If you’re playing wingnut/alt-right boogeyman bingo at home, you’ve clearly filled out your card based on today’s mail bombing spree. There are several outstanding questions right now:
- Are there any more of these pipe bombs in the postal service pipeline that won’t get delivered until tomorrow?
- Are these the only planned bombs or is this just the first set in a series?
- If this is just the first set in a series, are those in the next set also going to people that are unlikely to actually receive their mail directly without it going through a security pre-screening? Or will the next set or sets be going to recipients that will receive their mail directly?
- How many copycats will follow today’s perpetrator’s lead?
If there are more pipe bombs in the system right now that were either mailed yesterday or today, given the targeting pattern so far, I’d expect they’d also be going to current or former elected or appointed officials that are unlikely to get their mail delivered directly to them for security reasons. I was quite surprised that George Soros has a plain old mail box at his home in Westchester County, NY. I expect that whoever runs his corporate and personal security will now remedy that situation and set up a situation where all mail is first delivered to an offsite for pre-screening before it is brought to the Soroses. I fully expect that Speaker Pelosi’s security detail, as well as the Capitol Police, are on high alert. As is the personal security details for Special Counsel Mueller. I would also not be surprised if arrangements are being made for former FBI Director Comey, former Director of Central Intelligence Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence Clapper.
Right now Federal law enforcement is likely working very hard to try to ensure there are no more of these pipe bombs moving through the US Postal Service for delivery. They are also working to put in place procedures to identify any further sets, if this is a series, that might go out later today, tomorrow, or Friday. Targets of concern need to be legislators in western states, where it would take an extra day or two for a package to be delivered if mailed from the east coast. I fully expect that additional security has been put in place for Senator Heitkamp given her vote against Associate Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination.
And this brings us to the next stage in the stochastic portion of this act of domestic terrorism, the copycats. The pipe bombs sent to George Soros, the Clintons, the Obamas, Congresswoman Waters, DCI Brennan via CNN, and Attorney General Holder will unfortunately inspire and embolden others to action. People who are themselves steeped in the same coded language, context, and conspiracy theories that prompted the person who sent these bombs will be nudged into action both by the actual perpetrator of these parcel bombs, as well as both domestic and foreign actors seeking to leverage this attack for their own political purposes. Fox News had a commenter on earlier who claimed this could be a Democratic Party get out the vote effort. The usual suspects are already out of the woodwork on social media pushing the conspiracy theories about this attack being a Democratic or liberal false flag.
Finally, how the President actually responds, when he’s not on a script like he was this afternoon, will go a long way to determining whether this attack gives birth to one or more copycats. The President’s scripted statement this afternoon was very good, but, unfortunately, he has a rally tonight in Wisconsin. Ostensibly to help Governor Walker’s faltering campaign for reelection. He will be in front of his base, or at least those members of his base that didn’t have to be hired on Craigslist to be at the event, and this will lower his already low inhibitions. Over the last several rallies he’s gone all in on going after Congresswoman Waters and referring to those who vote for Democrats are 100% crazy. And he always goes after the news media as the enemy of the people. If the President were smart he’d avoid all of these things tonight. Unfortunately, and more’s the pity, I don’t think he has the impulse control to do so.
germy
Odd how all the recipients were people the PEETUS doesn’t like.
Is he being held for questioning?
germy
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Apparently the judge did too!
Schlemazel
USPS photographs every piece of mail it handles, at intake, sort and outflow. I am sure they can tell BAFT and FBI where those packages came from and when they were mailed. They may even be able to pinpoint it with incredible accuracy. Times have changed from the unibomber days and whoever is behind these will be found. Hopefully nobody will be hurt before then
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
So what? Is the Secret Service in on it too?
jl
Trump is a ‘say whatever I need to get through the next few seconds’ kind of guy. I hope, for once, he can do better than that tonight.
Since Trump is doing the best he can to trigger the next recession before 2020, if that happens, maybe then Fox News and alt-right will say Trump is a Democratic false flag operation to discredit them. He was a Democrat once. Then the GOP will have been victimized by two liberal GOP Presidents in a row! Poor victims.
JPL
@Schlemazel: We know that Holder’s was returned to sender, and that address was Wasserman-Schultz.
I assume that they will have the carrier who delivered to CNN shortly.
JPL
Trump is like a typical two year old when you say do not touch that. The toddler then becomes fixated on whatever that is.
lgerard
@germy:
i expect trump to deploy his usual tactic for disassociating himself from any controversy
“I barely know what I was saying”
lamh36
FBI statement on the packages.
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1055201919784886272
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: Some interesting discussion of the ‘exact match’ problem here.
Mary G
@Schlemazel: People on Twitter were talking about the stamps not being cancelled on the photograph of the CNN bomb. Is that usual or does it mean that the packages got to the recipients some other way than the USPS? Can’t figure out how that could be done for so many targets.
MattF
@JPL: Limbaugh immediately accused ‘Antifa’ of a false flag operation. In real life, I think the Soros bomb is a giveaway– we have a conspiracy nut here.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: Hoooly shit, the replies to that tweet are amazing. Things like “No postmark visible in the picture, obviously a dem plot” or “Packages are being studied instead of destroyed? Clearly a dem plot” or “Democratic violence is the cause for this”.
These people are amazingly, fantastically stupudm Especially the people who say this is just like Kavanaugh, where the Democrats set up an elaborate scheme to discredit him going back years. What the hell
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: it’s the inclusion of Wasserman-Schultz and Holder that convinces me this came from deep inside the fever swamp, maybe a very specific conspiracy theory that even political junkies don’t know about
catclub
I just remembered why David Gelertner is somewhat famous – and he just popped up this week with some editorial scolding liberals for not understanding Trump.
It would irrepsonsible to speculate on what else he has been up to….
MomSense
But Mitch McConnell couldn’t finish his dinner and they even ruined his doggie bag.
Both sides!!!
Gravenstone
You keep referring to them as pipe bombs, but the only time I’ve seen that description was the now recanted report of one being delivered to the White House. Is there some definitive reporting about the devices, or is that just a general term of art, so to speak?
The reports about the device neutralized at the Soros residence mentioned an “explosive powder”, but obviously no further detail. Something readily available off the shelf related to firearms that any MAGAt could acquire? Something available through commercial or military channels? Something synthesized by an individual or individuals (don’t try this at home folks, if you’re fond of all your fingers). I’m curious about how involved all this is. Imagine more information will come out once suspects start getting taken into custody and law enforcement reports on the higher level details.
