Cynical Thoughts of the Day

2006 Westview High School yearbook photo of Jimmy Holmes

I wonder for what studies and experimentation James Eagan Holmes, neuroscience student, volunteered in his short stay at the University of Colorado?

I wonder if any of these possible experiments were funded by the DOD?

I wonder how much the gross for "The Dark Knight Rises." will increase as a result of this massacre?

The killer's father, Robert Holmes, worked for a spooky company from 2000 to 2002, HNC Software:

"But perhaps the most exciting frontier awaiting exploration and commercial development by HNC is in an area that scientists still know very little about: the human brain. HNC is working on a long-term research project launched in 1998 that is jointly funded by HNC and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Defense Department, to investigate ‘cortronic neural networks,’ a concept originally proposed by Robert Hecht-Nielsen, HNC’s co-founder and chief scientist." HNC Software, 1999 profile, found at Cryptogon blog. 

Robert Holmes is now employed as lead scientist by the Fair Isaac Company, (FICO) a credit score company. Being lead scientist for a credit score company could make Robert a valuable asset to any intelligence agency.  So far I can find no work history for Robert Holmes before 2000. He got his last degree in 1981.

The conspiracy theories have begun, and for good reason.  .....

Billy Kromka, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, worked with Mr. Holmes for three months last summer as a research assistant in a lab of at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Mr. Kromka said he was surprised to learn Mr. Holmes was the shooting suspect. "It was just shocking, because there was no way I thought he could have the capacity to do commit an atrocity like this," he said. -The New York Times  quoted in Naturalnews.com

 Yet Jim's mother does not seem to be surprised.

"You have the right person." - Holmes mother when asked about the reports of her son being involved in the massacre.

Jimmy's AFF profile. "Will you visit me in prison?"

James Holmes was called "Little Jimmy" when he was a child. 

I am surprised they haven't developed some kind of antisocial mythology for Little Jimmy Holmes by now.
But maybe being a "quiet loner" is enough mythology to demonize someone these days. 

"We are confident he acted alone." - Friday statement by a very assured Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, who began his law enforcement career as a New York City beat cop.

Maybe I'm just the suspicious type, but I would wonder where an unemployed suspect got the money to outfit himself with body armor, assemble an armory with multitudinous weapons, accumulate a giant magazine of ammo and booby trap his apartment. All of this required  tens of thousands fifteen thousand (at last count) dollars worth of gear. "Through the Internet he purchased over 6,000 rounds of ammunition, more than 3,000 rounds of. 223 ammunition for the assault rifle, 3,000 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition for the two Glocks in his possession and 300 rounds for the 12 gauge shotgun." -Chief Oates, Saturday, July 21, 2012

 "There is absolutely no question that this guy acted alone." - Saturday statement by Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates who seems to have completed his investigation in record time

Miscellany

I watched the Tony Scott 1998 film "Enemy of the State" last night. It told of how a "rogue" NSA guy (John Voight) had a recalcitrant Congressman murdered to ensure a "Patriot Act" type law would pass. It was a curiously predictive movie for its time, some three years before the twin towers were destroyed. Here is an interesting fact. Voight's malignant character, "Thomas Brian Reynolds'" birthday was September 11 as revealed by the ID found and displayed on a computer monitor by Gene Hackman's "Edward Lyle" character. Hackman effectively encored the "Harry Caul" role he played in Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film "The Conversation."