Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, killing 11 people.
Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near the EU’s headquarters an hour later, leaving a further 20 people dead.
The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.
An Islamic group responsible for a terrorist bombing? Inconceivable! Quick, someone Photoshop Brussels with a peace symbol! It’s vital Western Europe continue its Sacred Meaningless Gesture Rituals!
The New York Times has put the current death toll at 34. So in one day, Islamic terrorists have killed as many people as the Baader-Meinhof Gang/red Army faction killed in three decades.
One wonders if a bombing on its doorstep will finally shock the EU out of its complacency and denial regarding both the current wave of unchecked Islamic immigration and its refusal to deal systematically with the threat of jihad.
Rick Perry talks about how rich liberal elites are screwing minorities. “The left has to race-bait not just for ideological reasons, but for sheer self-preservation.”
Ex-CNN anchor’s husband kills armed felon who opened fire on them. “If you don’t want to carry please don’t. Then, shut the fuck up about it. Make your own decisions.”
Today is the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 attack in London. So how many articles you can find that bend over backwards to avoid mentioning the words “Muslim,” “Islam” or “Jihad.”
“Clearly, some observers fear ordinary Americans more than they do terrorists; they fret more over how dangerously unintelligent and hateful Yanks will respond to bombings than they do over the bombings themselves. But where is this Islamophobic mob? Where are these marauding Muslim-haters undergoing a post-Boston freakout? They are a figment of liberal observers’ imaginations.”
Finally catching up on work Andrew Breitbart and Lee Stranahan were doing three years ago, The New York Times finally discovered that there was massive fraud in the Pigford “black farmer settlement, namely hundred of millions of dollars going to people who had never farmed in their life for “discrimination” by the Department of Agriculture.
Walter Russell Mead on the Wreck of the Euro. “Meanwhile everything in Europe gets worse. As we’ve said before, with the exception of communism itself, the euro has been the biggest economic catastrophe to befall the continent (and the world) since the 1930s. Politicians in Europe thought they were living in a post-historical period in which mistakes didn’t really matter all that much. They were horribly wrong, and the wreck of the euro is blighting lives and embittering spirits on a truly staggering scale.” Quibble: $500,000 won’t just buy you “a pretty nice house;” in most of the country, it will buy you mansion.
Denmark rethinks welfare. “Denmark’s long-term outlook is troubling. The population is aging, and in many regions of the country people without jobs now outnumber those with them.”
“If Maureen Dowd’s evisceration manqué of President Obama’s gun control strategy in the New York Times is any indication, Ms. Dowd is in the wrong line of work. She doesn’t understand American politics. She doesn’t know how votes are gained and lost, she doesn’t know what presidents do or understand what powers they have, and above all she doesn’t understand how politicians think.” On the plus side, Dowd did say that Obama “still has not learned how to govern.”
Max Baucus to retire. “Mr. Baucus is the sixth Democrat since the start of the year to opt not to run for re-election in 2014, following Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.”
Funny what 4+ years of Obama has done for Bush43’s image. “Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent.”
“Kerry possesses neither principle nor expertise, and so the odds of him saying something both daft and morally bankrupt are always high.”
Mother of the Boston bombers: “If they are going to kill him. I don’t care. My oldest son is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care is my youngest son is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And, I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu Akbar!” Media: Just what is she trying to say? I don’t understand! It’s like she’s speaking in code!
Mark Steyn: “As is now traditional in these stories, we’re now being told that the Brothers Tsarnaev are merely the latest card-carrying members of Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves.”
Kurt Schlichter: “’Extraordinary’ is the natural condition of Americans.”
Naturally, clueless apologists set up a #FreeJahar tag on Twitter. As Aaron Gardner noted: “If twitter had been around in the time of Jesus there would have been a #FreeBarabbas tag.” And just imagine the reality show potential! “It’s down to two! No one will want to miss the stunning climax of Survivor: Golgatha!”
To me, Free Jahar sounds like a heartwarming, direct-to-DVD Disney film about a boy and his magic genie trying to free an Islamic whale.
