Via the NYT, this seems like it could be a big fucking deal:
LOS ANGELES — Public schools were abruptly shut down and students were sent home on Tuesday after the police here received what officials described as a credible bomb threat.
Ramon C. Cortines, the superintendent of schools, said he would keep schools closed until the police had searched buildings to make sure the campuses were safe. Buses that had taken children to school early this morning were turned around and sent back. The threat was received electronically.
The district, the second largest in the nation, has 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade at more than 900 schools and 187 charter schools.
The action came as the region remains on edge after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino less than two weeks ago that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded. Over the past two weeks, there have been a number of bomb threats. This one, Mr. Cortines said, raised more concerns.
“A threat had been made to not one school but many schools in this district,” he said. “Some of the details talked about backpacks and other packages. After talking with him, also with the board president, I made a decision to close all of the schools.”
It’s probably a fake threat from some dumbass kid who wanted to avoid taking an exam. And if so, boy, is that kid gonna to wish he’d just studied for the fucking test once the authorities get through with his ass.
But for now, at least, the big fucking deal part isn’t what is going on in LA — it’s how we’re going to choose to respond to this sort of thing going forward. Are we going to ‘keep calm and carry on” or shit ourselves in fear? The preliminary data doesn’t look good.
In the LA schools case, I obviously don’t know the particulars, so I’m not saying shutting down the schools was the wrong thing to do. I’m a parent; I wouldn’t want MY kid at school if there was a “credible” threat. I sympathize with administrators who have to make these decisions and understand their wanting to err on the side of caution.
However, what are we going to do if al-Baghdadi, leader of Daesh-ISIS-ISIL, decides to open a Ministry of Ooga-Booga to tweet bomb threats to US school systems on a weekly basis? Or the NY Stock Exchange or Capitol Building in DC? Or malls in flyover country?
Given our media and political environment, I’m not optimistic that our fellow citizens will handle threats real or imagined with courage and grace. What do you think?
Laertes
What do I think?
I think we like to shit our pants. For fun. And I think you get the behavior you reward.
redshirt
I don’t know any details, but I suggest we panic.
cmorenc
We already have a ministry of Ooga-Booga in the US, hosted by the Republican Party spewing panic and fear at every sound of ruffled leaves underfoot.
geg6
I think everyone else likes shitting their pants in absolute hair on fire panic.
Myself, I’m a big believer in paying no attention to any of it. If they want to kill me, I’ll die and no big deal. I’m not afraid of it.
But it seems my fellow Americans enjoy and revel in fear and panic. I’ve got to get out of this country.
Punchy
If the GOP were smart, they’d employ a full-timer to call/tweet/text these threats in weekly until the first week in November, 2016. I think the positive correlation has been established between the general fear/panic of the nation and the resultant proclivity for Bedshitting Americans(TM) to vote “R” in elections.
Cacti
Terrorists don’t make bomb threats. They blow shit up and take credit after the fact.
I understand that school districts have to take such things seriously, but I hope the hoaxers making the threats get caught and prosecuted.
Laertes
I think you should be afraid. And I think that it’s reasonable, as a result of your fear, to give me more power and more money and less oversight. Also, I think this latest thing that we’re all afraid of just goes to show that my political programme is the best one.
Gin & Tonic
In the meantime, John Kerry finds a Dunkin’ Donuts in Moscow. Anybody from New England knows how important that is.
Gin & Tonic
@Laertes: political programme
Goddamn furriner.
Gin & Tonic
Is link text in a color indistinguishable from body text a new site feature?
beltane
The American media is its very own Ministry of Ooga Booga, providing real, visceral thrills to people who are too sedentary to take up such pursuits as skydiving or rock climbing.
The United Nations school I attended back in the 1970s used to receive credible bomb threats on a regular basis. We would evacuate and then return to class when the all clear was given, sort of like fire drills.
Germy
Let’s check Campbell Brown’s phone log…
maya
The RWNJ.s will see this as another reason to do away with the public school system. This sort of thing never happens to Ivy league prep schools or home schoolers
different-church-lady
It’s a tough nut to crack: it’s all “security theater” and “stop freaking out” until one day there really is a bomb.
Over-react and you give the low-level shitheads disruptive power. Under-react and a bunch of kids get blown up.
Anyone who says there’s an easy answer is just being an opinionated jackass.
Archon
Something tells me none of this is going to end well since it’s clear that huge swaths of this nation prefer security over anything else.
Face
And if they dont uncover the bomber and/or “bomb” by COB today, will they close schools tomorrow as well? Even if they dont, what’s the absentee rate for tomorrow? 50%?
