May 20, 2013

You didn’t think we were done here, did you? Not even close. As it turns out, much to my surprise, I haven’t even thrown some of my best punches yet.

We begin, as we did on the last outing, with that image of the two women we are clearly supposed to believe are dead. After complaining in the last post that there weren’t any other views of this scene available, I discovered that there is, in fact, another image in the public domain, presumably taken by the same photographer within moments of when the other image was captured.

The second shot, though technically a much better photograph, has not been widely circulated. But that is probably because it clearly reveals that the above shot was a wholly contrived, posed, stage-managed affair. In the second shot, the two ‘dead’ actresses don’t have their heads pressed together and both have their eyes and mouths open. And maybe it’s just me, but the girl who is supposed to be an EMT appears to be smiling at them! Also, we can see that the hollow-leg guy, hereafter referred to as The Other Jeff, still has his lower leg and foot.

Did you notice, by the way, that the responder who was previously in between Jeff and The Other Jeff is now assisting the guy who didn’t just get both his legs blown off? The Other Jeff, as it turns out, was also hauled away by wheelchair, which seems to have been the preferred method of transport for people with really serious fake injuries. His leg isn’t showing though so someone really dropped the ball on that photo-op.

I’m sure you noticed that in the ‘dead women’ photo, Ms Campbell’s legs appear to be thoroughly mangled, bent at impossible angles and quite possibly detached. But they’re not. She was just posed to make it look that way. We know that because when she was wheeled off, her legs were still fully attached and they had been magically straightened. Seems kind of weird that the medical personnel didn’t straighten them when she was on the ground though, so that her injuries could be evaluated.

Campbell is obviously still alive while being transported, but she allegedly expired upon arrival at the medical tent. Or while she was being treated at the medical tent. The stories vary. More than one version of the story has been told by the guy in the bloodless yellow shirt who is holding the oxygen mask. Identified as Dr. Allan Panter, he is, like Carlos, one of the heroes of this tall tale. According to legend, it was ‘fate’ that brought him all the way from Gainesville, Georgia (or Sylva, North Carolina, depending upon whether it is a North Carolina or a Georgia newspaper that is reporting the story) to within 20-30 feet (by his own account) of the site of the first detonation. Luckily though, he didn’t get injured and was able to swiftly go to work helping others.

In the next installment we’ll take a closer look at the good doctor, while noting here that he can also be seen in the next image, rushing to the scene … well, not exactly rushing, but kind of casually strolling onto the scene. He can also be seen in the smiling EMT shot; he’s the guy sticking his ass in Jeff’s face and showing a considerable amount of concern for the two not-really-dead women.

We are, I’m guessing, supposed to believe that Campbell just kind of landed in that bloody heap due to the force of the blast. But as we can see in the next image, she was initially on her side in something of a spooning arrangement with the younger and slimmer version of Karen Rand. But that was before Carlos crushed them under the fence while he was, you know, saving people. Before the dueling corpses pic was taken, Campbell rolled over onto her back and repositioned her right leg. And her sidekick was repositioned as well.

Next up is a fascinating video shot by a spectator who was in the blast zone filming the race when the first device detonated. The post-blast footage is understandably shaky and erratic, consisting basically of a jumbled mass of images, and the conclusions drawn by the guy who put the Youtube video together are overreaching, to say the least, but when the footage is slowed down, one thing becomes very clear: at the time of the explosion, our old friend hoody was not in the position he was later photographed in. To the contrary, he was sitting down in front of Lenscrafters with his back to the wall, calmly waiting to take his place amidst the manufactured carnage. And luckily for him, he was sitting outside the windows that didn’t get blown out.

What that means, of course, is that while everyone else was moving quickly away from the scene, hoody plunged right into the midst of the smoke cloud. And as we already know, he didn’t do that to offer assistance to victims; he did it to play the role of a victim himself. And amazingly enough, he was able to move himself into position despite having two exposed femurs, shredded legs and a ‘degloved’ right hand!

