Terror in Boston

As anyone with a newsfeed or a television probably knows by now, two bombs exploded earlier today near the finish line of the Boston Marathon - and at least three more (the Wall Street Journal is reporting *five* more) unexploded bombs were discovered by police along the marathon route.  The perpetrators of the attack are currently unknown, and the void has been filled by the ideologically-driven speculation of Tweeps and pundits: the usual host of anti-Islam bloggers (Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer) has already labeled the attack "Jihad in Boston," while the more left-wing hosts of several major cable news program (Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews), as well as "progressive" filmmaker Michael Moore, have speculated that the attacks may be the work of domestic, right-wing terrorists protesting tax day.  In other words, plenty of people have (somewhat ghoulishly) taken the opportunity to begin beating their own favorite whipping boy(s).

Regardless of who perpetrated this atrocity, what occurred in Boston today was horrific. In the words of one witness:

“These runners just finished and they don’t have legs now. . . . So many of them. There are so many people without legs. It’s all blood. There’s blood everywhere. You got bones, fragments. It’s disgusting. It’s like a war zone.”

While CNN is reporting that an initial examination of the bombs reveals them to be fairly crude, the two explosives that were successfully detonated were apparently packed with ball-bearings - a common method of increasing the amount of shrapnel "spray" produced by an explosion, and, thus, a way to maximize injuries/casualties. While there is, as yet, no final word on the number of casualties from the Boston attack, the current casualty count is 2 dead and 132 injured, with 10 people requiring limb amputations.

Further complicating the story today were reports of either a fire or explosion of some kind at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, MA. While this initially appeared to be connected to the bombings at the Marathon, local police seemed to have walked this back.... It is currently unclear what caused the fire/damage to the library or whether it was in some way connected to the terrorist bombings.

I'm sure that more information will continue to become available . . .

Here is a video of attack released by the Boston Globe. WARNING: it is horrific. You can hear the second explosion occur at approximately 0.19 seconds in.