Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Subject: Conspiracy Theorist Psychology

A 2013 article from Slate magazine titled  "Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Really Skeptics: The fascinating psychology of people who know the real truth about JFK, UFOs, and 9/11" contains these key sections:


Conspiracy chatter was once dismissed as mental illness. But the prevalence of such belief, documented in surveys, has forced scholars to take it more seriously. Conspiracy theory psychology is becoming an empirical field with a broader mission: to understand why so many people embrace this way of interpreting history. As you’d expect, distrust turns out to be an important factor.

and

The strongest predictor of general belief in conspiracies, the authors found, was “lack of trust.”

and

More broadly, it’s a tendency to focus on intention and agency, rather than randomness or causal complexity. In extreme form, it can become paranoia. In mild form, it’s a common weakness known as the fundamental attribution error—ascribing others’ behavior to personality traits and objectives, forgetting the importance of situational factors and chance. Suspicion, imagination, and fantasy are closely related.

The more you see the world this way—full of malice and planning instead of circumstance and coincidence—the more likely you are to accept conspiracy theories of all kinds. Once you buy into the first theory, with its premises of coordination, efficacy, and secrecy, the next seems that much more plausible.


and

Psychologists and political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that “when processing pro and con information on an issue, people actively denigrate the information with which they disagree while accepting compatible information almost at face value.” Scholars call this pervasive tendency “motivated skepticism.”

Conspiracy believers are the ultimate motivated skeptics. Their curse is that they apply this selective scrutiny not to the left or right, but to the mainstream. They tell themselves that they’re the ones who see the lies, and the rest of us are sheep.

This would seem to apply to True Believers, also.  True Believers tend to think they are the only ones who can see the TRUTH, and the rest of us are just ignorant sheep.

The September 2013 issue of PSY-PAG (Psycology Post-Graduate Affairs Group) Quarterly is a special issue devoted to "The psychology of conspiracy theories."  The 56 page magazine contains these articles about conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.

"An introduction into the world of conspiracy" - Christopher Thresher-Andrews

"Towards a definition of ‘conspiracy theory’" - Robert Brotherton

"A review of different approaches to study belief in conspiracy theories" - Anthony Lantian

"The psychology of conspiracy theories blog - http://www.conspiracypsychology.com"

"Has the internet been good for conspiracy theorising?" - Michael Wood

"The detrimental nature of conspiracy theories" - Daniel Jolley

The second PSY-PAG article on the above list, "Towards a definition of 'conspiracy theory'" poses an interesting question:

The claim that members of the US government were complicit in the attacks of September 11, 2001, for instance, is generally branded a conspiracy theory (e.g. Dunbar & Reagan, 2006; Grossman, 2006), yet the label is rarely applied to the claim that members of al-Qaeda secretly planned and executed the attacks. The two claims both postulate a successful conspiracy to commit the attacks.  Why is it that, in popular discourse, the term conspiracy theory is applied to the former but not the latter?

One amusing answer is:

The situation has been likened to attempting to define pornography – a task which forced US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stuart to conclude simply, ‘I know it when I see it’ (Byford, 2011).

But, the more comprehensive and useful definition is in this statement:

I define conspiracy theory as an unverified claim of conspiracy which is not the most plausible account of an event or situation, and with sensationalistic subject matter or implications. In addition, the claim will typically postulate unusually sinister and competent conspirators. Finally, the claim is based on weak kinds of evidence, and is epistemically self-insulating against disconfirmation.

In other words, a "conspiracy theory" is typically implausible, sensationalistic, gives the conspirators super-abilities, is based upon weak evidence, and is so vague that it cannot be easily disproved.

The article also contains this:

Conspiracy theories are unverified claims.
Conspiracies have occurred throughout history, and occur in some form every day – in politics, organised crime, insider dealing, scams, and so on. Philosopher Charles Pigden points out that ‘if a conspiracy theory is simply a theory which posits a conspiracy, then every politically and historically literate person is a big-time conspiracy theorist’ (Pigden, 2007, p.222). However, this is not how the label is commonly used. The term usually refers to explanations which are not regarded as verified by legitimate epistemic authorities. The theory may be regarded as indisputably true by those who subscribe to it, but this belief is invariably at odds with the mainstream consensus among scientists, historians, or other legitimate judges of the claim’s veracity.

I couldn't have said it better myself. 
It certainly fits ALL the conspiracy theories related to the anthrax attacks of 2001 that I've heard during the past 12+ years.

Another article from 2013, this time from Scientific American Magazine, is titled "Insights into the Personalities of Conspiracy Theorists," and it begins with this:

Conspiracy theories and scientific theories attempt to explain the world around us. Both apply a filter of logic to the complexity of the universe, thereby transforming randomness into reason. Yet these two theoretical breeds differ in important ways. Scientific theories, by definition, must be falsifiable. That is, they must make reliable predictions about the world; and if those predictions turn out to be incorrect, the theory can be declared false. Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are tough to disprove. Their proponents can make the theories increasingly elaborate to accommodate new observations; and, ultimately, any information contradicting a conspiracy theory can be answered with, “Well sure, that’s what they want you to think.”

I think those three articles are enough to confirm that I'm not the only one who views "conspiracy theorists" as outside of the norm.  Conspiracy theorists tend to think of themselves as part of the majority, but, as I've written many times, they are just a fringe group that the vast majority of the public doesn't take seriously.  I don't see anything in these articles that disagrees with what I've been saying about conspiracy theorists for 12+ years.  

On the other hand, anarchist Alex Jones indicates he has a study which shows that conspiracy theorists are sane, and government dupes are crazy.   I found it by doing a Google search for conspiracy+theorist+majority.

Ed

112 comments:

  1. Okay, so onward and upward. Regarding the Malaysian airliner: I haven't much followed the story, unfortunately. So, you have me at a terrible disadvantage as to the details, sequence of events, various areas searched etc. My original disinterest was based on: 1) my lack of background in any of the specialties involved (air traffic control; radar; transponders etc.), not to mention knowing nothing about piloting with/without instruments, and how much/what an autopilot can do.
    2) my expectation that, for better or worse, the location would be pinpointed in a few days: my impression was that typically only smallish planes flying over wilderness areas and/or in war zones actually disappeared for any length of time.
    So, the fact that this is now STILL a news story just amazes me.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    So with the above caveats I will say this: if you can't find a substantial chunk of that aircraft and/or something verifiably belonging to someone who was on the aircraft,
    there's no basis for a total novice like me to say 'yeah, they're searching in the right place' or 'they're looking in the wrong place'. Only a 'find' will verify the former, and if nothing from the plane is ever found* then the 'right' place might appear evidentially the same as each and every 'wrong' place.

    *And naturally if some small item from the plane is found FLOATING many months or even years later, one would have to take into consideration: drifting from the point of impact.

    ReplyDelete
  2. R. Rowley wrote: "the fact that this is now STILL a news story just amazes me."

    It doesn't amaze me at all. It's a mystery. How can people NOT be interested in a mystery where 239 people disappeared? It amazes me to see people complain that it's costing too much money to find out what happened, and everyone should just give up. I find that attitude incomprehensible.

    If we don't find out what happened to MH370, we won't have any way to prevent it from happening again.

    PLUS, there are now a lot of conspiracy theorists voicing their opinions. And there are "experts" who do not have all the facts but still think the official investigators are wrong. They find some reporter to talk to who prints their ignorant theories as if they were "news" and "valid." I find that both amazing and fascinating.

    And I find it AMAZING how many people will accept total nonsense from some "outside 'expert'" over the official version instantly and unquestioningly. They ASSUME that if someone disagrees with the authorities, the authorities MUST be wrong.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "if you can't find a substantial chunk of that aircraft and/or something verifiably belonging to someone who was on the aircraft, there's no basis for a total novice like me to say 'yeah, they're searching in the right place' or 'they're looking in the wrong place'."

    Agreed. HOWEVER, there IS reason for a "novice" like me to study the evidence and facts presented by both sides and decide who is MOST LIKELY correct. It's educational.

    I have NO REASON whatsoever to think that the plane will NOT be found, or that it will be found in some other place than where they are now looking. The only reason the naysayers have is that "it's taking too long." They seem to feel that if there isn't solid evidence right away, then it's not being done right. The reality is that it's a BIG ocean, the evidence is far from exact, and the conditions for doing a search are horrendously bad. It took TWO YEARS to find the black box for Air France flight 447 which disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009, and they found the oil slick for where it went down the day after the crash.

    If find it fascinating how people think things that are incredibly complicated should somehow be very very simple. And, if results aren't found immediately, then there must be some kind of conspiracy at work. Or everyone involved must be incompetent.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mister Lake,

    I find it difficult to disagree with much of anything in your above post.

    But I'll make an EFFORT:
    ----------
    If find it fascinating how people think things that are incredibly complicated should somehow be very very simple.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Aren't 'conspiracy theories' USUALLY more complicated, sometimes "incredibly complicated" as opposed to 'lone gunman theories' or, in the present instance, 'lone malfunction theories'?

    As a matter of fact, I would say that the Amerithrax Task Force got addicted (the word is not too strong) to a 'simple explanation', made palatable by the profile ("Linguistic/Behavioural Analysis of the Anthrax Letters":
    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/anthrax-amerithrax/linguistic-behavorial-analysis-of-the-anthrax-letters

    And made more palatable by the perennial case that it was compared to: Unabomb
    as well as the Olympic bombing case (1996) where the perp was a lone actor.

    That's why (well, let's say one reason) they disregarded the importunings of Don Foster when he was an FBI consultant on the case (late 2001-early 2002?) to take a look at a subset of 'hoax letters' and to try to determine whether they might be linked......

    Just saying that 'simple vs complicated' has no one-size-fits-all disposition.

    ReplyDelete
  4. R, Rowley wrote: "Just saying that 'simple vs complicated' has no one-size-fits-all disposition."

    Agreed. Sometimes conspiracy theorists create complex conspiracy theories when the facts say the deed was done by one person. Example: the anthrax case and the finding that Bruce Ivins acted alone versus the conspiracy theories that involve many people and even many government agencies and outside companies.