And yes, if it’s this easy to close an entire school district for a major US city, expect copycats to engage in this ad neaseum.
David Koch
after the Paris attack, morons were sending bomb threats to Air France
there is always going to be loons
? Martin
I doubt it. LAUSD deals with those on a daily basis (literally) without shutting down schools.
As Cacti notes, terrorists typically notify you after the fact, but there are some groups that don’t. The IRA often called in the threat, and there are other cases as well. Typically these are groups trying to make a political point more than try and kill people (unlike ISIS that is trying to kill people). That would put it more in the category of right-wing hate groups. LA has its fair share of schools with high numbers of Muslim and/or immigrant students.
Heliopause
Telephoned bomb threats were a semi-regular thing at my junior high and I remember one during high school as well. This was the 1970s. We students all considered it a big joke.
I dunno, seems like if you wanted to cause real mayhem with a bomb you wouldn’t tell anybody before detonating it. though IIRC Basque separatists were an exception.
schrodinger's cat
When I was a TA for big intro physics class, the professor teaching the class would give us all (the staff) a talk about what to do instead of a bomb threat in a basement room. I always wondered what the point of the entire exercise was.
David Koch
Sieg Heil is trending on Twitter.
Can U guess why — all hell broke loose last nite
Laertes
@Heliopause:
Another exception, with tragic consequences when the threat was ignored.
scav
The Aubervilliers knife-wielder faux-event was apparently staged by the teacher — so it’s a button all sorts of people are trying to push for any number of reasons. Oh goody.
feebog
This is beyond stupid. Just how is LAPD going to search hundreds of schools? They only have a couple thousand officers on duty on any given day. Do you divert other first responders like Firefighters as well? Send in the teachers and custodians?
Face
@different-church-lady: If you wanted to actually blow up a school and kill people, why would you call it in first and allow the building to be evacuated and everyone be safe? When’s the last time a phoned in or tweeted in bomb threat actually produced a real bomb?
IOW, who notifies the authorities about a crime you’re about to commit if the crime is real? I dont think bank robbers call the bank ahead of time to notify them of impending looters.
? Martin
@different-church-lady:
There was one at U-Wisc back during the Vietnam war and then you had the Weather Underground bombings that also called in the threats.
I’ve had too many trainings with our threat folks and they say that they get a lot of bomb threats but the ones they take seriously are the ones that appear to legitimately come from political groups as they are the ones most capable of actually making a bomb, and the ones most likely to broadcast a warning. Examples they gave were of everything from anti-abortion groups to environmental/PETA activist groups. They would take a PETA threat somewhat more seriously than an ISIS one (as in more likely to happen, not more dangerous).
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Heliopause:
Same here. Well, it was a joke until we got cold. there were a couple of times we were chased out of the building without stopping for coats.
I’ve always wondered what the originating event was that inspired the copycatters.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MSNBC is saying it was an email sent to a member of the school board from overseas. FWIW, obviously I have no idea what it’s worth, or if it’s true
MSNBC is now muted as Chuck Todd and Tamron Hall rather breathlessly discuss polls about terrorism
ETA: MSNBC unmuted: NYC officials saying they received the same threat, and are treating it as a hoax
Mr. Longform
“our fellow citizens will handle threats real or imagined with courage and grace. What do you think?”
Courage? sure, if you define it as yelling real loud on facebook that someone should be deported/executed/excoriated by someone else. Grace? Sounds kind of gay, so no.
Pogonip
@geg6: Hey, how’s Lovey?
Dork
BOMB THREAT TO ALL SCHOOLS??? KEEP A FRIGGIN EYE ON THE LOCAL FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS!! Report any suspicous “earthquakes” and excessive number of dump trucks!
Signed,
John McClane
feebog
Ok, I read the LA times story. LAPD has assigned the task of searching for bombs to each school’s “Plant Manager” (read head custodian). If they see anything unusual while they are poking around campus they are to contact the LAPD. The threat was “electronic” (read email) and threatened “many schools”.
Bill
The wisdom of shutting down the second largest school district in the US hinges on how “credible” the threat was. Obviously the district can’t send students in to legitimate danger. On the other hand, you can’t create a situation where anyone who wants to shut things down can just makes a threat.
I don’t really know how you measure that credibility though. Does more detail mean more credibility? Because anyone can make up details. Does there have to be some kind of actual proof like an unattended backpack with wires protruding?
Anyone in law enforcement have any insights on this?
