Category Archives: Crime

Christopher Dorner: The New Guy

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Dapper Fawkes

Dapper Fawkes

Hero. Revolutionary. Soldier. Assassin. Loser.

Guy Fawkes? Or Christopher Jordan Dorner?

“#Dorner killed two civilians. But the State is making it about much more than that. This is a message about social control. #wakeup”
L3ft-Libertarian

Mainstream media and the general public reacted with understandable consternation to the news that Anonymous, or at least parts of the famously fractious internet hive mind, adopted accused spree killer the now-late Christopher Dorner as a new icon, a rallying point if not a hero. Dorner, a former University football star, LAPD officer and Navy pilot, was on the run from the police and accused of killing three people when he died of a single, allegedly self-administered gunshot as police burned the cabin in which he was hiding to the ground. A million-dollar bounty had been put on his head, and in a contentious move the government authorized the use of drones to locate, if not assassinate, him, one of the first times drones have been used against American citizens on American soil.

“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”
Jeremy Hammond

Dorner’s fame stems not primarily from his actions, but rather from his powerful manifesto shared on Facebook in which he stated his intention to kill as many police officers as he could, in what he said was revenge for institutionalized racism among the LAPD and the way he himself was victimized. His first two claimed victims, however, were guilty of nothing more than being related to an officer who had drawn his ire. Meanwhile, the LAPD seemed like a more-malevolent Keystone Kops, having failed to located Dorner, mistaking two little old ladies for the so-called “Chocolate Rambo” and firing on them.

“Anyone else feel like the safest place to hide from LAPD gun fire is directly behind dorner? @YourAnonNews #Dorner #LAPD”
TheRaven

At first glance, Dorner seems little different from many another political revenge killer, from Andrew Kehoe to George Sodini: above average intelligence, good training, strong work ethic, and a powerful moral center. A man, in short, with every reason to expect success in life, who nonetheless tragically failed at the goal closest to his heart, and snapped as a result. For Dorner, it was a career as an LAPD officer.

For Guy Fawkes, it was bringing about a Catholic revolution in Protestant England by blowing up Parliament.

Unlikely icons for any movement, however splintered and self-contradictory, but it is their very failure which makes them eligible for the role.

“Guy Fawkes, as far as Anon is concerned was chosen because he failed. Fight Club is much closer to Anon’s culture. If people wonder whether Anon supports Dorner (no, just the LAPD meltdown) because of Guy Fawkes, G.F. was always a joke. What’s clear here: the subtext. Drones, fear, Erin Burnett the shark jumping drone hawk, this is like with Kony: war mind games, the whole lot of it. We cut thru dog and Kony show early on. Same here. Dorner is LAPD’s karma. Guy Fawkes a failure.”
Hectoring Hegemon

Anonymous’ public “face” was once a faceless stick figure cartoon known as Epic Fail Guy, a self-deprecating identifier for 4chan members, a group which at the time largely saw itself as basement dwelling wankers. But awesome basement-dwelling wankers. Anonymous emerged from 4chan, essentially evolving into its internet pranking arm. Not long after his creation, Epic Fail Guy stumbled across a Guy Fawkes mask, put it on, and the rest is history. Truly: English history.

Once OpChanology, the in-person protests against Scientology, was initiated in 2008, Anons needed a way to identify themselves as Anons while hiding their faces, and facelessness of the shiny green morph suit (another 4chan/Anon favorite) was not accessible to many people. The Guy Fawkes mask was chosen because, thanks to the anarchist (originally anti-Thatcherite) movie V for Vendetta, it was both affordable and ubiquitous worldwide. Revolutionary echoes handed down from Fawkes himself added to its appeal, as long as you didn’t look at the history too closely; however, the semiotics of the mask were actually directed at Scientology, intended to brand it a failure. Fawkes, after all, had to replace his gunpowder stock when the first stash deteriorated, failed in his attempt to get Spain to invade England or support his revolution, failed at this ultimate attempt to take out Parliament, and at last succeeded in killing himself. Score one for the revolutionary.