Via Michael Totten comes Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Amazon wish list. Hard to tell from that whether he wanted to become a terrorist, a singer or a Mafia wiseguy…
I’m seeing a report that the Boston Bomber Brothers are members of a Wahabist terrorist cell Problem: That report comes from DEBKA, a site that has a track record only slightly better than Infowars, so take it with a shaker full of salt.
Just in case you weren’t breathlessly watching coverage of being unable to see a suspect hiding under a tarp in a boat that wasn’t on fire you couldn’t see in a trailer behind a house you couldn’t see, the second Boston bombing suspect has been apprehended alive.
A few random interesting bits about the Boston Bombing suspects/events/coverage:
I’ve seen people say “Al Qaeda couldn’t have done this because it’s too small-scale and sloppy.” Too which i would like to point out that: 1.) Al Qaeda has bungled plenty of attacks, and 2.) As the Ft. Hood and UNC attacks showed, there’s no shortage of freelance Jihadis willing to kill Americans.
As for it possibly being “tax protestors” (it being April 15 an all), maybe. Suspected Plano pipeline bomber Anson Chi fit under that description. (Of course, he was also a pro-organic food, pro-WTO, pro-Occupy, anti-GMO type, so he doesn’t fit neatly in any left-right schema.)
Accused Plano bomber Anson Chi was denied bail at a hearing at which he testified on his own behalf. I don’t see anyone placing any sort of credibility on his claims that some of his wounds were due to being tortured by police while in the hospital. Various testimony adds a lot more to the “walking time-bomb” file:
[FBI agent Brian] Carroll described Chi as “anti-government, anti-technology, anti-big business, pro-environmentalist (and) slightly anarchist.”
“He said he was tired of armchair activists and wanted to have this in the bank to prove he was a real activist,” Carroll said.
One wonder what sort of “activism” Chi thought he was displaying. Anti-gas-pipeline activism? I fail to see how blowing up a pipeline would fight the Federal Reserve, the IRS, or genetically modified food (all noted Chi concerns).
Testifying for the defense, Chi’s parents said they were OK with him living at home if the judge agreed to release him and would notify police immediately if he broke any rules.
But the testimony also seemed to backfire.
His father, Swia Chenn Chi, said he often fought with his son and was so afraid of him he once called the police.
“If we don’t agree, he usually goes wild,” the father testified. “I was so afraid he would take the gun and point it at me … I wished the police would (have taken) his gun away, but they never did.”
The FBI said agents recovered two pistols and three shotguns from the family’s Plano house, in addition to bomb-making chemicals and hardware in a search hours after the explosion.
Chi’s father said he was upset with his son because he hadn’t worked for several years.
“He’s such a grown-up man,” Swia Chenn Chi said of his 33-year-old son. “He’s not handicapped but he doesn’t work so he makes me disappointed.”
An adult refusing to look for a job fits the Occupy mold a lot more than your typical Ron Paul supporter. It also fits in with Chi’s posting the “Disappointed Asian Father” images on his Facebook page, like this one:
In addition to the bomb-making materials and instructions, agents found three shotguns and two 40-caliber semi-automatic handguns at the Chi home. They found books on domestic terrorism and technological slavery. They also found $2,000 hidden in a spray can with a false bottom, as well as euros and Asian currency.
Carroll detailed Chi’s extensive travel in recent years, including trips to Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Records show that Chi crossed into Mexico 20 times on foot and that he was denied entry into Canada last year, Carroll testified.
I’m not a big fan of the IRS, and as a fan of small government I have a bit of sympathy for tax protestors. But that sympathy is tempered by the fact that the theories by which they deduce the federal income tax is unconstitutional range from the almost certainly wrong to the completely ludicrous. And further evidence that they’re mistaken is the frequency with which they end up in prison.
