Forgive me if someone has brought this up before, but wouldn't the existence of an accomplice in this crime explain the mailing schedule inconsistencies? Ivins must have handed the letters off to another guy to do the actual mailing.

Obviously the FBI would not want to broach this subject because it implies that Ivins was just the supplier, not the mailer, and therefore the real bad guy is still on the loose. Also, it means the mailer might still have a supply of anthrax to use in the future.

Or maybe I've just been watching too many episodes of Monk lately. Nevermind.

Quote, Glenn: "To the contrary, in touting the FBI's brand new theory, Johnson wrote that "government sources offered more detail about Ivins's movements on a critical day in the case" -- as though the FBI's abandonment of its prior claim in favor of a new one comprised "more detail." The FBI didn't offer "more detail"; it offered completely "new detail" because the last "detail" they leaked to Johnson was almost instantaneously disproven -- a fact Johnson doesn't even bother to mention. Instead, she just allows the FBI's story to change radically and then serves as a vessel for that new story as though it's further incriminating proof, rather than a reflection of the fact that the FBI still has no idea whether it was Ivins who went to New Jersey to mail those letters."

You should address this Ms. Johnson or you'll remain looking like a first class Stooge.

Stooge, get it, a golden knee padded Stooge.

When a story might take too much work or cause too much discomfort for the established powers, but has gained a certain amount of attention, the best way to address it - while at the same time dismissing it - is by invoking the internet and aliens. Here's a demonstration from 2004 which couldn't have been more rehearsed. The comment in parenthesis after Russert asks the question is mine, from memory, not from the transcripts.

http://perf2.msnbc.msn.com/id/6267835/

MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, Mr. Mehlman, clear up this mystery that has been raging on the Internet. This was the first debate, George Bush at the podium, the bulge in the back of the suit. All right. Come clean. What is it?

(At this point Russert, using a picture of Bush from the debate, actually circles the very obvious visible box-like bulge.)

MR. MEHLMAN: The president, in fact, was receiving secret signals from aliens in outer space. You heard it here on MEET THE PRESS.

MR. SHRUM: You mean you sent Rove into orbit.

MR. RUSSERT: It was not a bulletproof vest or magnets for his back or anything?

MR. MEHLMAN: I'm not sure what it was, but the gentleman responsible for the tailoring of that suit is no longer working for this administration.

MR. SHRUM: Well, wait a minute. Now, the president only wears Oxford clothes. I'll bet that tailor is still there.

MR. RUSSERT: May we all be smiling this way on November 2.

See, the MSM gets a chance to good-naturedly mock something that was causing speculation, thereby fulfilling their obligation to present it, while also insinuating that the topic is closed except to the marginal and loony.

According to the WaPo excerpt:

"... government sources briefed on the case said yesterday."

The "government sources" were "briefed" - assume FBI was doing the briefing of FBI, Justice and Bush Administration political appointees.

So FBI may not be the "sources" for this story.

Also, the journalistic notion of multiple sources establishing verification and credibility in a story like this is nonsense - the sources would have to be government.

As we know, these guys get the memo and all repeat the talking points while sticking to their story.

The main reason is the quality of the spore preparation.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1490

Last week, US Senator Bill Frist announced that the powder in the Daschle letter was in particles 1.5 to 3.0 microns wide, a very narrow size range. The results of the physical analysis of the New York Post letter are not yet known.

For comparison, a human hair is about 90 microns in diameter, and the limit of unaided human vision is around half that - so you couldn't even see the particles in the air, unless they were scattering light. For comparison, cloud water particles are less then 20 microns in diameter, but we see clouds because the particles scatter light, so we see fog, etc. Science is fun!

So, what size is the bacillus anthracis organism itself?

Bacillus Anthracis: 1.0 to 1.5 micron diameter, 3.0 to 5.0 micron length

That means that the preparation was pure spores - and not just pure, capable of aerosolizing into individual spores. Thanks to the Oct 9 anthrax letters, everyone around the world now has a good idea of how to do this "Anthrax Trick". If I can make a decent guess at it using publicly available information, I'm sure the Russian biowarfare program can too. So, I think it is okay to discuss the details of this particular issue publicly.

There is only one technology capable of creating liquid aerosols with precisely defined diameters, and that is something called electrospray. A thin stream of liquid is subjected to an electric field, causing it to break into droplets of very specific size, based on various parameters that you don't need to know about.

In a low-humidity sealed chamber, those droplets will evaporate, leaving only the solid materials behind. This is how the drug industry hoped to create dry powder inhalant drugs, using proprietary technology controlled by Battelle Memorial Institute - for example, one recipe is a mix of antibiotics with other chemicals (sugars, mostly). Want to see the details? Just click the link at signature, or cut and paste:

http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/12.02/12.02.1419.cfm

Introduction -Experimental System and Methods

Liquid Break-Up, Droplet Dispersion, and Monodispersity - Required Liquid Physical Properties and Scaling Laws - Electric Charge: Consequences and the Need to Neutralize the Droplets - The Need for Multiplexing - The BattellePharma Electrospray Nebulizers

There is NO WAY you can create such a preparation using a lyophilizer, even if one had a 100% pure spore preparation. What a lyophilizer does is extract water under vacuum, at low temperature - the material typically ends up stuck together in clumps, definitely not as individual silica-coated spores. You get big chunks, and a wide range of particle sizes, definitely not a 1.5-3.0 micron spread. (Viruses like smallpox, by comparison, are about 1/100th that size.)

This leads back to the anonymous leak that led to the WaPo's "scoop": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/08/04/ST2008080402359.html

Anthrax Dryer a Key To Probe: Suspect Borrowed Device From Lab, By Carrie Johnson, Joby Warrick and Marilyn W. Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writers, Tuesday, August 5, 2008; Page A01 - "Bruce E. Ivins, the government's leading suspect in the 2001 anthrax killings, borrowed from a bioweapons lab that fall freeze-drying equipment that allows scientists to quickly convert wet germ cultures into dry spores, according to sources briefed on the case."

Joby Warrick has a lot to answer for, as do his editors. This reporter has been publishing FBI leaks, contradictory or not, ever since day one, and even though his stories contain blatant contradictions to his earlier stories, the WaPo has never printed a correction. Who, exactly, was Joby Warrick's source for this story? And why didn't he check it before repeating it verbatim?

The media hasn't changed since they repeated all the lies about Iraqi nuclear and biological weapons without question - still the same story. Ivin's didn't have the necessary equipment to make the Oct 9th spore preparation, so there is no way he could have been the culprit. Who did? The only people who had access to both the Ames strain and the necessary technology were affiliated with Battelle, and more specifically, the Battelle start-up, "Battelle Pulmonary Therapeutics."