Sorry to tease you like that. I just wondered what "dentonite" was and, when I looked it up, I just had to share it.

Must have been from trying to figure out what a liposucker was. Lost track.

LOL! Thanks for being such a good sport. Around my house, a "liposucker" is a vacuum cleaner hose, sans attachment, that's gotten out of control. ;-}

E-prof:

Maybe I should be wearing the unitard and tights.

Ok, unitards and capes all around. I propose we call ourselves The Incredulables.

Glenn,

This phrase -- “just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans” -- resonates powerfully in my ears, in harmony with the two anthrax letters. The timing of the email is also spot on. I've been stopped dead in my tracks in ridiculing the FBI case. I haven't been sold on the case, but I am definitely going to be much more cautious in dismissing it. Skeptics really need to get to work in filling in the context of this email.

Ivin's post about the dialogue with Islam and the Rabbi reads even better as an ironic or sarcastic comment. He is commenting on the Jewish use of religion to excuse ethnic exclusivity and feelings of superiority. Thus the scare quotes.

In fact, it's exactly what I would write under the same circumstances, and it would be just as misunderstood. Not that it redounds to my credit.

... but figured that was "too subtle" to try to explain to someone so eager to come up with a snazzy one-size-fits-all "Catholic Zionist anti-abortion crazy" ... Amazingly, there are lots of folks who hold some or all of those beliefs who aren't crazy or blood-thirsty.

and I say that as a prochoice life-long atheist.

Susan -- I didn't say "Zionist," I said "Christian Zionist" -- an entirely different kettle of fish. If you don't much about Christian Zionism, try doing an Amazon search on the term and you will discover a flood of reputable and scholarly books on the subject. Also do a Google search on "John Hagee" and his relations with important Republicans, Democrats (including Joseph Lieberman) and neoconservatives.

Ivins' quote does indeed express a point of view that is fully consistent with Christian Zionism. His words could have been penned by John Hagee, Pat Robertson or Mike Evans.

a line from a NYT article today:

“It is hard not to be convinced, with what they have,” said one person who heard an F.B.I. briefing before the documents were released.

Why would anybody include something so painfully uncompelling as this line?

There wasn't any bentonite, but there was silica. This was confirmed within weeks of the anthrax attacks by an independent X-ray scattering analysis done at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, as reported in their own newsletter and elsewhere:

"Ft Detrick sought our assistance to determine the specific components of the anthrax found in the Daschle letter," said Florabel G. Mullick, MD, ScD, SES, AFIP Principal Deputy Director and department chair. AFIP experts utilized an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light) to confirm the previously unidentifiable substance as silica. "This was a key component," Mullick said. "Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination [bentonite] had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq." - October 31st, 2002, AFIP Newsletter, Christopher C. Kelley

So, if that test had been completed by the time ABC was leaked to, it would be clear that the leaker was deliberately lying. No one has ever directly challenged the veracity of the AFIP test or the initial analysis of the Daschle letter at USAMRIID, both of which indicated that the spores were pure, and coated with a silica preparation. Given that, there is really no way Ivins could have produced and mailed this material using the relatively primitive equipment he had at his disposal.

Why isn't the AFIP analysis part of the FBI report, I wonder? Guess that will have to be subpoenaed by Congress, I suppose.

Last I heard, AFIP stood by their forensic work. Call them up and ask - it's clear confirmation there was no bentonite, but it is also confirmation that there was an additive, silica.

AFIP Public Affairs Office:

(202) 782 - 2115

AFIP Information Desk:

(202) 782 - 2100

given that the case file has been leaking like a seive ...

rather it has ENDLESSLY been the "vaccine profit motive" ...

I think I have a good ear for irony -- I use it all the time -- and I fail to detect irony in the Ivins' quote. It would be helpful to have more information about Ivins' religious beliefs to decode this quote.

Susan -- if Ivins was motivated by a Christian Zionist agenda, the Bush 43 administration, which is heavily populated and controlled by neoconservatives and Christian Zionists -- would do everything in their power to bury that story. Don't you see?

I think I have a good ear for irony

Yeah, Sean there's irony everywhere, isn't there. And you're just the guy to see it.

Please post about the FBI documents there.

I'm assuming this is Jim F. White of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD?

Here is your previous post:

After some very quick skimming, I see spikes of afterhours activities by Ivins around the times of the mailings but dropping off just afterwards.

It also appears that they did recover guns and body armor during searches of the residence while he was committed.

They appear to have email corrspondence where he looked unstable prior to 9/11.

They have a new theory on a Greendale School through a conservative Catholic organization he got a magazine from and to which he made donations.

The theory on attacking Daschle and Leahy is that they were “pro-abortion Catholics” and Ivins’ wife was president of the local right to life group.

Gotta go read a lot more..."

Considering the fact that you are a leading employee of the very department of the U.S. government that is about to accept bids for an anthrax vaccine contract valued at some good fraction of a billion dollars, don't you think that there might be some conflict of interest issues in your posts here?

If you go read all my other letters, you will agree that the Department of Health and Human Services, Emergent Biosolutions, Battelle Memorial Institute and the FBI and Justice Department all would like to see the blame pinned on Bruce Ivins and the case closed. This would obviously facilitate the smooth delivery of the anthrax vaccine contract, wouldn't it?

I mean, if it turned out that one of the very companies (Battelle) benefiting from the anthrax vaccine contract and the Project Bioshield program had itself played a role in the anthrax attacks, that might lead to some serious questions, even cancellation of the contract, right?