I realize you cannot handle the FACT that AFIP explicitly stated in VERY CLEAR English that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax.
I also realize that seeing pictures of WEAPONIZED spores that are COATED with silica is also hard for you to handle.
Lots more Hatfill exhibits are due today. In opposing a motion for summary judgment, a party will point to what they view as creating a triable issue of fact. If their adversary has said the fact is established, they will seek to show that there is a genuine issue by introducing or pointing to some deposition testimony or document that shows that there is an issue for trial. On the pond story, Attorney Seikaly is the one who pointed out that the box could be used for a meth lab. I don’t know the technology and can’t comment — but my research caused me to think the plastic sweater box with holes in it was a minnow trap.
By way of background, Marilyn Thompson, author of The Killer Strain, reported in the Washington Post on May 11, 2003 that in its search of the ponds, the FBI found what appears to some to be be an improvised”glove box” and also (supposedly) wrapped vials. I believe that we never heard more about wrapped vials supposedly found but Ed might know. Marilyn T. described it as a “clear box” — other reports describe it as a plastic tub. There was no claim that the glove box has been tied to Dr. Hatfill or that the vials had been. The pond is located near Ft. Detrick. It certainly makes one wonder what fascinating things might lurk in the ponds of nearby parks. The box reportedly had a rope — later described as more like a shoestring) attached. This is what pointed to it being a minnow trap as that is how such a thing is retrieved.
”If there is anthrax in the water, I am relatively sure that the water is safe,” the Mayor of Frederick said to the local paper. No trace of anthrax was found. The story was hugely prejudicial. Attorney Seikaly’s leaking of the story may have handed Hatfill’s attorneys a meritorious Section 1983 claim under the civil rights statute, particularly after the similarly sourced ABC and CBS stories about agents who were convinced he was guilty. If the Department of Justice permitted those leaks to occur — or if the leaks were by a “managing agent” — it risks Section 1983 liability itself. Now we have seen the FBI did a media leak investigation in 2002 that was patently insufficient and so Dr. Hatfill’s attorneys seemed to have remained on track in developing their theory. Moreover, as to a Privacy Act claim, they have established that the list of “persons of interest” is kept in a database. And so in both respects, the DOJ is going to have to do some fancy footwork. The results of litigation are always uncertain and so it is anyone’s guess how a decision-maker, after studying the legal arguments and case precedent, will decide.
Newsweek, on the plastic tub story, reported: “While some law-enforcement officials are taking the novel theory seriously, others have dismissed it as fantasy. ‘It got a lot of giggles,’ says one FBI source.” As many schoolboy knows (or at least any schoolboy with google available to him could readily learn), a rope or shoestring is used to retrieve a minnow trap from the bottom of a pond. The USA Today first reported that a rope was found attached to the plastic container. That reporter confides that her sources insist that no gloves were in fact found as reported in the Washington Post. Allan L. had a sole source for that.
“While some law-enforcement officials are taking the novel theory seriously, others have dismissed it as fantasy. ‘It got a lot of giggles,’ says one FBI source.”
Clawson relying on details from their own “sources,” reportedly said it was “like a K-Mart sweater box; like a piece of Tupperware that just happened to have a hole in it.” Then he added, “From what I understand it doesn’t have anything to do with bioweapons.” School children are even taught online to study the flow of water systems using plastic sweater boxes with a hole cut in it and take it to the pond or stream.
TOP 10 USES OF A PLASTIC SWEATER BOX FOUND AT A POND
1. to incubate snake or turtle eggs,
2. breeding crickets,
3. snake feeding room,
4. live bait dispenser,
5. common school project to study the flow of water systems,
6. minnow or turtle trap,
7. turtle transporter,
8. breeding waxworms,
9. illicit use of the street drug meth,
10. pumping up someone’s litigation claims.
The area they were searching is a quarter mile west of Fishing Creek Road. According to the Gambrill Park webpage, a small pond, located in the Rock Run area is popular for fishing for large mouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish. As explained by one web thread “Minnow trap advice,” even bluegill can be caught using a minnow trap (not just minnows) There are many species of minnows in ponds. A common minnow is the Golden Shiner. Minnows or shiners, mostly stocked as food for bass. The photo in Newsweek of the diver in the wetsuit from last December or January might best be captioned, as Brer Fox once asked Brer Rabbit, “Did you catch minnows or a cold?”
Some minnow traps are rectangular boxes such as illustrated by Pat No. 5,131,184 (1992) that look even more closely like a glove box . As the Baltimore Sun reported, explains, what was found was NOT a commercial glove box. If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit. My favorite suggestion is that it relates to the infestation of Maryland ponds of the Crofton snakehead, a species ruinous to ecosystems that someone released from an aquarium. Numerous traps were set to rid Maryland ponds of the creature.
The news stories suggest the image of someone sticking their gloved hands into the box while underwater. Well, how does water not rush through the holes? Did Hatfill stick his hands into the box outside the water, walk awkwardly into the water, then submerge the box? Water would seep through. Here is another question in this fanciful scenario imagined by some in the press and their unnamed sources: where are the “port” or “securing ring” -like devices? If this box was used as alleged, why would these devices be taken away by the perp instead of left there too?