Emerald
Had MSNBC on. Chuckles Todd comes on for MTP, all earnest and serious about the bombs.
And the very first thing he does is bothsides it. It seems that left-wing groups also have sent bombs in the past! Who knew!
Dunno if he fixed it at all. I turned it off.
MattF
@MisterForkbeard: And Kavanaugh was not born in Kenya. And Democrats still don’t have a time machine.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: You’ve said too much. Execute your ex-fil plan now!!!!
Woodrow/Asim
@Schlemazel: ” Times have changed from the unibomber days”
Yep. I get a picture, everyday, of every piece of mail coming to me, except packages — and I’m sure that’s more a matter of convenience than USPS’ technical capabilities. And, as much as I hate in many ways the loss of privacy, these sorts of situations are why those technologies exist.
I would be shocked, even in these dark times, if they didn’t already know with a high level of certainly where to start looking for who sent these packages.
Rommie
I’m fully confident that the President will put three of his very finest people on the case.
Frankensteinbeck
@MisterForkbeard:
When you are fighting an existential war for the survival of the white race, you cannot bend an inch. When you are fighting an existential war to maintain your legal and cultural privilege of being an asshole, asshole reactions are natural.
joel hanes
@Gravenstone:
WaPo has a picture of one of the devices on its online front page.
Sure looks like a pipe bomb to me.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: Yep.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: and he followed it up with a doozy of an interview at Slate
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The minute it was reported this AM that the return address was a high ranking former DNC official, I knew that the return to sender would either by Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz or Donna Brazile. And that also clued me in that this is someone who spends a lot of time deep within the conspiracy theories bouncing around from 4Chan to Reddit to Breitbart and Gateway Pundit et al and then to Fox.
p.a.
The one I saw on CNN, D W S’s name was misspelled, omitted the ‘c’ on the return address. Hopefully any that might have gotten through, that would ring a warning bell for the politician targets at least, with the assumption that national Dems would know her.
MomSense
@MomSense:
I just saw on twitter a video of Megan McCain actually comparing these bombs to Republicans being heckled at restaurants.
These people are hopeless.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: The generic term for these things are parcel bombs or package bombs. A lot of the media was running with improved explosive device/IED. But here’s the picture of the one sent to CNN. It is clearly a pipe bomb.
germy
dr. luba
Also, too, you can’t just drop a package into a mailbox and send it any more–anything weigh more than about 12 ounces has to be mailed in person from a post office. So either these were teensy, tiny bombs or they will get tracked.
As for stamp cancellations–much of my mail, especially junk mail, arrives with the stamps uncancelled. I save stamps (for collectors), so I notice.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: Yes, you can make a pipe bomb, or other improvised explosive device, with off the shelf materials. This includes gun powder which can purchased from a number of sources, both online and at actual brick and mortar stores as it is used in ammunition reloading. Manuals and instructions for making a variety of bombs are also available online.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Question for you: do you really think this was a single perpetrator, or is it more likely to have been a group? This seems like a LOT of devices to be assembled and sent by a single person.
Adam L Silverman
@Woodrow/Asim: They’ll have already pulled all the CCTV footage from the post offices for the days and times that these were mailed/dropped off. They’ll have some form of visual on whoever dropped them off to be mailed. Provided that person was also the perpetrator.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: Also, delivering all these devices to a local postal service branch seems to be more than a one-person task.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
FWIW, she apparently said that right before the news about the bombs broke, so she was just parroting the regular talking point. I think someone in another thread said she may already have some kind of apology up?
patroclus
We get a chance to strike back against Trump and the Republican terrorists in just 13 days by peaceful means.
catclub
@Adam L Silverman:
I am not sure about the ‘deep’ part. I would emphasize credulous, like the guy who shot up the Pizza place in DC.
Of course, I read none of those and I could still rattle off the list of enemies that has had bombs mailed to them.
I bet John Podesta is checking his mail carefully, Elizabeth Warren, Mueller.
Frankensteinbeck
@Adam L Silverman:
Rush Limbaugh has been insane for a long time. The difference between him and Alex Jones was minor anyway.
Gelfling 545
@MisterForkbeard: I’m surprised they didn’t mrntion the kerning, a thing I never knew existed until the big birth certificate conspiracy. Pretty sure a lot of people who were ranting abput how it “proved” god knows what didn’t either.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: That is not the case. Look at the package in my comment 31. It has a bunch of postage on their, not precise shipping postage. The perpetrator just slammed a bunch of postage on the package and dropped it into the outgoing mail so he didn’t have to interact with anyone at the counter. Also, please note that the Post Office does screen for biological agents/residue, which was instituted after the anthrax letters after 9-11. They do not, however, scan for explosive devices.
oldgold
Here is a Freudian typo for the ages:
catclub
@Gelfling 545:
I am pretty sure that kerning showed up in the Dan Rather George W Bush National Guard AWOL story. also, too.
khead
My bad for saying earlier that it would take 24 hours or maybe until dinner tonight before folks started screaming “FALSE FLAG!!”.
Fuckers didn’t even make it to lunch.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I have no idea. Usually, however, the bomb maker is a single individual. Right now the NYPD bomb squad and the ATF are going over the bomb recovered from CNN with a fine tooth comb prior to detonation to see if it matches anything in the ATF database. Each bomb maker does it a little bit different, so each bomb is kind of like a finger print. And bomb makers get better as they get more experience, so even as their builds get more refined and technically adept, they still have commonalities.
Frankensteinbeck
@oldgold:
And a metal pipe.
And a detonator.
Adam L Silverman
@Frankensteinbeck: Oxycontin and Viagra cocktails is a hell of a drug combo.
lamh36
Georgia fam…THIS ONE COULD BE DOWN TO THE VERY LAST VOTE…especially with all the suppressions efforts underway by Abrams opponent and supporters of him. GEORGIA GET OUT AND VOTE early and on election day on November 6!!!
MattF
@khead: Again, Limbaugh with ‘Republicans don’t do things like that’. If he’s being rational, one could suppose he’s trying to deflect from his own responsibility– but that’s a big ‘if’.
catclub
@khead:
It seemed to me that they were ready even before the first one showed up. It is now SOP. Maybe they learned that from Russian bots.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: The question is whether the Libertarian candidate is pulling support away from Kemp or away from Abrams.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Yep — any mention of kerning with Obama’s birth certificate was a callback to that old greatest hit of W’s National Guard records. R’s love to replay the classics.
