Has anyone asked Bill Ayers where he was when this happened?
Nobody despises marathon runners more than the NAACP...
National Association of American....
....... Couch Potatoes
Once I saw the photos and the clean white smoke I told my wife this was not the usual dark smoke of stuff like gun powder. I also told her about an experience I had when I was a high school senior in 1944. I had designed and built a small scale balsa flying wing with about a three foot wing span. It was to be jet propelled using something like CO2 cartridges. I realized that CO2 would not give the oomph needed. I went to the neighborhood drug store and asked/told the clerk I wanted to buy some ammonium perchlorate and sulfur. The clerk took me the pharmacist who asked for what I wanted the chemicals. I told him I was making a jet engine. He immediately told me no sale and to go find another way to fly my plane. I tried making a catapult out of inner tube rubbers but gave up trying to get the plane to fly across the yard. After two years in the army I went back to school and got my degree in chemical engineering. I still think about that pharmacist who refused to sell me some over the counter drugs/chemicals and I think of the white smoke of solid fuel rockets.
Ahminejad just announced he didn't "need" nukes.
Would a Persian have terrorist assets attack the annual running of a race which has its origins in commemorating a Greek victory over the Persians?
There is a twisted logic behind this sort of stuff. It'd be pretty rare to just go blow up a bunch of people for the heck of it (our country hasn't slid that far into the abyss, at least not yet).
So, given that every terrorist has a motive, something which irresistably impels them to blow stuff up, the question is one of what that motive is.
Either they are trying to achieve their own specific ends (murder or destruction, usually of specific target(s))...
Send a message to a small group (again, specific targets which would be meaningful to those the message is aimed at, if not the general public)...
Destabilize a government or economy--in which case target selection would reflect their aims by going after specific political figures or key personnel, or be of specific economic or political importance
Or torment a population by causing widespread fear--in which case a target might (or might not be) high profile in that it would be well attended by media, but the apparent randomness of the attack is the key to causing panic.
As inhuman as their techniques are, terrorists will be subject to the inherent self-exposure of motive which will be reflected in their target.
"Tax Day" would target the IRS or a tax collecting agency, Israel's Independence Day would target something more closely related to Israel, and political protest per se would target politicians, even more than the crowd.
The targeting of a widely televised event guarantees news coverage. The targeting of the crowd is likely to send a message that individuals are helpless in the face of the bombers, unprotected despite normal precautions, and that is aimed at rattling everyone--especially those entrusted with public safety, because the perpetrators are crapping on America's front lawn.
While there are plenty of groups who would crap on our front lawn, this has the hallmarks of a Middle Eastern style attack, aimed at causing loss of face rather than a specific political goal.
But then, now we see through a glass darkly...
Oh?
Like the 9/11 folks?