    On the other hand, sometimes conspiracy theorists ignore the facts and create simple answers to problems that are really very complex. Example: the anthrax case and the detection of the element silicon in the spores. The conspiracy theorists simply say the spores were illegally weaponized by adding silica. Period. However, the facts are a LOT more complex, involving the temperature when growing the spores, the media used, and the survival mechanisms built into the DNA of an Ames anthrax bacterium.

    Conspiracy theorists (and True Believers) will do whatever they have to do to make their theory work. If simplification will do it, fine. If it requires incredible complications, fine.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Anonymous" attempted to post a message this morning that read: "Mister, You clearly have not read Bruce's emails. If you had, you would realize that what you have said about animal experiments is totally wrong. The issue of the animal experiments was dispositive, without more, of the Ivins Theory. The only people who cling to the theory haven't in fact read his emails on the subject."

    I have absolutely no idea what he's trying to say. I have read Ivins emails. What did I say about Ivins' animal experiments? What was wrong with what I said?

    Is this English?: "The issue of the animal experiments was dispositive, without more, of the Ivins Theory."

    "Dispositive" is defined as "relating to or bringing about the settlement of an issue."

    What issue? What "Ivins theory" do I cling to? The FBI/DOJ FINDING that Ivins was the anthrax killer and that he acted alone? There's no evidence that disproves that finding.

    The attempted post shows why I delete all attempts by "Anonymous" to post to this blog. When he's not posting disgusting personal attacks, he just posts meaningless, incoherent blather. He doesn't seem to understand anything, therefore he cannot explain anything.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Anonymous" just attempted another rambling post about how he sees the answers to all questions in Ivins emails, and because I don't see what he sees, that means I haven't read Ivins emails. Yada yada yada. Same-old, same-old.

    And, of course, he doesn't seem to comprehend that the "Ivins theory" is NOT MY THEORY. It's the findings of the FBI and the Department of Justice. All I'm doing is occasionally explaining some details, and explaining why the meaningless, incoherent blather from Anonymous does not change what the FBI found.

    Plus of course, the attempted post from "Anonymous" contains several personal attacks.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Anonymous" just sent me an email that said, "p.s. There's no such word as 'snunk.'"

    Yes, I know there is no such word as "snuck." I just thought it would be funnier to use that word when describing DXer's silly theory that a Muslim terrorist somehow gained access to a sample from RMR-1029 that was stored in Building 1412.

    "stealthily snuck into that cold room" is simply funnier than "stealthily sneaked into that cold room."

    It's called "poetic license." :-)

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  8. For the record, I just deleted NINE attempted posts by "Anonymous." They can all be summarized into one short sentence as follows:

    "Ed does everything wrong and doesn't correct his mistakes, and I do everything right."

    It seems that "Anonymous" still cannot comprehend that Amerithrax was The FBI's investigation," not mine. All I've done is try to explain some details. So, "Anonymous's" arguments should be directed toward the FBI, not toward me.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  9. While I was typing the above comment, "Anonymous" tried a TENTH post, which I've also deleted, of course. His attempted post began with this:

    "Ed never understood the statistical analysis -- that it did not address the animal challenges done in Building 1412."

    Statistical analysis? This is another example of the way "Anonymous" uses terms that are MEANINGLESS if he doesn't also EXPLAIN what sort of "statistical analysis" he's talking about.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  10. From the May 18th comment: (partial):
    ---------------
    "It's been known for over a decade that Flask RMR-1029 was the source for the "murder weapon,"[...]"
    ===============================================
    No, no one following the case ever heard of Flask RMR 1029 prior to the August 6th press conference (a week after Ivins' death); if they HAD heard of it, they would have speculated with that as a starting point. So, six years ago......this August.

    http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/08-opa-697.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      Good catch. Thanks. I fixed that comment to say that the FBI knew RMR-1029 was the source for the murder weapon for nearly a decade and the public has known it since 2008.

      Ed

      Delete
  11. The following evidently refers to me:
    -------------------
    And, related to that, a regular on my interactive blog wrote:

    the fact that this [the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370] is now STILL a news story just amazes me.

    Why anyone would think that one of the biggest aviation mysteries of all time shouldn't still be a news story just amazes me[...]
    ==========================================
    It's not that it SHOULDN'T be a news story: my amazement has to do with the fact that a VERY large aircraft, operating along established routes, issuing no may-day call of any sort, could just disappear and 2 MONTHS LATER it still was(is) unaccounted for. When you take into account the various systems involved to prevent such a scenario (transponder, radio(s), radar etc) and you also note the large number of foreign vessels/navies involved in the search, it is 'a disappearance unlike any other'.......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      Okay. We agree. It's an interesting mystery. But the fact that they haven't yet located it isn't that "amazing." It disappeared in the middle of the Indian Ocean, one of the most remote spots on earth. And, the ocean bottom is three miles down. So, it takes a lot of very special equipment to even begin to look for it. Plus, they only have a general idea of where it went down. So, it could be anywhere within hundreds of square miles, and the bottom of the ocean there is a lot of peaks and valleys that are 200 feet deep or more. And the Bluefin can't see down in the valleys.

      With all the obstacles that need to be overcome, I don't think it's particularly strange that they haven't yet located it.

      The Ocean Shield is back in the search area again. And I think they're still negotiating for the use of a better search vehicle than the Bluefin.

      Ed

      Delete
  12. For the record, I just deleted another attempted post by "Anonymous." Here's most of what it said:

    "Like I said, Ed, the reason you are so confused about Amerithrax is you don't permit a discussion of the merits. The posts you've deleted quoted all the false statements you've made on the subject of rabbits that are contradicted by the emails -- that you nowhere address. ... Not only do you not correct your mistakes but you don't let them be pointed out -- and don't bother to read where they are pointed out elsewhere."

    It's just more same-old, same-old. "Anonymous" sees evidence where there is no evidence, and if I don't see it, too, then I'm "in error." He doesn't see the solid and obvious evidence that the FBI used in their case against Ivins, and he seems to believe that other people should see only the things he sees.

    There's no point in allowing him to post again, since it will just be more meaningless blather and personal attacks.

    Instead of endlessly making meaningless claims, "Anonymous" should EXPLAIN on Lew's blog how Ivins' emails PROVE what he was doing during those "unexplained" evening and weekend hours when the FACTS say he was making the anthrax powders. All "Anonymous" seems capable of doing there is posting images of emails and claiming that they somehow mean something.

    His basic claim seems to be that if Ivins wasn't totally unemployed in September and October 2001, then he MUST have been doing his normal work instead of making anthrax powders. It's the standard True Believer argument: If you cannot prove it is impossible for Ivins to have been working on his normal work, then that is what Ivins was doing. And no evidence to the contrary means anything.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Anonymous" just attempted to post another message, which I deleted, of course.

    The message illustrates ONE reason why I'm deleting all posts by him. Here's his entire post:

    "Ed Montooth says they don't know when Ivins would have made the powders. He was the lead investigator."

    Where and when did Montooth say this? What exactly did he say? Where is the link? "Anonymous" provides NOTHING, just a claim. He evidently expects ME to do all the research to find out what he's talking about. And, since he's almost certainly distorting something, when I do find it he'll just change the subject or claim I'm not reading it correctly.

    I've got better things to do that to decipher meaningless blather from "Anonymous."

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just deleted another attempted post by "Anonymous" where he claims: "I posted the article today on Lew's blog."

      Looking through all the posts by "DXer" on Lew's site for today, I see NONE that mentions Edward Montooth. So, "DXer" is either just plain lying, or he's spouting more blather that he wants me to decipher.

      Either way, it's further evidence of what a TOTAL waste of time it is to even read posts by "DXer."

      Ed

      Delete
  14. "Anonymous" just attempted to post another message, which I deleted, of course.

    The message illustrates ONE reason why I'm deleting all posts by him. Here's his entire post:

    "Ed Montooth says they don't know when Ivins would have made the powders. He was the lead investigator."

    Where and when did Montooth say this? What exactly did he say? Where is the link?[...]
    =================================================
    Since this rang a bell, I went looking. It's from the March 24th 2011 Wired article (date is that of online version) here:
    http://www.wired.com/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/all/

    The first three paragraphs deal with the August 18th 2008 presentation given at FBI headquarters on Amerithrax: how cut and dried things seemed then and there. And in particular Paul Keim and Claire Fraser-Liggett are mentioned as being among the microbiologists at the table that day, with no one at the presentation expressing any doubt about Ivins' guilt.

    Which sets up paragraphs 4 and 5: (Montooth's statement in paragraph 5):
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Between the officials and the scientists, it was a convincing display. It had to be. Ivins had killed himself three weeks earlier. There would be no arrest, no trial, no sentencing. Absent a courtroom and a verdict to provide a sense of finality or some measure of catharsis, all the FBI could do was present its findings and declare the case closed.

    No one involved that day expressed any doubt about Ivins’ guilt. But things are not always as clear-cut as they may seem in an FBI presentation. Two years later, sitting in her office overlooking West Baltimore, Fraser-Liggett concedes she has reservations. “There are still some holes,” she says, staring out her window in discomfort. Nearly 2,000 miles away in Flagstaff, Arizona, Keim has his own concerns. “I don’t know if Ivins sent the letters,” he says with a hint of both irritation and sadness. Even agent Edward Montooth, who ran the FBI’s hunt for the anthrax killer, says that—while he’s still convinced Ivins was the mailer—he’s unsure of many things, from Ivins’ motivation to when he brewed up the lethal spores. “We still have a difficult time nailing down the time frame,” he says. “We don’t know when he made or dried the spores.” In other words, it’s been 10 years since the deadliest biological terror attack in US history launched a manhunt that ruined one scientist’s reputation and saw a second driven to suicide, yet nagging problems remain. Problems that add up to an unsettling reality: Despite the FBI’s assurances, it’s not at all certain that the government could have ever convicted Ivins of a crime.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Let me repost that one sentence by Montooth:

    “We still have a difficult time nailing down the time frame,” he says. “We don’t know when he made or dried the spores.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah! Thanks, Mr. Rowley.

      So, they just can't "nail down the time frame." They have no way of knowing exactly when Ivins did certain tasks. He could have done them at various times. Ivins certainly had plenty of opportunities.