JPL
Kushner is traveling with Trump to Wisconsin. I’m not sure that he an adequate baby sitter. Maybe Ivanka was not available.
CarolDuhart2
@catclub: Podesta I would be most concerned about. Warren has at least Senate resources for security, and Mueller, having dealt with mobsters and Enron, has long-standing protocols in place.
As for humbler possible targets of Trump ire, get at least a P.O. Box for all your mail.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
It just seems like a lot of bombs for one person to make. Maybe he made them over several months and stockpiled them?
But I would not be surprised if it turned out to be a small group working together.
dr. luba
@Adam L Silverman: From the USPS website:
You can put your own postage on a package, but it has to be dropped off in person if it weighs more than 12 ounces. It used to be a pound, but letter bombs got smaller……
I find it odd that no one questioned the return address.
Mike in NC
Trump has several rallies over the next two weeks. They will be increasingly chaotic and unhinged.
lamh36
for those who don’t twitter, here’s the FBI press release website on the packages.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: What’s he going to do, go up on stage and tackle the President if he goes off script? The only person on the White House staff who has less muscle tone than Jared is Stephen Miller.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: And yet the US Postal Service seems to deliver these things instead of returning them.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: Ya think?
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
In the clip the panel was discussing the bombs. They ran footage of the evacuation at CNN and one of the people who spoke right before she did mentioned she had been texting with her friends at CNN.
dr. luba
@Adam L Silverman: Odd. Of course, it’s possible there are people out there who’ve never heard of DWS…..
When I’ve tried to mail anything that weighs too much from my mailbox, it was left behind (with a note). That’s how I learned about weight limits. But he could have taken it to a busy PO and dropped it off at the counter in person……
Jay
@MisterForkbeard:
“People are amazingly, fantastically stupudm Especially the people who say this is just like Kavanaugh, where the Democrats set up an elaborate scheme to discredit him going back years. What the hell?”
They arn’r stupid, they are evil. They know perfectly well when they are gaslighting, bullshitting and creating false equivalence.
Back in the day on a forum site, there was one RWNJ trying to “prove” Saddam had CBW. He had 6 arguments and he started off posting argument 1 in the thread. I ripped each one apart, one by one . When he ran out of arguments, he posted argument #1 almost verbatim.
I learned when “debating” RWNJ’s that they arn’t “honest”, they have a set of “canned arguments” that they recycle, and you can save a lot of time and effort “canning” your own counterpoints for later reuse.
Keith P.
@Schlemazel: Yep, cheap cameras and storage are making a lot of crimes obsolete. The criminals just don’t know it yet.
lamh36
@Adam L Silverman: hmm….good question
MattF
@Mike in NC: Trump is apparently also claiming that Republicans will preserve insurance for pre-existing conditions and Democrats are against it. Just totally brazen lying.
MattF
@Keith P.: There’s a ton of data out there, the problem is collecting the pieces and putting them together.
Tony Jay
Listening to BBC Radio 4 on the way home it was impressive how very flexible the news presenters were in bending over backwards to NOT suggest, even for a moment, that someone sending bombs to well known Right Wing hate figures and targets of The Pustule’s bile might be….. maybe…. slightly…. a tiny wee ickle teeny weeny little bit…. connected?
Heavens No! Can’t have that. Don’t you know that pipe-bombers are all loony lone-wolves? Well here’s an ‘expert’ to tell you that. And this could be the work of the extreme Right or the extreme Left, which are both equally likely.
And the 6 o’clock BBC News was even worse. It’s like the very real prospect of having to say, definitively, that this looks like someone taking conventional GOP hate-speech and acting on its demands just petrifies them. They can’t do it. Once they admit that this is what the American Right really is, well, what then? Blank faces, wide eyes. They just can’t go there. The Pustule really could shoot someone in Times Square and the BBC would have Cory Lewandowski on like a shot to tell us all why it was perfectly normal.
I know a lot of you like BBC coverage, but it’s only okay in comparison to the worst of US News.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Given the guy’s performance at the debate, I’d think he was most likely to pull from the hard core Ayn Rand fan boys within the GOP/lean GOP portions of the electorate, but who knows. If this thing goes to a runoff, and I think that’s a possibility, then he’ll be eliminated and we’ll see where his voters go.
MattF
@Tony Jay: Sounds like they’ve forgotten all about the IRA bombings. A bit surprising.
Keith P.
@MattF: That’s coming very soon.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: I assume he’ll play the role of saying that he strongly condemns all acts of violence whether that be against democrats or republicans. Then the president will call the dems evil and CNN enemies of the people.
Trump might use the speech tonight to suggest that it was a democrat that sent the bombs, or better yet someone on the caravan sent them.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Jared won’t be allowed near a microphone. He’s simply there to try to babysit. It’s hard to MAGA when your 38 year old son in law has a voice that sounds like an 11 year old girl’s.
Frankensteinbeck
@MattF:
Yep, that’s been the official Republican position for awhile now: Lie and reverse the positions they have with those of the Democrats on anything to do with healthcare. When your base already divided the world into Good People (them) and Evil People (us), it’s easy.
Mike in DC
My concern is that the individual talking heads–print journalists, pundits, etc–are much more vulnerable to attack. If you know where they live, they’re unlikely to have the elaborate security measures that elected officials and media companies would have.
And, then, of course, there’s the tens of thousands of polling places around the country.
JPL
@lamh36: I doubt that someone votes straight democratic except for Stacey. There might be a few democrats who split their votes, but in this climate that’s unlikely. Republicans who can’t stomach Kemp might leave the governorship blank. I doubt that Metz gets 4 percent.
lamh36
@JPL: If Chump manages not to put his foot in his mouth (if past is prolog, he will( then I expect this from the media, including CNN.
I won’t completely disregard him being able to control himself, I do recall there was a rally or speech or something…where he stuck to the scripted remarks.
We’ll see.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: That’s a good point. Maybe his purpose is to keep his father-in-law focused on the plane trip to Wisconsin.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
That would not throw inspection service off. But I read that the stamps were not cancelled. If true then they didn’t go through the po. That would not be a good thing. It would also mean that they have a level of sophistication that would make them more dangerous and harder to catch
CarolDuhart2
@Mike in DC: Pundits on tv probably already have precautions-crazed fans, you know-and live in condos and other places with keypad security and doormen. I’m frankly more worried about Stormy Daniels and the lesser targets of Trumptian wrath who can’t just stay home for a few days until this blows over.
