IS THE WORLD FLAT?

[sometimeman]

August 8, 2008
The Anthrax Follies and the Bizarro Effect
The case against Bruce Ivins is pathetic
by Justin Raimondo

The release of the FBI's "evidence" against Bruce Ivins, the now-deceased Ft. Detrick scientist targeted by the FBI as the alleged culprit in the 2001 anthrax letters case, demonstrates either (1) the FBI is covering for the real culprits, or (2) what we are witnessing is a dramatic drop in the intelligence of the average FBI official – maybe it's something in the water.

In making the case for the latter, I offer as exhibit number-one the FBI's contention [.pdf file] that the origin of the return address on some of the anthrax-laden envelopes – "Greendale School" – was explained by Ivins' membership in the American Family Association, a group of Christian fundamentalists who often lobby and litigate on behalf of conservative causes:

"The investigation into the fictitious return address on envelopes used for the second round of anthrax mailings, '4th GRADE,' 'GREENDALE SCHOOL,' has established a possible link to the American Family Association (AFA) headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. In October 1999, MA, a Christian organization, published an article entitled 'AFA takes Wisconsin to court. 'The article describes a lawsuit filed in federal court, by the AFA Center for Law and Policy (CLP), on behalf of the parents of students at Greendale Baptist Academy. The article focuses on an incident that occurred on December 16, 1998, in which case workers of the Wisconsin Department of Human Services went to the Greendale Baptist Academy in order to interview a fourth-grade student. The case workers, acting on an anonymous tip that Greendale Baptist Academy administered corporal punishment as part of its discipline policy, did not disclose to the staff why they wanted to interview the student. The case workers interviewed the student in the absence of the student's parents and informed the school staff that the parents were not to be contacted. The AFA CLP filed suit against the Wisconsin Department of Human Services, citing a violation of the parents' Fourth Amendment rights."

You ask: so what? As do I. But those geniuses over at FBI headquarters are waaaay ahead of us:

"[Redacted] donations were made to the AFA in the name of 'Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins' on eleven separate occasions beginning on December 31, 1993. After an approximate two year break in donations, the next donation occurred on November 11, 1999, one month after the initial article referencing Greendale Baptist Academy was published in the AFA Journal. It was also discovered that the subscription to the AFA Journal, in the name of Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Ivins … was active until March 2005."

This doesn't even rise to the level of a logical fallacy, which has to have at least some internal coherence to so qualify. It's just plain weird. At this point, one has to wonder if the FBI itself has become a casualty of some previously unknown biological agent that has caused its employees to be afflicted with the Algernon Syndrome.

There is, however, an internal consistency in the body of "evidence" released so far, and it consists of stretching even the most marginal bits of information to the breaking point in an often hilarious effort to prove Ivins' guilt. The AFA angle may seem bizarre, but it is no less so than the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority gambit, which the FBI engages in to divert attention from the fact that they at no point place Ivins anywhere near the Princeton, N.J., location the deadly missives were mailed from. Instead, they point to Ivins' alleged "obsession" with Kappa Kappa Gamma and the fact that the group maintains a storehouse near that location.

What are they smoking over at FBI headquarters?

The FBI points to Ivins' alleged evasiveness when it came time for him to hand over samples of the anthrax strain he was working on: on two occasions he gave them the wrong samples. Yet even this – their strongest real evidence by far – is by no means clear. Ivins' lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, points out that the investigators either asked for the wrong sample, or else didn't make themselves clear as to what they were requesting. National Public Radio reports Kemp saying that "when investigators asked Ivins for an anthrax sample, he thought they were asking for a pure culture sample. It wasn't until six weeks later that they called and said they had wanted something else." Ivins, says Kemp, "never denied to the FBI that the anthrax could have come from his batch."

Ivins, the FBI avers, was the "custodian" of the particular anthrax strain contained in the letters, and this conclusively proves his guilt. However, since this strain was developed in 1997, more than 100 people have at some point shared this "custodianship" with the accused. It is therefore not true that, as FBI officials put it, Ivins was the "one individual who controlled it."

The FBI also claims the envelopes containing the anthrax must have come from the Frederick, Md., mail facility where Ivins maintained a post office box. Yet, as noted in the FBI's own affidavit, those envelopes could have come from any one of hundreds of post offices: as the affidavit put it, the printing defects that made these particular envelopes identifiable were distributed "to post offices throughout Maryland and Virginia."

No traces of anthrax were found in Ivins' car or home. Other than tracing the anthrax strain to a flask in Ivins' lab, our intrepid G-men have no physical evidence pointing to his guilt. All they have is the AFA/Greendale "connection" and an e-mail written by Ivins right after 9/11 in which he stated:

"'Bin Laden terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas' and have 'just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans,' language similar to the anthrax letters warning 'WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX … DEATH TO AMERICA … DEATH TO ISRAEL.'"