DCrefugee
@feebog: Bingo. Think a Bruce Willis plot…
That said, you can’t ignore it and the LA schools are doing the right thing. But it’s ultimately fodder for cable news, so that’s what’s playing on mass media today: terra…
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone at Fox News trying to snip a bit off CNN’s ratingz today. Who the fck knows anymore…
Snarki, child of Loki
“However, what are we going to do if al-Baghdadi, leader of Daesh-ISIS-ISIL, decides to open a Ministry of Ooga-Booga to tweet bomb threats to” the GOP presidential debates?
Make the debates open-carry, of course!
Whoops, sorry…implies too much intelligent deviousness on the part of ISIS, and too much “consistency and integrity” on the part of the GOP. I must be thinking of Alternate-Earth. My bad.
Brachiator
I don’t know. What are we supposed to do? Ignore “credible threats” and go about our business?
What do they do in countries where threats, and bombings, happen with some frequency?
What if the threat is by nutcases threatening abortion clinics? Workers have been reasonably made to feel too frightened to continue working.
I don’t know that there is any particular degree of bravery that people are “supposed” to assume.
I’m in Southern California. Nobody is panicking, but have noted where the threat is located, and what areas are not affected.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Interesting that NYC treated it as a hoax while LA went on shutdown.
D58826
The latest reporting is there was a growing threat from overseas. Consider this, we have made it very difficult for foreign terrorists to get into the US. While its true that people like the SB shooters can cause some local disruption this is a whole different level. Here we have somebody(s) hiding in a basement in Raqqa Syria sending these bomb threats to various large school districts. The terrorist knows he can’t plant the bomb but if he can get a school district to shutdown then he has succeeded. And woe be to the school district if they stay open and something does happen It makes going about your life very difficult if you never know when your kids schools will be shutdown due to a ‘bomb’ threat.
Latest from MSNBC is New York schools got the same e-mail warning and they deemed it not creditable. (SIGH) Solomon only had one baby to split in half. This is amazing that the same set of e-mails is dismissed as a joke in New York and the folks in LA are running around like the sky is falling.
beltane
@D58826: There is no objective standard regarding the term “credible”.
D58826
@beltane: and that is the 64 trillion dollar problem
max
Are we going to ‘keep calm and carry on” or shit ourselves in fear? The preliminary data doesn’t look good.
The preliminary data looks awful. It suggests that someone will offer to send the national guard to California schools, that California legislators will demand the police be given sweeping powers to arrest anybody funny-looking, that Congress will demand the NSA and such be given the power to spy on every human on earth, and also that we should immediately begin bombing Assad and Russia.
Also, it will all be Obama’s fault.
max
[‘Just the usual hysteria and bullshit then.’]
p.s. to inflict some paranoia on you, I’m thinking some folks with axes to grind are looking to draft behind Daesh here and are trying to inflict some of their own damage (probably without actual bombs) via panic and hysteria. That’s how that worked post-911. Probably going to be a number of fakes in the next couple of weeks.
Hungry Joe
When in danger / or in doubt / run in circles / scream and shout.
ruemara
Based on the threats to universities due to black and other minority studies demanding changes, I wonder about the threats myself. That being said, as things have upturned in the economy (granted, selectively), I see Americans who think things are “worse” due to terrorism since ’08. Basically, fuck these people. Americans deserve a president Trump. I don’t. The world doesn’t. But if you’re such a fear based loser, you do. Now if there was a way to send that lot into the sun, I’d be all for it.
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
Burma Shave?
joes527
@different-church-lady: I could call all of these with 100% accuracy in hindsight.
In other words, I could be a pundit!
peach flavored shampoo
FIFY
Origuy
It wouldn’t be that hard to use a foreign site to send email, making it look like it came from overseas. The sender could still be in LA. I don’t know if that makes the warning more or less credible, though.
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: Unknown (disputed, anyway) author; thought to have come out of the U.S. Navy during WWII. I first saw it quoted in Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny.” (Great book, BTW.)
beltane
@Origuy: They are reporting that the same email was sent to NYC as well.
geg6
@Pogonip:
She’s great. Getting about as big as she’ll get, I think. Very feisty. What we (my John and I) find hilarious is what a crab she is in the morning. She hates to get up early, grumbling and nipping the entire time, and that’s just a requirement in our house. She goes out, crabbing the entire time, and comes in to eat a few morsels of food and drink some water before passing out in her dog bed in the sunroom while John and I get ready for the day. She goes out once more before we leave for work, gets her Greenie treat and goes right back to sleep.