JPL
@lamh36: If there is swooning, I will get physically ill.
@Schlemazel: hmm Is it possible to have a phony courier service to deliver the package? I assume anything is possible, but that would make me think it is more than one person out there. I’m just guessing though, but I have watched Homeland .
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: When I saw Wasserman-Schultz, I admit I thought “Bernie Bro”
J R in WV
Pretty sure the “libertarian” candidate in GA is going to try to round up the psycho voting blok. Just my guess, I’m not a GA voter.
debbie
Listened to Trump’s statement while I was driving home. He couldn’t have sounded less sincere. Plus there’s a clown on my FB feed insisting Democrats did this to discredit Republicans.
All very discouraging. At least our mob has no weapons.
debbie
@lamh36:
He won’t be able to stop himself. He never has been able to.
lamh36
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: He’s there to keep him from talking on the phone to Hannity or Dobbs or Pirro or Rudy on the way out to the rally.
Pogonip
@dr. luba: I’ve mailed things that weighed more than a pound in the collection box. They were all catalog returns, with the pre-printed labels, and were duly delivered; I know this because my refunds or exchange items arrived. I suspect that, like other overworked peasants subject to a bajillion rules and “metrics,” postal personnel often did not have time to worry about one particular rule, in this case the 13-oz rule , and did not bother with it when the package appeared OK.
And now, for at least the next 6 months, longer than that if someone important is hurt or killed, the 13-oz rule will be scrupulously enforced. So when you mail packages, plan on extra time in line.
(Adam, is my logic sound?)
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: hahaha Good luck with that.
Tony Jay
@MattF:
It’s more than that. The link between Republican conspiracy theories, the Pustule’s degradation of every societal norm and these mail bombs is so glaringly obvious that they CAN’T report on it honestly because… I don’t know, but I think it’s just fear. Once they go there they become enemies of The Right (like they aren’t already targeted for destruction, but they just ignore or both-sides that too) and that means huge stretches of America become as closed and unwelcoming to them as, let’s say Russia, or some other authoritarian state.
Can’t have that. Think of the access they’d lose. The parties they’d miss out on. And the British Government wouldn’t like it much either, with a chilling effect on BBC funding.
They just will not go there. They’re terrified.
Msb
I know that current office holders and ex-Presidents have security. What about people like Holder and Brennan?
Raoul
Kinda not the end of the world, but I think I pissed of some wingers on Twitter, so my account has perhaps been reported for ‘bot’ activity. And the kicker is, when I ask twitter to call me (no choice for a text message) to give me a code to log back in, my Project Fi phone is rejecting the calls. I spent half an hour on the phone with a (very nice) Project Fi person, but they can ‘t figure out why the calls are being rejected.
So now I wait for an email I sent to the bowels of Twitter to maybe get read and acted on, or not. Though they say “We’ll do our best to help!” which sounds all chipper but is most likely bullshit.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie:
And that’s our official story and we’re sticking to it.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Since you have the magic keys would you post this picture..
The fake news, fake bombs DeSantis supporter seems nice.
https://twitter.com/kevinsidonohoe/status/1055210613847347205
J R in WV
@Schlemazel:
This is something I have seen again and again, repeated over and over by multiple people commenting at similar sites. It is not accurate at all. Unless you hand a piece of mail to a postal clerk and ask them to postmark it for you, the odds of your mailed item being postmarked are slim to none. I sometimes have done this with tax returns in the deep past, but now our accounting firm sends all that data in electronically.
The machines that handle most mail need to have consumables added to them, like the special purple ink used for postmarking. Yet postal workers are under terrific time and task pressure to do their jobs faster and faster, with fewer breaks for maintenance.
We get a ton of mail, and most of it is NOT postmarked at all.
JPL
@J R in WV: That’s what I think. I don’t think his supporters will stand in line for hours. There are Cagle supporters who might not be able to vote for Kemp, and choose him, but I don’t see dems doing that.
schrodingers_cat
The targets of these attacks are not random at all. But so far they have been Democratic office holders and Soros who is perceived to be a sympathetic donor to Democratic causes and politicians. So why are you calling it stochastic?
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: I’ve shipped stuff back with prepaid labels that I don’t weigh and no one has ever returned it to me. As for hyper enforcement of the 13 ounce rule, I have no idea.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL:
lamh36
@lamh36:
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: I’d seen the CNN picture of the envelope, but not the subsequent one with the device removed (and who in their right mind OPENS a potential package bomb?!?). I’ll defer to the more generic pipe bomb descriptor now having seen the contents.
Pogonip
@J R in WV: Likewise for us.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Because we knew it would eventually happen and that these were all possible targets, but we didn’t know when it would happen. Also, because it is my post and I’ll call it whatever I want. Next time instead of stochastic terrorism I might just refer to it as bouncy house time. Or Arbor Day. Or banana fritters.
CarolDuhart2
@schrodingers_cat: Thes tochastic refues to the “lone-wolf” or small group attacker who presumably is not acting under orders of some state entity. Someone like say a Lee Harvey Oswald who acted alone “for the revolution”. Who assumed that people would support his act and hail him a hero for doing what he did. Same thing with Tim McVeigh who assumed his horrific act of violence would start a revolution. its the reasoning of terrorists everywhere that acts of violence will start changes they want without the consent of those who would have to believe in the cause.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: I may have hypothetically done something quite like that in my wayward youth, so I’m quite familiar with the concept and effect. Of course, I hypothetically went out of my way to make sure no shrapnel would be generated either.
lamh36
Of course he would…whatever… T-e-d.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I bet she stands for the anthem though.
She is deplorable.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: I think that the likely voter turnout models are problematic for the electorate for this specific mid-term election. I could be wrong. And I very well might be. But I think the models haven’t been adjusted properly to reflect what is going on versus what has happened in past mid-terms. Those models routinely oversample older, whiter, and more Christian voters because historically those are the folks that show up and vote in mid-terms.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: No worries. I think the picture was taken after the NYPD or FDNY bomb folks removed it from the package to see what they were dealing with.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
If it was a private courier they will have record for pickup and payment. My guess though is they have multiple people to hand deliver. That would make it harder to find them
Gravenstone
@JPL: Wish I’d known he was visiting. I’d have seen if I could get in to heckle his ass. Might have even made the highlights.
Frankensteinbeck
@lamh36:
Again, please, oh PLEASE Celestia, have Cruz lose because “TED” will be how everyone remembers him if it happens.
Immanentize
@lamh36: Now what do Booker and Washington have in common? Hmm, really nothing I can think of….