      That's the nature of circumstantial evidence. In court they would have showed various ways Ivins could have done it, but they wouldn't show EXACTLY how he did it, because it's POSSIBLE he did it in a different way at a different time.

      In court they would be proving MEANS and OPPORTUNITY. Ivins had plenty of that. They don't need to show exactly when and how he did things. IF there are multiple means and multiple opportunities, you cannot show exactly how it was done, since the defense would argue that it could have been done a different way at a different time, and that would just confuse the jury.

      The jury would NOT be confused by being shown and told that Ivins had various ways to do it and could have done it at various times. It proves he had means and opportunity.

      Ed

      Delete
  15. And from the same Wired article but near the end, about 5/6ths of the way down:
    -----------------------------------------------
    This raises another significant problem with the case. USAMRIID veterans debate whether Ivins had access to the kind of gear required to dry and mill the spores. Even if he did, some argue, he wouldn’t have known how to use it. Ivins’ wet-spore experience didn’t translate to dry stuff, Heine and others say.

    Montooth acknowledges that he isn’t sure how Ivins would have done all that growing and drying. “But it almost doesn’t matter,” he says. Investigators know which days in September and October the envelopes were mailed. That was the actual murderous act. The anthrax could have been slowly assembled and processed for months or years before that. Ivins’ alibis for those autumn days are virtually nonexistent.
    ====================================================
    So, I (and I'm pretty sure DXer) would say that this is quite an admission by Montooth, both in isolation and together with the quotation already posted above.
    But it's a double-edged admission. Saying 'It almost doesn't matter' and that the processing of the powder could have taken place over YEARS (!!!) means that Montooth would go on believing in Ivins' guilt even if an investigative reporter like Shachtman or someone like DXer accounted for ALL of Ivins' 'unaccounted for' lab time. He would simply move the (chronological) goalposts. Since no researcher could possibly account for Ivins' lab time over the entire 1981 to 2001 period, he is confident that no one will be able to prove Ivins innocent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      That's one way of looking at it. Another way is to see that the massive amount of damning circumstantial evidence made it TOTALLY CLEAR that Ivins was the anthrax mailer, regardless of when and where he actually made the powders.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. I need to correct myself on one point: since the flask in question did not exist until 1997, a would-be exonerator of Ivins, basing his exoneration on accounting for Ivins' time in the lab(s), would have to do that for the 1997 to 2001 period (not 1981 to 2001 as I wrote above). Still a virtually impossible task......

      Delete
  16. And just to finish off the Montooth admissions in the Wired article, the fourth paragraph from the bottom is this:
    -----------------------------------
    Finally, there’s the matter of motive. The Justice Department asserts in its investigative summary that Ivins mailed the letters to gin up support for an anthrax vaccine, offering a few ambiguous emails and comments to friends and investigators as proof. If there’s any further, credible evidence to support this notion, Wired couldn’t find it in the thousands of pages of case documents released by the government or in the hours of interviews conducted with the investigators. Montooth concedes it’s a placeholder rationale at best. For someone as deeply disturbed as Ivins, he argues, simple rules of cause and effect don’t apply, especially not in matters as grave as murder. “You cannot think of this in one dimension or layer. It’s not that simple,” Montooth says. “You’re never gonna know a single cause or motive for why it was done.”
    ==================================================
    I would call this 'the (misplaced) mystique of mental illness'. Our imputations of
    motive don't have to be proved or consistent: the guy was "disturbed"!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      It's not necessary to prove motive. Everyone (except maybe conspiracy theorists and True Believers) knows that it is NOT necessary to prove motive in a criminal case. "Motive" takes place in a person's mind. And the best you can do is maybe show some documents which indicate a possible motive.

      Often criminals do not know themselves why they did what they did. And, even more often, they had MANY motives, as Ivins did.

      It allows the media to generate headlines, but the fact that a motive cannot be proven doesn't mean anything in reality.

      I'm done for today. Signing off.

      Ed

      Delete
  17. Mr. Rowley,

    It's not necessary to prove motive. Everyone (except maybe conspiracy theorists and True Believers) knows that it is NOT necessary to prove motive in a criminal case.
    ================================================
    We've been over this before. To wit:

    1) to WIN A CONVICTION (a stipulation you like to leave out) it isn't necessary to
    prove motive (because, among other things, there are motive-less crimes).

    2) but to claim (logically) guilt based (at least in part) on putative motives, it does not suffice, in ESTABLISHING a motive, to merely impute it (or 'them' if the imputation is of a 'multiple' sort).

    Was Ivins' alleged motive listed brought up by the DoJ early? Yes, from the August 6th 2008 news conference: (Jeff Taylor responding to question)
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    MR. TAYLOR: The other question you have, Dr. Ivins is a troubled individual, particularly so at that time. He's very concerned, according to the evidence, that this vaccination program he's been working on may come to an end. He's also very concerned that some have been criticizing and blaming that vaccination program in connection with illnesses suffered by soldiers from, I think, the first Gulf War. So that was going on, according to the evidence, in his mind at that particular time.

    With respect to motive, I'll point again to -- with respect to the motive, the troubled nature of Dr. Ivins. And a possible motive is his concern about the end of the vaccination program. And the concerns had been raised, and one theory is that by launching these attacks, he creates a situation, a scenario, where people all of a sudden realize the need to have this vaccine.
    =================================================
    But in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary the word 'theory' (ie a mere theory about motive) is never used. It is presented in declarative form, as something established.

    http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/08-opa-697.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. R. Rowley wrote: "But in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary the word 'theory' (ie a mere theory about motive) is never used. It is presented in declarative form, as something established."

    That's the way things are done in court. In court, the prosecutor argues his or her case as if its an established fact. They present the case, not a theory. They do NOT talk about "possibilities" and "theories." Talking about theories just confuses the jury and makes them think it's not really evidence. That's what the defense will try to argue.

    The Summary was supposedly written by the prosecutor. She says on page 38: "Under extreme pressure from so many different assaults on his career and life’s work, Dr. Ivins had a motive to commit the crime."

    What would you expect the prosecutor to do? Tell the jury that Ivins has a "possible" motive for the crime? That's the same as telling the jury that the motive isn't really any kind of evidence.

    That might be logical if the defense would also argue, "Yes, we can see that Dr. Ivins could easily have committed the crime, but we think that the prosecution hasn't created an 'air tight' case, so we're looking for ways you jurors can let Mr. Ivins go even though he could very well be a mass murderer."

    If you want both sides of the case to talk about both sides of the case, that means the defense should have to do it, too.

    In real life, the prosecution explains their case as if it is an established fact, and the defense tries to make the jury think it is NOT an established fact, and therefore the defendant should be let go, even if he really did the crime.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  19. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. R. Rowley posted this message to Lew Weinstein's blog:

    "I recently had occasion to reexamine this case(Dallas white powder mailings). And I thought DXer might have an idea of how to suss out the (purposely) obscured part of the text. I say that because you and our ‘mutual acquaintance’ have had instances in which you had to guess about a redaction or redactions in Amerithrax documents. Thanks in either case!"

    Click HERE for a high-resolution image of the letter and the redacted areas.

    While the redacted information cannot be read, there are some deductions that can be made by viewing the rest of the text in that paragraph. The readable text says:

    We are Al Qaeda, U.B.L FBI, Al Qaeda, SS Nazi FBI,

    Note that the readable portion ends with a comma, so the sentence is not complete.

    Note also that there is a pattern to the readable part of the sentence: First he mentions Al Qaeda, then he connects some evil entity with the FBI: "U.B.L FBI" and "SS Nazi FBI."

    So, after the comma, the first blur is almost certainly "Al Qaeda" once again, then XXXXXX FBI, then "Al Qaeda" one final time and XXXXXX FBI.

    My guess is that the XXXXXX's cover up something obscene.

    But it's just a guess.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  20. So, after the comma, the first blur is almost certainly "Al Qaeda" once again, then XXXXXX FBI, then "Al Qaeda" one final time and XXXXXX FBI.

    My guess is that the XXXXXX's cover up something obscene.
    ====================================================
    Gee, thanks! I have poor eyesight to begin with so trying to 'see'' something in the blur(s) inside my (normal) blur was just a daunting task!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't "see" anything (other than the comma). It's mostly just deductive reasoning.

      Ed

      Delete
  21. In case you missed it:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-the-13-theories-that-could-explain-where-the-plane-is--and-what-happened-to-it-9455120.html

    The last theory, by a guy who was PM of Malaysia for over 20 years!, really stunned me.....

    ReplyDelete
  22. Mr. Rowley,

    I don't recall reading that particular list. But I may have. The theory you point out seems familiar. It may have been on some other list of MH370 conspiracy theories.

    It doesn't surprise me. The Malaysians would like nothing better than to have someone else to blame. The incident has focused the entire world's attention on them and how their government handles things - particularly the Chinese. Plus, as it looks right now, the best bet seems to be: the Malaysian pilot used the plane to commit suicide. That could open them up to all kinds of lawsuits.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  23. Somehow in my searches last week for old/new stories on the Dallas/N. Texas white powder mailings, I missed the following story from THIS (past) February:
    http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Two-More-White-Powder-Letters-Received-Thursday-151871705.html

    But those two letters were unrelated.
    So, the case is still open and the reward is up to 150,000.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      My thinking is that the FBI knows who sent the hoax letters that will get the reward. They just can't prove it.

      The reward is for information leading to the arrest AND CONVICTION of the person who sent the hoax letters. Just naming the guy won't get you the reward. You have to provide "information" that can CONVICT him.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. "My thinking is that the FBI knows who sent the hoax letters that will get the reward."
      ===========================================
      And what is the basis for that?

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley asked, "And what is the basis for that?"

      Maybe it's because there are so many nut cases in Texas, and if you look around the Internet you can come up with a half dozen GOOD suspects. You can make a mild circumstantial case against any one of them. But, putting together enough EVIDENCE to convict one of them in court is an entirely different matter.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiCWH2xnOf8&index=6&list=UU5Iqa0Y94I_Z_G-ABjlxz_g

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as7rFGZ8WoI&list=UU5Iqa0Y94I_Z_G-ABjlxz_g


      Ed

      Delete
  24. Here's another mass-mailing of white powder (of which I was unaware) back in January in New Jersey: to hotels near the Super Bowl site: 6 hotels, the Rutherford P.O., and ex-Mayor Giuliani's office.

