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An analysis of the media coverage in the aftermath of the murders in Pennsylvania, by Anglofille:

The coverage of this case is, across the board, sickening.  Here are a few headlines:
George Sodini, Health Club Gunman, Went On Rampage Over Sexual Rejection

George Sodini’s Blog Tells of Years of Rejection By Women Before Gym Shooting

Gunman at Pennsylvania Health Club Was Bitter Over Women

Sex-Starved Aeoribcs Killer George Sodini Was Upset By Women

Failures In Love Bred LA Fitness Center Killer’s Hate

And the list goes on.  In each case, we see that Sodini is the victim.  Nowhere do we see a headline like this: Misogynist Commits Mass Murder or Three Women Murdered in Hate Crime. The articles are clear that Sodini hated women, which of course he did, but for the media, if Sodini hated women, then there must be a reason for it.  A good reason. If George Sodini, a proven racist, had murdered African-Americans simply because of their race, would we be asking why George Sodini hated African-Americans?  No, because what possible legitimate reason could he have?  There isn’t one.  He’s a racist asshole and that’s the end of it.  But apparently, there are legitimate reasons to hate all women.  The articles try to explain, in rational terms, why Sodini hated women, thus making his rampage seem like the next logical step given his mental instability.  If women hadn’t deprived him of sex, none of this would have happened.

[...]

For a moment, just imagine if George Sodini had had a girlfriend. There can be virtually no doubt that she would have been physically and emotionally abused during the relationship, because George Sodini hated women. If the woman had tried to escape from him, she would have been stalked and likely murdered. And after he killed her, he would have probably committed a mass murder of women anyway. The headline: Heartbroken Man Goes on Rampage After Being Dumped.

The real story here is not lonely men (there are plenty of lonely women as well), but instead, the real story is male violence against women and girls, which occurs every second of every day in the form of domestic abuse, molestation, harassment, rape and murder. There is no rational, legitimate reason for this hatred of women, yet it is widespread in our culture and everyday, women die as a result.

(via)

Hey, let’s go back to January: remember when Norm Coleman said that the weight of “disenfranchised voters” brought down his campaign website? Anyway, his dumb, unimpressive fake crash stunt left a database full of info on supporters/donors unprotected and free for anyone to download, including information such as unencrypted credit card information (credit card numbers, expiration dates, and card verification numbers) for people who donated online. Well, a couple months later, and now it’s all up on Wikileaks. As Aaron at MNpubulis mentions, Norm Coleman broke the law in more ways than one.

Coleman’s team is falsely claiming that there was a breach within their firewalls that didn’t show up on server logs. That’s pretty dumb because a) those types of things generally show up on such logs, b) it had nothing to do with firewalls but DNS, and c) if all you needed to do in order to obtain the information was to right-click and save to your computer, that’s not hacking or “breaching” anything.

It is like an all-star lineup of weirdness in the MN Senate recount, going beyond “my grandma voted for Jesse Ventura” weirdness: Lizard People and the Flying Spaghetti Monster joined write-in favorites Mickey Mouse and Jesus.

The other day, there was concern over whether Lizard People could be someone’s name, as Franken’s lawyer contended that since Lizard People was not a real person, it shouldn’t count as an overvote. Coleman’s lawyer helpfully suggested “Beaver” and “Chopper” as unusual nicknames some people have. It eventually was counted as an overvote. (Donovan has more on Mpls Metblog about why that was a dumb position to take and why Franken needs a new lawyer.)

Local news crew The UpTake has been grinding away and providing non-stop recount coverage, and it’s been paying off, with record-breaking traffic to their site. Their hard work was also spotted on CNN, with regards to their coverage of MN Senate recount comedy ballots.

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It sounds like  a bad joke. Who would name their poor kid Adolf Hitler? Answer: the same people who’ve named their other children after Henrich Himmler and the “Aryan Nation.” Yes, for real.

Heath Campbell and his wife, Deborah, have named their three young children JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, and Adolf Hitler Campbell. Even though they’ve gotten their birthday cakes from Wal-Mart for two years previous, they decided to expand their horizons. However, ShopRite refused to personalize a birthday cake for young Adolf Hitler.

The parents say that they aren’t white supremacists, they just think that races shouldn’t mix and wanted their children to have unique names. They also don’t get what the big deal is about naming their children after an ideology responsible for the deaths of millions during the 20th century. Despite having a multitude of swastikas in their home, they can’t seem to draw it correctly, nor do they consider it to be a symbol having any meaning:

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I’ve sort of been sitting on this because I don’t know how helpful it is or what to do with it. So, I’ll just put it out there.

I couldn’t find Laurie Coleman (either with her married name or her maiden name, Casserly) in the California Dept of Insurance database of licensed insurance agents. She appears licensed in Minnesota, though. The address is listed as both her business and mailing address, which is her residential address shared with Norm in St. Paul.

She has supposedly been an independent contractor with the Hays Companies (based in CA) since 2006.

This is public info made available through the State of MN website, specifically this one.

Screenshot from the Sircon MN Licensing Portal

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