Shermy

Shermy's Library of the YouTube Strange and Macabre

"We have to be the superpower, we have to be above you, and you have to be subdued," [Zacarias] Moussaoui said. "You organize the misery of the world." Shermy's Compendium of Conundrums*

...strange world...unanswered questions...here's some head thumpers...

Let's turn on the Way-Back Machine Mr. Peabody!MYSTERIOUS FLYING DOG

Do You Have Any Pets That Have Made An Impact On You Personally? (Kerry Answers Questionnaire)

Q: Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?
I have always had pets in my life and there are a few that I remember very fondly.
When I was serving on a swiftboat in Vietnam, my crewmates and I had a dog we called VC. We all took care of him, and he stayed with us and loved riding on the swiftboat deck. I think he provided all of us with a link to home and a few moments of peace and tanquility during a dangerous time. On day as our swiftboat was heading up a river, a mine exploded hard under our boat. After picking ourselves up, we discovered VC was MIA. Several minutes of frantic search followed after which we thought we lost him. We were relieved when another boat called asking if we were missing a dog. I turns out VC was catapulted from the deck of our boat and landed confused, but unhurt, on the deck of another boat in our patrol.

That's some miracle. Have you noticed he never has told the CPR/hamster story related by his daughters? Embelishment might run in the blood.

MYSTERIOUS DAVID KAY

Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief, Sunday Telegraph (UK) 1/25/04

David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.
In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam.
"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

(Did spilling the beans on Syria get him fired?)

Saddam Behind Anthrax Attacks? January 1, 2004

In a major development, potentially as significant as the capture of Saddam Hussein, investigative journalist Richard Miniter says there is evidence to indicate Saddam's anthrax program was capable of producing the kind of anthrax that hit America shortly after 9/11. Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, told Accuracy in Media that during November he interviewed U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay in Baghdad and that he was "absolutely shocked and astonished" at the sophistication of the Iraqi program.
Miniter said that Kay told him that, "the Iraqis had developed new techniques for drying and milling anthrax—techniques that were superior to anything the United States or the old Soviet Union had. That would make the former regime of Saddam Hussein the most sophisticated manufacturer of anthrax in the world." Miniter said there are "intriguing similarities" between the nature of the anthrax that could be produced by Saddam and what hit America after 9/11. The key similarity is that the anthrax is produced in such a way that "hangs in the air much longer than anthrax normally would" and is therefore more lethal.

Sure sounds like the description of the weaponized anthrax of 2001.

THE MYSTERY OF THE AMI J.LO. LETTERS

"Tracking Anthrax", Newsweek, Oct. 29, 2001

"...Investigators are not ruling out a connection with Al Qaeda, but the letters to Daschle and NBC appear homegrown. Daschle’s, which bore the return address of a fourth-grade class, said, “We have this anthrax. You die now ... Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great.” NBC’s read, “This is next. Take penicillin now,” plus the last three phrases of Daschle’s letter. A powder-containing letter sent to AMI (but not recovered) contained a little star of David, recall staffers. So, too, NEWSWEEK has learned, did the anthrax letter to Daschle.

Um, did the Dashle and Leahy letters have the same religious charms as the J.Lo letter/s? If so, isn't this proof the J.Lo. letter/s delivered the anthrax to AMI?

(VERY) MYSTERIOUS OKC

The famous "Secret Service Memo"

"...A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the Federal Building. Mr. Grossman further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck. ATSAIC McNally noted that this fact is significant due to the fact that the security video shows the Ryder truck pulling up to the Federal Building and then pausing (7-10 seconds) before resuming into a slot in front of the building. It is speculated that the woman was signalling the truck when a slot became available...."

What, someone invented those details out of thin air?

The Mystery of John Doe No. 2, Salon, June 9, 2001

"The main thing Joann Van Buren says she remembers about Timothy McVeigh is the $50 bill he wanted her to break. That, and the two men who accompanied him.
One day before he tore a hole in the nation's psyche with the bomb that destroyed Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building, McVeigh, Van Buren says, pulled up to the little Subway sandwich shop where she worked in Junction City, Kansas, driving the yellow Ryder truck that would contain the bomb.
Van Buren didn't pay any particular attention to them at first. Another clerk waited on the men, but when they tried to pay for their meal with a large bill, she took notice.
"As soon as the $50 bill came up, I had to go to the safe to get the change," says Van Buren today. "And when I gave them the change and they got their sandwiches, I remember them going back over to the corner, sitting down. And when they left, I remember three people getting into the truck. There were three people at the table."
The clerks she worked with later told FBI agents that two of the men matched the descriptions of McVeigh and his cohort, Terry Nichols. The third was a shorter, dark-haired and muscular man with an olive complexion: a perfect fit for the figure destined to be known as John Doe 2.
Luckily, the Subway shop actually had a video camera recording that day's events. When Van Buren contacted the FBI, agents interviewed everyone working in the shop on April 18. And when they were done, they confiscated the video recorded that day.
But if that tape showed a third co-conspirator with McVeigh and Nichols, no one outside the FBI can say. No one beyond the agency ever saw it. In the waning days of Nichols' trial, his defense attorneys discovered the details of Van Buren's story -- which had only been described in generic terms in the FBI's report, omitting her contention that two men accompanied McVeigh -- along with information contained in some 43,000 other "lead sheets" that the FBI until then had failed to turn over to them. ...

Where's the tape? (Not mentioned at the Nichols trial - his lawyers, naturally, not interested in tapes that would implicate Nichols.

* Thanks okie01 for the title suggestion!