Pentagon Shooter: John Patrick Bedell

UPDATE: Here's a link to a link of audio files from this guy. I listened to one for about a minute and then I started to nod off. He does sound very young, very controlled and very flat (also, rather effeminate, not that there's anything wrong with that.)

UPDATE II: News reports indicate this guy was also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. That pretty much tells me he was a wacko who should of had all his guns and sporks confiscated and he should have been on the do not fly, drive or bicycle watch list. Conspiracy theorists are all kooks. 9/11 conspiracy theorists are paranoids or borderline paranoids. Also, he was probably a Tea Bagger. Just sayin', Andrew Breitbart.

And here's a pic of the Pentagon shooter, John Patrick Bedell. Early reports suggest he was yet another in a long line of anti-government sociopaths.

Frankly, I don't know too many people who aren't anti-government on some level at some time. Just look at your pay stub and see all the money you pay for the privilege of living in the USA.

And if that doesn't get your knickers in a twist, just look at the huge amount of government waste, the no-bid contracts, the do-nothing state and federal employees, the corruption, the gold-bricking, the nepotism, the absurd number of people in this country who are employees of the government, the vast sums spent on elections, ad nauseam.

So, it's not terribly surprising that there are those living on the fringes of mental health who act out in this way. It's upsetting, of course, but we needn't make a logical leap from these examples of mental derangement and blame the victims or make some huge federal case about this. It was a lone wack job, just like the imbecile who crashed his plane into the IRS office in Texas. There are thousands upon thousands of mentally ill people in this world, and many of them have access to guns or other instruments of death.

Fortunately, most of us understand that while our system is badly broken, these random acts of violence accomplish nothing -- unless of course your real objective is simply suicide, which in all cases can be done without the assistance of anyone other than yourself.

Kudos to the law enforcement personnel who ended this disturbed man's life before he could do even more damage, and condolence and best wishes to the injured.

The price of peace is eternal vigilance -- still. We will never be able to stop these lunatics completely, but neither can we allow them to affect how we live our lives.