I usually come home for lunch and walk the dogs and it’s obvious that she’s been sleeping ever since I left. And then she’s a wild woman the rest of the day. ;-)
ETA: What we also find completely amusing is that she loves, loves, loves when I sing. Now, I am a terrible singer. But she just adores when I start singing with the radio or tv and can’t get enough. Koda, OTOH, looks at me with pain in her eyes and gets as far away as possible. Dogs.
pat
So building maintenance will be combing the schools for … what? Backpacks?
Elizabelle
If LA and NYC got threats, I wonder about Chicago. Could be a Trifecta for Rahm. What about Boston and Seattle and ….
beltane
@Elizabelle: If the threat was emailed from overseas, Chicago, Boston, and Seattle probably wouldn’t have received it. The rest of the world is quite familiar with NYC and LA, not so much with those other cities.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
Lovey has my sympathy. I’m not a morning person either.
Paul in KY
Don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this, but I cannot get to Page 2, etc. on site. Hit the button & it brings up front page again.
beltane
From The Guardian:
glory b
@geg6: I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing.
Is it a ‘burgh thing?
Paul in KY
@Face: I would say look for jerk-punks failing a class that had a big test scheduled that day. That would be my starting point, when trying to find out who called in threat.
Edit: See it was email from overseas. Some of those frat assholes back in college would have had the wherewithal to do that (if we had had email back in the Devonian).
Chip Daniels
Its been pretty well established that we, collectively, don’t fear things on a rational basis- planes for example are the safest mode of travel yet people fear flying.
26 children are slaughtered, and collectively we shrug and yawn, while fewer get killed by a Muslim, and we shit our pants.
The fear isn’t over the threat, its over what meaning we draw from the threat. In our current scenario, the fear of jihadist terrorism is just giving excuse to an impulse that was already there, providing cover for our latent desires.
I think the latent desire underneath jihadist terror is that a lot of people WANT to have an epic clash of civilizations, to be part of some apocalyptic battle where our small lives take on exaggerated meaning.
frosty fka Bro Shotgun
@Hungry Joe: So that’s where it’s from. I’ve been using that little ditty for decades and I must have picked it up from the Caine Mutiny.
Pogonip
@geg6: I’m with Lovey. Call me at noon.
father pussbucket
We need more good guys making anonymous threats, or something.
David Koch
@Paul in KY: exactly. This is finals week.
Paul in KY
@srv: We had Batshit McCrazy & his puppeteer in charge back then. That made me afraid.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I have family in Bath MI, where a school really was blown right the hell up.
We don’t make jokes about it.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Heehee. I’m thinking “Victory Shave”, the spinoff line of toiletries in the sequel to 1984.
Steve From Antioch
Obviously, we need to register or eliminate the devices used to make this threat.
Manyakitty
@Paul in KY: I’ve had that happen for days. Thanks for mentioning it!
A Ghost To Most
@pat:
homemade alarm clocks
scav
As the representative from Ammoland points out, the only thing left after refusing to regulate certain dangerous objects because, well, because, the only thing left to do is eliminate the non-gun elements of the problem. The Internet, backpacks, students, school, chemical reactions, people with an agenda, other trivial parts of the constitution, all must be put under wraps or entirely eliminated before a single molecule of the holy bang bang be touched. Because, of course, isn’t that the only essential issue of Every Single Event That Happens Anywhere, the possible impact on his personal glee-stick?
? Martin
@pat: Anything that doesn’t belong. I’ve talked to principals that have done these and they say it’s pretty straightforward for the staff to do. They live in these buildings and pretty much know everything that belongs and everything that doesn’t. It takes hours and costs a lot of money in overtime, but they felt confident that if there was something that didn’t belong there that they would have found it.
We recently had a parent threaten to blow up/shoot up a school after their son committed suicide after being suspended. The parent set a number of fires at the school before the threat, so it was credible. There’s been similar incidents that have triggered bomb searches.
Paul in KY
@scav: ‘holy bang bang’. Good one, scav!
Germy
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve From Antioch: It always circles back to guns with you, doesn’t it.
Lawrence
So roughly half a million people have to miss work today because they had counted on their child being in school? Nice. I certainly hope the mayor remembers to say “Hola Job Creators of LA. Please cut these people slack for not being at the sweatshop today.” on TV. Couldn’t hurt.
Jay Noble
Not only schools, but many businesses evacuate people and then send the staff/managers back in to help look for anything out of place.
As has been said, most bombers don’t give warnings.