    Naturally this is but an hour's drive from Princeton.
    https://www.google.com/#q=distance+from+princeton+to+rutherford+nj+

    http://7online.com/archive/9414831/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I remember reading about the incident. But there's no reason to connect it to the anthrax mailings or any other crime.
      https://www.google.com/#q=superbowl+hotel+hoax+letter

      Ed

      Delete
  25. Yeah, I remember reading about the incident. But there's no reason to connect it to the anthrax mailings or any other crime.
    ====================================================
    Yes, there are such reasons:

    1) Amerithrax mailings proper were to: news media outlets and politicians.
    The presumed reason for this: to maximize publicity (that's probably one reason for the Muslim motif too: opportunistically piggy-back on Sept 11th).

    The hotels targeted in late January were undoubtedly so targeted because the Super Bowl was about to be held there (ie in that particular area), as there is no record of previous such mailings to those hotels. This, the opportunistic targeting, is reinforced by the selection of the two other targets: the Rutherford PO, and ex-Mayor Giuliani's office. No pattern of disgruntlement or a grudge would explain such targeting. Only someone out for maximum publicity.

    2) once again the New Jersey angle.

    3) a subset of pre-Amerithrax white powder mailings to media figures was postmarked: Indianapolis and Trenton.
    (Alas, the Super Bowl mailing stories don''t supply postmarks, so we don't know where they were posted).

    4) Giuliani=politician.

    So, white powder mailings for fun, rather than revenge, a sociopolitical motive etc.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Mr. Rowley,

    As usual, you are twisting things to make them fit your beliefs. You are not looking at things objectively or impartially.

    You wrote: "No pattern of disgruntlement or a grudge would explain such targeting. Only someone out for maximum publicity."

    Nonsense. "Disgruntlement or a grudge" could easily be the motive. There's certainly NO reason to believe "maximum publicity" was part of the motive. The fact that there were no similar previous letters means nothing. Hoax letters aren't always part of a series from the same person. Often they are just a one-time thing.

    The fact that the hotels were in New Jersey isn't an "angle." By that reasoning, every crime that happens in New Jersey would have to be connected somehow to the anthrax mailings.

    And Giuliani is no longer a politician. Who can say that he wasn't simply targeted because he was in the news in connection with the Superbowl?: http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-to-watch-super-bowl-from-luxury-suite-with-giuliani-1.672868

    On the surface, all that can be said is that the hoaxer wanted to disrupt the Superbowl. He could have had any one of a hundred different motives - from not wanting all that traffic in his area to not liking football, or not liking football fans. Or Not liking Governor Christie. Or not wanting Guiliani on his turf.

    You can paste things together to make them fit your beliefs, but that doesn't mean what you've pasted together is real or means anything.

    Besides, they know who sent the anthrax letters. So, trying to connect the Superbowl hoax letters to the anthrax letters is absurd. It would require a LOT more than just rationalizing. It would require SOLID evidence. Otherwise, it's just a baseless theory slapped together to fit a belief.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      As usual, you are twisting things to make them fit your beliefs.
      ------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Since I had absolutely no knowledge of these NJ white powder mailings even 48 hours ago, I had no 'beliefs' about them. I look for patterns. These mailings fit those patterns.
      -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
      You are not looking at things objectively or impartially.
      ============================================
      Since you have an established record of backing the G-men no matter how opposed to all reason that is at times (and not just in the Amerithrax Case), I'll consider the source....
      ------------------------------------------------------------------
      You wrote: "No pattern of disgruntlement or a grudge would explain such targeting. Only someone out for maximum publicity."

      Nonsense. "Disgruntlement or a grudge" could easily be the motive.
      -----------------------------------------------------------------------
      Oh, someone was fired from ALL SIX hotels?!?! And they used to work for Giuliani? And they don't like the Rutherford PO? "Nonsense" indeed!
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------
      There's certainly NO reason to believe "maximum publicity" was part of the motive. The fact that there were no similar previous letters means nothing.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      It means that the fact that the Superbowl was about to be held there was determinate. In your 7 paragraphed post, you haven't come up with an alternative motive, nor considering how disparate the targets are (1 politician, 1 PO, 6 hotels----------all in late January/early February with a Superbowl connection), is it likely you will.

      Super Bowl= single most watched annual sports event in the USA.
      THAT is why it was the occasion chosen. Publicity.
      (Though I have Mister Lake to thank for connecting Giuliani to the Super Bowl! Thanks!)
      --------------------------------------------------------------------

      Delete
    2. The fact that the hotels were in New Jersey isn't an "angle."
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
      Wow, someone whose knowledge of New Jersey geography is even worse than mine! No, it isn't 'just' that they are in the same state: they are all in Bergen County. They are all close to MetLife Stadium. The place the contest was held.

      1 MetLife Stadium Dr, East Rutherford, NJ 07073

      That PO again? Rutherford, New Jersey.

      From the LA TIMES story of the hoaxes (partial):

      "Baratta said five to seven hotels within miles of the stadium had received unidentified powder in envelopes. "
      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79118159/



      And Giuliani is no longer a politician
      ------------------------------------------------------------------
      There's really no such thing as an ex-politician. Reagan was a radio 'personality' from the time his governorship ended (early 1975) till he was
      elected president in 1980. Even ex-presidents are really just politicians.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
      Who can say that he wasn't simply targeted because he was in the news in connection with the Superbowl?: http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-to-watch-super-bowl-from-luxury-suite-with-giuliani-1.672868
      -------------------------------------------------------------------
      Well, there's a Superbowl connection too, no one's saying you have to choose one or the other, BUT it's for publicity, not for disgruntlement about a policy (since an 'ex-politician' has no current policy).
      -------------------------------------------------------------------
      It would require SOLID evidence.
      -------------------------------------------------------------------
      Well, that would require the authorities releasing, at a bare minimum, the postmark locations and the texts(if any). I doubt that they are going to do that.

      Delete
  27. R. Rowley wrote: "Since I had absolutely no knowledge of these NJ white powder mailings even 48 hours ago, I had no 'beliefs' about them. I look for patterns. These mailings fit those patterns."

    You are confirming what I said. You look for patterns that will fit your beliefs. Your belief is that all these hoax letters and the anthrax letters were sent by the same criminal mastermind. You've explained that to us.

    You wrote: "Since you have an established record of backing the G-men no matter how opposed to all reason that is at times (and not just in the Amerithrax Case), I'll consider the source...."

    This has NOTHING to do with backing any G-men. As far as I know, the G-men don't have any theory about the Superbowl hoax letters. You're just twisting things to fit your beliefs once again. All I'm saying is that I do not see any reason to connect the things you are connecting. It's NOT LOGICAL.

    You display that when I say "'Disgruntlement or a grudge' could easily be the motive." You argue that the only way that is possible is if someone was fired from all six hotels. That's nonsense. They could be disgruntled over anything - like who is playing in the Superbowl or how much money the state is spending on the Superbowl or the fact that the hoaxer didn't get some contract that he wanted. The motive does NOT have to fit your beliefs.

    "It would require SOLID evidence.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, that would require the authorities releasing, at a bare minimum, the postmark locations and the texts(if any). I doubt that they are going to do that."


    So, it's now a conspiracy to hide the evidence from you? It's an open investigation. So, they'll keep evidence secret until they KNOW it can't hurt the investigation by releasing it.

    And, you are admitting that you have NO EVIDENCE to support your beliefs. All you have is a conspiracy theory, and you'll believe what you want to believe - no matter how irrational it may seem.

    Putting 2 and 2 together to get 973 may make sense to you, but to me all you are doing is twisting everything to fit your theory about a criminal mastermind being behind every crime you can think of.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All I'm saying is that I do not see any reason to connect the things you are connecting. It's NOT LOGICAL.
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      What is it that you don't understand?

      1) person X enjoys provocations of all sorts, including criminal ones involving sending threatening communications through the mail.

      2) he does this for years (figure at least 1997 onwards), until one day in 2001, in a certain lab I will not name, he gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to steal a REAL toxic agent. Anthrax.

      3) He sends it first with a fan mail motif, then, after September 11th with a Muslim motif.

      4) For years afterwards he continues sending white powder and other threatening communications, mostly via his distribution network of like-minded pals (the Jersey guy, and the Florida guy).

      5) the way to determine whether it is potentially the same guy/group is:
      seeing what the targets are.

      6) the way to verify that is: via linguistic analysis. Linguistic analysis requires a text.

      Delete
  28. R. Rowley wrote: "Since I had absolutely no knowledge of these NJ white powder mailings even 48 hours ago, I had no 'beliefs' about them. I look for patterns. These mailings fit those patterns."

    You are confirming what I said. You look for patterns that will fit your beliefs. Your belief is that all these hoax letters and the anthrax letters were sent by the same criminal mastermind. You've explained that to us.
    =================================================
    You label what you and the Task Force have as "hypotheses" and/or "theories"; you label what your Internet interlocutors have as "beliefs" (this the fruit of your polemical typology, nothing else) but if you look deeply (ie semantically) they are really the same thing. Ed Lake and Ed Montooth have the belief that Bruce Ivins committed Amerithrax. Many intelligent people (Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett, Rush Holt, Senator Leahy etc.) either think that questionable, or think it untrue.

    The only difference between them and me in the matter is that I have a counter-hypothesis.

    Since Mister Lake has proposed no alternative methodology (how ELSE would I determine whether my anthrax killer was still active in white powder mailings years later OTHER than by examining cases as they come to my attention and looking for patterns?), there's nothing left to say on that point.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "You label what you and the Task Force have as "hypotheses" and/or "theories"; you label what your Internet interlocutors have as "beliefs" (this the fruit of your polemical typology, nothing else) but if you look deeply (ie semantically) they are really the same thing. Ed Lake and Ed Montooth have the belief that Bruce Ivins committed Amerithrax. Many intelligent people (Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett, Rush Holt, Senator Leahy etc.) either think that questionable, or think it untrue."

