Shits and giggles.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Damn you're up early!

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Demons.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Abu Sayyaf is the ISIS-affiliated group in the P.I., though they've been carrying on a jihad in the Philippines for much longer than ISIS has been in existence. The non-state terror group's leadership swore an oath of loyalty to Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014.

Something about this entire thing just seems off. This woman -- who was wired $100,000 by the shooter -- flew back voluntarily from the P.I.? After being associated with the deepest-dyed villain in US mass shooter history? What's going on with that?

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

So he killed himself long before the police got there? Something I read early on indicated he killed himself as the police blew the door and went in.

You would think it means she had nothing to do with it (and didn't talk to a lawyer first?), but who knows.

Apparently, hotel employees had been in and out of the room and didn't notice anything, so he must have had the weapons fairly well hidden.

No, hotel security at Mandalay Bay got to his room first, at about 10 minutes into the rampage. Paddock shot through the door upon security's arrival, injuring the leg of one of the first responders. Shooting stopped after that. SWAT assembled and about 70 minutes after the initial volley, blew the doors off his room and found Paddock dead inside.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

She's apparently saying he had been growing more and more insane over the last few weeks/months of his life. She may have just humored him with the money transfer, might not have been her idea at all. Maybe his madness is why she was in PI to begin with, rather than in Nevada with him.

As for the hotel, he could have just had the weapons in a suitcase or golf bag. No need to do a lot to hide anything.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I vote brain tumor.

Jesus, what a sh*t show.

I made a point about mental health issues and our hesitancy to interfere in the lives of those suffering from them, at least since the beginning of the deinstitutionalization movement in the early 1970s. I'm hoping that it doesn't turn out plenty of other people saw him becoming increasingly unstable and acting out and, for various reasons, didn't step in and alert authorities.

So far, no one's been able to turn up anything that indicates he was going in this direction. No police reports, no calls by neighbors to 911, no barking at the moon, even. One Florida neighbor did say that he was reclusive, for what it's worth.

But one day, after a descent into madness (according to his girlfriend) he just decided to become the human personification of death. It's crazy.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I brought that up in the thread about the shooter's weapons and the fact that his girlfriend was saying he'd been slipping into madness for some time.

Charles Whitman, 1966, the UofT tower shooter. Walnut-sized glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor. May have triggered a killing rage in him, this PhD says:

BrainMind.com

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

The news is quoting Marilou's family as saying that Paddock bought her a plane ticket to PI and told her he had found a cheap fare, and sent her on her way. She had no previous plans to head to PI, so if accurate, it sounds like he sent her away so she wouldn't be around for the attack, either to protect her or to keep her from interfering.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Careful planning. And he came to party when he ensconced himself in his hotel room, geared up and ready for a fight. Ugh.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Careful planning all around. From everything else mentioned with the physical preparation and getting the girlfriend out of there, he also had to plan for the busy event and take it a step further to make sure he secured a room on the right side to face the concert grounds and get it high enough to shoot. It would be interesting to know how far ahead he booked that room and what happened with him between then and the act of terrorism to make him still carry through with it.

What's crazy is imagine if he would have just killed a family member or a single random person, but instead he decides to climb into a tower and start sniping random people, gets a lot of media attention, becomes a cultural meme...and ever since we have people that commit copy cat crimes, most of whom probably have never even heard of him.

Replying to last thread.. Not everyone was scared that night... Guys was probably drunk off his ass..

http://hotcountry1035.com/...-jason-aldean-opens/

When the initial pictures started making the rounds, I was struck by the number of people that I saw either fleeing, or taking cover with a drink still in their hand. Then again, I've been to enough events to know that when you're paying $12 for a beer, you'd better get your money's worth.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

Neither Whitman nor this shooter carried out their evil deeds on the spur of the moment, and both carefully planned their actions leading up to their shootings -- which almost every mass shooter does, admittedly.

Whitman truly was ready to go down shooting as well, as law enforcement at least one civilian volunteer had to storm his position and take him out. This latest shooter seems to have taken himself out as police closed in, and also seems to have ceased firing once he'd fired into the crowd many times, though that last is subject to change as we learn more at the last moments of his life.

Something set this gentleman off, though. Whether it's mental health problems -- and they've hopefully been documented -- or anger management issues or a life spinning out of control. Something's out there that will give us more insight into his motivations.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

This is one of the real issues that needs to be addressed at some point and I certainly don't have any answers for it myself. There needs to be some sort of way to report something that doesn't seem right.

For example. Was at my wife's friends house and some of that friend's family was visiting. There was a young man there (believe he is 17 or so) that was honestly just downright scary. I had never met anyone but the wife's friend so was totally new to the kid. He was reclusive, dark, scary, non-interactive, and when interacted with he responded with very odd behavior and when one small thing didn't go his way (he was playing a magic card game with a 10 year old girl) he went full rage. Creeped me out to no end.

When we got in the car to leave I said to my wife, if we hear about a school shooting and find out he was the shooter I will not be one iota surprised to hear it. His family hunts and has guns in the house (not sure if he has access). She said yeah, he is like that. So no one in his family is concerned about it and from what I know he is not being monitored or "helped" in any way. I really felt like I should report it to someone, but who and how?

Hard to "see something, say something" without some system in place. But he is definitely one of those people that if he went off, there would be people on the news saying "yep, that figures".

Aaaaaand now...Newsweek is retracting its story that the shooter's girlfriend, Marilou Danley -- had two Social Security numbers and was married to two men, adding yet more evidence to the thesis that the mainstream/major media is mostly comprised of IDIOTS all addicted to a 24/7 news cycle and the "hot take."

But: what the Newsweek retraction fails to mention is how a mistake this big got through layer upon layer of copy editor and fact checker. Why, it's almost like really young and immature juicebox-slurping recent graduates of J-school are running things at what was once one of the nation's two major newsweeklies. But that couldn't be it, could it?

Newsweek retracts its earlier story that Marilou Danley had two Social Security numbers and was married to two men.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

That's actually an interesting and workable theory.

Killer was on medication....

http://thehill.com/...i-anxiety-medication

Someone very close to me was on this and she stopped taking it because she started having suicidal and murderous thoughts (something that never happened before taking the meds).

Will we hear calls to ban this drug? Nope.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Diazepam was first marketed as Valium, I think. It's been around forever. It seems that if you're already suffering from anger or aggression issues it can actually intensify such feelings, crazily enough.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

That is an odd side effect for Valium.

My mom was put on an anti-anxiety medication two years ago. She'd been struggling with her marriage but, otherwise, she'd been solid as a rock for her whole life: never had a drop of alcohol, self-made business woman, super-mom, etc.

Within a month of taking those meds she'd had three violent, destructive outbursts at home where she just flipped and started smashing vases, china, etc *AND* she attempted to commit suicide twice (both times by running out into traffic, by some miracle she wasn't hit either time).