Posted on 05/21/2011 12:55:30 PM PDT by Palter
Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer.
The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters.
Those elements are found in compounds that could be used to weaponize the anthrax, enabling the lethal spores to float easily so they could be readily inhaled by the intended victims, scientists say.
The existence of the silicon-tin chemical signature offered investigators the possibility of tracing purchases of the more than 100 such chemical products available before the attacks, which might have produced hard evidence against Ivins or led the agency to the real culprit.
But the FBI lab reports released in late February give no hint that bureau agents tried to find the buyers of additives such as tin-catalyzed silicone polymers.
The apparent failure of the FBI to pursue this avenue of investigation raises the ominous possibility that the killer is still on the loose.
A McClatchy analysis of the records also shows that other key scientific questions were left unresolved and conflicting data wasn't sorted out when the FBI declared Ivins the killer shortly after his July 29, 2008, suicide.
One chemist at a national laboratory told McClatchy that the tin-silicone findings and the contradictory data should prompt a new round of testing on the anthrax powder.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Only one theory explains the evidence at hand - the theory that the anthrax came via a letter.
The letter was seen. It was opened. The powder was seen. The person who opened the letter had anthrax spores in her nostrils. The area around her desk was thoroughly contaminated. THAT IS EVIDENCE.
There is NO EVIDENCE supporting a "non-postal method" of contaminating the AMI building.
The fact that the 9/11 terrorist paid their rent in cash is evidence of NOTHING.
The fact that the landlord who collected the rent had a husband who worked at AMI is evidence of NOTHING.
The woman who collected the rent probably took it directly to a bank. There's no reason to believe any of it ever went to AMI. You are just imagining that is what happened. Your imagination is proof of NOTHING.
All your "evidence" is just your BELIEF that irrelevant happenings mean something. They mean NOTHING.
Your theory cannot explain how a teaspoonful of anthrax powder can get transported around on money without anyone noticing the powder and without anyone being contaminated by the powder.
You can't even provide any evidence that the money went anywhere near the AMI building. Your theory is 100% fantasy.
Incorrect. There was no AMI anthrax letter. That's a fact. There is no anthrax letter in the AMI evidence locker. That's a fact.
Incorrect. Moreover, you are showing a complete lack of knowledge of anthrax spore sizes. Anthrax spores are so small that they flow freely through plastic garbage bags like mosquitos flying through chain link fences do on a similar, but larger, scale.
Incorrect. The 9/11 terrorists paid their rent in cash to their AMI landlord mere miles away with more than 1 piece of contaminated paper money. That explains how the anthrax came in to the AMI building.
Moreover, your theory has no exit path for anthrax leaving AMI. In contrast, the contaminated cash that tainted the AMI mailroom likewise contaminated their outgoing mail, which in turn contaminated multiple postal centers.
Nonsense. Individual spores may be too small to be seen with the naked eye, but it took BILLIONS of spores to contaminate the AMI building. There MUST have been close to a teaspoonful of powder to do that. That is consistent with delivery via a letter and shows that your idea of distribution from "entirely invisible" particles on money is laughably absurd.
Just more of your total nonsense. There's no way for spores to get through a plastic garbage bag. If a plastic bag can hold water, it can contain spores.
When the letters found, they were put into plastic bags for moving from the scene of the crime to the laboratories, and from one laboratory to another. They are probably inside plastic bags right now.
The idea that spores can get through plastic bags is laughably ridiculous.
No, it does NOT. It says NOTHING about how the anthrax got into the AMI building. You ASSUME or BELIEVE that the terrorists had a supply of anthrax. You ASSUME or BELIEVE that the anthrax somehow got onto the money without getting into the apartment. You ASSUME or BELIEVE that the money somehow got transported to the AMI building. You laughable ASSUME or BELIEVE that there was enough "invisible" anthrax on the money to contaminate the entire building, to infect the mail delivery person Ernesto Blanco, and to kill Bob Stevens. You have no evidence that any of that actually did happen.
There is no evidence to support your preposterous assumptions. The evidence shows your assumptions are preposterous.
"the contaminated cash that tainted the AMI mailroom likewise contaminated their outgoing mail, which in turn contaminated multiple postal centers."
That is a laughable rationalization. It assumes that the contaminated OUTGOING mail first went to Lantana and then to Princeton and NOWHERE ELSE. That's is just plain ridiculous.
The FACTS say that the AMI letter was mailed at the same time and place as the Brokaw, NY Post, ABC and CBS letters, and it went first to an obsolete address for the National Enquirer in Lantana, Florida, because Ivins had used that address from the old copies of the Enquirer he kept in his office. The letter was then forwarded to AMI at Boca Raton.
To suggest that the only contaminated outgoing mail from the AMI building first went to Lantana and then to Princeton is just plain preposterous. It's laughably absurd. It makes no sense. It makes even less sense because of your absurd belief that there was not enough anthrax on the money to be seen.
Can't you see why you appear to be the only person in the entire world who believes your absurd theory?
Office workers don't seal water-tight plastic garbage bags of discarded mail.