Instead of registering as a symbol of “Fail,” the heroic/outsider aspects of the mask were taken to heart by the public at large (who had no knowledge of 4chan’s history) and ultimately by Anonymous itself, which is not immune to the warm fuzzies given to our cultural icons. It’s better to be a lost, noble cause than a basement-dwelling wanker, no?

Remember: Epic Fail Guy = failure. Guy Fawkes = failure. Christopher Dorner?

A colleague and friend of Dorner’s was interviewed on KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio, and claimed the benefit of small-A anonymity, calling himself “Ben.” When asked why, he said, “I have an interest in raising my children. Someone might have an animus against me for speaking the truth, and that’s what I don’t want to happen.” And that is what Chris Dorner was talking about.

A new Facebook manifesto, written by former LAPD officer Joe Jones, has surfaced, and echoes many of the accusations of racism and nepotism that Dorner made. Jones, however, repeatedly stresses that taking lives is not the answer, is never the answer, and is clearly not about to “go rogue.” Respect for the rule of law is currently unfashionable, and is insufficiently controversial to make Jones a renegade hero, however much courage was involved in speaking out with honor about dishonorable truths.

Was anyone, ever, willing to put money on Dorner’s achieving the goals of his manifesto? To eliminate institutional racism in the United States, to retroactively win his police hearing, to clear his name, and yet to simultaneously die while killing as many LAPD officers as he could? Would he ever have been embraced, even conditionally, if people truly believed that there were any chance of his ultimate success? People prefer dead (or obviously doomed) martyrs to live, inconvenient revolutionaries. They are easier to incorporate into political narratives. They are less likely to repudiate their earlier beliefs.

They are simply more convenient.

Christopher Dorner the man had already passed into legend long before his mountain hideout was surrounded and burned.

“Whatever pre-planned responses you have established for a scenario like me, shelve it. Whatever contingency plan you have, shelve it. Whatever tertiary plan you’ve created, shelve it. I am a walking exigent circumstance with no OFF or reset button.

The only thing that changes policy and garners attention is death.”
Christopher Dorner

“The real story here is that methods of oppression by our corpos are now coming home. From PERF to drones, we. let. it. happen.”
Hectoring Hegemons

But when it comes to what Hunter Thompson used to call the shitrain it’s always easier to watch a movie than to look in a mirror.

Jeremy Hammond’s Bail Hearing Record

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Keanu knows

Keanu knows

LulzSec hero Jeremy Hammond had his bail hearing (denied) last week, and now the transcript has been uploaded to Issuu, so here it is. Sixty-five pages, but they seem to be mostly about half full, so it’s not as intimidating as it seems.

And here’s video from the press conference once it was revealed that the judge’s husband is a Stratfor client (Stratfor, as you may know, was allegedly hacked by LulzSec, a circumstance which may lend some skepticism to the concept of a fair and impartial trial).

Return to Mildew Manor

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MOMMY'S HOME!!!

MOMMY’S HOME!!!

Yes, after many a dallying and a wandering, the ego has finally, wearily, at last, landed. I’m home.

While I’ve been gone the patches of mildew have spread, stippling the interior walls of my living room with greyish patterns like poorly printed, ancient maps of archipelagos. And instead of wallpaper, I have vertical stripes of black threatening to break through the drywall every couple of feet, the mark of something moisture-based and imminent on the other side of that gyprock. When I walked through the place, spiders scattered like confetti in a backdraft. Something left small mammalian footprints on my chair.

And then there’s the mess.

The mess is such that it took me fully five minutes to realize I’d been broken into. It wasn’t till I walked into the living room and saw the suitcase that I most assuredly hadn’t left empty (it was nice of them to unpack me, even if they only put it on the sofa; hell, that’s all I ever do, myself) lying, as I said, empty, in the middle of the floor, patiently waiting to be filled with booty.

Oh, speaking of boots.Do you want to know what they took? Yes, you do; of course you do. Don’t be too proud to admit it now. We all want to know what losses other people have suffered, if only to reassure ourselves that we, at least, haven’t lost our hammered copper vase.

