[genefromjersey]

Great response !!

Ed Lake is a nice guy, but seems to be assuming, because he owns a jack knife, he is competent to fence in the Olympics.

One of the reasons I dropped out of the discussion groups
was the degeneration of these groups into semantic excercises: how many anthrax spores can dance on the head of a press release , etc. - the written words of certain reporters being presented as "Tablets of the Law".

Ed did an excellent job on the geography of the mailings; but, like Meselsen attempting to deal with the reality of Soviet Biowarfare history, he seemed to get tangled in the web of homemade lab production ( as many of us did,thanks to the volumes of published dis-information .)

You may note I now speak of "dis-information", rather than mis-information. It's obvious (now !) a good deal of what has been published was fed to prominent writers to take them off the scent.

The anthrax used in the murders-by-mail was clearly produced in a sophisticated lab, using the very latest biowarfare methods.Only a few labs in the world are known (or strongly suspected) to have such facilities, and they are state-sponsored.

I realize the FBI - like all law enforcement agencies - likes to play its cards close to the vest; but I think the American people can handle a few simple truths. We have, after all,handled the barrage of lies !

[okie01]

"You may note I now speak of "dis-information", rather than mis-information. It's obvious (now !) a good deal of what has been published was fed to prominent writers to take them off the scent."

The disinformation was brilliantly done. It employed a judo technique, taking advantage of the media's inherent biases to propel them in the direction they already wanted to go.

I'm still left wondering, though, when the truth of the anthrax will be revealed. If ever...

[TrebleRebel]

Good post. Seems so many conspiracy theories these days are merely breath-taking violations of Occam's Razor, rather than being explainable in a fluid manner. I guess I labor under my computer programmer's syndrome -- if you can't flowchart it, it won't work. ;)