There doesn’t have to be a they. There only has to be a he. Or a she. I don’t know. I’m not saying anything untoward happened. All I’m saying is that the fact that someone dies by an overdose doesn’t necessarily mean they killed themselves, but everyone seems to be treating it that way. I have no reason to believe otherwise, but I also have no reason to believe that this fellow was the Anthrax guy, because they haven’t told us any reasons, except for a very flaky therapist whose testimony probably wouldn’t stand up in court very well.
That’s what I said, but it’s a hypothetical argument I was making to point a problem with chalking up Ivins’ death to a conspiracy. You summed it up exactly right, though: if he was murdered by the government, the evidence isn’t reliable. But if the evidence isn’t reliable, how do we know any of the evidence is reliable?
I’m suggesting that the FBI does not have the ability to pull off that kind of murder, and I think the conduct of this case is evidence enough for that proposition. If they were going to fake somebody’s suicide, it would have been Hatfill’s and it would have been six years ago. The case had pretty much vanished from popular memory at this point and it wouldn’t be necessary to conclude it like this. This would require a Bureau that is competent enough to fake a scientist’s murder, but stupid enough to only consider that solution after screwing up a very public investigation for almost seven years - and not just screwing up the investigation, but blowing it so badly that their previous prime suspect successfully sued them for the damage they did to him. And for some reason, they didn’t kill him before he humiliated them like he did. It’s not impossible, it just doesn’t make much sense.
That’s true. I don’t know how common it is to accidentally overdose on Tylenol with codeine, and for whatever reason the investigators do seem convinced it was suicide. Despite what I said earlier, I read a New York Times article saying only that investigators wouldn’t confirm or deny that there was a note because they are still working.
I thought the fact that he tested parts of the facility for anthrax, cleaned it up, and didn’t tell anyone for a long time was very suspicious. But if it’s true that he didn’t know how to make anthrax into a powder, as one of his colleagues suggested, that’s a very big hole in the theory that he did this - at least in the idea that he did it alone.
Very true – I didn’t think of that.
That he cleaned the spill up quietly makes it likely that he was involved or at least covering for someone else. If he had cleaned up the spill for another reason – like a spill from an unauthorized experiment – then I’d expect him to have admitted that under questioning.
As for turning spores into powder, he also borrowed a lyophilizer that can be used to do just that.
Hell bentonite has been a staple in American households since '48, it’s the clay used in kitty litter.
Try reading those news reports substituting kitty liter for bentonite without pissing yourself. (Yeah, it’s probably true that only Iraq used bentonite to weaponize anthrax, but it’s equally probable that someone who was capable of home brewing anthrax might have known it too. Hmmm what can I use to make my anthrax more deadly … 30 seconds with Google later … KITTY LITTER!!!1)
In other news: sources say that Iraq had secure facilities producing highly pure dihydrogen monoxide … :rolleyes:
CMC +fnord!
The daily dose of acetaminophen considered “safe” (excepting alcoholics, chronic users of the drug, and those with extant liver disease) is no more than four grams. T3’s have 300mg of acetaminophen each, so we’d be talking more than 13 pills just to reach that threshold. A toxic dose is generally much higher (10 grams, according to Wikipedia) and even then isn’t fatal in every case.
So at any rate, we’re talking about quite the li’l shitpile of pills—pretty unlikely to be an accidental dose.
N.B. **Vinyl Turnip **is not a licensed medical practicioner and although he’s pretty sure his information is correct, he’ll happily yield to the expert opinion of any sawbones or naughty nurse willing to correct. Anyway, don’t eat a bunch of Tylenol.
I seriously doubt this is a planned out, intentional conspiracy. It’s possible, however, that it’s a whole lot of individuals scrambling to cover their asses.
FBI Identified Source Of Anthrax Years Ago, But Case Remained Unsolved And Ivins Continued Working
So I guess they only sat on their asses for 2.5 years. -My apologies to the FBI. :dubious:
The wheels of justice grind slow, but they produce an exceedingly fine powder…
I kinow, but it’s not generally identified as “bentonite”. My point is that all those oilmen in the Bush administration (and anyone who associates with them – which would be damned near everybody in Bush’s Washington) would certainly know that “bentonite” was Driling Mud. It wouldn’t be an obscure term to them, by any means. But to most of them, the association wouldn;'t be with biowarfare. Or kitty litter, I suspect.
I live in the city ( Boca Raton, Fl) where I believe one person was killed when exposed to an anthrax letter. I saw the office park when they quaranteed the whole building. The sight of this was sickening. The fact that the FBI couldn’t get this guy before he killed himself is just as sickening. 
Officially, Ivins acted alone.
I’m sure we all believe that here.
Is there any reason to believe that it was carried out by more than one person? The logistics of the case are not that complicated. The most difficult component is having access to anthrax and having the knowledge to prepare it.
Based on the evidence released, I think the FBI knew they couldn’t move the case beyond circumstantial evidence and hoped that Ivins would ‘crack’ after they told him they were going to charge him.
Beats me, but he’s only becoming a more and more plausible suspect as more info gets released. Here’s a New York Times story that focuses on his state of mind. It’s amazing this guy was allowed to work with anthrax given the things he was telling coworkers about himself.
I think that is going to be the real story from this case. That the DOD would allow access to bioweapons by someone this unstable. It is sadly ironic that we had a bioterrorism attack on the US soley because of our own bioweapons lab.
Thanks for the NYT link. Here is a Sun Times story that includes a transcript of the press conference. There were a few more (minor) pieces of evidence mentioned in the press conference that I have not seen in the news stories.
When he started acting nutty he was pulled from access to anything dangerous. This was in direct response to feedback from his co-workers (thus sayeth the news reports).
You got a mouse in your pocket? care to fill us in on your grassy knoll theory?
I’ll let Glenn Greenwald do the heavy lifting here, but a few for starters:[ul][]All the evidence is circumstantial and the release of the documents conveniently selective[]The “Death to America” smoking-gun is incredibly flimsy as proof[]There’s still nothing forensic that links him to the anthrax, and many questions remain unanswered about his alleged ability to synthesize it[]No evidence was presented putting Ivins at the scene of any of the mailboxes in New Jersey where the letters originated[/ul]
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
[li]The “Death to America” smoking-gun is incredibly flimsy as proof[/li][/quote]
How was this a smoking gun? I agree it means little, it’s basically a coincidence that he used that phrasing. Everybody’s heard the words “death to America.” But I saw it as one small item on the list of evidence that reflected a possible interest in the topic. If there’s a smoking gun here, I’d say it’s this:
[quote]
[li]There’s still nothing forensic that links him to the anthrax, and many questions remain unanswered about his alleged ability to synthesize it[/li][/quote]
Is there a reason the lyophilizer explanation posted earlier doesn’t work? Greenwald isn’t satisfied but I don’t see a reason why.
As I understand it, there is not consensus that this device gets you from the liquid form of anthrax in the flask to the form of anthrax in the envelopes.