything will happen, either. How long ago was it that the French put this guy in office in the first place? I don't think one can divorce the voters from the officeholder all that easily. Unless there's trickery involved in getting a guy in office, the officeholder might be considered a symptom of the larger cultural problem. Same holds true in America.
That is strange. How many places would even produced things like that? I'm sure the owner will be found soon, now.
That's a good question. I imagine it must have been considered. I would almost be surprised if it were not done.
I just read an article about how the bomber used a cell phone just before explosion, and that he was just charged by prosecutors with using a “weapon of mass destruction to kill”. Then I read the comments. 1) Someone asked if the phone was an Obamaphone. I wonder what the reaction would be if that turned out to be true. Obviously, Obama can't be blamed directly, but hopefully it would put a quick end to a program of bloat and waste.2) Someone said that if they are considered to have used a weapon of mass destruction, then Bush really was right since the Iraqis used a lot bigger bombs than the pressure cooker ones.
I have seen complaints in the media about the inaccuracies of social media and so-called internet “sleuths” who tried to find the bombers. There was criticism of the so-called “crowdsourcing” of the case. I think that talk might be the media propping itself up by criticizing its competition. Yeah, there were people analyzing photographs, and yeah, they were wrong in their assumptions. But really, those views would have remained without large audiences except for the media's involvement. It seems as if the media was reporting on the social media discussions, and that led to problems – such as the kid in the blue track suit who was put on the front page of the NY Post after he was targeted by some people on social media. Social media "sleuthing" is pretty much the same as friends getting together and pouring over photographs to figure out the problem. They're going to be wrong sometimes, but it's not going to have much effect unless a paper publishes it all over the place for all to see.
This is an interesting read. They may have tested out the explosives a month earlier.http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/22/did-the-boston-bombers-test-their-bombs-in-hell-swamp/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It did cross my mind that the basis for considering him an “enemy combatant” and not giving him due process was strange, since he is, after all, a U.S. citizen. I hope it was not on the basis of his national origin, since that would effectively be saying that the laws which allowed him to become a U.S. citizen can get thrown out the window based upon what happens after the fact.I am not sure why they would need to consider him like this, and so that is what I find disturbing. I imagine they would want to use enhanced interrogation to root out any accomplices. The thing is, won't the FBI already have enough information to go on anyway? The suspects were not expecting to be caught by police so quickly, so they undoubtedly left a trail behind. I think Scout has a point - if you start making exceptions to the law based upon high-profile cases like this, you can make exceptions wherever you want. And then, what is to prevent those exceptions from being used against you or me if we fall out of favor with the government?I don't have as much a problem with the "public exception" to reading the suspect his Miranda rights. I believe that is an exception which has already been in place and has been reviewed by the courts and found to be constitutional. I have more of a problem with making up new laws or exceptions on the spot in response to events than laws which have been enacted and put into place before situations arise.
Now that the manhunt is over, I do have to say that it seems like it was overkill to have some 1 million people in the city of Boston to remain locked down because of one 19-year-old on the loose. I realize they didn't want anyone in the crossfire and they had been hurling explosives, but still…. Makes me wonder what would happen if war were ever to break out on our side of the shore.
I was listening to Ed Schultz this morning on the way to work (it is all I get on AFN) and he had Bennie Thompson (D) Mississippi, the ranking democrat on the committe on the air. They first talked about the manhunt and then the congresscritter started talking about how we may need to look at what methods, if any, people's liberties need to be modified in response to this attack. What really got me was Thompson started saying that we needed to use the list put together by the Southern Poverty Law Center to target hate groups for special attention. This despite the fact that we now know the brothers were/are Islamists. I see a massive amount of using tragedy as opportunity coming out of this, much like they tried to do with Newtown and gun control. I also heard some discussion later on the news that there is apparently some method whereby a Citizen’s 5th Amendment rights can be revoked. I was not aware of this, has anyone else heard this?[font=verdana, sans-serif]I was also especially sickened by Obama’s statement where the hand-wringing about why they hate us is already starting. This bombing and the aftermath are already starting to be politicized.[/font]
Any person/journalist that uses the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source needs to be disregarded, as that group is one of the worst kinds of liberalism, IMO. They single out so-called "hate groups" that are universally derided (the KKK, Neo-Nazis, etc.) and then lump them in together with respectable groups which simply oppose liberal policies, such as gay marriage (I believe the American Family Association, etc. might be on their list). They claim "neutral observer" status while operating out of a clearly biased perspective. It's simply a way of marginalizing through smear those who disagree with liberals politically.
Well the streets of Boston are no longer empty.[html]
That really escalated quickly. #LetsGoBoston vine.co/v/bUHWgpZxwmi
— Ryan Belonger (@rbelonger16) April 20, 2013
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I have no idea why they'd want to do that. Maybe to force Russia to deal with an international problem, rather than a more localized one. Then again, I'm not sure why terrorists would pack bombs with nails to kill and maim innocent civilians in the U.S., and then not take credit for the action. I'm really not sure why they'd want to do that after becoming U.S. citizens (at least one of them did) and having what seemed to be decent lives living in the U.S.
If it's Islamic in nature it's both because Islam can't separate the two.My guess is he was influenced by his older brother who seems quite the jihadist according to his personal online records.
I wasn't sure if it was part of jihad, or if it was in some way meant to drag the U.S. into some Chechnyan political issues. I just read that the older brother went to Russia within the last year or so, and he may have been there a while. Also, I saw that he was married and I believe they lived somewhere in Rhode Island.