I lost my hammered copper vase. Shit, y’all know how I love me some hammered copper. They took my mercury glass Gazing Ball out of it, and then stuffed it and some assorted other stuff I don’t specifically remember from my bookcases because you know what? I have a lot of stuff in my bookcases although somewhat less than before, into a bag or something but not the suitcase because HEY the suitcase was still there. Aren’t you paying attention?

They lifted up about $700 worth of solid silver engraved cuffs, threw them on the floor, and grabbed all my junk jewelry that was underneath them. Unfortunately, they also got two of my actual silver bracelets: one made by a friend and the other my charm bracelet that I’d had since I was 10 or so. They may or may not have gotten the very fancy silver lace bracelet with a different monument on each panel that my mother got in Paris on her honeymoon.

They got every. single. pair. of. my. high. heeled. shoes.

WTF???

WTF???

Sheldon can't believe it either

Sheldon can’t believe it either

Not my patent leather cut-out open toed booties with the ribbon ties. No. Not them.

Dr Please

Dr Please

But yes. Yes. They got them.

I WANT TO DIE okay no I WANT TO KILL SOMEONE

I WANT TO DIE okay no I WANT TO KILL SOMEONE

AND my leopard print stilettos. Yes. REALLY. The leopard print stilettos.

Once I’d recovered (as if anyone ever could fully recover from that) and taken a quick spin around the rest of the place, I saw they’d grabbed pretty much every DVD I own, my late mother’s jewelry box, and, of all the perverse, bastardly things to steal, my Harry Potter books.

In hardcover.

Bad enough, but could be worse. Could have been a lot worse. I could have been home, for instance, which would have ended badly.

GPOY

GPOY

Well, I got myself calmed down, picked the suitcase up, and left to spend the night at a friend’s house. A few days later, I returned.

No-one had cleaned up in the meantime. Damn.

I did get one ego stroke, when a few very clued-in Anons suggested it was law enforcement or similar, grabbing the DVDs and leaving the good jewelry to make it look like a junkie. Unlikely, but if that is, in fact, the case, someone tell Officer Friendly I would like my charm bracelet back.

And the family silver.

Actually, it’s silver plate, not valuable, and about six mismatched patterns: Art Deco geometry, swirly flowers on curvy stems, all kinds of things. Two pearl-handled butter knives with curly, engraved blades that fascinated me when I was little. A long, serrated, ivory-handled knife, always warm to the touch. Four sets of sugar tongs and pincers. A couple of tea strainers. An absinthe spoon. Two pickle forks. Three baby spoons, one mine, and a baby fork with Little Red Ridinghood on one side and “Marguerite” on the other.

Marguerite was my Great-Uncle Ernie’s daughter, who died before she turned 25 of diabetes. That was before the Second World War. I always thought if I had a little girl I’d call her Marguerite, and now I almost feel as if I can’t.

Uncle Ernie used to come and take us to the zoo every Sunday. He was the kind of old man who is never not described as “kindly,” and had been the last person to drive a team of horses for Weston’s bakery, the foundation of the Weston billions. They retired him and the horses at the same time, but none of them wanted to be put out to pasture, and the customers raised such a stink that the company brought them all back to clop down the streets of Winnipeg for another ten years, until the horses really were beat and he was ready to settle into his shabby-genteel apartment downtown. It was where my parents kept the wedding presents that were too delicate to have in a house with two rambunctious little girls. After he died, his sisters got in there and we never saw those again either.

So. The silver.

Dear B&E Artiste: I would like it back.

And if you knew what I was capable of, you would want me to have it.

Barrett Brown’s girlfriend speaks out: the transcript

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Save Barrett Brown. For what, we're not sure.

Save Barrett Brown. For what, we’re not sure.

You can go to my Daily Dot article for background or just skip this post and go on to the Unicorn Chaser tag if you’re already bored of this particular rabbit hole.

When the FBI raided controversial Anonymous member Barrett Brown’s apartment last week, they weren’t planning on being taped; audio of the raid went out live to participants in a TinyChat Barrett and his girlfriend had going. Now Brown’s girlfriend, @Elvira_ebooks, Evie Paradise, has taken to YouTube to respond to charges the entire thing was a fraud.

