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Allwrite, I'm inn...

'Go ask Alice..'

everlong205 wrote:

resedit wrote:

Steyr AUG wrote:

Actually Bush killed him, Cheney just held him down while Bush force fed him the pills. Oh and Ive read that some aliens got a probing in as well.

That's patently false. There were no Mexicans at the scene.

But there was probing...

So you are saying the gay does run in the Cheney family?

emptywheel has some speculation about Ivins' will:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/ … -his-will/

Food for thought.

hhmmm....maybe they could use the help:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld … ?track=rss

Scientist concedes 'honest mistake' about weaponized anthrax
Peter B. Jahrling, who aided the federal probe of the 2001 mailings, says he erred when he told White House officials that material he examined probably had been altered to make it more deadly.
By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:53 PM PDT, September 16, 2008
WASHINGTON -- An acclaimed government scientist who assisted the federal investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings said Tuesday that he erred seven years ago when he told top Bush administration officials that material he examined probably had been altered to make it more deadly.

The scientist, Peter B. Jahrling, had observed anthrax spores with the aid of an electron microscope at the government's biological warfare research facility at Ft. Detrick, Md.

[snip]


"I believe I made an honest mistake," Jahrling said in response to questions e-mailed to him for this article, adding that he had been "overly impressed" by what he thought he saw under the microscope.

"I should never have ventured into this area," said Jahrling, who is a virologist, referring to his analysis of the anthrax, which is a bacterium. Jahrling's initial analysis -- and his briefing of officials at the White House -- was first detailed in a 2002 book by bestselling author Richard Preston.

Although Jahrling was careful in 2001 not to implicate Iraq or any other regime in the mailings, others used his analysis to allege that the silicon perhaps linked the letters to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Shocking.

Now, Scientific American - and the silicon coating/weaponized aspect:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=san … estigation

When materials scientist Joseph Michael and his team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., trained their high-powered electron microscope on anthrax spore samples the FBI had sent them in February 2002, they made two crucial discoveries: The first confirmed previous findings that the Bacillus anthracis spores mailed to U.S. Senate offices and various media outlets (shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks) contained silicon, a substance used to turn anthrax-causing spores into a biological weapon.

But it was Sandia's next discovery that marked a critical turning point in the feds's probe of the mysterious mailings, which killed five people, injured 17 and prompted thousands more who were potentially exposed to the deadly spores to take potent antibiotics—in particular, Ciprofloxacin (known to irritate the gastrointestinal tract and cause joint swelling). Using highly sensitive transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), the researchers came to a startling realization: The silicon had grown organically inside the Bacillus anthracis samples, nothing had been added to weaponize the spores. "The silicon was not on the outside of the spore," says Michael, who headed up Sandia's investigation, "but rather incorporated on the inside."

It was this key information that helped the FBI to rule out the likelihood that a terrorist organization was behind the anthrax mailings and prompted the agency to turn its attention to U.S. government labs as the possible source of the anthrax. This move eventually led the agency to conclude that Bruce Ivins, a scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a federal biodefense research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., who initially assisted with the investigation, was the culprit. Ivins, 62, two months ago committed suicide as prosecutors prepared to charge him in connection with the mailings.

...

Again, I wonder how anything can be matched (especially as early 2002; Ivins destroyed a flask just prior, iirc)  . Samples taken may not match any available sample from Ivins lab/flask.

Last edited by daemon (2008-09-19 4:16 pm)

The LATImes:

At face value, the new e-mails reinforce the view that Ivins was consumed with the criminal case closing in on him and, in the final months of his life, behaved in a way that suggested madness.

...

Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department have said that their investigation determined that Ivins, alone, perpetrated the anthrax mailings. Kemp has said that he would have won Ivins' acquittal had the case gone to trial.

Lone flaskman.

Yes, his death was quite convenient for the FBI.

:: as black helicopters thunder overhead ::

Weird.

I don't know. But this one makes Sen. Leahy a 'conspiracy theorist'. He has declared that he thinks that even if Ivins is involved, he did not act alone.

So, how does the FBI rule out others being involved? They say he acted alone.