While it is impossible to say for sure since we have previously only seen him in a hood and sunglasses, I’m guessing that this is hoody being wheeled off to a waiting ambulance. Notice that they had plenty of sheets and blankets on hand to completely wrap him from neck to toe, but they didn’t have anything available to cover Ms Campbell’s leg wounds. You don’t suppose that could be because they wanted Campbell’s graphic wounds on full display while seeking to hide the fact that hoody didn’t have a mark on him, do you? Hoody, of course, needed oxygen, though Jeff and The Other Jeff were able to man-up and do without.

Let’s change course now and talk for a little bit about what thoroughly inept ‘terrorists’ those wild and crazy Tsarnaev brothers were. They had the right idea – engineer a mass-casualty incident at a high-profile event in a major American city. That is, after all, what ‘terrorists’ do, isn’t it? And that is what our illustrious Department of Homeland Security trains for. But these two particular ‘terrorists’ made two major, colossal mistakes, which we will now take a look at.

Error #1: timing is everything. A few hours before the devices detonated, there was a huge crowd gathered near the finish line, as can be seen in the next photo. They were there to see the winners from the various divisions cross the finish line. But no one really cares who crosses the finish line a couple hours after the winners have been crowned, so the crowds had dwindled to a considerable degree by the time of the explosions. So a ‘terrorist’ who had put a little thought into it would most likely have placed and detonated the bombs a couple hours earlier.

Also on hand a couple hours before the blasts was a whole shitload of professional sports photographers. You can see them in the image above, kneeling at the finish line while waiting to get their money shots. And there were many, many more on what is known as the photo-bridge just beyond the finish line. But they of course were long gone as well, depriving us of potentially thousands of high-resolution photos of what really happened that day.

If someone had placed a bomb on the pavement in the midst of the dense finish line crowd we see above, then it seems reasonable to conclude that we would in fact have had the kind of mass-casualty event described by the media, with scores of serious injuries and far more than three dead. But that would only have been true if the ‘terrorists’ had not committed Error #2: don’t forget to pack some shrapnel in the bomb.

This next image was initially a bit baffling to me. What I was having trouble with was figuring out why the shrapnel shield this victim was standing behind didn’t protect her. As can be seen, the paper shield appears to have successfully stopped all the low-flying shrapnel, with nary a tear or puncture to be seen. So I couldn’t figure out how she had been hit. But then I remembered that this was a special kind of magic shrapnel that had the ability to turn corners to seek out victims.

The next image confused me for the opposite reason; the shrapnel shield is clearly sagging where the blast has occurred, leaving a number of people vulnerable, but yet they all seem to be okay. I guess the shield was still high enough to protect their lower extremities.

Here we see another view of the thin, nylon mesh (I’m guessing here) shrapnel guard, which survived the blast without a single penetration. The wood railing just ten feet or so from the blast site also held up pretty well. And it’s not even attached to the ground, by the way. It is a temporary, movable assembly. And it not only wasn’t damaged, it’s still standing and didn’t even move. And the brick façade of the building appears to be shrapnel-proof as well. Even the lowest portions of it.

Given the absurdity of these images, is there really any room left for reasonable debate on the topic of shrapnel? Side-by-side below is essentially the same moment in time captured in two different images. On one side of the temporary barrier is a horrifying scene of bodies along the fence line cut to ribbons by shrapnel. And on the other side there was not a single injury of any magnitude – not to any runners, or to any race officials, or to any spectators, or to any of the workers on the course – despite the undeniable fact that the only additional protection the people on the outside of the barrier had was about ten feet of air.

Unless we choose to hide our heads in the sand, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that there was no shrapnel in what was essentially an oversized version of a Red Devil safe-and-sane smoke bomb. And that necessarily means that none of those graphic injuries were real. Some innocent bystanders were likely injured by flying glass or by being trampled by others, but no one, including Jeff Bauman, lost a leg.

Losing both your legs at such a young age, I have to say, would really suck. But you know what sucks even more than that? Ruining your favorite shirt on the same day you get your legs blown off.

Predictably enough, I have received email berating me for stooping so low as to attack the victims of this tragedy. It should be perfectly clear though by now, to anyone who is paying attention, that I have done no such thing. The people in those graphic, blood-soaked images were not the victims of this attack. You and I were.

That’s all for now, but there is more to come. Stay tuned.