      There's a BIG difference between what the FBI did and what Rush Holt, Senator Leahy and the others did. AND what you do.

      The FBI looked at and based their hypothesis on the EVIDENCE. The others you name are IGNORANT of the evidence, DO NOT BELIEVE the evidence or have a DIFFERENT STANDARD of evidence.

      Senator Leahy simply does not BELIEVE the evidence. He believes there MUST have been some kind of CONSPIRACY behind the attacks. He does not BELIEVE Ivins acted alone. He has absolutely no evidence to support such a belief.

      Claire Fraser-Ligget wants proof to a scientific certainty. The courts and the FBI only require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

      Ivins co-workers are simply IGNORANT of the facts.

      R. Rowley also wrote: "The only difference between them and me in the matter is that I have a counter-hypothesis."

      You have a counter-hypothesis that is not based upon LOGIC. It is based upon a BELIEF that a criminal mastermind was behind a whole series of crimes. And, instead of finding REAL EVIDENCE to prove it, you find meaningless facts which you CLAIM are evidence.

      Mr. Rowley also wrote: "Since Mister Lake has proposed no alternative methodology ..."

      There is only ONE acceptable methodology for proving your case:

      To argue your point against the FBI's findings, you MUST provide BETTER EVIDENCE than the FBI has shown against Ivins. What you consider to be "evidence" would NOT be considered to be evidence in any court in the world. It's all just happenstance, which you argue is "evidence."

      Ed

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "You label what you and the Task Force have as "hypotheses" and/or "theories"; you label what your Internet interlocutors have as "beliefs" (this the fruit of your polemical typology, nothing else) but if you look deeply (ie semantically) they are really the same thing. Ed Lake and Ed Montooth have the belief that Bruce Ivins committed Amerithrax. Many intelligent people (Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett, Rush Holt, Senator Leahy etc.) either think that questionable, or think it untrue."

      There's a BIG difference between what the FBI did and what Rush Holt, Senator Leahy and the others did. AND what you do.

      The FBI looked at and based their hypothesis on the EVIDENCE.
      =============================================
      Not true:

      1) they had their document examiner compare Ivins printing to that of the Amerithrax texts, he came up with 'probable non-match' (or words to that effect),

      2) and the Task Force/DoJ HID THAT EVIDENCE from the public for years. Mister Lake himself found the relevant document (years later) in a document dump. Why did they hide it? To 'save Ivins' reputation'? Lol!

      3) in August 2008 (the 6th) Jeff Taylor touted the presence of a lyophilizer and Ivins' familiarity with its operation as one of 5 or 6 skeins of evidence against Ivins. Multiple persons pointed out that there was no functional lyophilizer in the suite, that the one in the building lacked a protective hood, and was so large Ivins would have needed help moving it into his lab. Did Mister Lake ('objective Mister Lake') admit this?
      Nope! A year and a half later the lyophilizer made it into the Amerithrax Investigative Summary. Did Mister Lake object? Nope! Only when there was a civil lawsuit by Maureen Stevens and the non-availability of the lyophilizer was about to be exposed in court in 2011 such as to help Maureen Stephens' case did the DoJ admit the 'error' (some error!). THEN Mister Lake tried to blame....Rachel Lieber (!!!: like a typical attorney knows what a lyophilizer is!).

      Ditto with: the polygraph tests Ivins took and passed (and the Task Force years later 'invalidated'): if something ('evidence' in the broadest sense) doesn't show the suspect as likely guilty, then it is ignored, sometimes even hidden. That's NOT a sign of 'objectivity' or letting the chips fall where they may.

      WAY upthread I noted the same thing regarding Montooth's admission(s) that he was uncertain about both Ivins' motive and when Ivins did the drying. I observed that Montooth would just invent a new chronology for Ivins if the one supplied in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary proved impossible. An unfalsifiable 'skein of evidence'.
      The unfalsifiable isn't a sign that your hypothesis can stand scrutiny.

      Delete
    3. Mr. Rowley also wrote: "Since Mister Lake has proposed no alternative methodology ..."

      There is only ONE acceptable methodology for proving your case:

      To argue your point against the FBI's findings, you MUST provide BETTER EVIDENCE than the FBI has shown against Ivins.
      ================================================
      That's what a book would be for. But I'm SO lazy (lucky for you!); and not just that I'd rather chit-chat on the Internet: I'd rather read, go for a walk, watch reruns of this or that than start writing...............so, with any luck at all, Mister Lake, you won't live to see Ivins cleared. But cleared he will be..........
      (And note: in my above quote from a higher post " "Since Mister Lake has proposed no alternative methodology ..." I'm talking not about Amerithrax but about white powder and other criminal cases involving threatening letters and what methodology I could use to establish they were by the same author/group)

      Delete
  29. You wrote: "Since you have an established record of backing the G-men no matter how opposed to all reason that is at times (and not just in the Amerithrax Case), I'll consider the source...."

    This has NOTHING to do with backing any G-men[...]
    ===========================================
    I agree that the white powders Super Bowl case has nothing to do with your slavish endorsement of whatever law-enforcement is claiming at a given moment, BUT it DOES have to do with who's "objective" (the point YOU, not I raised), who's not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "I agree that the white powders Super Bowl case has nothing to do with your slavish endorsement of whatever law-enforcement is claiming at a given moment, BUT it DOES have to do with who's "objective" (the point YOU, not I raised), who's not."

      To be "objective," you have to show that the EVIDENCE proves something. The FBI's EVIDENCE proves Ivins was the anthrax killer.

      Your "evidence" only proves that you are NOT OBJECTIVE. It's not evidence against anyone or anything. It's evidence that you twist things to fit your beliefs.

      You argue that it is POSSIBLE for your suspect to be the anthrax killer. You argue that the FBI has not shown that it is IMPOSSIBLE for your suspect to be the killer. And that "possibility" or "impossibility" is the basis for your arguments, not any actual evidence.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. You argue that it is POSSIBLE for your suspect to be the anthrax killer.
      ================================================
      Did I say "possible"? I meant: he is the Anthrax Killer. Because the linguistic evidence is so redundant, so specific to one person.

      Delete
  30. "It would require SOLID evidence.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, that would require the authorities releasing, at a bare minimum, the postmark locations and the texts(if any). I doubt that they are going to do that."

    So, it's now a conspiracy to hide the evidence from you?
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Nothing I wrote in my above posts would warrant such an interpretation, such a wild extrapolation. And that's just the point: you're so into 'conspiracy theories' and 'conspiracy theorists' that you see them around every corner, under every bed. YOUR problem not mine!

    You said: ""It would require SOLID evidence."
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    How is 'evidence' going to be developed by someone not in law enforcement, except by making what's known by investigators public? That (obvious) observation is no 'conspiracy theory'!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "How is 'evidence' going to be developed by someone not in law enforcement, except by making what's known by investigators public? That (obvious) observation is no 'conspiracy theory'!"

      The FBI is authorized by law to investigate crimes. You are NOT. The FBI is required to keep details of its investigation secret because the release of those details could contaminate the jury pool or damage the reputations of innocent people.

      If you feel an uncontrollable urge to do your own investigation, YOU NEED TO FIND YOUR OWN PROOF. You cannot expect the FBI to find it for you and turn it over to you.

      And then you need to convince people that YOUR proof is BETTER than the FBI's PROOF. As far as I can tell, you haven't even convinced anyone that your "evidence" IS actually evidence. It appears to be a collection of meaningless statements based upon pure happenstance. It CERTAINLY isn't better evidence than the FBI's evidence against Bruce Ivins.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "How is 'evidence' going to be developed by someone not in law enforcement, except by making what's known by investigators public? That (obvious) observation is no 'conspiracy theory'!"

      The FBI is authorized by law to investigate crimes. You are NOT
      -------------------------------------------------------------
      I love the way you refute ideas I never expressed!
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      The FBI is required to keep details of its investigation secret because the release of those details could contaminate the jury pool or damage the reputations of innocent people.
      --------------------------------------------------------------
      Yeah, like that worked out so well for: Richard Jewell, Steven Hatfill, and, most recently, Paul Kevin Curtis!
      --------------------------------------------------------------
      If you feel an uncontrollable urge to do your own investigation, YOU NEED TO FIND YOUR OWN PROOF.
      --------------------------------------------------------------
      I did do that for the texts available on the Internet, but my analysis, excepting only a minor point or two, is not available on the Internet.
      Crimes involving mailings typically mean: the mailed items themselves are the PRIMARY evidence, everything else is secondary. Where there is a text involved, that text is a primary bit of evidence. No text=no linguistic analysis.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------
      And then you need to convince people that YOUR proof is BETTER than the FBI's PROOF
      ----------------------------------------------------------------------
      What is this 'then' business? I'm not in competition with the FBI, who are no longer involved in the Amerithrax Case. I'm in competition with....
      no one.

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "I'm not in competition with the FBI, who are no longer involved in the Amerithrax Case. I'm in competition with....
      no one."


      You are arguing that the FBI was wrong and that you are right about who sent the anthrax letters. That means you are in competition with the FBI to prove who is right and who is wrong.

      Why are you arguing your conspiracy theory here if it isn't to convince people that you have a better case against your criminal mastermind than the FBI had against Bruce Ivins?

      Ed

      Delete
    4. You are arguing that the FBI was wrong[...]
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      That the FBI was wrong about Amerithrax isn't because I'm right, it's because they didn't properly utilize the co-best* evidence (the texts).
      They did have an opportunity to do so: (see, once again Foster's article on his time as a consultant:
      http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html

      A true competition is (generally speaking) contemporaneous. The FBI hasn't really been in the Amerithrax-investigating business since February, 2010 (but one could argue that their mind was made up by early August, 2008 and everything after that was just rearranging the furniture.

      *"co-best" because the genetic sub-typing was equally valuable. But it could, even potentially, merely point to a flask, not a person.