Look up “Bath School Bombing”
Villago Delenda Est
The terrorists have won. We’re going to keep shitting ourselves in fear. This is victory for terrorists.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve From Antioch: The agent of Daesh and the merchants of death has been heard from.
The Other Bob
@Ultraviolet Thunder
I live near bath. That school was blown up by a guy pissed about paying his property taxes…which were probably pennies back then.
West of the Cascades
@Germy: I happened to be living in Manhattan on and after 9/11/2001, and recall that, although people were understandably badly shaken and nervous when there were new rumors of threats, life pretty much resumed normal course with limited in-city bed-shitting afterwards. I think part of what was going on at a national level was that President Bush was looking, well, presidential, asserting that we were not at war with Muslims, taking steps to go directly after al Qaeda strongholds, and trying to tamp down panic and fear because, well, his administration was responsible for allowing the worst terrorist attack on US soil and ramping up fear would only highlight that failure. Telling people to “go shopping” probably wasn’t a bad thing for the president to do (“make some real sacrifices, like reversing my tax cut” would have been even better, but at least he was trying to get across the message that people should keep acting normally and going about their lives).
The shoe obviously is on the other foot now and the GOP wants to sow fear until next November — it would be nice if some of the current TV fearmonger/journalists would look back on how the country seemingly dealt with the 9/11 attacks without collectively hiding under their beds and shitting their collective pants, and not serve as an amplifier to the GOP fear machine.
D58826
@Jay Noble: Given how savvy Daesh has become with the internet and social media, if you can’t actually plant a bomb then closing a major school district over a false alarm is the next best thing. I’m not saying that this is what happened but whatever, it has terrorized people and created a lot of confusion.
Listening to the LA folks and they are sounding a bit defensive. So far they haven’t explained why New York, with the same imperfect information, came to such a different decision.
JPL
@Jay Noble: Until all the comments here, I had never heard about the school bombing.
Germy
@West of the Cascades:
The million-dollar question is will they succeed? Will they (with their villager friends) create an environment where a maniac* from the GOP can win the election?
* They’re all maniacs, except for maybe Pataki, who is merely a dolt.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
Except the IRA, which liked to make threats before blowing stuff up. They were trying to present themselves as freedom fighters who worked to avoid civilian casualties, so making the threats let them use truck bombs that could cause massive property damage without killing hundreds of innocent bystanders. #NotAllTerrorists
J R in WV
The difference between the west coast and the east coast? Show business is the main money maker out west, and real business is the main money maker on the east coast… don’cha think?
Villago Delenda Est
@Punchy: Relax will be in charge of this project. THE HAMMER is coming down!
scav
@J R in WV: Real Business? In NYC? Fair bit there is all smoke and mirrors, promises and shadow on the wall figures, only measured purely in money, rather than once in celluloid. And now they’ve both gone digital.
Redshift
@Punchy:
There is psychological research showing that fear makes people more conservative. Presumably that is why it continues to work for the GOP, despite plenty of recent evidence that they’re awful at “keeping us safe.”
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
Maybe it’s that one region had a terrorist attack this month and the other one didn’t. It might at least have something to do with it.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Schools take bomb threats seriously (even threats from students) because Columbine was planned as a school bombing. Most of the bombs failed but the shooters intended to kill many more people than they did.
Most of school and law enforcement approach to threats comes out of Columbine because that’s when they all put local and state plans in place.
catbirdman
@different-church-lady: Under-react and yer fired, no questions asked.
Redshift
@J R in WV:
Perhaps if you assume West Coast=LA and East Coast=NYC. Which, to be fair, is what a lot of people in LA and New York seem to do.
boatboy_srq
@D58826: LA has more recent memories of violence, especially violence stemming from perceived municipal misdeeds. Rodney King no doubt plays into the LAUSD response: the riots from that case were just over 20 years ago, and a lot of people still remember the city that killed an AA suspect and let the killers off in the first trial. If LAUSD treated this the way NYC is doing the school district would be viewed the same way that LAPD was then.
schrodinger's cat
@J R in WV: I posted a reply to your comment on my blog. Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback.
Matt McIrvin
@Archon:
They don’t even, though. They prefer exaggerated responses to threats that seem more foreign or uncontrollable, while dangers that are more familiar, and over which there is an illusion of control, are ignored.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Pretty much.
@scav: Thank you.
catbirdman
Some angry moron in Texas made it to age 62 before pulling this crap: http://www.people.com/article/texas-man-faces-charges-allegedly-smashing-pickup-truck-hotel-lobby
A very significant number of Americans are going over the edge or are already on the other side.