J R in WV
@debbie:
Speak for yourself. Here in my neighborhood the left wing and right wing are very similarly armed. The person I know with the most high-end rifles is left of me, the second most armed person is a missionary-type xtian Republican next door. For an R he’s a really nice guy… and more Christian than you might think, though still an R.
Personally, I think anyone ever likely to be “rounded up” by fascists should seek out self-defense training with a variety of weapons, as well as a carry permit once they achieve a level of skill they are comfortable with.
But that’s just me. It’s been years since I carried as a matter of course, but I’ve decided to resume that habit.
MattF
@Tony Jay: Gee, sounds familiar.
lamh36
CarolDuhart2
I’ve never seen a mid-term this active and intense before. Even back in 2006. the emphasis on turnout and the candidate recruitment wasn’t even close to this. A lot of it was driven by scandal and exhaustion with Bush policies.
And Postcards for Voters? Weeks of canvassing? Long lines for early voting? They just weren’t there back then.
And the terrorist(s) have given a final theme for Democrats in the last 2 weeks-stand up and be counted and don’t let them win by staying home and not voting.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Oh, God, they’re all checking the kerning.
lamh36
@lamh36:
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Geez, I only covered that here six or seven months ago. Hoocoodanode?
lamh36
dmsilev
@lamh36: For a brief shining moment of highly pleasurable misreading, I thought ‘calls Trump makes from his cell’ meant jail cell.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
I voted yesterday!
zhena gogolia
@catclub:
That’s where it first arose.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Ah, here it is:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/05/21/ever-wonder-why-we-keep-seeing-reports-of-foreign-signal-intelligence-equipment-in-dc-unsecured-presidential-personal-phone-edition/
schrodingers_cat
@CarolDuhart2: Stochastic means randomly distributed, that’s the dictionary definition. Statistical mechanics used to be my area of expertise, I know what stochastic means and I understand probability.
@Adam L Silverman: Of course you can say it, that doesn’t make it mathematically accurate. The targets of the terrorism were not randomly selected. Not knowing the dynamics (evolution on the time axis) doesn’t make an event random.
debbie
Can someone please explain why there are so many references to kerning and what it’s supposed to signify? (I used to kern for a living.)
Haroldo
@Tony Jay:
And it seems to be getting worse.
swbarnes2
@schrodingers_cat: Stochastic doesn’t refer to the targets, it refers to the perps.
lamh36
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: This, from the article, is almost as frightening as the fact that he’s using the unsecured phones! (emphasis mine)
debbie
@lamh36:
Well, that didn’t last long, did it?
Mary G
My ballot has been received by the county voter office! They also have my voter history going back to 2002 when I moved here. They say I did not vote twice – once was when my mom was in hospice here at home with me, and one was a special recall election for school board in 2008 that I am sure I mailed my ballot in – “Christians” were trying to take over and teach evolution is just a theory and really Jeebus was riding a dinosaur, and I was all over it. They lost, so no harm done.
debbie
@Haroldo:
There are a few interviewers who are pretty intense and persistent. They will take no shit.
MattF
@swbarnes2: I agree. The potential perps have a howling wilderness inside their heads– and it drives some small subset of potential bombers over the line. Law enforcement would like to predict who belongs to that small subset, but in the end it’s a random draw.
Kay
@J R in WV:
They don’t cancel stamps on first class parcels. They would have to cancel them by hand and it’s such a tiny subset of parcel volume (first class parcel, under 16 ounces, with stamps on it) it’s just not worth bothering with. The vast, vast majority of small parcels would be metered. It would just go into a tub and to a regional distribution center.
schrodingers_cat
@swbarnes2: We don’t yet know who is behind these attacks, whether it is the work of a random person or a well organized group.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
If past experience I should anything to go by, the Libertarian candidate in any Georgia race ends up helping the Republican. That’s why Dems need to vote overwhelmingly for Stacey Abrams. She needs > 50% first time out. A plurality won’t do the job, because the Libertarian will throw his support to Kemp in a runoff.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: @Pogonip:
If it weighs more than the limit for boxes, it’s pulled out of the mail stream for inspection by a person. If sent on, it may get hand cancelled.
About the cancellations, sometimes they can be so faint, or faint + similar in color, that they wouldn’t show in a picture. For ex., a hand cancellation can still look like like the old ink pad and stamp as the ink runs dry.
I feel for the postal processing plant employees who are exposed to this risk. Already so much stress on them by changes in management philosophy. They do have more detection systems in place than they mention to the public, but it really sucks for them.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: How many refereed publications do you have regarding terrorism and/or low intensity warfare?
In the case of terrorism, stochastic terrorism refers to the reality that we know an incident will happen, but we do not know when, how, who will perpetrate it, or who will be the target. No one who studies terrorism would have given a specific prediction of October 22, 23, and 24 2018 by pipe bomb against people the President often rants about. What most of us would have said, and have been saying, is that because of the President’s ranting, as well as a number of other often related factors, we are likely to see an increased likelihood of some type of domestic terrorist attack against center left to left of center targets.
Also, I’ve taught both undergrad and graduate statistics in a criminology program. And was the first person to develop an empirical theory of terrorism that could be statistically tested.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Edit doesn’t work. Should say “If past experience is anything to go by…”
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
It’s a reference to the way Dan Rather’s (completely true) story about GWB abandoning his service in the Air National Guard was discredited by people “checking the kerning” on some document he was using as evidence.
Cacti
At tonight’s hate rally, I expect he’ll pull out the “false flag” explanation for the cult faithful.
These are dangerous times for the republic.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: That should really be “Trump ‘called’ for UNITY”, since he pretty obviously didn’t mean any of it.
MattF
@MisterForkbeard: Well, ‘UNITY’ in the sense that everyone should vote Republican.
Kay
@Cacti:
The violence is frightening but what is even more frightening is him having an excuse to indulge his authoritarian impulses. He admires thugs.
geg6
@debbie:
Speak for yourself. I think they’d be shocked to know how many of us own weapons. And my survival plan is to make sure I keep them in the dark about that. Should they come for me and mine, they’ll be in for a fight they won’t be expecting.
Chief Oshkosh
@Adam L Silverman: Maybe, but that’s a new one on me. I think that election is going to turn on whether Dem turnout can overcome all the dirty tricks that Kemp is running. Not only is he continuing the perfect match BS (and he’s ignoring the temporary stay on doing that), he’s using machines that magically register him when the voter selected Abrams. Stack onto this the structural crap that’s been going on since forever (north of I-20: few lines; south of I-20: hope ya got a coupla hours to stand in line).
