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Without comment, the West Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday declined 3-2 to reconsider its ruling in the State v. Mullens, setting the stage for the philosophical debate that will dominate future judicial elections.Justices sided the same way Thursday that they did on the original decision, with Justices Robin Davis, Larry Starcher and Joe Albright voting against taking up the case again, and Justices Spike Maynard and Brent Benjamin voting in favor.The decision, a major blow to law enforcement and prosecutors, makes it more difficult to collect evidence in undercover drug stings. The legality of Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center's plan to pay its 600 employees a $500 bonus if Kanawha County voters approve table games on June 9 is being examined by the West Virginia Secretary of State's office.A spokesman for the SOS office confirmed Thursday the issue's legality is being researched.Union reps are justifying the "win bonuses" as perfectly legal, but others claim it amounts to little more than vote buying. Also being questioned is the fact that early voting will commence before the legislation approving table games voting actually becomes law. 
Media attention in the Virginia Tech massacre has turned now to real and psuedo psychoanalysis of Cho Seoung-hui and endless attempts to explain why he did what he did.What most media analysts cannot -- will not -- conclude is the obvious: he was a monster.There is evil in the world, and more times than not it manifests itself disconnected from any logical explanation. He was a loner. He was shunned. He was upset at a girlfriend. He was unable to fit in. He was mentally ill. He was red-flagged by instructors who recognized his writings as troubled. All that may be true, but it is true of hundreds if not thousands of people around the world. The great majority of them -- even the mentally ill ones -- do not decide to randomly kill as many innocent people as they can before killing themselves.In 1967, a young film apprentice named Peter Bogdanovich -- later famous for directing "The Last Picture Show" and many other renowned films -- was afforded a unique opportunity to direct his first film. Working as an assistant to famed low-budget cult director Roger Corman, Bogdanovich was presented with a challenge.Corman had just completed a film with an aging Boris Karloff, but Karloff contractually still owed Corman two days' work. Corman told Bogdanovich that if he could craft a quick film and get it shot in a handful of days, he could use Karloff as his star.Bogdanovich jumped at the chance, and the result was a film called "Targets." The film tells the story of a young man who is unhappy with his life in general -- with his wife, his job, his home, etc. -- and then, with no other provocation, takes a rifle and begins a series of sniper-style shootings, killing one innocent person after another. Karloff, meanwhile, plays a thinly disguised version of himself, an aging horror star named "Byron Orlock" who is contemplating retirement because the classic old monsters In the end, the storylines of Orlock and the sniper converge at a drive-in theater, with Orlock disarming the sniper in a dramatic confrontation played out as a Byron Orlock film flickers on the giant screen behind them.One of the film's obvious messages was that the Karloff character was right -- real-life monsters had replaced the fantasy monsters created by the likes of Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. But the sniper's lack of motivation in deciding to go on a killing rampage made him just as much of a mindless monster as anything ever conceived by a Hollywood studio.(The film, little seen after its original release in 1968, was hailed by The New York Times as "a most auspicious feature debut for young Peter Bogdanovich, a former film writer and historian, who has now taken the plunge, camera in hand. He should never let go." The film has recently been released on DVD with a commentary by Bogdanovich.)Bogdanovich reportedly made the film in part as a plea for stronger gun control laws. But thankfully, that heavy-handed message never quite comes through, as noted by the Times and other reviewers. Instead -- and what makes it a much more powerful film -- viewers are struck by how senseless and random the killings are, and how unmotivated they and their perpetrator appear to be. The sniper is simply unhappy, and bored with his life.With all the reasons the experts may come up with to explain Cho Seoung-hui's decision to mow down the innocent students and faculty members at Virginia Tech, they will still not explain why everyone who fits that profile does not engage in the same violent behavior, any more than Jeffrey Dahmer's horrific deeds can ever be understood.Evil exists in the world. Most people resist evil inclinations, but others choose to succumb to them. There is no explaining it, no understanding it, no accurately predicting it. Sometimes, a monster is just a monster.