Mike in NC
@Hungry Joe: First heard it said in the Combat Information Center of my first ship.
Keith G
@different-church-lady: I know that it’s cliche to say you won the thread, but with, but with your rather simple and straightforward ideas you have indeed said the smartest thing here.
pat
@? Martin:
Thank you for the information. And what a horrible story about the parents and their suicidal son….. Poor kid.
cthulhu
Well, having to currently deal with the shut-down myself even though our daughter is in private school within LAUSD; the private school decided to shut down as well. Well, initially it wasn’t going to but I think the principal faced what the district head faced: elevated worry on the part of parents after San Bernardino.
LAUSD DOES get these sort of threats all the time and doesn’t react this way so maybe the combination of SB and the foreign e-mail source tipped them over this time. Since this was unusual behavior on the part of LAUSD, I assumed that they might have had some Federal/other law enforcement input before making the decision – now seems like not.
SB may be 60 miles from LA but it is covered as local news as part of the metroplex. The LA Times, annoyingly IMO, has been running large font page one stories on the shooting everyday since it happened, plus coverage of secondary stories like the funerals of the victims, etc. So I think, rationally or not, peoples’ nerves are still a bit raw at the moment.
Being on the anniversary of Sandy Hook might have also been a consideration.
Regardless, a lot of $ and productivity is being wasted today.
Keith G
@Chip Daniels: That’s a very interesting insight. Nearly too profound for this joint.
The Dangerman
With Family living in San Bernardino, I spent some time there after the event a couple of weeks ago…
…and I saw a significant, maybe what could even be considered massive, increase in Police patrols in the areas I was in; this was confirmed by the Police Chief in SB that said there would be increased patrols through basically the end of the year (I think his exact quote was “after Christmas”).
Maybe this was simple prudence or trying to calm nerves…
…but I wonder if there is information out there that indicates there was more to this than the two very dead shooters. An awful lot of that horrible event doesn’t make a lot of sense, to me anyway (I mean, did they really need to go rent a huge vehicle to go shoot up a Holiday party?).
San Bernardino is about an hour east of LA at the best of times(or 3 hours commute time at a bad “rush hour”).
The Dangerman
@cthulhu:
I read the LAT online and it has gotten rather annoying how they are covering the story; enough already.
Then again, the LA Media has gone nuts lately on things like shootings (the coverage on that shooting in Lynwood a couple days ago is a prime example); again, enough already.
PurpleGirl
@Steve From Antioch: Do you mean that tRump is correct when he claims that Bill Gates and Microsoft have to turn off the Internet?
/snark
peach flavored shampoo
@cthulhu: Are the administrators at LAUSD required to publically report every threat? Or can they keep quiet about them if they want to?
Steeplejack
@Paul in KY, @Manyakitty:
It’s an artifact of the site work in progress. You can get to older posts by using the date in a URL, e.g.
www.balloon-juice.com/2015/12/14/
will get you all the posts for yesterday.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: It’s similar to the notion that conspiracy theorists want evil cabals to be doing things in secret, because the alternative is “shit happens” and they want someone, even someone evil, to be in control.
They don’t want to accept that there is no intelligent driving force pulling the strings of the universe.
PurpleGirl
@Jay Noble: Back in the early 1980s I was working for Matthew Bender publishing. Our offices were in the same building as some Hearst offices. (At the time, before they built the Hearst building, Hearst had offices spread out in many buildings.) Someone called in a bomb threat to Hearst, said that a bomb was planted in a Hearst office but didn’t say which one. ALL the Hearst offices and ALL the buildings where they were had to be evacuated. I and some co-workers went to a coffee shop for mid-afternoon snack and waited there until we got the all clear to return. IIRC, there wasn’t a bomb found in any of the Hearst offices/buildings.
Brachiator
@D58826:
Actually, no. The point is to kill as many people as possible, not to frighten them.
D58826
Each speaker the the LA press conference was more defensive than the previous. At some point the complaint that it is easy to criticize from the cheap seats is valid. It’s also true that its tough to make a decision based on incomplete information. That being said we do seem to have a bit of an experiment in progress here. If the two notes are more or less identical why the different responses in LA and NYC. Now it might turn out that there were enough differences that the folks in LA made the right decision but hopefully this can serve as a learning experience on the information flow and decision making process.
Bob
I think there’s a killer among us tonight.
For your protection please step to the right.
For your protection take two steps back
and cover your eyes in case of attack.
We don’t want a witness, we’re takin’ care of business.
Keep ’em nervous, it keeps ’em in line.