Haroldo
@debbie: I’m a long time listener of the BBC (and the ABC and the CBC) and I agree with Tony Jay. The lot of them have become more timid over the years – budget cuts (amongst other things) seem to have ‘concentrated the mind,’ eh?
MattF
@Kay: He luuuuuuves thugs. It’s really a thing for him.
debbie
@geg6:
Alrighty then.
lamh36
So Ryan is at Wisconsin rally with Chump?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I am not calling into question your expertise regarding terrorism. My quibble was that you seem to be using stochastic, loosely, mathematically speaking.
example of a random outcome: One doesn’t know whether the coin will come up H or T, when you flip it.
Doesn’t matter how many times you flip it the outcome is still unknown.
guachi
@zhena gogolia: Rather’s story wasn’t true and it was debunked by Charles Johnson (who has undergone a John Cole transformation to a liberal) of Little Green Footballs (which you should read because it’s good)
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks. I had thought it was discredited because the “corrections” were made to a bad xeroxed copy. Even so, kerning is totally irrelevant to any document being genuine or fake. We’ve had mono- and variable-space fonts for decades and decades.
Luciamia
@JPL: Trump always makes it about him. He’ll mention the bombs then whine that the media is blaming him.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I’m going to the gym.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: And me to dinner. Have a good workout.
Kay
@MattF:
It’s always scared me, how he so admires those people. I think he’s a coward though and he wouldn’t do any kind of “crack down” shit because he would be afraid. Let’s hope so. Think of Stephen Miller. He’s a freaking nut job. He’d be on board.
I always knew the authoritarian leader would be on the Right. I’ve always been wary of it with them. That law ‘n order penchant always had the possibility of crossing a line.
Dan B
@MisterForkbeard: “These prople are amazingly incredibly stupid.” could be shortened to: These Russians!
It sure seems like bots and the people who love them, errr… the people who get riled up by them, and desperately need to get a life!
debbie
@Haroldo:
Not all. Owen Bennett Jones, Lyse Doucet, and Razia Iqbal are all pretty feisty.
les
@J R in WV:
Shooting for the majority, eh?
Kay
There’s an exception to the 13 oz rule for parcels with printed return labels, which makes sense, because they’re all going to the same place. You can’t target anyone with one, unless your goal was “target random distribution center employee”
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: That’s the use of random, I approve of.
waratah
@lamh36: also Ted suggested Beto could share a cell with Hilary. Beto has added what looks like some security after the second rally yesterday but in my opinion not enough. He loves the voters and they love him he just wades down into them. He did say today he was trying to enjoy it as long as he could, so I imagine he is getting a lot of pressure for security. Really tough for him with his grass roots campaign.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
People send little padded envelope first class parcels all the time. They’re usually returning something someone left- keys, a wallet, jewelry. It wouldn’t be odd at all to get one in a collection box.
Aleta
@J R in WV: interesting. <@Kay: it’s in the post office’s interest to make sure used stamps can’t be reused. It’s possible to test if If they’re letting stamps through w/o being cancelled, by trying to reuse the unmarked ones. So I just called the head of a processing plant I know to ask; though he might not be divulging such a failure to me, his answer was that all stamps are cancelled but it can be hard to detect. (I asked this question once before by showing him some stamps and he pointed out a subtle mark.) i wonder if the cancel mark is checked at each plant that the package goes through. They now keep records of the exact time each piece of mail arrives and leaves each location; don’t know if the original cancellation is read each time or not.
CliosFanBoy
@Mary G: I’ve had that on multiple packages. It’s not unusual now.
Haroldo
@debbie: You are correct – not all, but the overall tenor has changed, particularly with the general news reportage. Ain’t what it used to be.
Ken Shabby
This is a Sneak Preview of Coming Attractions. Even the morons fret these outcomes.
“Too loud a whistle, not now, not like that – DUDE!”
It’s why Mueller is so goddamn quiet and, it’s why the Happy Class stays up at night.
“What if the peasants figure this shit out?”
They’re worried about Fow-whut SUMP-tuh, port nann.
“Who will burr-deck th’ watt wimin, wunce issheer shit hits a FAN.”
There is nothing quite like The Confederate States of Murka, unless, cowuss, summa yaw dun FOGAT bout VICKSbug.
A gathering of violent fucktards. Led by one.
“We goane winuss fekkin woah!”
Ken Shabby
@geg6:
And, isn’t that nice? If you can’t vote, you can always shyewte.
Steve in the ATL
@Keith P.:
All those cameras and facial recognition technology have made running black ops a real bitch. I may just go back to practicing law.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: How are you feeling this evening. You were feeling a bit off, yesterday.
Ken Shabby
@Adam L Silverman:
It counts for everyone but him.
That’s dimfrunt.
This is like having someone rubbing their own shit on themselves.
* with a deddy cated fan base that rubs it and, eats it and, loves it.
Kay
@Aleta:
I worked for the postal service and we didn’t cancel first class stamps on a parcel, unless I took it over the counter and hand-cancelled it. Some of the clerks line thru the stamps with a Sharpie. Maybe they cancelling them when they’re sorting them on a belt at a processing center. We just put them in a first class bag or tub and sent them on to the larger office- in our case Toledo. If it was going intra zip code it would never get cancelled though. It never leaves the office- it goes to the carrier.
Aleta
@Kay: that makes sense. I had the impression that the weight limit in the boxes is also backed up by the calibration on the sorting machines, which could pre-read the codes on the bulk return labels and redirect those.
Pogonip
@Ken Shabby: Would you please exit your comment into English or Spanish?
geg6
@Ken Shabby:
I live in Western PA. Most people here hunt (or buy weapons and gear but spend the day drinking beer and not much else). We have bows, we have rifles and we have hand guns. It’s pretty common. I learned to shoot a gun as a kid. If it comes to it, we have a couple of cricket bats we keep in the bedroom. If we can’t get to a gun, we’ll use those. As a rape victim, I have a healthy sense of self-protection and I have made it my business to know how to protect myself and to make sure I have the means to do so. They think all of liberals are wimps. I’m happy to keep them in the dark about the truth. We don’t often use our guns or bows, but we do know how to use them.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I still think it’s outrageous that all of media suddenly became gravely concerned about “migrant caravans” when Trump told them too. So, still “off” I guess :)
I felt the same way about the phony ebola panic. The ebola tragedy was real. The phony ginned up hysteria over the aid workers who had been traveling in and out for years with no concern at all and suddenly when Republicans said they had to be quaratinned all of media jumped onboard. I think at some point you have to ask if it’s Donald Trump ginning up racism and xenophobia or if it’s media + Donald Trump. They don’;t have to keep doing this. It’s bad and they’re complicit in it. They should stop making people hysterical about black and brown people. They should cut that out.
