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Government is making matters much worse than need be when it speaks in such ambiguous terms as "not a naturally-occurring source" and then leaves it to folks like us to try to decipher and debate what that means.

Clearly, our government does not think they we can handle the truth and therefore it is O.K. to lie to us for our own good. The first time that Bob Stevens' illness was reported, they should have said "We don't know what to make of this, but it concerns us and raises many questions which demand an answer. We will leave no stone unturned in our investigation of this development and will let the American public know what the facts are just as soon we know them." Instead, they said that they KNEW that it was an isolated, naturally occurring event, and that there was nothing to investigate or worry about. And they didn't investigate until the second exposure (of Mr. Stevens' co-worker) was shoved under their nose.

Now they have had to eat those words, but the newly used words are still unsatisfactory. We need to be told that the evidence is clear that someone has a stock of anthrax and is attempting to spread it. They should say if the strain is one which can occur in nature, but that these exposures did not naturally occur. On the other hand, they need to say if the strain had to have been produced in a laboratory and if so what this strain is and what that means.

They need to state quite clearly that someone intentionally did this, that it was an act of homocide -- indeed, murder and attempted murder -- and that it was not done by just any disgruntled nut case because a person like that wouldn't have access to anthrax or the knowledge of how to disperse it.

Now they are saying on the news that it this not an act of terrorism because only one person died and so few instances of exposure were confirmed. That is so infuriating and is just more of the same old B.S.

An act of terrorism is not defined by how successful it is or the scale on which it is carried out. Whoever did this must be presumed to have intended to inflict terror on people. Terror can be caused by acts which cause one or three or ten people to die of anthrax every month or so.

Nothing at all is accomplished by our government lying to us and not telling us what they know about what is going on.