+++
In other news, Kerry still hasn’t released his information he claimed to have had on July 20, 2014 on who shot down MH 17.
Have I missed anything over here?
D58826
If the goal is to terrorize and cause disruption then they succeeded. Killing people is just the method to achieve that goal.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@The Dangerman:
Apparently now is a very bad time to commit petty crime in SB — some mook robbed a jewelry store and was a little surprised that the SWAT team responded.
Between the SB murders and the Sandy Hook anniversary falling today, I’m not surprised the LAUSD was overly cautious. The head of HR for the Giant Evil Corporation sent out an email to the whole company asking supervisors to be flexible today, so at least it sounds like people who had to stay home won’t be penalized.
? Martin
@Redshift: Even then it doesn’t really work. Hollywood is a pretty small business. Apple (California company) pulls in profits a bit lower than what all movie/TV studios generate in revenue. California tech is something like 10x the revenues of US entertainment.
Hollywood is very visible, and it’s not a bad business, but it’s not a big business by most standards. Hell, the video game industry is larger than the movie industry. Budget for GTAV was a bit over $250M, with about the same amount for marketing. That’s north of any movie budget. And Fallout 4 had opening weekend sales of $750M which is several times higher than what Star Wars will see. Blizzard is down the street from me and they have higher revenues than Paramount does (which includes Comedy Central and other properties).
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
IMO, we need more coverage of dubious shootings by the police, not less. I’m perfectly happy that the LA Times has decided that the Lynwood shooting deserves serious attention.
rikyrah
@Cacti:
Find them and throw them under the jail.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
But remember those 3 guys who did a smash and grab robbery of a jewelry store at a Riverside mall made a clean getaway, despite a massive police response.
If ordinary robbers, burglars and other bad guys can’t go about their business stealing and causing havoc, then the terrorists have won.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: Thank you for the info.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: A real terrorist, anyway.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Hollywood isn’t that big a business, but it’s a high prestige, high profile business. People- including people in other countries- pay a disproportionate amount of attention to Hollywood and everything it does, and that makes it very significant far out of proportion to its dollar value.
raven
@Roger Moore: Compared to what, artificial bait?
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: Exactly.
ThresherK (GPad)
@? Martin: What about disruptability, for want of a better term?
Wall St’s ability to Wall St (if that’s a verb) was affected on 9/11, as was their contingency planning. I think some went to NJ for the interim.
Does a physical threat of violence on a big scale in Cupertino or Bellingham have the same effect as Hollywood? As a bomb scare for a ship in the Port of LA?
I really don’t know, and our pisspants scared press, who are willing to wet my trousers if I’m not frightened enough, won’t keep this in perspective.
scav
@Brachiator: That does remind me that the police also have an agenda pushing their reaction to these and similar events. They’re undoubtedly motivated to justify their current, massive, militarized training, (ignore all the dead black jaywalkers, we have to behave this way to keep you — the right soft of people — Safe! ), not to mention keep the flow of ex-military kit coming their way (every hamlet in the US requires a full-SWAT team with fire-breaking tanks!).
Lots of agendas being served here.
Roger Moore
@raven:
Compared to other industries of similar size.
goblue72
@J R in WV: I guess if you’ve never actually been to the West Coast. And by “East Coast” I assume what you really are referring to is the Northeast, and by “West Coast” what you are really referring to is California – because the West Coast also includes Cascadia, which is home to both Microsoft and Amazon, as well as former HQ/still largest manufacturing operations for Boeing.
And as others have noted, it still doesn’t work. Largest agricultural state in terms of cash receipts? California. State with the largest number of food manufacturing facilities? Also California. Do you in a state where it snows in winter and did you eat any green vegetables this week? If they didn’t come from Mexico or Chile, most likely they came from California.
Third largest oil producing state? California. Largest port? LA/Long Beach (about a 1/3 of all U.S. import come through that one port)
And as others note, the size of the tech industry in just California alone is massive. Easily dwarfs Hollywood. At this point, if you are young and ambitious and want to strike it rich, you go the Bay Area. Wall Street at this point is for chickenshit douchebros.
If you look at a list of the richest 20 people in the country, there’s a pretty clear pattern. Take out the various members of the Walton family (Wal-Mart heirs) and the Koch Bros, and you are left with mostly West Coast tech entrepreneurs (Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Amazon) and a few randoms.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I agree completely with that.
