Facebook Mark Anthony Conditt.
Mark Conditt labeled himself as “a conservative” who was “not that politically inclined” in writings on a blog in his name that date to 2012, although authorities have not yet identified a motive for the serial bombings that killed two promising young African-American men in Austin, Texas.
The writings are somewhat dated. Mark Anthony Conditt, of Pflugerville, Texas, identified by NBC News as the serial bomber who is now dead, was 24-years-old per the police chief and 23 in online records. The writings, which appeared on a blog in 2012, seem to have been from a class, since they link to classmates’ blogs. Although he was homeschooled, he was taking college credits, according to Facebook posts from a relative. However, since that time, the bomber’s Internet footprint seems small. For example, his Facebook page did not have anything on it, at least that is publicly available. It has since been deleted. He wrote the blog while at Austin Community College.
According to Buzzfeed, Conditt was part of a group of conservative “survivalists” in high school. He was involved in “a group called Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT), a Bible study and outdoors group for homeschooled kids, created and named by the kids and their families, that included monthly activities such as archery, gun skills, and water balloon fights,” Buzzfeed reported, quoting a woman who was in the group as saying its members were interested in science, weapons and mock battles.
There was talk from the start that the Austin bombings might be a hate crime because the first victims were all ethnic minorities: African-American and Hispanic. The bomber’s final two victims, who survived, were white men in their 20s who stepped on a tripwire, as he appeared to migrate his tactics to a more random approach. The police chief said in the first press conference announcing Conditt’s death that his motive was still unknown, however.
A screenshot from Mark Conditt’s blog.
On the blog, though, Conditt provided a detailed glimpse into his political beliefs, opposing gay marriage, advocating against the release of an Al-Qaeda terrorist, and stating that he is conservative. According to The Austin American-Statesman, Mark A. Conditt “was home-schooled growing up and went to Austin Community College.” Mark Conditt lived on North Second Street in Pflugerville, according to local news reports. Police have shut down the area around his home, which is near Wilbarger Street. According to the governor, he lived with two roommates not considered suspects and a “treasure trove” of information was found inside the house. His parents, Pat and Danene Conditt, are mentioned in this article about helping a family. Danene Conditt is the daughter of a retired teacher.
“My name is Mark Conditt,” the blog’s profile section reads. “I enjoy cycling, parkour, tennis, reading, and listening to music. I am not that politically inclined. I view myself as a conservative, but I don’t think I have enough information to defend my stance as well as it should be defended. The reasons I am taking this class is because I want to understand the US government, and I hope that it will help me clarify my stance, and then defend it.”
That’s the opening of a blog that appears in the name of Mark Anthony Conditt, now named by NBC News as the Austin bombing suspect. The blog is called “Defining My Stance” and links to classmates’ blogs.
This is what the Texas Secretary of State lists for voter registration for Conditt:
Name: MARK ANTHONY CONDITT
Address: 403 2ND STREET NORTH
PFLUGERVILLE TX 78660
Gender: MALE
Valid From: 01/01/2018
Effective Date of Registration: 07/22/2012
Voter Status: SUSPENSE
County: TRAVIS
Precinct: 136
VUID: 1186498918
The Texas Secretary of State tells voters whose status is under “suspense” that “Your voter status is Suspense. This indicates that the voter registrars records may not be up to date. You are still eligible to vote; however, you will be asked to provide updated information the next time you choose to do so.”
What is “parkour”? According to the World Freerunning Parkour Federation, Parkour “is the act of moving from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’ using the obstacles in your path to increase your efficiency” and “had its origins in a training program for French Special Forces known as ‘Parcours du combattant’, or ‘The Path of the Warrior.'”