Chi also posted a copy of this well-known video depicting soccer fans overwhelming police over their excessive use of violence. I’m all for exposing and punishing police brutality, but when Chi comments “Watch the police (pigs) get what they deserve—oink!” once again he gives that Occupy-tainted whiff of throwback 1960s radicalism. Not everyone who called police pigs in the 1960s built bombs, but virtually 100% of the 1960s bomb builders (The Weatherman Underground, etc.) would be found among their ranks.
He also links to a 9/11 Truther video, which does not speak well of his credulity.
For those just joining in, on Monday an explosion seriously injured a man near a gas pipeline in Plano. Police investigating the incident concluded that the man hadn’t been hit by a car (as he claimed) but that an explosive device had detonated (possibly early) near a gas pipeline. The police bomb squad also disposed of a device taken from the suspect’s house. Using information in the various news stories and public records, I deduced that an Anson Chi was the likely suspect. Today I posted some background on Chi, in that he seems to be both a Ron Paul supporter, and an opponent of religion, corporations, and genetically modified food.
I’ve been skimming through Chi’s novel (actually, based on length, more of a novella) Yellow on the Outside, Shame on the Inside: Asian Culture Revealed, which you can download for free. As you might deduce from the title, it’s largely about the pressures of being expected to succeed as an Asian in America.
Take the opening on the first page for example:
Doctor or lawyer—my only two options. These would be your only two options if you have Asian parents. You would think that you would be able to pick your own career, since you know, it is your own damn life. But not when you have Asian parents. So my only two options: doctor or lawyer.
It’s partially a first person Roman a clef about growing up Asian, partially an indictment of The Way We Live now, partially rants about status, privilege, and what the protagonist (and presumably the author) sees as a lack of moral compass among Asians. Here’s an example:
I hate grocery shopping by myself, especially when my parents make me come here to Culver Plaza, the Chinatown of Irvine and ergo Orange County. It’s always crowded with Asian people of course, all looking for a wide selection of cheap Asian goods. Now when I say cheap, I don’t mean just the price; I also mean the quality. Many people are aware of lead toys manufactured in China, but not many are aware of cadmium-laden kitchenware, which has been linked to birth defects and cancer; or chopped up pieces of bleached cardboard in frozen wontons; or contaminated, toxic pet food that has killed a copious number of animals here in the United States; or milk and baby formula laced with melamine, a banned industrial chemical, the same chemical used in the contaminated, toxic pet food; or the extreme levels of formaldehyde normally for embalming dead bodies used in clothing, and unbelievably, also in noodles, which prompted the shutdown of one of the biggest noodle manufacturers in China. Not to mention the complete violation of human rights and the advocacy of slave labor, but of course, Asians don’t care because it’s always about the money, so ethical and moral values go out the window.
The story concludes when the protagonist and a fellow Asian student friend prepare to commit suicide because they scored too low on the MCAT.
Not exactly the feel-good book of the year.
It’s a stark contrast with Chi’s generally cheerful Facebook page, though the same sense of irony can be found in each.
He even puts in supplemental material at the end of the book, just in case you didn’t get the message:
Question: Why would you write a book that’s not true?
My Answer: This book is a didactic novel, aka literary fiction. But I know what you mean. I wrote this book based on my cognizance and on the lives of others, including my own life. There are people who wouldn’t agree with what I say just like I wouldn’t agree with what they say. Life goes on…
Question: Why did you write this book?
My Answer: The suicide rate for Asian Americans is astronomically higher than Caucasians, African Americans, and Latin Americans. In fact, Asian Americans have the highest suicide rate among women. Moreover, two million women attempt suicide in China every year, with many more not counted due to saving face. This needs to change, and I believe my book is conducive as a start for that change. I see too many Asian children indoctrinated and conditioned like overachieving robots, here in the United States and in Asia. This won’t stop until we all work together, as I have luminously delineated in the last chapter (Détente) of my book.
We will refrain from critiquing the literary value of the novel, or the author calling his own work “luminous,” and note that this, combined with his disenchantment with the current state of politics (and possible job issues, since his resume doesn’t list any paying employer since 2006, unless he was on the Ron Paul payroll in 2008), may start to provide possible motivation for his actions.
