Cambridge, Massachusetts Gets Back to Business

    Perhaps a sign of the relief at beginning the return to normalcy, the following message was posted on the website of the City of Cambridge less than a half hour after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured by police in nearby Waterton where he was hiding in a boat:

A good ending to a terrible situation. Still we keep in mind the lives that were lost or severely impacted due to these horrible acts of violence. We thank our law enforcement officials for their outstanding work during this unbelieveable event. We are Cambridge and Boston strong and proud. Rubbish and recycling for those who have a Thursday & Friday collection will take place Saturday, April 20.The Apr. 20 Recycling drop center will be open normal hours. Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day is cancelled. Some other city programs that were previously cancelled may resume. Please check with specific agency. MBTA service is resuming. Keep watching local media for latest updates.

     The announcement about "rubbish and recycling" without even a paragraph break is at once poignant and funny.  This town is ready for something as pedestrian as when the trash will be picked up.  Let us all pray that God grants the Boston area a restful stretch of boredom in the coming days and weeks.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter Account: 'Probably the Only Chechen Dude You Know'

    A website that places a "value" on Twitter accounts has increased the estimated value of suspected Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's from $37 to more than $62,000 as of late Friday night due to the tens of thousands of new curious followers.  Multiple news organizations reported the existence of the account Friday afternoon even as the manhunt continued.  While Tsarnaev's current Twitter icon is a picture of a roaring lion, a cached version of the site shows his previous icon was a photo of himself (right.)
    The cached version of the Account-Market site also shows that Tsarnaev's bio used to read "lazy but i get **** done" instead of the current "Salam aleikum," which means "peace be upon you" in Arabic.  An even earlier version of his bio read "probably the only Chechen dude you know."


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Gov't Awards Contract on IED Detection to Northeastern University in Boston

    In what may be just an eerie coincidence, the Defense Department posted a contract award notice today to Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts for research into "Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff." Of particular concern are Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that have become a favorite among terrorists and gained widespread attention during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  According to the solicitation first issued in October 2012:

DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] is soliciting innovative multidisciplinary research proposals to rapidly develop and demonstrate non-contact methods to detect explosives embedded or packaged in opaque media with high water content (e.g., water, mud, meat/animal carcasses) at standoff.

    Accompanying documents further explain the purpose and goals of the research:

A. Background/Vision
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are persistent threats that manifest themselves in
almost innumerable forms. Their detection and safe disposal is a formidable challenge.
Over the past two decades, much progress has been made to address this challenge with
the development of technologies with ever increasing levels of sophistication. These
range from indirect methods to detect packaging, wiring, or fusing to more direct
detection methods. Indirect methods such as these are outside the scope of this program...
The vision of this program is to develop methods that permit rapid detection of bulk
explosives embedded within an opaque medium with high water content. This will
preclude the use of trace detection methods and bulk methods where significant
penetration into the medium is not possible. In addition, the use of ionizing radiation,
other than possible employment of backscatter technology must be excluded because of
health concerns to military personnel and civilians in proximity to the area of concern...

B. Program Objectives and Metrics
The goal of the MEDS program is to develop and demonstrate non-contact methods to
detect explosives embedded or packaged in opaque media with high water content such
as mud, meat, animal carcasses, etc. Because detection/imaging methods have not been
developed or applied to this regime, proposals for a proof-of-concept program with
emphasis on demonstration of feasibility are solicited. Objectives are intended to
demonstrate feasibility and are not intended to reflect an operational environment. 

    A revision to the original solicitation on April 8 appeared to postpone the award notice until October 15, 2013 from the original date of Monday, April 15:

The purpose of this Modification 1 to DARPA-BAA-13-01, Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff (MEDS), is to change the proposal closing deadline from April 15, 2013, 4:00PM, ET to October 15, 2013, 4:00PM, ET.

    However, the award notice was posted this morning without further explanation.  Earlier awards were made to the University of Arizona, BAE Systems, and Quasar Federal Systems under the same solicitation heading.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.