@seanmcbride, I think GG does a good job in an update of this article of addressing the whole "Death to America" thing. Especially when you see the email in question Ivin's wrote was a "I just heard..." kind of thing regarding an area of his particular expertise.

By the way, if you redact most of this post, this too has the same offending phrase.

@omooex, I had a friend who was seriously harassed by a nutjob. She kept wanting to know "why?, why her? what did he want?". Finally the counselor told her to stop trying to rationilize irrational behavoir. As I see it, suicide is usually irrational, too.

@yablonowitz, please stop staring at the floor, even if the image makes me smile. For some reason I have to spell the word "from" as "form" 50% of the time. I usually don't find a way to work in the word circumcized, so it's not as big of a problem.

What's funny is that many of the really "threatening" anthrax letters being sent out at the same time were not real. I mean the kind of letters that were scary enough to save and report to the police.

550 letters with an insecticide that would give a false positive test for anthrax were sent to abortion providers (and an opthamologist and an anti-abortion counselor, oops) were sent out.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/23/anthrax.hoax.ap/index.html

Not to be judgmental or anything.

Seriously, the only time people care about this kind of thing is when they are engaged in a flame war.

We're all typing furiously here.

I am so freaking dumb...

http://bracesupport.com/fla/Epi-sport.htm

That seems to be what Ivin's wearing.

Why would Ivins be taking Cipro? Wouldn't he have been vaccinated? Or would it be an added protection?

Here is all the very positive, uplifting info on the anthrax vaccine:

http://www.gwu.edu/~cih/anthraxinfo/vaccine/vaccine_myths.htm

As far as having narcotic type painkillers, doctors give them out for all sorts of things. I've tended to keep them if I'm afraid of getting pain that a couple of aspirin won't cure, though it seems to be more of a hoarding thing, uh oh, am I admitting to pychological problems?. My broken elbow got me a prescription, my stitches another one, a couple of root canals... You get the picture. After a few years (long after expiration, still unused) when I go on a cleaning spree, I dispose of them as safely as possible.

p.s. thanks, bystander.

For my first full time job, I was hired by a Scientoligist that was working on being "cleared". He was a true believer and odd, but very fair. I had to write up suggestions in the approved format, was not allowed to complain. L. Ron Hubbard would have been proud.

For a really funky book that touched on the history of JPL and Scientology, you need to read "Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons". Supposedly it was at Parson's house that the bet was made between Hubbard and Heinlein.

And L.W.M., You can break the case. I just want to sit back and sip a nice cool drink while you all work furiously away

Why not both?

@sean, we don't know if it was Ivin's or his wife that was interested in the AFA. I donate to NOW and other organizations that my husband is more neutral on...but because it's NOW, they write the requests for donations to me directly, not my husband (g). On the other hand, if my mother-in-law wanted to sign up for something, like a magazine, she always called herself either "Mrs. Husband's Father" or sometimes "Mr. & Mrs. Husband's Father", she didn't use her own name, even twenty years after his death.

The AFA in the late 90's were mainly railing against indecency in the media (particularly rap lyrics) and many people at the time strongly agreed with them. I seem to remember Tipper Gore getting on the bandwagon, even if she didn't join AFA. One of the AFA's tried and true ways to raise money in the old days was to regularly quote, and be offended by, Howard Stern.

I guess that I read Ivin's letters to the editor and see something else, like the fact that Ivin's thought women should be able to be priests and that homosexuality had a genetic component. The latter in particular would not sit well with the fundie Christians.

I read Ivin's comment about Muslims was a "Did you hear Osama has anthrax...." holy shit type comment, a "those guys really hate us and Jews" freak out. Many people at the time were scared of that news, a neighbor of mine even opened her mail with rubber gloves on outside. Here's this guy, who worked with anthrax being shocked to think a terrorist had access to it. The media was reporting that falsehood and it appears that Ivin's, like many others, believed the media's reports.

Again, Ivin's very well may have done it and the technical, physical evidence would be/will be what convinces me. But this stuff (letters and emails) being presented as evidence of a motive or instability seems unconvincing at best.

Maybe it's this?

http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/fakegovt_FBI_AntiTerrorist.php

Their advice "While we don't want to encourage people to ignore correspondence from legal government agencies, it is a safe bet that NO U.S. government agency will make any first contact with you by email. Certainly not the FBI or IRS."

One better, here is the official response from the FBI about this particular scam.

http://seattle.fbi.gov/pressrel/2008/pr042508.htm