You know, sometimes I just want to kick...oh, wait, you were talking about soccer balls.

My bad.

Was I? Are you sure? ;-}

My sympathies on the EPA colo-rectal exam.

Wow. Thanks for that link to the WND story via George Washington's Blog.

What was their source for this information? Frustratingly they do not cite sources other than a passing reference to "his lawyers" late in the article. This info tosses their case out the window as far as I'm concerned, and if it is true then I'd say it's 90% likely that the FBI had the wrong guy.

"...Comparing that abomination in LA, designed to bilk money out of American airheads like Tom Cruise (in Scientology) or Madonna with the Kabbala centre is like comparing Glenn's blog to Rense or WhatreallyHappened.com. Legitimate Kabbalism is interesting to study but after years of involvement with serious study on the matter, I decided to do something else. Perhaps it is a phase everyone goes through. Cults don't appeal to me and I've never been much of a joiner. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison and Paine all felt the Christian Church was a scam. What do you think they would make of these pseudo-religions today? It is no secret that L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church of Scientology largely as a joke and tax scam." --lwm

Most "religion" is an abomination. Scientology may even be more honest than the Pope's product. :-)

Indies Shah (sp?) once gave an interview and claimed that almost all "gurus" were charlatans. Well how are we to know the honest teachers then?, he was asked. (I know that grammar must be wrong) He answered that the real teacher keeps graduating students and does not keep a following. He freely gives of his wisdom. Ha! I bet Pat Robertson would never hear of that!

Anyway we are becoming an impediment to the anthrax hunters on the thread and I'll quit with this: the man who really finds the mystical path does not feel any need to share it with others --- not need to evangelize or form groups. Someday on a quite thread ask me why I think so.

For now, I must get ready for work and a niece's wedding. The first big-ass wedding in the family in years. The first big one on the Filipino side that I have had the chance to see. Apparently the reception could last days.

What are you up to?

I was basically saying, given the fact that your link was so wacky

Most links on the internet are "wacky". This is not to suggest that Dr. Len Horowitz didn't cobble together something that looked respectable but culled from other people's work. He does has have a Masters in PH so he can't be a total dummy, but the MPH is only a credential. Even a link from Wing Nut Daily can proviide useful information on occasion. I have come up with more wacky links than anyone here, except sysprog.

They are even immortalized for posterity along with sysprog's at this guys website:

http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/what-they-were-saying-gifts-of-links-from-the-commenters-at-unclaimed-territory/

In intelligence work, some poor bastard has to read everything and glean the useful and meaningful bits from all the dross and drek. Separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak So don't take it personally when someone points out that your link is whack. They are only trying to help but being a giant ass about it from your point of view.

I think that issue has been fairly thoroughly mined here. Can't dig up the links quickly, but at least one post demonstrated (with a number of quotes) that the phrase was in common parlance at the time. That Ivins (or anyone) would have used it isn't surprising in that context. Perhaps the author of that post could respond.

Thank God I read every comment! Now I'll be able to re-jet my carbeuretors just by davaning! Rings showing too much leak-down? Barouch atoh Adonai, me'lehenyu meloch ha'olem... Whadayou know, it's .oo3 over, and flycut!

I wonder what's the brocha for main bearings?

The Litvaks are gonna open a machine shop! LWM, a lifetime's membership to you, bro.

Someone asked this question -- I think at the document dump. The answer was a bit weasely but the bottom line was that they couldn't establish a link with Ivins' handwriting. That is a very significant hole if they're trying to say he was working alone since they had the letters and could easily have obtained sample of Ivins' handwriting.

Even I won't go quite that far. It is the practice of it, the acts, not the beliefs themselves, although I no longer subscribe to such beliefs. I do think there are individuals in every religion or faith who are sincere and well-meaning, perhaps even in Scientology and the Kabbalah center, but they are just misguided and they are the victims of a mechanism for perpetrating a fraud in my view. Send your progressive friends with a spiritual/religious drive here:

http://www.talk2action.org/

But here, where I'm at, we have the cicadas at full volume. Sleep right throught the wake-up call . . .

Dog Days Of Summer, as explained by Wiki:

"The phrase Dog Days or "the dog days of summer", refers to the hottest, most sultry days of summer. They are a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere that usually falls between early July and early September but the actual dates vary greatly from region to region, depending on latitude and climate. Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress."

Dull. Lack of progress. Stagnant.

Like the letters here.

Today's Salon headlines:

*The art world's Pepsi Generation - "Beautiful Losers" chronicles the art rebels of the '90s, fueled by punk, skateboarding, graffiti and trash culture. Now brought to you by Nike!

*Turn around, Bright Eyes

*Guilty in Guantánamo

*Thomas Frank on the Bush administration: Sabotage by design

Sheesh, time to move to the southern hemisphere, already.

Went through the last twenty pages. Whew.

Just one thing:

Very early on there was focus on those Fort Detrick lab employees. And the anthrax attacks would have been deep in their memories.

Didn't the FBI ask Ivins and others to recreate what they did those days when the anthrax could have been put in the mailboxes? Look at work schedules, ask colleagues and family members where they were during that time?

The simple answer is, of course they did. Ivins apparently sent emails to friends, so they would know if he sent any on those days, or in the evenings, when the letters were mailed.

And if there were gaps in Ivins' timeline where he could have delivered those envelopes on those dates, don't you think that the FBI would have paraded out that evidence? After all, it would have trumped anything dumped on Wednesday.

This is not an extraordinary investigative technique, finding out if the guy had the time to deliver the weapon. If he couldn't, then eliminate him.

As a suspect, I mean.