      Delete
  31. And, you are admitting that you have NO EVIDENCE to support your beliefs. All you have is a conspiracy theory,[...]
    ==============================================
    Again, your penchant for labeling is, if anything, getting worse!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    and you'll believe what you want to believe - no matter how irrational it may seem.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The observant reader will note that Mister Lake has dropped all his contentions of his post of June 3, 2014 at 8:05 AM:

    That 'disgruntlement' is a likely motive for the Super Bowl white powder mailings.
    Etc. THAT's the 'irrational theory' (because no one is going to have grudges against six separate hotels (all clustered around the stadium), a politician, and a PO , and no one is going to wait until a Super Bowl comes to (East) Rutherford to express the grudge via white powder mailings)

    Now it's just: you're a conspiracy theorist and I'm NOT! (I can just picture him at his computer, stuffing his pinkies into his ears between sentences!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      Your comments above are just incoherent blather to me.

      My point was that you have a theory that some criminal mastermind was behind the anthrax attacks AND other various and sundry crimes. Your theory also has others acting as part of a conspiracy to commit these crimes. That makes you a "conspiracy theorist."

      All you have to support your conspiracy theory are unrelated facts. You see connections which others would just see as coincidence. You have interpretations that others would see as unrealistic. You argue that the FBI does the same thing, i.e., string together coincidences.

      The difference is that all the evidence against Ivins would NOT be seen by a jury to be just coincidences, because (1) there is so much of it, and because (2) it directly relates to the crime. When you have "too many such coincidences," coincidences stop being coincidences. They become evidence.

      Your coincidences are still just meaningless coincidences. They prove nothing other than that you can collect meaningless coincidences to argue for your "conspiracy theory." The fact that two crimes were committed in New Jersey does NOT mean the crimes are related. That's not even a coincidence. It's just a meaningless fact. The fact that two crimes appear to have been done by someone who was "disgruntled" does not mean the crimes are connected. It's just another meaningless observation or opinion.

      Plus you have some interpretations - like your Hebrew text interpretations - that just make no sense whatsoever, since they are only in your mind and would convince no one else.

      If you want people to believe your conspiracy theory, you need to find BETTER evidence than the FBI had against Bruce Ivins. All you have is meaningless coincidences and unbelievable interpretations.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. Your comments above are just incoherent blather to me.
      -----------------------------------------------------------
      I've noticed that your reading comprehension skills leave something to be desired, that's why every time you try to summarize my ideas you muck it up.
      -------------------------------------------------------------
      My point was that you have a theory that some criminal mastermind was behind the anthrax attacks AND other various and sundry crimes.
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      Well, finally you got something right!
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      Your theory also has others acting as part of a conspiracy to commit these crimes. That makes you a "conspiracy theorist."
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      What did I note just in the prior thread? That you depend on the pejorative impact of the phrase "conspiracy theorist" to debate me. You proved my point. Since you likely think that the Lincoln assassination was part of a conspiracy, that makes you a "conspiracy theorist"! Big deal, what else is new? (But I bet Mister Lake doesn't LIKE being called a "conspiracy theorist", not when he's dedicated so many years of his life to condemning......conspiracy theorists!)

      Note: see how often Mister Lake repeats the expression 'conspiracy theory' in regards to the matter, this a sign he's given up 'analysis' (see website title "Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks") altogether and now merely rants and raves about 'conspiracy theorists/'conspiracy theories'.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Your coincidences are still just meaningless coincidences.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------
      That's something I've noticed about you: you see all correspondences as mere coincidences (your word) with one enormous exception:

      everything that somehow connects Bruce Ivins to New Jersey, or 'driving at night', or disliking people (New Yorkers for example), or 'codes' of one form or another, or mental illness, or ANYTHING that you can (however convolutedly) connect to Amerithrax is a "FACT" (Mister Lake's word, Mister Lake's perennial capitalization) that not only indicates his guilt (huh?) but couldn't possibly be a coincidence! :

      1) 19th Century ancestors in New Jersey? FACT

      2) Father went to Princeton? FACT

      3) Kappa Kappa Gamma office within X* number of feet of mailbox? FACT

      *X number of feet: note that there's no standard here: if the mailbox were 1000 or 2000 or 3000 feet from the KKG office this would still be a FACT that couldn't possibly be a coincidence! Cause Ed Montooth and Ed Lake believe it to be so!

      4) Ivins liked to drive at night? FACT

      5) Monmouth placename? FACT

      Etc.

      Delete
    3. Mr. Rowley wrote: "everything that somehow connects Bruce Ivins to New Jersey, or 'driving at night', or disliking people (New Yorkers for example), or 'codes' of one form or another, or mental illness, or ANYTHING that you can (however convolutedly) connect to Amerithrax is a "FACT" (Mister Lake's word, Mister Lake's perennial capitalization) that not only indicates his guilt (huh?) but couldn't possibly be a coincidence!"

      What I've said is just the opposite. You evidently can't see the difference. You're just spinning things to create an argument.

      What I said was that the FACT that Ivins' father went to Princeton COULD BE a coincidence. So, could the FACT that there was a KKG office near the mailbox that was used. So could the fact that Ivins liked to drive at night. So could a hundred other FACTS.

      BUT, when you view all those "possible coincidences" together, it would become clear to a jury that they are NOT just coincidences."

      What you argue in support of your "conspiracy theory" is that a different batch of "coincidences" makes a better case. But it obviously DOES NOT. So, you then ague that you have MORE EVIDENCE but you are waiting to put it in a book. That is an admission that the evidence you have presented so far is worthless.

      Facts become evidence when they are used in court as EVIDENCE to support the matter being tried.

      The FBI's facts could be used as evidence.

      Most of your "facts" can't even be shown to be facts. Mostly, they are just OPINIONS. They are interpretations of "linguistics" which would never hold up in any court anywhere. They are arguments about motive, which is just an OPINION, since no one can be absolutely certain what was going on inside someone else's head.

      You have no case. Arguing that you have a case but are saving it for a book means YOU HAVE NO CASE TO PRESENT HERE. So, you are just arguing your opinion versus my opinion. And that is a TOTAL waste of time.

      Ed

      Delete
    4. The difference is that all the evidence against Ivins would NOT be seen by a jury to be just coincidences, because (1) there is so much of it, and because (2) it directly relates to the crime
      ===========================================
      Note that basically above Mister Lake confirms what I said prior: the ONLY place where he goes out of his way to affirm that many (quite minor) coincidences should be judged as more than coincidences (because of their great number) is: in the case against Bruce Ivins.
      But he conceals this even from himself by projecting HIS interpretations onto a(n) (imaginary) jury. (And this is old hat with Mister Lake)

      So,

      1) liking to drive at night is not directly related to ANY CRIME.

      2) having 19th Century ancestors who lived in NJ is not directly related to ANY CRIME.

      3) having an obsession with a sorority might be related to the breakins at Kappa Kappa Gamma but beyond that is certainly not related to ANY CRIME.

      4) not liking New Yorkers is not related to ANY CRIME.

      5) having had a father who went to Princeton is not related to ANY CRIME.

      Etc, (I'm trying to cut down on this posting and it seems to me we are just repeating stuff we've said dozens of times over the past 3 years)

      Mister Lake, with each and every post, merely confirms the obvious: he is unable to separate himself from the claims of the Task Force/DoJ, even where those entities have either already admitted an 'error' (ie the lyophilizer) or where the concealment of evidence (the handwriting analysis by the document examiner, which was discovered in the document dump by Mister Lake himself!) indicates that they were merely trying to save face back in 2008-10, rather than to give a true summary (pluses and minuses) of the evidence against Ivins.

      Analyzing the Anthrax attacks? Not a word of it!

      Delete
    5. Mr. Rowley,

      All you are doing is confirming for maybe the thousandth time that YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

      "1) liking to drive at night is not directly related to ANY CRIME."

      It IS - REPEAT IS directly related to the crime for which Bruce Ivins was about to be charged.

      The FACT that Ivins liked to drive long distances at night is EVIDENCE that the long drive to Princeton to mail the anthrax letters WOULD NOT be out of character for Ivins. It would fit his criminal and personal practices very nicely. It is one piece of evidence in a case that was very solid.

      The same with the other items of circumstantial evidence. All together they show that Ivins was beyond a reasonable doubt the anthrax mailer.

      There's no point in discussing this subject if you cannot comprehend circumstantial evidence and how it is used in court.

      Ed

      Delete
    6. All you are doing is confirming for maybe the thousandth time that YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

      "1) liking to drive at night is not directly related to ANY CRIME."

      It IS - REPEAT IS directly related to the crime for which Bruce Ivins was about to be charged.
      ==================================
      Only if you can establish:

      1) he drove on the night(s) in question (unestablished)


      2) he drove outside his own city/environs and to the north(unestablished)

      3) he drove to New Jersey, specifically Princeton (unestablished.

      Besides 1) 2) and 3) you are ALSO-------for some unstated reason---- also implicitly assuming that the mailer enjoyed long drives. Is there any reason, OUTSIDE of an Ivins-did-it hypothesis, for assuming such a thing**? No, there is not. The Amerithrax mailer could have driven from Maryland (or conceivably MUCH further away) to Princeton, but without much enjoyment: I have driven that far and further, but I don't much like driving: you do what you have to do to get where you want to go.

      All you (and Montooth) are doing is: POSITING* a drive (ie assuming it)
      and then claiming that because you have no evidence the drive was actually made by the suspect/accused (Ivins), that this is no biggie because he 'like to drive'. That's no evidence, 'circumstantial' or otherwise, it's circular reasoning and a self-deception.
      =====================================
      I, as it happens, like to walk. If a mugging in a (local) park occurs and the perp walked up to the victim and then walked away, this wouldn't even establish that the perp liked to walk. It certainly wouldn't be evidence that I (or anyone else who liked to walk) did the crime, and dragging in your Lakean all-purpose filler word "circumstantial" doesn't change that.



      *POSITING. And why are you positing such a drive? It is because you ALREADY think Ivins guilty, not something a jury would normally do in a homicide case.


      ** Did you, Ed Lake, say in the 2001 to mid 2008 period 'The mailer sure liked to drive!". I'm guessing not.....Because you had no way of knowing that, and you had no motive for asserting it (since you didn't realize you would be blaming Ivins or any other Maryland-based person in just a few years).