This doesn't rise to the level of circumstantial evidence – it's just simplistic nonsense. How else would one describe Osama bin Laden's views, which he and his followers have expressed on many occasions? Certainly these were a prime subject of public discussion at the time Ivins' e-mail was written.

Stylistically, what the FBI's "case" against Ivins resembles is nothing so much as the case for invading Iraq. Here we see the same cherry-picking of "intelligence" and isolated factoids, mixed together in one very unappetizing goulash, which we are supposed to swallow without so much as a grimace.

In this era when circumstantial and highly selective evidence is enough to set America on a course to war, it's also enough to convict a man of the most heinous crimes and blacken his name forever. That's the kind of world we're living in – truly a nightmare universe, in which the FBI, instead of doing its job, is doing its best to make sure that we never get to the heart of this sinister mystery.

What's really scary about all this is that these are the people who are supposed to be protecting us from terrorists hell-bent on our destruction. In which case God help us all. One searches, in vain, through the released documents for a reason to believe that, even if Ivins was somehow connected to the anthrax attacks, he acted alone.

Which brings us to the scariest aspect of this entire affair: the real culprits are still out there.

I use the plural because it's clear, at least to me, that no one could have carried out this scheme to poison the U.S. mails alone. Ivins, if he was involved, had to have help. Yet our protectors, the FBI, seem indifferent to this strong possibility. Their chief interest appears to be in protecting their own backsides, and what's left of their reputation.

This confirms, once again, my contention that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were of such unusual physical and psychic force that they tore a hole in the space-time continuum and allowed us to slip into an alternate universe known as Bizarro World, where everything is topsy-turvy: up is down, wrong is right, and the FBI isn't concerned with solving crimes, but only in sweeping them under the rug.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

As I noted above, the Algernon Syndrome – which inflicts a rapid dumbing-down on its victims – is pandemic, and it appears not to be limited to our law enforcement agencies. It also seems to have taken its toll on the pundits. Exhibit A: Andrew Sullivan, commenting on Glenn Greenwald's series of superb pieces on the anthrax case:

"Glenn reminds me that it was the anthrax attacks that took the post-9/11 sense of threat to a whole new level – and moved the Iraq invasion forward as a possible response. That we now think the threat was actually a domestic source with no connection with Islamism is a critical piece of historical adjustment."

Speaking of "historical adjustment," this seems like as good a time as any to remind Sullivan that he did more than his part in moving forward the idea that we ought to invade Iraq as a response to the anthrax attacks, and I quote:

"The sophisticated form of anthrax delivered to Tom Daschle's office forces us to ask a simple question. What are these people trying to do? I think they're testing the waters. They want to know how we will respond to what is still a minor biological threat, as a softener to a major biological threat in the coming weeks. They must be encouraged by the panic-mongering of the tabloids, Hollywood and hoaxsters. They must also be encouraged by the fact that some elements in the administration already seem to be saying we need to keep our coalition together rather than destroy the many-headed enemy. So the terrorists are pondering their next move. The chilling aspect of the news in the New York Times today is that the terrorists clearly have access to the kind of anthrax that could be used against large numbers of civilians. My hopes yesterday that this was a minor attack seem absurdly naïve in retrospect. So they are warning us and testing us. At this point, it seems to me that a refusal to extend the war to Iraq is not even an option. We have to extend it to Iraq. It is by far the most likely source of this weapon; it is clearly willing to use such weapons in the future; and no war against terrorism of this kind can be won without dealing decisively with the Iraqi threat. We no longer have any choice in the matter."

Sullivan didn't stop there, however. Back then, you'll remember, he was railing against the "fifth column" on "both coasts" that was supposedly sympathetic to bin Laden, and he was pining – aching – for a "muscular" response, one that would deal a decisive blow to what he termed "Islamofascism":

"Slowly, incrementally, a Rubicon has been crossed. The terrorists have launched a biological weapon against the United States. They have therefore made biological warfare thinkable and thus repeatable. We once had a doctrine that such a Rubicon would be answered with a nuclear response. We backed down on that threat in the Gulf War but Saddam didn't dare use biological weapons then. Someone has dared to use them now. Our response must be as grave as this new threat."

Sullivan didn't just want to invade Iraq – he wanted to nuke the entire country. On the basis, I might add, of exactly zero evidence that the Iraqis were behind the anthrax letters, the same level of evidence that the FBI, today, considers sufficient to convict Ivins of that crime.