When the 'authorities' declare 'lone actor' without any way to prove such an assertion, why?

Why were there WMD's in Iraq?

Ambiguous investigations always seem to follow insane 'lone actors'.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … id=topnews

Two days before he was found unconscious at home, felled by a lethal dose of Tylenol and valium, microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins logged on to one of the "express computers" on the second floor of the library in downtown Frederick.

He typed in the name of a Web site devoted to the anthrax-mailings investigation, a perplexing, unsolved case that had dragged on for seven years. At 7:13 p.m., the computer connected to a page that included comments from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who was confident that the case soon would be solved. "I tell you, we've made great progress in the investigation," he said.

For everything they want to pin on him . . . there is a counter to it, an alternate explanation," said Katie Carr, the former deputy commander at USAMRIID, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked for 27 years. "There are an awful lot of us in the community that surrounded Bruce who are not satisfied. Please prove it."

just for reference, emtywheel's timeline:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/timel … -timeline/

About 'ambiguous investigation' - you'd think high-profile cases get the heavy-hitters, the best and the brightest. The 'experts'. How does that square with such ambiguity? Why aren't there big caveats from the investigation itself. No. They seek to close a case that remains 'ambiguous'. It is a troublesome habit.

And, it helped kill over four thousand of our forces in Iraq. So far.

Justin Palk
FBI outlines scope of anthrax study
Originally published October 02, 2008

Doctor, scientist and blogger Meryl Nass has obtained a copy of the FBI's Sept. 15 letter to the National Academy of Sciences, outlining the proposed scope of an independent study of scientific questions related to the anthrax investigation.

Several of the 15 questions focus on the science investigators used to genetically link the anthrax in the 2001 mailings with a flask at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, including whether the techniques were valid, and what the odds are that those techniques could have incorrectly linked the anthrax in the mailings with that in the flask.

The FBI also asks the NAS to examine other issues, such as whether the powder in the mailings was weaponized, and whether anthrax powders produced by a "rudimentary methodology" pose an inhalation threat.

The letter asks the NAS to select panel members not associated with the FBI or its investigation, but notes that might be difficult given the number of scientists the FBI worked with on this case. The letter also suggests that it would be useful if some members of the panel have security clearances, as some of the research used in the investigation is classified as top secret.

Nass' anthrax investigation blog is at anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com. The FBI's letter to the NAS is available at merylnass.googlepages.com/FBINASrequestltrSep08.pdf.

Again. He destroyed one flask in Dec 2001. So, when they ask about the surviving flask, it begs a question. imho.

I've not clicked the links at the end. Yet.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sectio … ryID=80915

Last edited by daemon (2008-10-02 12:30 pm)

USAToday about 3 weeks ago:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington … tion_N.htm

Before landing on the FBI's radar, Ivins emerged as the central figure in the separate investigation of anthrax contamination at Fort Detrick, where he confessed to cleaning up spilled anthrax in his office without telling superiors. "I had no desire to cry wolf," Ivins told an Army investigator at the time. The Army's investigation found samples of the type of anthrax used in the letter attacks on Ivins' desk and elsewhere in his office, according to a report May 9, 2002.

"Why didn't (the FBI) analyze it? One presumes this was pretty relevant evidence," says biodefense analyst Michael Stebbins of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., who was not part of the investigation. "It raises questions about systematic errors in the FBI investigation."

Majidi, an FBI scientist involved in the investigation, says the bureau viewed the 2002 contamination investigation as an Army matter. As a result, he says, the FBI never submitted samples from Ivins' office for the detailed genetic analysis that later tied a flask in his laboratory to the anthrax used in the attacks.

"I don't know" why the FBI never analyzed the 2002 anthrax in Ivins' office, says Debbie Weierman of the FBI's Washington Field Office. "Suspicion on him was immense, if you look at this in hindsight."

For Keim, the revelation in August that the FBI had shifted its focus to Ivins cast the omission in a new light. In 2002, he says, "I got the samples and thought, 'What a sloppy place.' But I'm starting to think Bruce was taking anthrax out of his lab and then covering his tracks."

I'd say Bruce and/or someone else.