      Delete
    7. Mr. Rowley,

      ONCE AGAIN, all you are doing is confirming for maybe the thousandth time that YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

      The prosecution would ESTABLISH in court that Ivins had means, motive and opportunity. They do not need to "establish" that Ivins drove to Princeton.


      They just need to establish that Ivins had NO ALIBI and therefore COULD have driven to New Jersey to mail the letters.

      The EVIDENCE that he ADMITTED to driving long distances to commit crimes in the past would further show that he COULD have driven to New Jersey.

      Why would the prosecution be positing such a drive? Because the prosecution would be presenting a circumstantial evidence case to show Ivins was the anthrax killer.

      The EVIDENCE about driving long distances to commit crimes would be just ONE PART of the evidence.

      The jury wouldn't start out thinking Ivins was guilty. But after viewing ALL the evidence they would almost certainly be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Ivins was guilty.

      Unless you learn how circumstantial evidence is used in court, there's no point in discussing this with you. Your total IGNORANCE of the subject prevents us from getting anywhere.

      Continuing to argue that ONE PART of the evidence does not prove Ivins was guilty is STUPID. No one ever said it proved anything. ALL THE EVIDENCE TOGETHER says Ivins was the anthrax killer..

      You need to TRY to understand that.


      Ed

      Delete
  32. Mr. Rowley,

    Your argument that someone's OPINION about the "liguistics" overrides all the other facts in the case is just plain preposterous. You are only using "linquistics" as "evidence" because it supports your beliefs. You are ignoring all the evidence which says Ivins was the anthrax killer because such evidence does NOT support your beliefs.

    You wrote: "Did I say "possible"? I meant: he is the Anthrax Killer. Because the linguistic evidence is so redundant, so specific to one person."

    Only in your mind. To anyone else, the "linguistic evidence" isn't even evidence. It's just your bizarre interpretation of the handwriting and text. It wouldn't hold up in any court in the world. The idea that BY ITSELF "liguistics" proves something is total nonsense.

    You argue things that DO NOT MATTER. You SPIN things to fit your beliefs. No one said that there was NO WAY Ivins could have written the anthrax documents. The handwriting didn't match his NORMAL handwriting. But, no one would expect Ivins to use his normal handwriting when sending out the anthrax letters.

    No one said that Ivins used the lyophilizer to dry the spores. It's just a "possibility." It's one way out of several ways Ivins could have dried the spores.

    You argue that the fact that Ivins passed his lie detector tests means something, even though lie detector tests are NOT admissible in court because they have not been proved to be reliable.

    You CLAIM that you have better evidence showing that your suspect is the anthrax killer and it proves Ivins was innocent. But you say you won't provide the evidence for anyone because SOME DAY you're going to write a book about it.

    Are we suppose to simply believe that you have all this "evidence"? You provide ample evidence that you have NOTHING but some bizarre BELIEF that your "linguistic evidence" overrules everything.

    That's just plain crazy.

    If you have evidence, present it. If you do not want to present it, then you have no argument. End of story.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  33. Mr. Rowley,

    Your argument that someone's OPINION about the "liguistics" overrides all the other facts in the case is just plain preposterous.
    ===============================================
    But Senator Leahy (a former prosecutor), Rush Holt, Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett et alia. know nothing about the deep linguistics of the matter (if they did, they might have solved the case themselves!) yet think the evidence against Ivins either thin, or negligible. How do you explain THAT?

    Once again, it's not me vs the FBI. The FBI waved goodbye on Amerithrax over 4 years ago.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    You are only using "linquistics" as "evidence" because it supports your beliefs.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Oh, so it has NOTHING to do with the fact that I've dedicated just about my entire adult life to language(s)? Did I not mention I have a pretty good background in languages? Where are we miscommunicating here?!?!?!?

    In any evident you got the chronology wrong once again: in late 2005 I had no suspect(s) after my first linguistic analysis, only found the perp close to a year later, took the perp to have been acting alone, THEN (ie months later) realized the necessity of a relay system for spatiotemporal reasons. So, you are just flat-out wrong! The linguistics led me to: the writer, and the multiple elements (St Pete hoax letters etc.) led me to the relay system.....How I figured out who the accomplices were I can't go into.......but that was close to the last discovery...

    ReplyDelete
  34. R. Rowley wrote: "But Senator Leahy (a former prosecutor), Rush Holt, Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett et alia. know nothing about the deep linguistics of the matter (if they did, they might have solved the case themselves!) yet think the evidence against Ivins either thin, or negligible. How do you explain THAT?"

    How do I explain what? Senator Leahy has never said he thinks the evidence against Ivins is "either thin or negligible." You are just making things up. Senator Leahy has said he doesn't believe that Ivins could have done the crime ALONE. He appears to believe that one or more other people were negligent in allowing Ivins to commit the crime, and those people should be held criminally accountable, too.

    As far as I know, Paul Keim thinks Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer.

    Claire Fraser-Liggett just argues that the evidence isn't a scientific certainty. She's using an unrealistic standard for evidence.

    The others are just plain IGNORANT of the facts against Ivins. They have FALSE beliefs about the spores and how they could be made. And, they cannot believe that a friend could do such a thing. Their beliefs and opinions are just that, beliefs and opinions BASED UPON IGNORANCE OF THE EVIDENCE..

    And there's no reason to believe that the "linguistics" you see in the anthrax documents would do anything but make them chuckle. It's basically silly.

    R. Rowley also wrote: "The linguistics led me to: the writer, and the multiple elements (St Pete hoax letters etc.) led me to the relay system."

    It makes no difference HOW you came up with our theory. It's a BOGUS THEORY. You show that. You say the "linguistics" took you to a suspect. But that suspect couldn't do what you believed he did, so you had to look around and ASSUME that he had a "relay system" of accomplices to help him do the things he couldn't do himself. AND YOU CANNOT PROVE ANY OF IT. The technical term for what you have is "TOTAL NONSENSE."

    You have no case.
    You have no valid argument.
    All you have are beliefs that appear absurd.

    End of story.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "But Senator Leahy (a former prosecutor), Rush Holt, Paul Keim, Claire Fraser-Liggett et alia. know nothing about the deep linguistics of the matter (if they did, they might have solved the case themselves!) yet think the evidence against Ivins either thin, or negligible. How do you explain THAT?"

      How do I explain what? Senator Leahy has never said he thinks the evidence against Ivins is "either thin or negligible." You are just making things up. Senator Leahy has said he doesn't believe that Ivins could have done the crime ALONE.
      ==============================================
      No, you aren't quoting Senator Leahy, you are relying on your memory of what Leahy said. A mistake.
      Here's what Leahy said: (in September 2008)

      “If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.
      -----------------------------------------------------------
      "If he is the one who sent the letter" does not indicate Leahy is convinced that Ivins sent the letter(s).

      http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/washington/18anthrax.html?_r=0

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "If he is the one who sent the letter" does not indicate Leahy is convinced that Ivins sent the letter(s)."

      NO ONE said Leahy was convinced of anything -- other than that Ivins didn't act alone.

      The statement by Senator Leahy doesn't imply that he thinks Ivins was innocent. Leahy just doesn't believe that IF Ivins was the anthrax killer, that Ivins was the only one involved.

      It would certainly be a lot more clear if he'd used one more word in his statement:

      EVEN if he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

      But, even the way Leahy said it, it's CERTAINLY not a claim that he thinks Ivins was innocent. Nor is he saying that the evidence against Ivins was "thin or negligible." He's not saying anything about the evidence. He just saying he BELIEVES more than one person was involved. It's A STATEMENT OF BELIEFS that has nothing to do with evidence.

      You're just arguing about words again.

      Ed

      Delete
    3. “EVEN if he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

      But, even the way Leahy said it, it's CERTAINLY not a claim that he thinks Ivins was innocent.
      ----------------------------------------------------------------------- No, it's an expression of doubt, totally at variance with your own take on the case.

      Case closed.

      Delete
    4. You're just arguing about words again.
      ===============================
      Can you imagine that, a linguist who makes a big deal about words!
      Scandalous!

      Delete
    5. In a previous post I gave a quotation from Senator Leahy from 2008
      about his evaluation of the case against Ivins. More relevant still is what he thought after the investigation was officially closed. So from the Washington Post of February 16th, 2011. Story by Paul Kane.
      Partial:
      ----------------------------------------------
      After the deadly shooting rampage in Tucson, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) was asked to reflect on his own experience as the would-be target of an assassin. That's when he let slip something that he rarely talks about publicly: He has never accepted the FBI's decision to close the case in the series of anthrax-laced letters mailed to public officials in fall 2001.

      "I still wonder who sent it and why they sent it," the Judiciary Committee chairman told a crowd gathered last month at the Newseum in Northwest Washington to hear his 2011 legislative agenda.
      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      skipping two longish paragraphs
      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Leahy has generally declined to comment on the anthrax investigation, telling The Washington Post that he has tried not to discuss it much "because it affects me so. . . . " his voice trailing off without finishing the thought.

      But in a brief interview Tuesday, he said he has "extreme doubts" about the case. "I've expressed those concerns to the FBI ,and this report adds to those concerns," Leahy said.
      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Skipping several paragraphs to the end of the story
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Last month, Leahy said there was no question that others were involved in the anthrax attack, at least in helping Ivins hide his work from authorities.

      "Were there people who at the very least were accessories after the fact? I think there were," he said. Leahy also finds it strange that one person would target such an odd collection of media and political figures in the anthrax letters, a motive that has never been fully explained by the FBI or Justice Department.

      "Why would he send one to Tom Brokaw, to Tom Daschle, to me, to the man at the National Enquirer in Florida?" Leahy asked.

      "They have to make their decisions; I have to make mine. In my mind, it's not closed," he said. "Call it an old prosecutor's instinct."
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/16/AR2011021604265.html?sid=ST2011021502856

      Delete
    6. As far as I know, Paul Keim thinks Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer.
      ============================================
      From my post of May 22, 2014 at 2:33 PM, quotation from Noah
      Shachtman's Wired article: (partial)
      -
      Nearly 2,000 miles away in Flagstaff, Arizona, Keim has his own concerns. “I don’t know if Ivins sent the letters,” he says with a hint of both irritation and sadness.
      ----------------------------------------------------
      Aren't you even reading the thread?!?!?


      http://www.wired.com/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/all/1

      Delete
  35. Mr. Rowley,

    I don't see any point to your comments. You seem to want people to say things the way you would say them. If they don't, then you do not understand them.

