No, I said my problem was not that I couldn’t understand the amount of time.
Yes, I know the Bush Admin was trying to pin it on Iraq. I think that’s a completely different issue and should be bashed in a different thread.
Point taken, my bad but the wider point stands - there was a reason to think it could come from Iraq as the US Govt gave it to them in the first place.
In that case, I really want more proof it was a suicide than the simple fact that it was an OD of codeine!
What evidence would suffice?
More specifically Tylenol 3 with codeine, and I suspect the Tylenol is more likely to have been the fatal ingredient.
But it’s a slow death (over days) from organ failure, which raises the question of when he allegedly took the pills.
I don’t know. But the simple fact that someone died of an OD of a pain killer doesn’t mean he killed himself. If I were killing myself, for example, I’d certainly wash those pain killers down with some (but not too much) booze, to make me fall asleep faster, but not risk vomitting.
I guess what I’m saying is that if I were the cops, I’d be all over this with a fine tooth comb to ensure it wasn’t murder staged to look like suicide. If somebody is holding a gun to my head and I believe he’s gonna shoot, I’m going to swallow those pills - maybe you’re different, but I’m afraid of pain. I wish I could say I’d hold out and make them shoot me, but the fact is, I doubt I could unless they really pissed me off instead of scaring me.
If this is stuff that we deliberately allowed to fall into the hands of nasty people who dislike us for tactical reasons, and now we want to make sure no one ever knows about it… I know this sounds crazy, and it probably is. But I hate the fact that everyone is saying that he killed himself on the news without the slightest hesitation, when as far as I know, all we actually know is that he’s dead due to an overdose of codeine. And the two are not necessarily equivalent. I don’t know; maybe he left a note and no one happens to have mentioned it. But for now, all I know is that the man died of an OD, which may or may not be suicide.
I’m just saying that this gets right up to that edge that capital-C Conspiracy Theories usually get to: if you think there’s a powerful conspiracy, how can you trust the evidence that points to the conspiracy? (Robert Anton Wilson made this point years ago, which is probably true of half the stuff I say.) In this case, if somebody framed this guy - someone presumbly connected to the government at a high level - and then forced him to kill himself, how can you trust any autopsy results, for example?
I’m the same way, but death from a bullet to the head is painless and if Vinyl Turnip is correct, this guy died slowly and probably painfully over the course of a few days.
I think it’s been reported that there was no note.
I know, Marley, and I’m usually not like this. I don’t know what it is about this case that gets me. Quite possibly my sheer distrust of the current administration. I simply don’t rule anything out when it comes to them, because they haven’t shown any limits as to how low they’ll go.
I think the immediacy of being shot would probably win out and make me take the pills. But damn, if he died of an overdose of Tylenol, rather than codeine, don’t you think he would have called 911 even if he was committing suicide? That’a a really shitty way to go. I didn’t see Turnip’s post earlier - sorry, I just missed it!
Not really. But I’d like to know more about this whole thing, too, and I hope a lot more becomes public.
Well, if I were oh-so-slowly dying of organ failure, having intended to peacefully die in my sleep, I do believe I’d be rethinking things and calling for help (and morphine!) by the second day myself.
Eh. Again, this is really unknowable. I think we have to assume the guy knew some chemistry and would have done something else if he wanted to die immediately. And codeine and morphine are both opiates, so maybe I was wrong to suggest this was painful. Or maybe it was painful and his response was just to take more. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out.
I know, but there’s a morbid part of me that seems to enjoy inflicting on myself just how much this guy must have been suffering if he was conscious. Just another day of fun and games in Oy! world. :rolleyes:
Imagine how much more fun the suffering would be in high-definition widescreen. 
I don’t think the focus should be on whether Ivins committed suicide or was murdered. As Marley points out, if he was murdered by the FBI, then it would be nearly impossible to detect. Personally, I think if the FBI wanted to pin it on Ivins, they would have done a much better job of it. Likewise if a 3rd-party wanted to set him up.
The important issue is whether Ivins was the real culprit or whether he was a weak-willed suspect that couldn’t take the pressure. The FBI thinks they got their man, but they were wrong with Hatfill. I’d like to see convincing evidence that it was indeed Ivins.
Either that, or they think they’ve got a convenient scapegoat to serve as an excuse for shutting down the investigation.
Or rather, if he was murdered by a government agency with the skills to pull off this kind of thing, it would be nearly impossible to detect. I do not think the Bureau fits that description.
Well Ivins had a secret mail box that he had opend under a fake name that he used so he could get bondage porn, so he must be a bad person.
Of course having your secret fetish about to be spread all over the nation may drive one to kill one’s self.
Well someone in the FBI would have to be complicit, otherwise they would likely discover it was not suicide. I thought your argument was that a government agency could tamper with the autopsy report (for example). I would assume that the FBI would do their own autopsy as part of the entire investigation, realize that Ivins was killed, and continue the investigation. For the FBI to cover it up, someone inside would have to be part of the cover-up. Or is the assumption that the FBI is incompetent? I don’t buy that, just as I don’t buy that they killed Ivins.
That’s just wrong. 