The sheer act of hand-closing a plastic garbage bag will force out anthrax spores as if blown out onto the garbage pail from a bellows. This in turn contaminated the exterior of the garbage bag. That in turn contaminated each garbage bin that the bag goes in to, and in turn the bag contaminated each garbage truck.
No such garbage pails and garbage trucks servicing AMI were contaminated with anthrax, however, rendering your "oh, we just can't find an anthrax letter because it was thrown away" theory obsolete.
There is no AMI anthrax letter in any evidence bin. There is no trace of any potential AMI anthrax letter in any garbage truck that serviced AMI.
Thus, there was no anthrax letter at AMI. Your "anthrax letter" at AMI is a myth, unsupported by physical evidence.
No, but it might be consistent with delivery via an envelope. The difference is not subtle. A "letter" goes through postal routes. An "envelope" might simply contain rent money inside it.
Anyway, I'm not claiming that the 9/11 terrorists put contaminated rent money inside an evenlope to give to their AMI landlord. What I am pointing out is that it is plausible for a tenant to put place rent money in an envelope, so if the required amount of anthrax contamination is so large that it demands delivery via envelope, you still can't rule out the rent money theory (well, *you* can rule it out, but that's only because you are wedded to an obsolete, different theory).
You obviously do not understand what "physical evidence" means.
The spores taken from Stephanie Dailey's nostrils ARE physical evidence.
The spores found on the carpet around her desk ARE physical evidence.
The spores found in the post offices between Trenton and Boca Raton ARE physical evidence.
The spores taken from the nostrils of the guy who delivered the mail ARE physical evidence.
The spores taken from the mail van ARE physical evidence.
The spores taken from the mail slots in the mail room ARE physical evidence.
All this physical evidence points to the anthrax coming through the mails and contradicts your ridiculous money theory.
Your ridiculous money theory is unsupported by any physical evidence.
There is NO physical evidence supporting your theory that the 9/11 terrorists had access to anthrax.
There is NO physical evidence supporting your theory that the anthrax was on rent money.
There is NO physical evidence supporting your theory that the landlady's husband took the money to AMI.
There is NO physical evidence supporting your theory that the contamination at AMI had any connection to any money.
You argue that there is no evidence that the anthrax was thrown into the garbage and was disposed of with the garbage. The absence of evidence is NOT EVIDENCE. So, even that part of your absurd theory proves nothing.
What I'm pointing out is that your arguments get more and more absurd with every posting.
You now fantasize or rationalize that there could have been an envelope because it would be ridiculous for all that powder to be on the money itself. Thus, you now argue that the money could have been in an envelope.
You're just making stuff up to explain away the evidence that your theory is absurd.
Question: Why would the money be carried into AMI in an envelope?
Answer: Because you need that to be true in order to explain away the undeniable fact that it couldn't have been on the money itself.
Money in an rent envelope isn't going to contaminate the mailroom. It isn't going to contaminate mail bags. It isn't going to contaminate the mail van. It isn't going to put spores into Stephanie Dailey's nostrils. It isn't going to put spores into Ernesto Blanco's nostrils. It isn't going to contaminate mail sorting slots. And it certainly isn't going to leave a trail from Trenton to Boca Raton (or vice versa).
Your attempts to rationalize ways your theory could still be true - in spite of the overwhelming evidence that it is total nonsense - are just getting more and more ridiculous.
...because people in the mailroom are banned from having money. Oh wait...
Is it your latest rationalization that the landlady's husband took the envelope full of money to the mailroom and passed the money around to the people working there?
And what fantastical reason have you dreamed up for him to do that?
Silly boy. It doesn’t take a “fantastical reason” to have money change hands in the mailroom.
...the same can’t be said for inventing a letter that never existed.
Does that mean that you cannot dream up any non-laughable reason why the landlady's husband would be waving money around in the the mailroom and emptying the rent payment envelope on the floor around Stephanie Dailey's desk?
The cash rent money from the 9/11 terrorists was real. The anthrax “letter” at the AMI building was not.
The cash rent money from the 9/11 terrorists was real, but there is no evidence of any kind that it had anything to do with the anthrax that contaminated the AMI building, that killed Bob Stevens, that infected Ernesto Blanco, and that almost infected Stephanie Dailey.
All the evidence says that the anthrax arrived via a letter that was mailed from Princeton at the same time as the NY Post and Brokaw letters they found, and the ABC and CBS letters, which they didn't find.
Stating beliefs that are contradicted by the evidence does not change what the evidence proves.
Preposterous. There is no AMI anthrax letter in the evidence bin.
There is an abundance of evidence that the letter contaminated the AMI building, and there is testimony that it was thrown away.
There is NO EVIDENCE supporting any rent money theory.
By your reasoning, that money never existed either, since the money isn't in the "evidence bin."
Where is this anthrax contaminated money? If you can't produce it, then by your own reasoning, it never existed.
Testimony that the rent money existed can't be evidence, since you say testimony that the letter existed can't be evidence.
Your own reasoning says you have no evidence.
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