William Patrick’s formula for making BG — using silica — is online. (I have no idea why Ed for five years argued silica was not used in making simulants (even when dispersed by aerosol rather than bombs or missiles). Dr. Patrick’s protestations that he would only talk about it at conferences with those who had a “need to know” lies in contrast to what is available to someone using google (from a conference where the audience did not have a need to know such specifics). But if Dr. Patrick and Dr. Alibek felt some comfortable giving details while talking about the threat of terrorists using anthrax, then I can appreciate that the theory they might have shared the information with Dr. Hatfill is perfectly reasonable. Patrick and Alibek spoke alongside Dr. Hatfill for example at a 1998 conference when the three were the speakers at a conference. A Hatfill theory may have been wrong but it always needed to be vigorously explored. But given someone working with Bin Laden’s sheik and lecturing on the end of times was drinking from the same water cooler — he was the far better POI. To the extent there was compartmentalization between squads even at that time, the members of the one squad might not have known that. But Howard, Seikaly, and Van Harp should have known that — after February 2003, Attorney Seikaly’s leaks are even more dumbfounding unless, for whatever reason, they were intended to distract attention from a theory involving Al-Timimi’s access to know-how.
I’ve emailed Attorney Seikaly, his sister-in-law (who with his brother) spoke and wrote about not assuming terrorism was related to Bin Laden. Then his daughter, who came to represent Al-Timimi, pro bono, in the sedition case. The pro bono assets for the Virginia Paintball defendants arranged by a colleague (Nubani) who has worked with Lynne Stewart and Stanley Cohen in defending the blind sheik and affiliates (according to an article online in the ABA Journal). I first wrote Attorney Seikaly and his relatives in December 2007 and haven’t heard since. I called another lawyer at the daughter’s firm and he refused to discuss it. And so by all means, if there is any information they would like to point out as incorrect, they should contact me. But, I, for one, am very disappointed that all the most senior people did not follow Lambert’s example in January 2003 and waive any release of confidentiality and agree to a polygraph.
In the event the plastic tub was homemade, note that frugal fishermen on the internet post directions on how to make a homemade minnow trap:
“I don’t take credit for this I saw it on Rec. Ponds awhile ago Take an empty 2 liter bottle, cut off the top where it is as round as the rest. (making a funnel) invert it back into the rest of the bottle and staple it back together. Put in some food (I used bread)I also tie a string onto it by putting a small hole on the bottom and fishing the string through the funnel hole. Drop it in and wait about an hour an pull it back up. I caught about 20 per container The fish can swim in but can’t get out.”
“A basic rule of aquatic research,” another poster explains, “is that you have to be prepared to lose anything you put in the water.”
The way a minnow or turtle trap works is that the small fish or turtle can swim in but can’t swim out — sort of like being named a Person of Interest.
A Washington Post article on May 30, 2003 characterized the false positive as merely a conflicting lab report and the tantalizing (albeit casually dropped) new discovery of gloves wrapped in plastic. Can you imagine the leaker gleefully seizing the issue of the gloves allegedly found, challenging detractors to a duel, and saying “Take that!” We are also told that investigators were “surprised” not to find traces of anthrax at the places they searched. Other “agents fear that draining the pond, estimated to cost $250,000, could prove useless and embarrassing.” The article states: “The business acquaintance’s tip offered a clue to how the bioterrorism crimes could have been carried out.” (He then went on to be a supervisory analyst at the FBI and write a 600+ page thesis on anthrax in Zimbabwe supervised by Ken Alibek.) The same suggestion that a glove box could be used — or that insertion could be made outdoors — was made by numerous people in a group called anthrax_fans (at) coollist.com. It would occur to anyone naturally — even though it went against the suggestion that a million dollar containment facility would be needed. We shouldn’t blame the press (too much). At the time of the leaks, I would never have imagined that the leaks were as senior. If you cannot trust the folks in charge of the investigation, who can you trust?
I don't know what leads you to that absurd and totally mistaken belief. (You seem to be plagued with mistaken beliefs.) I have the pictures of the Dugway spores on my web site. In my comments, I go into detail on how the "coating" was done and why there was no similar coating on clumps of two or more spores.
I'm working on a separate web page which will use illustrations to explain why the silica particles cling to the single spores but not to the tiny clumps. It will also describe why van der Waals forces will bind together lactose particles but will have negligible binding effect on spores.
Solid facts are ALWAYS welcome with me, even if they show I was wrong about something -- especially if they show I was wrong about something. Those Dugway photos explained a great deal, as did the explanations within the article. While they didn't show I was wrong about the attack anthrax, they showed that things were done to weaponize spores during the Cold War that seem antiquated today.
Because I want to get the new web page done, I'm going to have to reduce the time I spend arguing with someone who absolutely REFUSES to look at facts and who just chants mindless slogans the way you do.
I realize you cannot handle the FACT that AFIP explicitly stated in VERY CLEAR English that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax.
I can handle it with no problem whatsoever. It is YOU who cannot handle even the possibility that AFIP screwed up. You just change the subject whenever I ask you how they failed to notice the "polymerized glass" in the Daschle anthrax.
You suggest that Geisbert would be a "baffoon" if he made a mistake. Evidently, you believe he, too, must be totally infallable. Those seem to be the only ways you can describe people. They are either baffoons or infallable.
When I point out that Giesbert's boss told a Congressional Committee that Geisbert was inexperienced with weaponized materials and made a mistake, you just change the subject again.
Your arguments are being reduced to the mindless chanting of slogans: AFIP is infallable! Geisbert is infallable! Van der Waals forces bind everything!
It's a big waste of time to argue with someone who just mindlessly chants slogans -- particularly if the slogans are STUPID. But, I'll continue to do it from time to time because the arguments help me understand how conspiracy theorists think and how they avoid discussing facts.