On the evening of August 4th 2009, some crazy, self-absorbed, adolescent-brained asshole (who happened to be 48 years old) walked into a fitness center in Pittsburgh, PA and started shooting randomly. All told, he killed at least three people beside himself.

…a moment of silence for those who were murdered…

The morning after (i.e. today, now) the Internet hive mind is piecing together the story behind this tragedy, and what we find is shockingly pathetic. The killer, George Sodini, put his crazed rantings online for all to read after his death, but this isn’t another instance of a society failing to hear these threats or to identify a cry for help. Instead, Sodini’s message was trivially encoded to be revealed only after he was dead.

Sodini’s sobfest probably started in the year 2000, when georgesodini.com was registered. The domain name is registered through August 1, 2010, meaning he had absolutely no expectation of his website being accessible more than a year after his horrible deed.

Browsing through his website, we find all the sophistication of a late-1990s web designer, complete with the revelation that the dude was using wordpad to edit his website. To the technically un-inclined, this is a sure-fire sign that Sodini was hardly a shooting star.

That said, it’s the site’s code comments, which are hidden from plain view, that are among the most interesting. The very first thing you see when inspecting http://georgesodini.com/ is the suggestion that a password-protected section of the website is available.

At the bottom of the page, we can get a little taste of Sodini’s vindictive and single-minded obsession with his love-jilted past. There is some reference to several images (which are no longer online) whose names are suggestive of an ex-girlfriend. There also appears to be a direct message to someone, suggesting Sodini was sharing these pictures.

In the middle of the home page, there is a cryptic section asking us to enter the date of Sodini’s birth and death, but this has been commented out (and is therefore inactive). Apparently, Sodini thought to move this to a separate section of the website, called “Life or Death,” which forms the magnum opus of this man’s trivial cipher.

When the date of Sodini’s death is entered, a “hidden” page is revealed. The direct link is http://georgesodini.com/20090804.htm – which has already been published on the Intarwebs as the blog of his murder plans.

This page is a rambling, ranting condemnation of his childhood experiences, complete with an uninterested father, domineering mother, and bully for a big brother. This would be understandable if it were coming from a 12-year-old on myspace, but the fact that it’s a 40-something tech dude at a lawfirm casts the rant in a whole other light.

The note contains all the signs of a deeply depressed individual, complete with willful self-perpetuation of the situation. Perhaps in an attempt to blame his troubles on society, Sodini closes his note with the following code comment, which is hidden from plain view:

Yes, if only that one woman had paid attention, blah, blah, blah.

Getting to the bottom of this, the one thing I can’t believe is how someone could so effectively defeat their own aspirations. It’s almost unreal that this guy talked himself into murdering a room full of totally innocent people. What’s crazier that he believed this would be a better course of action than simply taking steps to directly address his problem.

Let’s see… maybe try speed dating? I hear people get married on World of Warcraft all the time. There’s absolutely no ambiguity that the guy was aware of what he wanted (i.e. a meaningful relationship), but the total unwillingness to try to make it happen for himself is almost heroic in the pathetic extent of its tragedy.

Since we now know Sodini wouldn’t have killed anyone if he had just said “hi” to a few women, we know this is a truly sad situation, because innocent people were killed for what is literally no reason at all. If the guy at least had some convictions, then in an anti-hero sense, there might have at least been a Hollywood aspect to this case. Instead, all we are left with is a sad, shy coward, who did everything he could to ruin other lives just so he could avoid improving his own.

This is really, really sad. My heart goes out to those lives who are affected by this man’s actions. I wish this never happened.

RTFA: http://www.monsieurcok.com/film_monsieurcok.html

I am amazed by this film; it has it all. The technique is out of this world, the humor is extremely dark, and the story is great. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll watch it at the source. If you are too lazy for your own good, then watch it right here:

Whatever you do, be sure to watch.

WAT? I told you! Didn’t I tell you? As recently as two months ago, we were discussing Guinea Coups on RTFA. Now, the (former) president has been assassinated, and the region is in unrest.

Sure, this isn’t a coup… sure, the military promises to respect democracy…

But all the same, the president is dead at the hands of a group of soldiers, and the meme lives on.

[UPDATE 2009-03-03]
Erm, whoops. Wrong Guinea. The post from two months ago was Equatorial Guinea, but the current article is Guinea-Bissau (neither of which should be confused with the Republic of Guinea).
[/UPDATE]

RTFA: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/03/02/guinea-bi…

Renegade soldiers killed the president of Guinea-Bissau just hours after a bomb blast led to the death of his rival, according to senior government officials.

President Joao Bernardo Vieira died early Monday morning, Luis Sanca, security adviser to Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Jr., confirmed for the Associated Press. Sanca declined to provide further details on the death.

Gunfire had been heard around the presidential palace in the capital of Bissau for several hours overnight in the fragile West African nation, according to witnesses. But the capital was calm on Monday, officials said.

Vieira had ruled Guinea-Bissau for 23 of the past 29 years. He came to power in a 1980 coup, but was forced out 19 years later at the onset of the country’s civil war. He later returned from exile in Portugal to run in the country’s 2005 election and won the vote.

Under the constitution, parliament chief Raimundo Pereira succeeds the president in the event of his death.

The Portuguese news agency LUSA reported that troops attacked Vieira’s residence with rockets and rifles on Sunday night.

Troops closed roads around the armed forces building in Bissau on Sunday and a blast apparently destroyed part of the building, according to the BBC.

RTFA: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/03/02/blackwater.pr…

(CNN) — Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater Worldwide security firm, announced Monday he has resigned as head of the company, recently renamed Xe.

This is the real deal. California is bankrupt, and the prison system is a fantastic place to retrieve billions of misspent dollars. Not only that, but a bankrupt state can stand to tax luxury items a little. This legislation is exactly the ticket for recovery… FINALLY.

RTFA: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/get_up…

Ammiano and the assembled speakers at San Francisco’s State Building also spoke calmly and methodically, at one point being drowned out by a floor-waxer. The famously funny lawmaker reined himself in, presenting “The Marijuana Control, regulation and education act (AB 390)” as a simple matter of fiscal common sense. If you believe Ammiano and his straitlaced panel, it is.

In a nutshell, here’s what the bill would do: “Remove all penalties under California law for the cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, and use of marijuana, natural THC and paraphernalia by persons over the age of 21,” “prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws (more on that later)” and establish a fee of $50 an ounce on marijuana on top of whatever pot will cost in a legal future – which legalization advocates say is about half what it costs now. This tax rate figures at about a buck a joint.

Betty Yee, the chairwoman of the Board of Equalization, called Ammiano’s proposal “a responsible measure on how to work out the regulatory framework of the legalization of marijuana.” Her board’s research indicated $1.3 billion in tax dollars could immediately head into the state’s coffers from the fee on marijuana and the sales tax on medical pot. She figured the halving of marijuana’s street price would cause a consumption increase of 40 percent, but the $50 per ounce levy would cut use by 11 percent.

Steve Gutwillig, the state director of Drug Policy Alliance, noted that regulatory measures like Ammiano’s bill can work: Teen smoking is way down, and he claims juveniles report it is easier to obtain marijuana than purchase smokes. “Marijuana arrests actually increased 18 percent in California in 2007 while all other arrests for controlled substances fell,” said Gutwillig. “This costs the state a billion dollars a year and taxpayers are footing the bill. Meanwhile, black marketers are laughing all the way to the bank.”