An authority on what? That furniture polish isn't a good way to remove fingerprints from paper? That would be like looking for an "authority" that says putting paper in a washing machine and washing it isn't a good way to remove fingerprints. Who would be in the "authority" that? Who would think of doing such a thing in the first place?
Furniture polish is for polishing furniture. The fact that it says on the label that it "removes fingerprints" doesn't automatically mean that it removes fingerprints from paper unless proven otherwise. A spray polish would soak into the paper. It would leave the paper covered with WAX or SILICONE. Would anyone want that obvious "side effect"?
The reasonable inference, I think, is that the sender does want to have his 7/11 explanation credited.
Could you explain that? The sender wants to have his July 11 explanation credited? What does that mean? That he wants to have it printed in the paper? That he wants the FBI to check out the way he used furniture polish? That he wants to go down in history as the guy who first realized that the anthrax envelopes of 2001 were coated with furniture polish?
Now as a logical possibility that should be pursued, if it were a militant islamist, one hypothesis is that the sender is looking to create a “reasonable doubt” relating to Amerithrax.
How would it create "reasonable doubt?" The FBI would undoubtedly know and be able to prove beyond any doubt if the envelopes used in the 2001 mailings were soaked with furniture polish or not.
Personally, I think it looks like a woman’s handwriting. So I tend to favor a vigorous running down of all employees in the NYC area who might have a beef they expressed to their teenager (a teen planning on going to college).
What is it about the handwriting that suggests it is the handwriting of a woman? Granted, it's very neat handwriting. But it certainly isn't the writing of a teenage girl. The writing by hand of 70 letters (and 3 explanation letters) says it's someone who is virtually obsessed with getting his (or her) message into print. It's not something done as a "joke."
I wrote:
“The reasonable inference, I think, is that the sender does want to have his 7/11 explanation credited.”
You wrote:
“Could you explain that? The sender wants to have his July 11 explanation credited?”
Sure. The sender of the letter wants the FBI to think that the person dictating the letter (and taking the dictation) want the FBI to believe that they are a parent and a teenager girl respectively. And that the 70 letters were a prank intended to be creative and funny, and in retaliation for some beef one of the parents had/has with Godlman Sachs.
You write:
“How would it create “reasonable doubt?” The FBI would undoubtedly know and be able to prove beyond any doubt if the envelopes used in the 2001 mailings were soaked with furniture polish or not.”
I would hope so. This perp may not be schooled in such fine details.
You write:
“What is it about the handwriting that suggests it is the handwriting of a woman?”
It’s just my personal, inexpert opinion. If it’s not woman, he writes like a female.
You write:
“But it certainly isn’t the writing of a teenage girl. The writing by hand of 70 letters (and 3 explanation letters) says it’s someone who is virtually obsessed with getting his (or her) message into print. It’s not something done as a ‘joke.’”
I think you are likely right. I mean I can see a copy machine. But recopying it 70 times seems a bit much.
I would think the writer is a female and someone who has spent many years in the United States. You imagined the Amerithrax mailer watches Bill O’Reilly, so I’ll imagine the letter writer to watch Law and Order and an activist. You imagined the Amerithrax perp to be a drunk and so I’ll imagine the letter writer to be beautiful and charming. I mean, red pretty writing. What’s up with that? Everything about the Goldman Sachs letters is charming — not at all scary.
You imagined the perp to be that Wisconsin bowler based on a botched report that Brian Ross made on December 20, 2001 — when he misunderstood what his source was telling him. (The Battelle connection was right and the insider part was right —but he mistakenly filled in all the details based on a report early in the Fall). The leak actually related to my calling the CIA on the batphone about the perp and it went straight to the top. But it wasn’t the FBI that was leaking to Brian Ross and the actual source just butchered it.
So I’ll recommend Badabing Badablonde as the perp.
I mean all those Eiffel Tower pictures TrebleRebel have got me thinking that Badabing has some damn fine penmanship.