The Facebook of a female relative shows her shooting a weapon and says she, too, was home schooled in a homeschooling co-op. “Action hero! Thats so cool! Just like a movie photo! I cant wait to go shooting,” a friend commented on the relative’s photo. Mark Conditt’s mother Danene (Bjerking) Conditt (Austin, Texas) was the “self-employed owner of Conditt Development Group. She and her husband, Pat, have three children: Mark, Christina, and Sara,” according to an alumni newsletter from 2002. BuzzFile says of that company, “Conditt Development Group is located in Pflugerville, Texas. This organization primarily operates in the Business Consulting, nec business / industry within the Engineering, Accounting, Research, and Management Services sector. This organization has been operating for approximately 28 years.”
In writing about the government releasing an Al-Qaeda terrorist, he wrote on the blog: “I think that it is just plain dumb to release a terrorist, much less a senior one – no matter what he can provide.” The suspect also had a Facebook page, but there was nothing on it, at least publicly. It’s possible, of course, that his opinions have evolved over the years as he is 23-years-old according to online records, and the writings are six years old.
According to USA Today, “The suspect was identified by unidentified law enforcement officials as Mark Anthony Conditt, of Pflugerville, Texas, the Associated Press and Austin American-Statesman reported. He was described as a graduate of Austin Community College’s Northridge Campus who worked at Crux Semiconductor in Austin. Public records showed him as either 23 or 24 years old.” The blog says that the Mark Conditt who authored it is from Pflugerville, Texas.
Here’s what the blog says:
Gay Marriage
Friday, May 11, 2012
“Why gay marriage should be illegal
In response to Ms. Sweet’s post about why gay marriage should be legal.
There are a couple things wrong with your argument that I would like to correct. First, falling in love is a choice. When you “fall in love” you become infatuated with your significant other, and you will eventually fall out of love.
Second, yes, the government shouldn’t tell them whom they can and cannot marry, but we shouldn’t even have this problem! Homosexuality is not natural. Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple. The natural design is apparent. It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female. It would be like trying to fit two screws together and to nuts together and then say, “See, it’s natural for them to go together.”
In addition, political protection of a sexual practice is ludicrous. I do not believe it is proper to pass laws stating that homosexuals have ‘rights.’ What about pedophilia or bestiality? These are sexual practices. Should they also be protected by law? If homosexuality is protected by law, why not those as well?”
Abortion
Friday, April 13, 2012
My view on free abortions
“In her post on contraception, Juliana Solitro make the argument that all women should be given “preventative medicine”, a.k.a.: abortions, free of charge, regardless of their walk in life. I disagree.
First, if a women does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason.
Second, if we are going to give women free abortions, why not give men free condoms, or the like? Is it not up to the couple to take these preventive measures?
This is just my view on the subject, but if you can’t provide for a child, then don’t have sex.”
Sex Offender Registration
Friday, March 30, 2012
“Why we might want to consider doing away with Sex Offender Registration.
In theory, these registries are list of every sex offender in the state, with the his house location and other pertinent facts to help people avoid exposing themselves to such people. Megan’s Lawrequires sex offenders to register and update law enforcement every time they change location.
This is not the result. You have to really hate the guy to make him suffer for the rest of his life, even when his prison time is up. This sounds perfect for a serial rapist or pedophile, but its not such a great idea if something as trivial as public indecency or streaking can put you on the registry right alongside them.
So you have a guy who committed a crime. Will putting him on a list make it better? wouldn’t this only make people shun him, keep him from getting a job, and making friends? Just for a crime that he may have committed over 15 years ago as a adolescent? On a side note, one fifthof all rapes are committed by a juvenile.
And how effective is it? Even if you know about a registered sex offender in the neighborhood, what’s to stop him from doing it again? And that’s not taking into consideration that 95 percent of all cases are from someone the victim had already knew? And if he was really going to do it again, would the fact that he is on a list really going to stop him?
Death Penalty
Friday, March 9, 2012
“An argument for the Death Penalty
Evaluate the author’s intended audience, the author’s credibility,
On March 1st, 2012, Mr. Tod Robberson, a editorial writer for the Dallas Morning News, wrote a editorial about how George Rivas makes the best case not to have the death penalty.
