I'm pretty sure that the fact he was 88 when he went on this assault was a coincidence. In any case, it's more likely that he just wanted to go out with a bang. You know, he'd been harboring anti-semitic, anti-minority sentiment for decades, and this was probably what he figured would be his last act on Earth. One last "fuck you" to the conspiracy that he'd deluded himself into seeing form around him.
Overlord's right, the guy had gone bat-shit years and years ago. I mean, he tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve back in the 80s. It was pretty clear that he wasn't right in the head and apparently the FBI had been keeping an eye on him for some time, for what that's worth now.
It was plain obvious what Veks was driving at with the 88 reference at the get-go, but I too do not believe that was intentional, at least it was not the main impetus for his actions...perhaps if anything a window of opportunity at his advanced age.
I tend to agree; this was Mr. Loony’s last hurrah, one last shot to take a shot at the system that he's blaming for everything that ails society...or at least his little fragment of it.
As far as the net goes, it's just public use information storage. Before the net, guys like him would have to rely on the library to check out books on bomb making and the like. No matter the media form, some will blame it as an enabler for guys like him.
What is missed here is that society is at fault for being his enabler, for not stamping out this kind of thinking. Racism and discrimination could be stamped out in a generation, at least rendered insignificant, if we didn't have A-holes like this passing on his crackpot ideas of black and white (in every sense of the phrase) to the next generation.
If this cockroach did have kids I can safely assume he may have tried to pass it on, yet, it's still not too late. His sons and daughter, if any, have the chance to make a choice. To either repeat or condone the sins of the father, or to rise above it all and evolve...perhaps for the first time in their lives.