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 ...
There is no AMI anthrax letter. Shut up if you can't show the actual letter.
It doesn't exist.
Yesterday doesn't exist, either, but we know it did exist because there is evidence that it existed. And there are over 6 billion witnesses.
The argument that the letter never existed is even more crazy than the argument that the anthrax was on rent money where no one saw the powder, no one knows how the rent money got into the AMI building, and no one can explain how a powder that no one could see on the money could kill one person, infect another, contaminate an entire building, and leave a trail of anthrax through post offices from Trenton to Boca Raton.
Except for you, is there is anyone on this planet who believes your preposterous theory?
There was never an anthrax letter at AMI.
There is no AMI anthrax letter in any evidence bin today.
You view the above as inconsequential. You are wrong.
"You view the above as inconsequential. You are wrong."
No, I view your comments about there never being an anthrax letter at AMI as ridiculous. The FACTS clearly say there was such a letter.
Your ridiculous beliefs do not change the facts.
Your ridiculous beliefs just show that you are wrong, and you continue to insist on being wrong no matter what the facts say.
First, there is and was no AMI anthrax letter.
Second, there was no anthrax spore-trail through garbage bags, trash cans, and garbage trucks.
That means that no one threw an anthrax letter away.
Ergo, the “AMI anthrax letter” theory has no exit path to explain the “missing” letter.
The absence of evidence is NOT EVIDENCE.
What is your evidence that there was "no anthrax spore trail through garbage bags, trash cans and garbage trucks"?
Is it something that you just made up?
The entire building was contaminated. The cleaning crew should have been dumping vacuum cleaner bags containing spores into trash cans and garbage trucks. The areas around copy machines were thoroughly contaminated, so the waste paper from those areas should have gone into trash cans and garbage trucks, too.
What is your evidence that there was no such trail?
And, if you have evidence, how do you explain that there was no trail from cleaning crew, either?
Wouldn't that mean that your argument is that there was no anthrax in the AMI building at all?
And, of course, that would mean that the anthrax couldn't have come from the money, either.
No matter how you look at it, you have no evidence to support your beliefs, because all the evidence says that the anthrax that killed Bob Stevens came in a letter addressed to the National Enquirer that was opened and thrown away by Stephanie Dailey.
Your arguments do not change the facts, they only verify the facts which say that the anthrax came in a letter - because you must ignore the facts in order to make your argument.
That’s silly. You are now claiming that the FBI botched the anthrax investigation (by contaminating garbage trucks) as your defense of why the FBI didn’t botch the investigation!
Way to go, Ed!
I asked you for your source in claiming that there was no contamination of the trash and the garbage trucks, and you change the subject to talk about the FBI.
The first people to check the AMI building for spores were from the Florida State Department of Health. The CDC came in next. Then, months later, the FBI with the help of other agencies did a comprehensive check of the building to determine exactly where the spores entered the building and how the spores got spread around. Some details about that analysis are in the process of being published in a scientific journal.
Changing the subject won't alter the fact that you have no evidence to support your beliefs. You ignore the evidence that says you are wrong. And you continue to argue even though you have nothing to support your beliefs.
Can't you see that you are the only person in the entire world who believes that the anthrax that contaminated the AMI building was brought in on rent money?
Who are you trying to convince of your beliefs? Me? The only way you can convince me is to provide SOLID NEW EVIDENCE that all the currently known evidence is somehow misleading. You'd have to provide evidence that not only explains how unseen anthrax on rent money could contaminate and entire building, you'd have to provide evidence showing that it's a BETTER explanation than the letter explanation.
All you have is beliefs. The only people you can convince with beliefs are people who know absolutely nothing about the case and who are willing to trust you to give them guidance. I doubt there are any such people on this planet.
It’s not about me, Ed. It’s about a botched investigation.
There is no AMI anthrax letter. Other theories besides an anthrax letter are therefor needed. It doesn’t have to be my theory.
My theory simply gives a plausible non-postal route of anthrax attack...something that can’t be done with the FBI’s theory.
Your theory is totally implausible, since it is contradicted by the facts and makes absolutely no sense.
The "FBI's theory" isn't a "theory." It's what the facts say. The facts very clearly say that, based upon the time it arrived at AMI, the AMI letter was mailed at the same time and from the same place as the other media letters; it left a trail of spores through postal facilities between Trenton and Boca Raton; the guy who carried the mail bag with the letter from the Boca Raton post office to the AMI building contracted inhalation anthrax; the woman who opened it remembers the letter and remembers throwing it away; it was her job to open letters addressed to the Enquirer; there were spores in her nostrils from handling the letter; the area around her desk was the most contaminated area in the building, and Bruce Ivins was known to be a reader of The National Enquirer and kept old copies on his desk.
All you have is a belief that is totally unsupported by any facts. That makes it pure speculation, but, if you want to call it a "theory," that's up to you.
The FBI botched their investigation. Their theory requires an AMI anthrax letter, yet there is no AMI anthrax letter.
Because their theory is flawed, and because you are married to that flawed theory, you are choosing to focus elsewhere, such as on my theory.
But my theory isn’t the end-all/be-all. It’s just one example that uses existing facts. Other theories might do the above even better than mine, and pretty much *any* theory is going to be better than the one that you support relentlessly as though married to it.
Fact #1 is that there is no AMI anthrax letter. It never existed. The FBI certainly doesn’t have it. Neither do you.
You just continue to spout absolute nonsense. If something gets thrown away, to you that means it never existed - no matter how much proof there is that it did indeed exist. And witnesses mean nothing.
I throw out garbage all the time, and the garbage man comes and takes it away. By your reasoning, I never threw out any garbage. It no longer exists, and my testimony means nothing. So, what does the garbage man do for a living? Why is he always banging things around outside early on Tuesday mornings?
If you think that it’s nonsense, then show me the AMI anthrax letter.
You can’t.
It doesn’t exist.
You can’t.
It doesn’t exist.
And, therefore, yesterday never existed because I cannot show you today that it still exists.
That's any interesting view of the world. Nothing ever existed if it does not exist today. Evidence means nothing. Testimony means nothing.
Your argument seems to be that your beliefs are the only reality. We are all just figments of your imagination. Your brain is the universe.
Then why are you trying to get me to believe as you believe? What is your purpose in arguing? Why not just change your mind?
Do you think that by just claiming things to be true over and over and over and over, I'll somehow be converted to your beliefs?
That ain't gonna happen. I'm only "converted" by solid facts. You have only beliefs. The facts all say that the anthrax got into the AMI building via a letter that was mailed at the same time and from the same place as the other anthrax letters sent to the media.
Repeating your beliefs over and over won't change the facts.
The fact is that there is no AMI anthrax letter.
Yes, and the evidence says that is because it was thrown away. But, to you and you alone, it means it never existed.
Clearly, you see your beliefs as the only proof of anything. If you believe it, then it must be true - regardless of what the facts say.
And, you've made it very clear in this thread that there isn't any fact or testimony that can change your mind.
End of story, I guess.
No, the evidence says that there is no anthrax trail of spores in the garbage cans, trash bins, and garbage trucks that serviced the AMI building.
So no AMI anthrax letter was “thrown away” because no facts support that theory.
And no AMI anthrax letter was found in the AMI building.
So the **FACTS** show that no AMI anthrax letter was there and no AMI anthrax letter was thrown away.
Thus: the conclusion is that there was no AMI anthrax letter because that’s what the *facts* dictate.
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