Origuy
@ThresherK (GPad):
I don’t know about Bellingham, but the Silicon Valley tech industry is very spread out. Apple’s new world HQ is still under construction and they have buildings all over Cupertino. I was working where that is being built, when it was part of HP. There was a shooting a few miles away and they tracked the suspect to our campus. The building was evacuated, but half the people with offices there were working from home anyway.
cthulhu
@peach flavored shampoo:
From what I understand, they have a protocols. Some threats don’t go any further than within district investigation and those events wouldn’t generally be publicized especially if deemed not to be credible. But, in almost all circumstances such threats are usually against other students, teachers, or a single school in general. As noted above, it also can become a problem for the district if they become commonly over-reactive.
henqiguai
@Amir Khalid (#45):
Robby the Robot, Lost in Space. Where the hell is Will Robinson and Dr. Smith?!
rikyrah
this site is crazy..LOL
BLACK WOMEN LOVE DRAKE BECAUSE HE REMINDS THEM OF JESUS
Damon Young, 12/14/15
Last week, Esquire Magazine revealed that scientists have “discovered” the face of Jesus. Using forensic anthropology, a group of British scientists and Israeli archeologists determined that Jesus most likely looked how…men from the part of the world he was from tend to look. (Duh!) A stark contrast from the blue eyed Jesus with long blond hair found in many artist’s depictions. (And, ironically, the real Jesus looks exactly like the men millions of American Christians are intent on not allowing in this country today.)
He also kinda, sorta, kinda — if you squint your eyes (and you have lemon juice in your eyes) — looks like Drake. A swarthy Drake who worked as a carpenter instead of a child actor on a melodramatic Canadian teen series, but Drake nonetheless. Which comes as no surprise. Because, for Drake’s hundreds of thousands of Black female fans, his appeal derives from the fact that he reminds them of Jesus.
Well actually, this isn’t a fact, perse. More like a single-person (Me!) held theory; albeit one I’ve had for some time. For almost a decade now, part-time American cultural anthropologists like me have been attempting to determine the source of Drake’s appeal. And while my colleagues have repeatedly come up blank, I believe that the Drake affinity mirrors the affinity this demographic generally has for the Son of God. Because Drake does, says, and is many things Jesus would have done, would have said, and is.
Oh, you need examples? Great, because I have many. But because I can feel everyone’s heads spinning right now, I’ll only list five.
http://verysmartbrothas.com/black-women-love-drake-because-he-reminds-them-of-jesus/
feebog
@goblue72:
If only this were possible…
Gin & Tonic
@goblue72: At this point, if you are young and ambitious and want to strike it rich, you go the Bay Area. Wall Street at this point is for chickenshit douchebros.
I guess you don’t get to NYC much. Plenty of people striking it rich, plenty of young and ambitious having nothing to do with Wall St. The startup culture in Brooklyn rivals SoMa, the fashion business is unrivaled, music and the arts are huge, and you don’t need a car.
PaulW
I can’t blame the LA people reacting this way: just had a terror shooting in the area, and the odds of even one place getting shot up is too high to ignore.
Part of me also thinks the threat in LA wasn’t from a student: there seems to be something about the type of threat that made the schools and local law enforcement take it seriously.
By contrast, the NYC threat was brushed off pretty quickly, it’s rumored their threat echoed a recently televised episode of “Homeland”. That’s likely a teenager having a brain fart.
Jay Noble
@D58826: One of the articles I’ve seen on why New York ignored it, sounds like they saw the same kind of signs that show up in phishing emails.
Wild Cat
110. Purple Girl
Were you at Bender when they were at 2 Penn Plaza? I was working for them there at a beggar’s salary in the late 1980s
patroclus
I think L.A. looks stupid; especially given what NY did with the same e-mail and the fact that there has been no bomb.
catclub
@cthulhu:
Wouldn’t someone with a smidgen of intelligence try to figure out which threats get which response, and change their threat language/mode/message to optimize the desired response from the LAUSD? Kind of like A/B testing?
Heliopause
@ThresherK (GPad):
Are you talking about Bellingham, Mass? I’m trying to picture why a terrorist would want to attack Bellingham, WA. To disrupt the very heart of America’s craft beer and legal pot industries, I guess. Come to think of it, that would be a dastardly plot indeed.
cthulhu
@catclub:
This may very well be the first time they have received a multiple campus threat and no specific region (the district is 720 square miles) so I don’t think they have much experience with this situation.
A/B testing is not effective for where the underlying outcomes are exceptionally skewed: very rare, very negative outcomes vs a field of common outcomes of less determinant value. In general, models of very rare events that involve human behavior tend to perform poorly because there’s just not enough input data.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Heliopause: Bellingham, WA has oil refineries.