But I’m to the point where I feel like I can’t criticize them because Trump is also ginning up voilence against them so normal people can’t add to that.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Not stochastic from the perspective of the physical perp; stochastic from the perspective of the people spewing hate rhetoric and hoping somebody else eventually acts on it. They’re in the position of the ISIS webmaster.
Gelfling 545
@schrodingers_cat: A great many mathematical or scientific terms can change meaning, subtly or radically, when they become a part of the vocabulary of another discipline.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
That would be one hell of a plot twist, that’s for sure.
And, as with most things the Sanders dead-enders do, actively harmful to Democrats.
However, Fox News was freakin’ OBSESSED with DWS during the Obama years, so I still think it’s a right-wing nut. She seriously was a boogeywoman almost on the level of Nancy Pelosi.
Kay
@Aleta:
I don’t know about sorting machines. I worked for a time at a processing center but in the office- it was part of the training to be an “OIC”, which is like a fill-in postmaster. I know postal inspectors pull parcels out of mail coming in from overseas if they see certain origins but the only postal inspector I ever saw the one who was watching us- the employees. They come in and count cash drawers and stamp inventory and money order sequences with surprise visits. Everyone is terrified of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Words can have different meanings in different disciplines.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s why Adam should use my terminology of “hashtag terrorism” instead. ?
In this case, the hashtag is MAGA, QAnon, or a combination of both plus whatever the bomber came up with.
ETA: Also, trying to convince social science people that they’re using physics terms wrong is hopeless. You probably need to just wince and move on.
Raven Onthill
It all seems too pat, you know, exactly what a right-wing crank would do. I keep wondering if they’re going to trace these bombs back to a studio apartment which contains a dead body and a pile of Antifa and Democratic literature. After the election it will be discovered that this was a Russian false flag operation, but by then it will be too late. Or perhaps some other country. There’s lots of candidates.
MisterForkbeard
@Immanentize: I had the same thought – the people that hate DWS most are BernieBros.
Though there’s some overlap between Bros and crazy libertarians that hate “the establishment” and Dems in general, so maybe that’s it
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: yeah, you wouldn’t believe what the “rule against perpetuities” means to knitters
numfar
@MattF:
Some ERP systems (looking at you Lawson/Infor) restrict name columns to 30 characters which in some cases can cause further inaccuracies in a person’s name.
JPL
oh fuck.. CNN is ready to anoint trump as becoming presidential before he is even on stage. just fuck
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
Stochastic terrorism, as a phrase, refers to inciting the public to engage in terrorism by lying, demonizing, dehumanifying, and stoking fear and anger.
Radio Rwanda stuff.
The Speaker does not know who will act on their words and imagery, when someone will act, or which of the target group will be attacked. ( That’s the randomness).
They do not even know if there will be an attack, but recent hostory says there will be attacks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Ha! I was thinking more of a word like assault. If you were struck in the head from behind with a cricket bat, most non-lawyers would say that you had been assaulted and approve thoroughly. We, however, know that, since you were physically contacted and didn’t see it coming, you were battered.*
*Levels of approval may vary.
Raven Onthill
@MisterForkbeard: Oh, maybe it’ll be a pile of Sanders literature. (See my remarks at @#189.)
Please, let’s stop fighting among ourselves until the election is over.
Kay
@JPL:
It’s hard. I don’t watch anymore. I decided it’s a sick relationship and I can’t fix it. I don’t get it.
He incites violence against them. Too. Them too. So I feel bad piling on with criticism of their work, because I believe he is going to get one of them hurt. So I just have to skip it. It’s beyond my ken.
Pogonip
@Pogonip: Oops, sorry. S/b “please EDIT your comment.”
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: The word “stochastic” has a specific mathematical meaning. Just because people use it incorrectly, just as they use “literal” or “unique” incorrectly, does not change the fact that “stochastic” actually means something. Something other than how you are using it.
Shorter: listen to s_c.
JPL
@Kay: It was even worse than that. Did you know that Chuck and Nancy released an ugly statement blaming the discourse on the top. I do think it’s the battered wife syndrome.
Gin & Tonic
I’m not going to read 200 comments, but a non-random sampling of them seems like about half are people justifying the misuse of a specific mathematical term, which will literally make my head explode. Literally, you know?
This is terrorism, plain and simple. Calling it “stochastic” when it isn’t makes it seem as if it isn’t targeted. It is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MisterForkbeard: Ha, me three.
That’s Glenn Greenwald, isn’t it?
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Yup. I don’t grok why an adjective is necessary at all. But if it must be, how about Homegrown Terrorism?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
has he released some kind of script for tonight’s Sixty Minute Hate?
also
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Got it. We can use an Ising model, wingnut spins are affected by the cray cray field.//
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Other way around. It’s the perpetrators who are random and hard to predict, not the targets.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Or, to put it another way, it was not surprising or random when Gabrielle Giffords was shot, because the Republicans had literally been putting a target on her photo for months before it happened. The “stochastic” part was the guy who responded to those messages and went to her rally with a gun.
ETA: Think Brownian motion, not mathematics.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
If it’s not the actions but the instigators, oughtn’t that then be stochastic terrorists?
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: At least Anderson Cooper isn’t buying his bullshit. Trump thinks that the media needs to tone it down.
Kay
@JPL:
I don’t know what it is but I can’t help but notice all the phony panics have involved people who don’t look like them. The migrants are a threat? How so? Would they even have covered the migrants if Donald Trump didn’t tell them to?
Are people still contracting ebola? Why isn’t there 24/7 coverage of it, them? Did all the medical humanitarian workers just stop traveling, or what? Remember that poor nurse in Maine? They were following her when she was on her bike ride. Why? Because Chris Christie told them to? I just don’t understand why these threats appear and disappear like magic according to GOP political aims.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Even the terrorists are not truly random, we can say with reasonable certainty what demographic they will belong too. Most probably male, most probably white and most probably young.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Multiply has a specific mathamatical meaning, it’s used often outside of math.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/stochastic_terrorism
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stochastic-terrorism
http://pellcenter.org/stochastic_terrorism_picks_of_the_week/
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.merriam-webster.com/amp/news-trend-watch/were-trumps-comments-stochastic-terrorism-20160810
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8uoqoo/eli5_what_is_stochastic_terrorism/
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Brownian motion can be modeled as a random walk as a first approximation.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks G and T, finally someone who understood what I was trying to say.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
Assumption of young I’d quibble with.