Does Sullivan really believe no one remembers what he wrote, or is it that he – thoroughly immersed in his new role as war opponent and Obama supporter – no longer recalls his frothy-mouthed call to commit genocide in Iraq?
~ Justin Raimondo

[sometimeman]

Friday, August 8, 2008
Ivins Could Not Have Applied High-Tech Coating to the Killer Anthrax

As everyone knows, the government initially tried to blame Iraq for the anthrax attack. One of the claims made was that the anthrax contained bentonite clay, which was also used by Iraqi anthrax bioweapons makers to "weaponize" the anthrax by decreasing the tendency of anthrax spores to clump together. (Clumping makes them less deadly since clumping reduces the amount of spores which end up in the target's lungs).

The government later disclaimed that assertion. However, the FBI now claims that the killer anthrax contained silicon. Silicon can be used as an anti-clumping agent to weaponize anthrax.

For example, McClatchy notes:

"Some of Ivins' former colleagues also dispute the FBI's assertion that he had the capability to mill tiny anthrax spores and then bind them to silicon particles, the form of anthrax that was mailed to the office of then-senator Tom Daschle, D-S.D."

And as New Scientist writes, FBI agents "mention a 'silicon signature' for the anthrax in the envelopes with no further comment. Silica may be used to weaponise spore powders."

Evidence for the theory that the anthrax used in the attacks was coated with anti-clumping agents also comes from a a 2001 CBS article:

"When technicians at the Army biodefense lab in Fort Detrick, Md., tried to examine a sample from the Daschle letter under a microscope, it floated off the glass slide and was lost. "

Anthrax would normally clump, so the fact that it "floated off the glass slide" points to the anthrax being treated with anti-clumping and anti-static agents.

Why is this important?

It takes very sophisticated equipment and processes to coat something as small as an anthrax spore with anti-clumping agents:

"Only a sophisticated lab could have produced the material used in the Senate attack. This was the consensus among biodefense specialists working for the government and the military. In May 2002, 16 of these scientists and physicians published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, describing the Senate anthrax powder as “weapons-grade” and exceptional: “high spore concentration, uniform particle size, low electrostatic charge, treated to reduce clumping” (JAMA, 1 May 2002, p. 2237)."

Indeed, the anthrax sent in the letters was coated with a very rare, high-tech glass polymer nanomaterial:

More revealing than the electrostatic charge, some experts say, was a technique used to anchor silica nanoparticles to the surface of spores. About a year and a half ago, a laboratory analyzing the Senate anthrax spores for the FBI reported the discovery of what appeared to be a chemical additive that improved the bond between the silica and the spores. U.S. intelligence officers informed foreign biodefense off icials that this additive was “polymerized glass.” The officials who received this briefing—biowarfare specialists who work for the governments of two NATO countries—said they had never heard of polymerized glass before. This was not surprising. “Coupling agents” such as polymerized glass are not part of the usual tool kit of scientists and engineers making powders designed for human inhalation. Also known as “sol gel” or “spin-on-glass,” polymerized glass is “a silane or siloxane compound that’s been dissolved in an alcohol- based solvent like ethanol,” says Jacobsen. It leaves a thin glassy coating that helps bind the silica to particle surfaces.

Silica has been a staple in professionally engineered germ warfare powders for decades. (The Soviet Union added to its powders resin and a silica dust called Aerosil —a formulation requiring high heat to create nanoparticles, says Alibek. U.S. labs have tested an Aerosil variant called Cab-O-Sil, and declassified U.S. intelligence reports state that Iraq’s chemical and biological warfare labs imported tons of both Cab-O-Sil and Aerosil, also known as “solid smoke,” in the 1980s). “If there’s polymerized glass [in the Senate samples], it really narrows the field [of possible suspects],” says Jacobsen, who has been following the anthrax investigations keenly. “Polymerized glasses are exotic materials, and nanotechnology is something you just don’t do in your basement.”

By March 2002, federal investigators had lab results indicating that the Senate anthrax spores were treated with polymerized glass, and stories began to appear in the media. CNN reported an “unusual coating” on the spores, and Newsweek referred to a “chemical compound” that was “unknown to experts who have worked in the field for years.” When Science asked the FBI about the presence of polymerized glass in the Senate powder, an FBI spokesperson said the bureau “could not comment on an ongoing investigation.”

(Silica is the principle component of glass. The FBI is apparently misspeaking when it is now saying that the anthrax contains "silicon").

But Dr. Ivins was a vaccine researcher, not a weapons maker. Moreover, Ivins was working in a lab where - according to his co-workers and supervisors - people went in and out all night checking on experiments (so they presumably would have seen suspicious activity by Ivins, had there been any), and Ivins did not have access to the extremely high-tech equipment which would have been necessary to produce the weaponized anthrax. He wasn't one of the count-on-one-hand group of people who knew how to coat coat anthrax spores with anti-clumping agents.

