How much of this character assassination (sorority and porn) would be admissible in court? Any judges out there?

Now I will retire for awhile and return the asylum to the control of the newer inmates (lunatics).

You ever work in one of those places? Or, know anyone who has? The 'inmates' (as you call them) have always been in control. They're not confused, and neither is the professional staff. Chaos ensues only when staff decide to take control.

The agency sullied the reputation and life of Steven Hatfill, presumably as strategy to pressure the "person of interest" and assure citizens that the investigation was proceeding. When Hatfill was exonerated and paid $5.82 million for the wrong, a new person of interest was needed. They found one and he won't talk back or have his story told in court.

I just wanted to say that I think you're doing a great job on the anthrax investigation. Not that that is anything out of the ordinary; you are doing some of the best journalism I'm reading at the present time. I really appreciate your efforts and only wish some of the mainstream media would be so thorough and clear.

Glenn,

Many pages repeat themselves.

I appreciate your work, as do many who post here but there are some who contribute little or nothing to the subject at hand who have branded themselves as quarrelsome, inconsiderate, ill-mannered. immature exhibitionists.

I just scroll past them unread.

Thank you.

LWM: about that water...

In my post yesterday, I provide a link to a supplier commonly used in microbiology, located in Bethesda, MD, who sell sterile filtered water. Someone working on their own, away from a professional facility, just might choose that route for both the culturing and processing of the material.

-- Jim White

Good point, Jim. I've not been keeping up on all the technical stuff. Thanks.

Omooex,

Again, a good point about Duley and so what if she wanted to be a writer? haven't we all? I am always a skeptic but that anthology of letters goes all the way back to 1997. That's a bit too much of an established "history" to entertain the possibility of some sort of planted "legend" credibly. Those letters are likely legit and worthy of scrutiny as possible insight to his mind

Case solved friends. NPR has just revealed that their intrepid reporter unearthed Ivins' high school yearbook and spoke with the director of a high school play in which Ivins--- sit down, now, are you ready for this?---- played the role of a murderer! Ivins' high school photo is on the NPR web site, friends, according to the reporter.

Whew, now I can sleep well tonight. I'll bet NPR next finds out a link between Ivins, the real Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman killer and JonBenet Ramsey's killer. Send in your pledges now so NPR can continue in its important work!

You ever work in one of those places? Or, know anyone who has? The 'inmates' (as you call them) have always been in control. They're not confused, and neither is the professional staff. Chaos ensues only when staff decide to take control.

-- bystander

I escaped from one.

:-)

One is a critique of the step and fetch it character of Jar Jar Binks to the New York Press. I don't even remember writing that one, and can't imagine what motivation I had. Its also worth noting that Ivins only wrote one letter after 2004. That's one letter to the editor in an almost four year span of time, hardly the sign of an imbalanced mind. What's more, his letters in the period one year previous to, and one year preceeding the attacks are two calls for greater public civility and an entreaty to welcome female preachers into the clergy. Why waste your time with this?

I don't know what I thought I was saying there, but let's just say, 'after'.

What supporting evidence do we have that Ivins was an alcoholic?

All I've read is that his daughter was being treated for "clinical depression," and in an earlier post here on Salon, someone offered that Ivins may have been attending a group therapy session with his daughter.

The assumption now is that he either committed suicide because the FBI was close to pressing charges, or that he was so stressed out by the investigation that he was driven to it. Isn't it entirely possible that he committed suicide for reasons that had nothing to do with the investigation? If so, that would change the narrative altogether; suddenly the FBI's motive for leaking the information would be very clear.

Let's say you and your family are badgered and harassed by the FBI for a crime you didn't commit. You feel your privacy has been hideously violated and your lifework destroyed. You're full of feelings of anger and despair. You see no way out.

Except - the last person to be badgered and harassed for exactly the same crime just received $5.82 million in a court settlement.

Under the circumstances, suicide just doesn't seem like a rational response.

The only way a lyophilizer destroys material would be if the material is destroyed by the freeze-thaw cycle employed. I think most endospores wouldn't have too tough a time going through that, but certainly the vegetative cells (if present) would break up (unless suspended in an appropriate DMSO, glycerol or sucrose solution). In the antigen preparation process, I can see that, especially with vegetative cells.

Matthew Meselson at Harvard saw the electron micrographs--that is noted both in the C&E News article and in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, I linked to both. I put less stock on Alibek due to his background, but I see no reason to doubt Meselson.

I agree that IF the material is highly engineered, then it only could have come from a Battelle facility. I'm just not that convinced. If it were that high quality, I think the death toll in the Senate Office Building would have been huge, hundreds if not thousands of deaths. Same for the postal workers, too.

I want the FBI eventually to disclose all of its evidence so that we don't have to speculate here. Whoever did this was extremely cold-blooded. The Daschle and Leahy letters were sent out after it was already known that Stevens had died. That takes a pretty high level of evil in my book. I haven't seen anything to suggest that Ivins was anywhere near that unhinged around that time.