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.

Yes, dear reader: you did read the headline correctly. The woman who was nearly vice president has quit her elected position without using the word “resigned” or even acknowledging that she is walking out on the people who elected her. In fact, the entire “letter” is couched in terms of “not seeking a second term,” which goes without saying since she couldn’t even finish the first one.

I chose to post the fulltext of the entire resignation letter because it is so rife with grammatical errors that there is virtually no way it won’t be redacted and edited. The closing line is just priceless: In the words of General MacArthur said, “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”

During this stream-of-consciousness, Palin sways violently from characterizing the United States as the “Outside” (spelled with a capital “O”) on the one hand, to proclaiming that her unique style of politics is just what the United States needs. While this will be interpreted by some as a precursor to her “inevitable” 2012 presidential bid, there is no mistaking the subtext: Palin is an Alaskan separatist who seeks secession from the Outside.

While it is true that quitting so long before the end of her term will spare her further exposure to the media (which she absolutely cannot withstand), this has to be one of the most shameful displays of leadership that any self-respecting representative could conjure up.

We all know that the electorate (A.K.A. the “unwashed masses”) are a fickle group who will have forgotten Palin after a few weeks’ time, so the most damnable part of this spectacle is that it probably would serve to provide a favorable position for Palin, compared to her ongoing humiliation as a public servant. The inescapable paradox lying within this strategy is that it would presumably be in anticipation of further public service, which would apparently be harmed by continuing to serve as Governor of Alaska.

Got that? In order to not harm her chances as a future public servant, she must quit her current position as a public servant in order to avoid fatally damaging her hypothetical presidential aspirations. We’re not talking about quitting on the school board, and we’re not talking about waiting out a difficult term in office. We’re talking about the Governor of Alaska — essentially on a whim — up and leaving office with nothing more than a few weeks notice.

…and she is announcing this in time for July 4th! Srsly, peeps: this isn’t a presidential bid. This reads more like a 4th grader’s stuttering, guilty, and evasive partial apology for getting caught in the act of cheating, then dropping out of school instead of studying for the next test. It’s shameful, but hardly unbelievable.

RTFA: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/exec-column.php

Hi Alaska, I appreciate speaking directly to you, the people I serve, as your Governor.

People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s more important to me than our beloved Alaska. Serving her people is the greatest honor I could imagine.

I want Alaskans to grasp what can be in store for our state. We were purchased as a territory because a member of President Abe Lincoln’s cabinet, William Seward, providentially saw in this great land, vast riches, beauty, strategic placement on the globe, and opportunity. He boldly looked “North to the Future”. But he endured such ridicule and mocking for his vision for Alaska, remember the adversaries scoffed, calling this “Seward’s Folly”. Seward withstood such disdain as he chose the uncomfortable, unconventional, but right path to secure Alaska, so Alaska could help secure the United States.

People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s more important to me than our beloved Alaska.

Alaska’s mission – to contribute to America. We’re strategic in the world as the air crossroads of the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. Bold visionaries knew this – Alaska would be part of America’s great destiny.

Our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, and oil and gas. It’s energy! God gave us energy.

So to serve the state is a humbling responsibility, because I know in my soul that Alaska is of such import, for America’s security, in our very volatile world. And you know me by now, I promised even four years ago to show my independence… no more conventional “politics as usual”.

(more…)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: “The next stop along the slippery slope.” One of the first things to strike me when the United States began its terrorism craze was, “great – now that terrorism is double-super-illegal, we need to worry about what actions are defined as terrorism.” Well guess what? Your public servants are being trained to classify peaceful assembly as terrorism.

If I may quote from the amendments to the US Constitution:

“Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Regarding that last part – the part about assembly and petition? That’s terrorism. See, the reason you can’t protest anymore is that if you do, you’re an enemy of the state, and you’re not protected by the constitution if you’re not really a citizen. Isn’t that a clever way of getting around the constitution?

What? You have a problem with that? Well you certainly can’t protest about it. You want to disappear to Cuba and get tortured? I didn’t think so, citizen.

RTFA: http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/14/d…

The Department of Defense is training all of its personnel in its current Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course that political protest is “low-level terrorism.”

The Training introduction reads as follows:

“Anti-terrorism (AT) and Force Protection (FP) are two facets of the Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Assurance Program. It is DoD policy, as found in DoDI 2000.16, that the DoD Components and the DoD elements and personnel shall be protected from terrorist acts through a high pirority, comprehensive, AT program. The DoD’s AT program shall be all encompassing using an integrated systems approach.”

The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, “Knowledge Check 1″ section reads as follows:

Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?

Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.

O Attacking the Pentagon

O IEDs

O Hate crimes against racial groups

O Protests

***

The “correct” answer is Protests.

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://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/20geronimo.ht…

OUSTON – The descendants of Geronimo have sued Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University with ties to the Bush family, charging that its members robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case ever since.

Legend has it that Prescott S. Bush stole Geronimo’s skull.

The claim is part of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington on Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo’s death. The Apache warrior’s heirs are seeking to recover all his remains, wherever they may be, and have them transferred to a new grave at the headwaters of the Gila River in New Mexico, where Geronimo was born and wished to be interred.

“I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was never released,” Geronimo’s great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo, 61, told reporters Tuesday at the National Press Club.

Geronimo died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1909. A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush – father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush – broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.

The story gained some validity in 2005, when a historian discovered a letter written in 1918 from one Skull and Bones member to another saying the skull had been taken from a grave at Fort Sill along with several pieces of tack for a horse…

Members of the Skull and Bones, who guard their organization’s secrecy, could not be reached for comment. Though the society is not officially affiliated with the university, many of Yale’s most powerful alumni are members, among them both Bush presidents and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

“Of all the items rumored to be in the Skull and Bones’s possession, Geronimo’s skull is one of the more plausible ones,” said Alexandra Robbins, the author of “Secrets of the Tomb” (Little Brown 2002), a book about the society. “There is a skull encased in a glass display when you walk in the door of the Tomb, and they call it Geronimo.”