Regardless, stochastic within the totality of your proposed subset.
Redshift
@schrodingers_cat: The perpetrators are random, not the targets. The people inciting the acts of terrorism don’t have anyone specific in mind (and have deniability that they’re actually doing it), but if you prime your audience with hate, someone out there is likely to take it seriously.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: see also the deficit, unsecured communications, ISIS, and so on and so forth.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Everyone understood what you were saying.
NotMax
@Redshift
Same currency, different denomination as the yahoo mentioned on the morning thread.
Uncle Cosmo
s@schrodingers_cat: “Stochastic refers to the concept that, once the Great Far-Wrong Wurlitzer has shrieked loudly & continuously that {insert names of Democrats} are evil, wicked, traitors, whatever, the probability that some random Fright-Wing Nut Job will go after one or more of them intent on doing bodily harm approaches unity, even though the probability of any specified FrWNJ doing so remains vanishingly small.
(ETA: See Redshift at #218 supra for the non-theoretical-statistics-textbook version.)
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I refer you back to:
https://balloon-juice.com/2015/08/19/post-modern-violence-from-leaderless-resistance-to-lone-wolves/
Redshift
@NotMax:
Because the point is that it’s made more likely by violent rhetoric toward demonized targets, like Trump’s or the aforementioned Radio Rwanda. Would you prefer to let them of the hook and lump it together with unrelated terrorist acts?
Adam L Silverman
I go to the gym for two hours and you all are still arguing about semantics. Must be a slow news day…
I’m gonna get cleaned up and have some dinner. Or supper. Feel free to argue about whether I’m having dinner or supper.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Likelihood is not a certainty @NotMax: Do we know for sure that the perp is not a part of a group.
NotMax
@Redshift
In that case fomented would convey better info than does stochastic.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: But stochastic is sexy and mathy.
NotMax
@schodingers_cat
We know what we know from early reporting. Not gonna speculate – that’s a waste of time, as more focused and more concrete info will be made known down the line.
Raven Onthill
Another package found addressed to Maxine Waters just an hour and a half ago. They hate her, they really hate her.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax Indeed, at this point do we know that it was a random person?
ETA: FWIW, guys the random number generator on your calculator is not truly random it has a very long period.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, we know that too.
Aleta
I don’t know who picked the adjective but the term addressed a need — RW commentators were evading responsibilty for violent acts of (what they called) lone wolfs , even though the RWers had identified the targets and used their influence/media access to incite their followers. The term stochastic terrorist (to refer to the inciting commentator) is a way to hold the commenter publicly responsible (even though not legally) in addition to the the violent person. Trump’s words at his rallys fit the definition.
Somehow the Us had no problem holding bin Laden responsible even though he didn’t get his hands dirty; so that is part of the reasoning behind why the term is valid instead of just calling it ‘terrorism.’
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
Unlikely combination.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Good for you.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I doubt that.
Gin & Tonic
@Aleta: Trump’s words are incitement to terrorism. Just because the media are afraid to call them that, doesn’t change things. Using incorrect mathematical terminology doesn’t correct that problem, it just deflects it.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Math is sexy. Without math there would be no internet, and your phone wouldn’t exist.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: You have made your point. The horse is dead. Stop beating it. BTW one can contract a disease and one can sign a contract.
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
@Aleta:
Stochastic Terrorism became a terrorism category after the Rwanda Genocide. Many of the people who incited the violence, did not have literal blood in their hands, they had figurative blood on their hands.
Many studies were made on how the Mass Media was used to stoke, sustain and justify the Genocide.
As a result, both the ICC and the Rwandan Courts convicted many people, who had not actually done the killings, liable for the killings.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: They’ve got good ones now for cryptographic purposes that use physical entropy sources. It became a commoditized thing remarkably quickly.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Cool!
Aleta
@Jay: thanks for that. I wonder how the word was chosen. I hate how easily, without conscience, Republicans have incited violence against women, POC, immigrants, democrats, and abortion clinic workers to achieve voter numbers.
Somewhere I saw an article about how starting with Reagan, Repub politicians who’d been pro-choice switched their public stance to increase their power. During the most recent Collins treachery, I looked up pro-choice R women and saw on Wiki that there used to be two congressional groups of pro-choice R women; forming a voting block w many members. One went extinct and the other had dwindled to 2 members. (1 now.)
Clinic workers are in more danger than ever now.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: And you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish. What’s your damn point? If everybody started using “collateral estoppel” to mean something other than what your guild thinks it means, would you refrain from commenting?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Hedy Lamarr.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Addressed above. I’ve been a pedant about terms before, and it was pointless. The difference between different disciplines use of a term and also that of common parlance will always be there. I commented on that above as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Exception that proves the rule?
jc
Notice how suddenly no one is talking about Mr. Bone Saw anymore. Hey Presto! Bob’s yer Uncle! Coincidence.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
When people are dying, yes.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: downvote for the REO Speedwagon reference! Always hated those guys.
BTW, can you distinguish between collateral estoppel and res judicata?
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I said I wasn’t going to read all 200 comments.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL:
No. But of course, I use “passing the bar” differently than you do.
Steve in the ATL
@Gin & Tonic: zing!
You probably use “TA” differently as well, though I got tentative agreement on a collective bargaining agreement earlier this week so I slightly less cranky than usual.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Then you shouldn’t assume that I didn’t address something.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I’m still a fan of the cricket bat.
Omnes Omnibus
Still recovering from the weekend illness. I am off to bed.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow that’s pretty sexist. You sound like the Thinking Housewife. Studying math is unwomanly and unattractive.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Probably a dead thread, but: My comments weren’t gendered. My response would have been the same if the person in question was Clark Gable.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: You made the point more than once that I should shut up and people who understand math are unattractive. Your school yard taunts are not going to deter me.
As for these events being random, we know who is fomenting the violence and we know who is the target. We also know the group that is being incited. There is little that is random in these chain of events.
Stochastic terrorism is a jargon laden misnomer and does not accurately describe yesterday’s events. It is right wing terrorism directed against the Democrats.