[TrebleRebel]

Ah yes, the grand conspiracy theory. All these government sources lied and misled the media on seeing coatings. And the FBI published a paper citing, as evidence there were no coatings, an article that said EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. Fortunately most people have now worked that out.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/fbisecretlyrecreate.html
Investigators and experts have said the spores in the Daschle and Leahy letters were uniformly between 1 and 3 microns in size, and were coated with fine particles of frothy silica glass.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sophisticatedstrainanthrax.html

Government sources tell NEWSWEEK that the secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground to a microscopic fineness not achieved by U.S. biological-weapons experts. The Leahy anthrax — mailed in an envelope that was recovered unopened from a Washington post office last November — also was coated with a chemical compound unknown to experts who have worked in the field for years; the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union. The combination of the intense milling of the bacteria and the unusual coating produced an anthrax powder so fine and fluffy that individually coated anthrax spores were found in the Leahy envelope, something that U.S. bioweapons experts had never seen.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxpowdernotroutine.html

Extensive lab tests of the anthrax powder have revealed new details about how the powder was made, including the identity of a chemical used to coat the trillions of microscopic spores to keep them from clumping together.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/unusualcoating.html

Scientists have found a new chemical in the coating on the anthrax spores mailed to journalists and politicians last fall, a high-ranking government official said Wednesday.

[ZacandPook]

Debra asks that I note something for her —

“As far as coating the spores in resin, that is incorrect too. Though for obvious common sense reasons I won’t elaborate further, I’ll just point out that coating spores in resin would increase their particle size and mass, decreasing their ability to “float”.

She was referring to resin, not silica.

I’m the only one allowed to unintentionally distort her views.

BTW, although I haven’t asked her specifically, I’m sure she thinks US-based supporters of Al Qaeda were responsible for the anthrax mailings and she thinks Ed’s view that the FACTS establish a First Grader wrote the letter is really silly.

[ZacandPook]

Debra asks that I note something for her —

“As far as coating the spores in resin, that is incorrect too. Though for obvious common sense reasons I won’t elaborate further, I’ll just point out that coating spores in resin would increase their particle size and mass, decreasing their ability to “float”.

She was referring to resin, not silica.

I’m the only one allowed to unintentionally distort her views.

BTW, although I haven’t asked her specifically, I’m sure she thinks US-based supporters of Al Qaeda were responsible for the anthrax mailings and she thinks Ed’s view that the FACTS establish a First Grader wrote the letter is really silly.

[EdLake]

Ah yes, the grand conspiracy theory. All these government sources lied and misled the media on seeing coatings.

Actually, it's the other way around. It's you with "the grand conspiracy theory." It's the media which misled the government agencies. You always get things backwards.

Let's summarize:

Here's what coated spores look like:

You believe that because anthrax experts such as Meselson and Alibek have stated that they saw no coatings on the spores they must either be lying or incompetent. Is that correct?

On the other hand, you cannot name a single person who has stated for the record that they saw coatings on the spores. But you believe such people exist because you believe that van der Waals forces require that the spores be coated to keep them from binding together. Is that correct?

You believe that spores will bind together the same way as particles of lactose will bind together, and it doesn't make any difference to you that lactose is comprised totally of polar molecules which would naturally bind together. Is that correct?

It doesn't matter to you that the anthrax disease was discovered because spores were floating freely around and killing people in wool sorting factories during the Industrial Revolution. Is this also part of some "big lie" to you? How long has this "big lie" been going on?

And the fact that anthrax bacteria create spores in a process called "sporulation" which ends with a process called "lysing" where the spores are released from the dead mother germ to float away in any breeze means nothing to you. It doesn't matter to you that, if your beliefs about van der Waals forces were true, spores could not exist. In fact, if your beliefs about van der Waals forces were true, the universe as we know it could not exist because everything in the universe would have to be bound together in one big ball. Is that correct?

You cannot provide any science to show that spores require a coating, but instead you rely on media articles and other articles based upon second-hand and third-hand knowledge and/or mistaken beliefs about the attack spores. Is that correct?

Douglas Beecher of the FBI's labs at Quantico wrote in his article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology on page 5309:

Purification of spores may exacerbate their dissemination to some extent by removing adhesive contaminants and maximizing spore concentration. However, even in a crude state, dried microbial agents have been long considered especially hazardous. Experiments mimicking laboratory accidents have demonstrated that simply breaking vials of lyophilized bacterial cultures creates concentrated and persistent aerosols.

Do you consider this a lie?

Doug Beecher also wrote this:

...even if most of a spore powder is bound in relatively few large particles, some fraction is composed of particles that are precisely in the size range that is most hazardous for transmission of disease by inhalation.

Do you consider this a lie? Or do you believe Doug Beecher is incompetent?

Doug Beecher also wrote this on page 5309:

Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents. However, a widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.

If I understand you correctly, you believe this is all lies and says just the opposite of what it says. Is that correct?

Are you sure you don't believe in some "grand conspiracy" where the FBI is out to disprove your ridiculous beliefs?

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com