I don’t agree with Mr. Robberson. He bases his claim on the fact that Rivas welcomed execution and calling it “freedom”. Robberson makes the argument that giving Rivas the life-sentence would be worse than killing him had been. Once again, I disagree.
First, the whole premise that Rivas welcomed death is outright wrong. If he had wanted or wished for death, he would have just shot himself, like his fellow Texas 7 escapee, Larry Harper, who committed suicide, rather than be captured and re-incarcerated. Instead, for 11 years he chose life by surrendering, instead. He fought against death during his trial. He fought against death with his appeals and asked to have his sentence commuted from death to life. None of these are the actions of a person willing to chose death/freedom over life.
Second, Living criminals harm and murder, again – executed ones do not. Rivas was a known murderer, and had escaped prison once. If he had gotten life without parole, he could have escaped again.
Thirdly, Mr. Robberson credentials don’t support the fact that he is an expert on this topic. He’s a former foreign correspondent with 25 years’ experience covering Latin America, the Middle East and Europe – not a death penalty expert.
And lastly, Robberson’s audience is used to him writing about drug trafficking, border issues, immigration and international affairs; not about a domestic issue like the death penalty.
Tod Robberson does a good job at making a argument against the death penalty without arguing that it’s inhumane. But he needed to do some homework.
Friday, February 24, 2012
“The release of a terrorist. An opinion.
An outrageous deal to release a senior al-Qaeda terrorist – February 23 2012
In this commentary in the Washington Post on February 23, columnist Marc A. Thiessen writes about why it is wrong to release a senior Al-Qaeda terrorist named Majid Khan because he made a deal with our government.
Marc A. Thiessen makes some good points, for example he provides some examples on why Khan should never be released. Khan has been charged with war crimes, including murder, attempted murder, spying and providing material support for terrorism – with would get him a life sentence twice over.
Thiessen states that “Instead [of going to prison], he might now be released. For what? Under the reported deal, Khan has agreed to testify against his fellow terrorists during the next four years at Guantanamo, after which he would then be eligible to be transferred to Pakistan.”
Thiessen identifies the fact that Majid Khan can and has provided valuable information about members and leaders of the Al-Qaeda, is what has lead the United States to offer Khan this deal. The information Khan provided did prove useful, and lead to the arrest of a man named Zubair, an operative of Al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asian affiliate Jemmaah Islamiyah.
Marc A. Thiessen is a valued columnist at the Washington post, having covered foreign and domestic policy, and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He also served as a chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and before that as a senior aide to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms. I agree with Mr. Thiessen. I think that it is just plain dumb to release a terrorist, much less a senior one – no matter what he can provide.”
Internet Piracy
Friday, February 10, 2012
“Internet Piracy has not been Reduced!
Whatever your stand on internet piracy is, the shutdown of megaupload.com has not affected internet piracy much. In this post by the Daily Mail, columnist Rob Waugh writes that after the FBI seized megaupload.com and arrested its founder, multimillionaire Kim Dotcom, total internet viewing fell by over two percent. That is two percent of all of the internet users – about 360 million a day or more than 30% of the whole world.
Despite the fact that meagupload.com held over 30% of all file-sharing, file-sharing has not dipped by much. Most of the users of megaupload either moved their business overseas – also displaying the fact that most of them had used oversea based, file-sharing websites, or stitched to other big file-sharing websites like Putlocker, MediaFire and Rapidshire. This is also shown by their big jump in traffic.
he rest of the article is about Kim Dotcom. The former hacker was in a New Zealand prison and was denied bail at his bail hearing, on the grounds that he would flee the country if given the chance. This was because it is believed he has access to money, and has a history of fleeing charges. Dotcom told Auckland court he had no intention of fleeing and would fight for his money, some of which was seized by the authorities.
I would recommend this article because I found it fascinating. I would like to see if this has any influence on the Sopa and Pipa issue, and whether it will affect the internet as we know it.”
Read about one of Conditt’s victims, Draylen Mason, here: