I had a 'therapist' nearly 25 years ago and she was a fruitcake.

I was in college and having a bad time of it. I had a few anxiety attacks and trouble sleeping. My doctor recommended that I 'talk to someone' to 'work this out'. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

This 'therapist' was fresh out of 'therapy school' and to say that she was a twit was being incredibly kind. She was a flake. Some of the shit she came up with was so 'out there' that I just couldn't comprehend how she got through school. Even my doc was amazed.

I figured that she needed her services more than I did and I got involved in some outside sports and cured myself. (Why the doc didn't recommend that instead I'll never know)

The voices were another story. ;-)

This *could* be an example of a flake therapist trying for her 15 minutes of fame: Just because she's a 'therapist' doesn't mean that she's not a total nut job...

The 9/11 Commission was "charged" with getting to the bottom of who, how and why the September 11 attacks occurred. It did not accomplish that. It established blame on al Qeada, even though the FBI hasn't the evidence to indict Bin Laden, not listing the attacks on either their ten most wanted list, and wanted terrorist list in connection with him. The best evidence against any operatives held in relation to the September 11 attacks has come through torture, and circumstantially linking operatives to Bin Laden, who, again has not been charged.

As the death of Ivins has raised more questions than answers, so did the 9/11 Commission for the Family Steering Committee that were deeply disappointed with the results. They are no closer to the truth of who, how and why regarding the attacks than they were when they lobbied Congress for an investigation. Several members are active with the New York Ballot initiative, along with former Senator Lincoln Chaffee, which seeks to set up an independent investigation to answer the questions the 9/11 Commission omitted or obscured. None, for instance, of the 118 firefighters' testimonies that the FDNY Oral Histories recorded relating to hearing, seeing, and feeling explosions throughout the buildings prior to collapse was given any weight in the final commission report, a report written by Zelikow.

Again, Zelikow brought Laurie Mylroie before the Commission to testify to al Qeada connections to Iraq. Some in his staff were incredulous. Lorie Van Aukens, a Family Steering Committee member confronted him reminding him the Commission was mandated to study the attacks, not advocate for the war in Iraq. Zelikow just smiled.

A commenter on the Common Dreams thread for Glenn's original story mentions an appearance by Zelikow on a major network as a bio-terror specialist saying the anthrax attacks "had to come from a government lab..." with the implication apparently being from Iraq. The commenter does not cite a source, so perhaps those with access to a better database can verify that.

In a more perfect world, journalists would out their lying sources. The complicity of major media with the government coverups now-a-days renders such quaint notions of honesty, integrity, the public interest mute. Those that value those ideals are up against a Goliath. And we thought it couldn't happen here...

I find it disturbing that the information about Ivins hospitalization and even his therapy have been disclosed. These facts should have been held, by law, for the privacy of the patient. This is a ubiquitous mandate for professional, mental- health care, workers as well. These rights of the patient usually only end when they become a harm to themselves or others. But they do not end for the press, or government officials. I find it interesting that these "facts" are so much a part of the story line of Ivins "suicide". Who gave this information to the press and why?

The Daschle material was treated with silica, not bentonite. A good description of that was in the Washington Post, November 29, 2001 and reprinted at

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/fragilefootprint.html

Here's an excerpt:

But there was something else in there, too, and it would require analysis by others to say what. That job fell to a laboratory on the campus of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Northwest Washington. An aging building there is home to a device called an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope, which can detect the presence of extremely tiny quantities of chemicals.

That device found that silica, but not aluminum, was mixed with the Daschle spores -- an important finding that differentiated the sample from known Iraqi specimens in which spores were combined with bentonite, a mixture of silica and aluminum.

One caveat here: I'm just guessing, but I think it's likely that someone examining weaponized spores under a light microscope would not be able to tell whether they had been dried with bentonite or silica--they probably would look similar. Someone who had been studying the Iraqi methods might have come up with bentonite because that would be on their mind. Only the X-ray spectroscope would be able to give this definitive answer and it's clear that they didn't have that insrument at Ft. Detrick. It should also be noted that this analysis should be able to provide a "signature" for what the spores have been treated with that could be compared to materials seized as evidence during a search.

Here's another interesting tidbit, also from Judy Miller, about analysis of the Leahy material:

An initial analysis by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, which specializes in biodefense, found that the material was very pure, very concentrated and highly dangerous. The Fort Detrick laboratory began studying the Daschle letter on Oct. 15 and delivered its first assessment to the bureau that night, a spokesman said.

Two days later, the F.B.I. sent a sample for additional testing to Battelle, a military contractor in Ohio that does secret work for the Pentagon and other government agencies.

Officials said the Army laboratory had irradiated part of the anthrax spores before studying them, a safety technique that leaves their aerodynamic and other characteristics undisturbed.

Apparently unaware that the Army laboratory had irradiated the material, Battelle used a different method, officials said, placing the anthrax in an autoclave and killing the spores with intense pressure and steam. Two officials said that this produced a far lower estimate of the concentration level and prompted Battelle scientists to conclude that the material was more likely to clump together, and thus less likely to waft through the air, than the Army scientists had estimated.

Both laboratories delivered reports to the F.B.I. on Oct. 22. One administration official said Fort Detrick found that the Daschle anthrax contained as much as one trillion spores per gram, much more than had been detected by Battelle.

Scientists quickly recognized that the tests had been conducted differently and agreed that Battelle should do a second study using irradiated material. A shipment was sent to Battelle on Oct. 25, one official said, which subsequently produced estimates similar to those of the Army scientists.

Link:http://tinyurl.com/582l3j

Note that Battelle, which is in charge of the Dugway facility, initially autoclaved the sample they were sent to analyze. They HAD to know this would destroy the properties of the sample and lead to a low-ball estimate. They just didn't know that Ft. Detrick had already come up with an analysis that all insiders would have known pointed the finger to Dugway as the source of the material because no other facility on earth can produce this concentration in weaponized form.