Video:

Now, here is the transcript. Slightly off-topic, you would not BELIEVE how long it takes to accurately transcribe a five minute video.

Hi my name is Barrett Brown, father of Project PM and miscellaneous other activities on the internet. Speaking of the internet, I was just having one of my friends say on Facebook, and they were telling me that there are a bunch of pastebins and whatnot and rumors flying around that the events of the past week in my apartment were staged. You fools. Is this…is it a setup?

Is it you, Chen?

Is it you, McCain?

Let’s find out. Because I! Made a chart!

This is the setup of my apartment. Oh my god. This is the setup of my apartment. I’m Barrett Brown. This star right here is my beautiful but very tired right now so she probably doesn’t look attractive and like, feel good, okay, my beautiful girlfriend. Evie. Elvira. Whatever.

This rectangle here is the door to my apartment. This slightly longer rectangle is the hallway. And this…scribbly thing… is A KITCHEN WALL.

There’s a wall there. Are you bored yet? TOO BAD because I’m gonna keep talking.

Here’s the wall. Here’s the Kitchen. Girlfriend. K? Computer. Should we review this one more time? Door to the apartment, hallway, kiiiiitchen wall, kitchen, where I make my shake…my “pizza”…and my girlfriend on the computer.

So if one of you prosec dingleberries is gonna come into my apartment, this is how it’s gonna go down. Okay? And this is how it went down.

People came in here. Like, this is a joke video, but this is actually the setup of the apartment. They came in here hooting and hollering, saying what did they say, they said, hi mister brown, can we take a look at your plants? They came in hooting and hollering. Girlfriend down here thinks its one of my deadbeat friends, deadbeat friends, people deadbeat friends that don’t call after you’ve been raided. They don’t even bother to respond to your girlfriend’s facebook messages.

She thinks it’s one of your geek friends, hooting and hollering in a fake raid bit, or something. You know? It’s not.

They say excuse me mister brown can we come in and he’s okay you’re friends of mine. They come in and a melee ensues, going down the hall like this, down the hall, okay? Girlfriend’s still here, thinking what the heck is, what now, what now is going on in this apartment?

But she finds out, doesn’t she? She finds out really soon when they exit the hallway and they turn around the corner. They turn around the corner. Okay, this circle here represents the corner. Okay? You see now? Do you see now? I mean does anyone have any questions?

And then she thinks to herself this is weird. There’s no right way to react like this, I’m gonna just reflexively shut the laptop, and she does. Sometimes she wishes she hadn’t, if she was gonna know all you all these deadbeats would do this.

I mean, come on. By now, by now, don’t you think…yeah, I don’t have time to talk to you people. I just do’ i just don’t have time. I’m Barrett Brown.

You see this? Okay, and then, you know, there’s this, going on like this. And this. And this.

This isn’t even funny. This is just an idea. Thanks a lot [Shane?]. Thanks for having an idea. I’m gonna ask someone else.

https://twitter.com/ElviraXMontana/status/248916435601080320

New Life Choices

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Daphne blends in

Daphne blends in

When first one begins to make new life choices, there is only one place for an intrepid change-maker to start: self-analysis. And for quality self-analysis, I always turn to internet quizzes.


You Are Stalking


You tend to be very obsessive. Once you focus your attention on something or someone, it’s all you think about.You are also very secretive. People don’t know much about the life that you lead.

You are attracted to weak people. You may want to prey on them, but you also may just want to help them.You need attention, and you can get desperate if you aren’t getting attention from the right person. You’ll do about anything to get noticed.

Check, check, check, and CHECK. That’s the hard part over with.

Next stop: the wardrobe department! As you can see from the GPOY at the top of the post, that’s all taken care of.

Sadly, the bottom has dropped out of the formerly-lucrative blackmail market. In a world currently enduring its sixth season of Jersey Shore, there is no market for shame whatsoever.

This leaves me with the unanswered critical question: how in hell do I make a living from this particular assortment of talents? I hate the thought of going into politics!