Moreover, Ivins was one of the lead researchers helping the FBI investigate the anthrax murders. Remember, CBS wrote "when technicians at the Army biodefense lab in Fort Detrick, Md., tried to examine a sample from the Daschle letter under a microscope, it floated off the glass slide and was lost." This implies that the Ft. Detrick scientists, including Ivins, had never handled this kind of weaponized anthrax before.

The media has rightly been questioning whether or not Ivins knew how to dry anthrax. And his colleagues have rightly been asking whether Ivins, a vaccine expert, could have made anthrax as pure and concentrated as the killer anthrax (for example, a former director of the bacteriology division at Ft. Detrick said the anthrax sent to Daschle was "so concentrated and so consistent and so clean that I would assert that Bruce could not have done that part").

But the media is missing another large part of the story . . . it is very doubtful that Ivins knew how to weaponize the anthrax spores with advanced anti-clumping agents

[sometimeman]

Some body is full of sh*t.

Anthrax investigation should be investigated, congressmen say
Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Rush Holt want hearings into the Justice Department and FBI's handling of the case.
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 8, 2008
WASHINGTON -- After seven long years, the FBI and the Justice Department say they are closing the books on the anthrax investigation.

But the investigation into the investigation is only beginning, and it will focus on what Congress members described Thursday as apparent missteps by authorities that dramatically prolonged the probe, unfairly maligned an innocent government scientist, and raised questions about whether federal agents had conclusively ruled out other suspects besides microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), frequent critics of the FBI, demanded a far more detailed release of documents by the bureau and the Justice Department to support the government's case, as well as congressional hearings into the investigation.

Grassley sent a three-page letter Thursday evening to Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, giving them two weeks to respond to 18 questions that raised concerns about virtually every aspect of the probe.

Holt, who represents the district from which the anthrax-laced letters were mailed, said in an interview that he was reaching out to other House members to discuss a combined inquiry of sorts by the judiciary, intelligence, science and technology, and government oversight committees.

"We don't want this to be another Lee Harvey Oswald case where the public says it is never solved to their satisfaction," said Holt, referring to conspiracy theories surrounding President Kennedy's 1963 assassination. "Somebody needs to finish the job that would have been finished in a court of law."

Other than Congress, he said, "I'm not sure where else to do it."

Ivins, a researcher at the government's biodefense lab at Ft. Detrick, Md., apparently killed himself last week as authorities were preparing to charge him with murder. The 2001 attacks killed five people, sickened at least 17 others, and sparked one of the largest and costliest criminal investigations in U.S. history.

On Wednesday, senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI gave private briefings to those affected by the attacks and to members of Congress; released a trove of previously sealed documents; and held a news conference, all in an effort to convince the public that they could have proved in court that Ivins was the lone culprit -- if they'd had the chance to charge and prosecute him.

But by Thursday, a chorus of skeptics had taken to talk radio shows and the Internet. They homed in on government admissions that at least 100 other people may have had access to the particular batch of anthrax that was ultimately linked to the deadly mailings, and that Ivins had never been conclusively placed near the mailbox in New Jersey from which the letters were sent. They also questioned why the FBI and the Postal Inspection Service allowed the public to believe that another researcher at Ft. Detrick, Dr. Steven Hatfill, was the sole culprit for more than a year after they apparently began to believe he was innocent. Hatfill recently received a $5.8-million settlement from the government.

Maureen Stevens, the widow of Robert Stevens, a Florida photo editor who was the first victim of the attacks, held a news conference Thursday calling on the government to admit to faults in its investigation and pay additional millions to her and possibly to other victims.

And numerous scientists and legal experts questioned the reliability of the evidence presented by the government, particularly the novel genetic tests that the FBI said proved that Ivins alone carried out the attacks. One of them was Holt, a physicist turned congressman, who said he wanted to see some level of independent inquiry that involved a wide array of experts who could deconstruct the scientific aspects of the investigation.

In his letter, Grassley also wanted to know how exactly the government zeroed in on Ivins, whether he had taken a lie-detector test, what was known about his deteriorating mental condition, and how investigators could be sure that no one else might have helped him in preparing or mailing the letters.

"The FBI has a lot of explaining to do," said Grassley, whose staff has already started consulting experts and collecting information.

"They have been less than forthcoming with Congress throughout this entire process, and it deserves a full and thorough vetting."

[e-mail]

[shortcircuit]

We need cliff notes sometimer, that's too much to read!

[sometimeman]

[[size=4
]b]CLIFF NOTES

[/b][/size]
IS THE WORLD FLAT 101

The world is not flat. The government lies.[/center]

[shortcircuit]

Aug 8, 2008 21:14:07 GMT -4 sometimeman said:

[[size=4
]b]CLIFF NOTES

[/b][/size]
IS THE WORLD FLAT 101

The world is not flat. The government lies.[/center][/quote]Amen and amen again!