Sunday, March 25, 2012

Mar. 25, - Mar. 31, 2012 Discussions

I got a great deal of work done on my new book last week. I hope to start contacting agents and publishers in late April.

It appears that the Kazakh/Russian attack on my web site is over. But there's still a mystery surrounding some POST commands done by a Russian site.

The argument on this blog over whether or not the EBAP report was "biased" does not appear to be resolvable. So, it's just a waste of time. Opinion versus opinion arguments accomplish nothing.

The argument says nothing about whether Ivins was guilty or innocent.
The argument says nothing about the facts of the case.

I probably wasted more time on that argument last week than I should have.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Mar. 18 - Mar. 24, 2012 Discussions

The main comment I wrote on Sunday, March 18 was about my finally getting started on the second draft of my new book. I'm currently trying to figure out what to write about the "non-demotion" that Ivins seems to have been informed of in August 2001. Ivins seems to have been told that Patricia Worsham was going to be promoted to become his supervisor, effective in early 2002. I know Ivins knew of the change in September 2001, because he wrote a nasty letter related to the "non-demotion" on Sept. 27, 2001. But, I've only got an "impression" or just a "feeling" that he was informed of it in August. He was going to be working for a woman, which would be a real problem for Ivins. And, that woman was younger and less experienced than Ivins was. That would have been a real blow to Ivins' ego, and a bigger motivator than a lot of other concerns he had at the time.

However, another topic for discussion on this blog could be the comment I wrote on Saturday, when I mentioned how an Anthrax Truther on Lew Weinstein's web site "outed" another Truther's "suspect" and criticized a third Truther's theory at the same time. And he explained that the third Anthrax Truther's "suspect" is a fourth Anthrax Truther.

Publicly naming a Truther's "suspect" was a true breach of confidence, but the Truther on Weinstein's site has also made it a practice to repeatedly and publicly name a suspect I had back in 2001 (He got the name from newspaper articles, not from me). I had to delete a post on this blog when he tried to do it here.

I thought the posting on Lew's site was a good illustration of how the Truthers each has his own suspect, and each thinks all the others are totally wrong. The only thing they agree about is that the FBI must be wrong, because if the FBI is right, then every one of their own individual theories must be wrong. And none of them believes his own theory can be wrong.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Mar. 11 - Mar. 17, 2012 Discussions

The main subject in my comment for Sunday, March 11, is the lunatic theories from the Lunatic Fringe which argue that inconclusive evidence should be considered conclusive toward proving Bruce Ivins to have been innocent.

If, seven years after the attack, Bruce Ivins didn't have the pen that was used to address the anthrax envelopes, the Truthers argue that should mean he was innocent.

Or, isn't that what they're claiming? They don't actually make claims. Instead they make statements: "Experts determined that there was not a single exemplar written by him in which the distinctive “fluid-like” ink used on the envelope was a match." So what!? They don't exactly say why they made such a statement, but they IMPLY that it means something.

It's probably too late to do anything in the Amerithrax case, but it seems like it might be a good idea to create a new law that would authorize the creation of a Special Inquest in situations of national importance where a jury trial cannot be held because the accused killer either died or in some other way became unable to stand trial. It could also be a jury trial in absentia, which occasionally take place when a person on trial escapes custody and thereby waves his constitutional right to face his accusers.

The Anthrax Truthers currently seem to be hoping the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will somehow overturn the DOJ's closing of the Amerithrax case. When that doesn't happen, they'll be claiming that the GAO is part of "the government's" coverup of what really happened.

Many others (including me) hope that some kind of Congressional Investigation of the Amerithrax case will take place. But that seems highly unlikely.

The Internet is giving the Lunatic Fringe a bigger voice in public matters than they ever had in the past. No one wants to cut off their freedom of speech, but many people seem to have the bizarre, almost INSANE belief that dead people should always be presumed innocent because they cannot stand trial. And Anthrax Truthers constantly make up new rules of evidence to suit themselves.

So, it seems that -- in crimes of great national interest -- it might be worthwhile to hold trials or inquests in absentia to allow a jury to decide if the evidence really says beyond a reasonable doubt that a dead person did commit the crimes for which he's accused.

If nothing else, such a trial would stop all the endless arguments about what a jury would or would not have done.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mar. 4 - Mar. 10, 2012 Discussions

On Sunday morning I uploaded two PDF files showing FBI photographs of Bruce Ivins' office and laboratory which I obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Click HERE to view the photos of Ivins' Laboratory.
Click HERE to view the photos of Ivins' Office.

I also commented on the continuing attack from Kazakhstan, and on a new problem with someone in China who seems to have a badly written search-engine-type program that changes IP addresses with every read and runs all day long, causing my statistics to show hundreds of visitors that are really only that one guy.

I also commented on last week's arguments on this blog where the Anthrax Truthers continue to distort the facts in the case against Ivins in order to argue that there's something wrong with the evidence. Meanwhile, of course, they continue to avoid showing what kind of evidence they have proving their own suspects are the real culpits, because they they have no real evidence. They seem to think that by discrediting the FBI's case with distortions they can somehow make people think that their own cases have validity.