    Senator Leahy is NOT saying he thinks Ivins is innocent. He has NEVER said he thinks Ivins was innocent. So, if he believes someone else must have been involved, who cares? What difference does it make what he believes?

    And if Paul Keim said "I don't know if Ivins sent the letters," so what? Who cares if Paul Keim is not CERTAIN that Ivins sent the letters?

    Does everyone in the world have to be CERTAIN before you'll accept something as being true?

    You wrote: an expression of doubt, totally at variance with your own take on the case."

    So what? I've probably spent a LOT more time examining the evidence of the case against Bruce Ivins than it's likely Leahy, Keim and Fraser-Liggett together spent on it. AND, the purpose of my web site is to separate beliefs from facts and to evaluate what the facts say. Has any of the people you name taken it upon themselves to do a study of the case? Or are they just peripherally involved, and thus become targets of questions from the media?

    It appears that you ignore all the evidence against Ivins and totally rely on BELIEFS expressed by important people who say something you can twist to argue that it isn't a total certainty that Ivins was the anthrax mailer. And, since, in your mind it's not a total certainty that Ivins was the anthrax mailer, that means that your silly conspiracy theory based upon linguistics must be true.

    You are putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 793,471, and then arguing that your theory must be true because there are some important people out there who have never said that they totally agree with the FBI's conclusions.

    It's nuts.

    It's absurd conspiracy theory reasoning. It has nothing to do with reality.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't see any point to your comments. You seem to want people to say things the way you would say them. If they don't, then you do not understand them.
      ==============================================
      What are you saying?!?!? I'm the one in this thread who is linking news items related to Amerithrax and copy and pasting them. I also copy and pasted what Senator Leahy said thusly (partial my post of r rowleyJune 4, 2014 at 1:42 PM):
      -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Here's what Leahy said: (in September 2008)

      “If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Mister Lake then in respond ADDED a word to what Leahy said (partial, his post of June 4, 2014 at 2:45 PM)

      “EVEN if he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

      But, even the way Leahy said it, it's CERTAINLY not a claim that he thinks Ivins was innocent.[..]
      ====================================
      So, yesterday Mister Lake takes the quotation from Leahy I copy and pasted in a previous post, ADDS a word to make it more congenial, then, the very next day, complains that I (not Mister Lake) is the one who
      " seem[s] to want people to say things the way you would say them."

      If you are talking about our disputes over this or that word/expression, then allow me to note that you, in the past 3-4 years, have disputed on numerous occasions the words/meanings I have used, disputed them via citations from dictionaries etc ((The most glaring and baffling of those disputes was your claim that "junk mail" doesn't refer to a class of mail---
      believe me, I once worked in the PO, it's a class of mail---- but is merely any item of mail that has been/will be 'junked' or trashed. Since I have lived in 3-6 states (depending on how long you have to have lived there) was exposed to many OTHER American dialects in the military, this is a meaning totally at variance with my experience!))

      Delete
  36. Part 3 of 3-parter)

    The last post ended the repost but I would make the following two general points:

    1)
    Mister Lake, since I began reading his website (circa late 2005/early 2006), always maintained not merely that the preponderance of the evidence indicated Hatfill innocent, but that there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against him (!!!), despite the reality that my numbered items above 1 through 15 are all FACTS, related to Hatfill and Amerithrax. FACTS which he in no way disputed (see the link).

    My evaluation of those 15 points would be as follows: (regarding the admissibility of the points):

    My evaluation: #1 #2 #3 #5 #6 #8 #9 #10 #12 all inadmissible for reasons of relevance, prejudice, confusing the jury etc.

    #7 #13 definitely admissible (I think), assuming there's a way to enter them as evidence/testimony.

    #4 #11 #14 #15  (hashed out by the attorneys)  (Questionable admissibility)
    Above obviously based on my layman's limited understanding (ie I'm willing to be corrected by an attorney) of due process, the Rules of Evidence etc.
    ---------------------------------------
    2) in discussing Ivins now for a few years it is clear that a HUGE chunk of our disagreements have been over relevance and a somewhat more complex concept: admissibility. I've gotten the distinct impression that Mister Lake has the idea that I'm merely feigning or ginning up legal objections to 'evidence' against Ivins, because I 'refuse to follow the FACTS' and/or because if I admit Ivins' guilt, I would have to drop my own hypothesis.

    I hope the above breakdown of the 15 FACTS against Hatfill illuminates the way my own mind works: what is crucial is: relevance, fairness (to the defendant), reliability etc. I don't have a one-size-fits-all concept of (purported) evidence, hence my three (3) categories above.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      It was not only irresponsible and stupid of you to post a "case against" an innocent man on this blog, I was stupid and irresponsible of me to leave the posts on this blog for a couple hours while I went off to the health club. I have now deleted them.

      When I get some time, I'll try to explain to you once again the basics of "evidence," since you continue to remain totally ignorant of the subject.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. I just noticed that Mister Lake DELETED the first two posts of my three parter. That indicates that he is not truly open to discussions about:

      1) the way FACTS are evaluated by courts(one of two purposes of that 3 parter).

      2) analyzing Amerithrax, versus announcing that your interlocutor is a 'conspiracy theorist' and then distorting his arguments based on your own caricature of what a 'conspiracy theorist' is SUPPOSED to believe and/or to argue.

      Since Ivins is innocent, there's a double irony in your deletions being (allegedly) based on the ground(s) that Hatfill is an innocent man.
      And nowhere in the ORIGINAL thread did Mister Lake dispute that all 15 points were FACTS, FACTS that, with Mister Lake's low standards of admissibility, could have been used against Hatfill as a defendant. This is in wild contradiction to Lake's claims over several years that there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill.
      (Note: I think, have always thought, Hatfill innocent, but that just proves the point!!)

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "I just noticed that Mister Lake DELETED the first two posts of my three parter. That indicates that he is not truly open to discussions about:

      1) the way FACTS are evaluated by courts ..."


      On the contrary, I am totally open to discussing "the way FACTS are evaluated in courts."

      But, as I explained, I'm not about to discuss supposed "evidence" or "facts" point to an innocent man. That would be STUPID AND IRRESPONSIBLE. That's why I deleted the THREE messages where you laid out these supposed "facts" against an innocent man.

      The "facts" you laid out were "facts" put forth by CONSPIRACY THEORISTS to put the blame on Hatfill. They were NOT presented by the FBI in any legal case.

      And, you make it clear that you do not read my posts, since you once again argue that I claimed "over several years that there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill."

      WHERE did I say that? Please provide a link and the exact quote.

      Meanwhile, I'm going to start a new thread specifically on the subject of "What is evidence?"

      Ed

      P.S. While I deleted those four posts, I saved copies of them for myself, in case you claim they were something they were not.

      Delete
    4. In the P.S. I meant to write "three posts," not "four posts."

      Ed

      Delete
    5. And, you make it clear that you do not read my posts, since you once again argue that I claimed "over several years that there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill."

      WHERE did I say that? Please provide a link and the exact quote.
      ============================================
      No, I went to the trouble to find my 15 points-of-evidence against Hatfill,
      spend a great deal of time on the 3 parter. Then you arbitrarily deleted parts 1 and 2. YOU do the work this time: look at those 15 points and tell us which one of them you PREVIOUSLY acknowledged as evidence against Hatfill.
      How long could that take, 10 minutes?

      (But, if, as I suspect, you're an out-and-out amnesiac, don't bother!)

      Delete
    6. Another quotation from Mister Lake about Hatfill and the evidence against him:
      ----
      The Hatfill "investigation" was purely political and based upon "tips" from conspiracy theorist scientists who claimed the FBI was "covering up" for Dr. Hatfill when the FBI's investigation found nothing to tie him to the mailings. The Ivins investigation, on the other hand, was the result of years of detailed scientific analysis followed by an equally detailed criminal investigation.
      --------
      http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2009/10/anthrax-investigation-researcher-ed.html

      Delete
    7. Meanwhile, I'm going to start a new thread specifically on the subject of "What is evidence?"
      ==============================================
      Great! More of the blind leading the nearsighted!

      Delete
    8. R. Rowley wrote: "I just noticed that Mister Lake DELETED the first two posts of my three parter. That indicates that he is not truly open to discussions about:

      1) the way FACTS are evaluated by courts ..."

      On the contrary, I am totally open to discussing "the way FACTS are evaluated in courts."
      ============================================
      What, you don't remember ANY of our past discussions of that topic?!?!?!? That's most disconcerting!

      Delete
  37. Mr. Rowley,

    Here's what The New York Times wrote about Senator Leahy's comment:

    At a hearing of his committee, Mr. Leahy told the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, that even if the bureau was right about the involvement of the scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, who killed himself in July before ever being charged, he thought there were accomplices.

    “If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people,” said Mr. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

    “I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact,” he added. “I believe there are others who can be charged with murder.”


    Mr. Rowley wrote: "So, yesterday Mister Lake takes the quotation from Leahy I copy and pasted in a previous post, ADDS a word to make it more congenial, "

    Did the New York Times add the word "even" to "make it more congenial"? Or did they add the word to make the statement less ambiguous - as I did?

    There's no need for you to answer. It would just be your opinion versus my opinion, and thus would prove nothing.

    I've got better things to do than argue opinions versus opinions - particularly since you persist in demonstrating that you have no comprehension of how circumstantial evidence works in court.

    I'm not going to discuss any hypothetical Hatfill trial with you. The man is known to be innocent, so arguments over a hypothetical trial cannot produce anything logical or worthwhile. There is no case against Hafill - hypothetical or otherwise. Creating one is IRRESPONSIBLE AND STUPID.

    Plus, it would only be your opinion against my opinion, and such arguments NEVER accomplish anything.

    Besides, you claim that I said "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against" Hatfill, but you do not provide any source where I said that. Without that source and exact quote, all the rest of your rantings are meaningless.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At a hearing of his committee, Mr. Leahy told the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, that even if the bureau was right about the involvement of the scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, who killed himself in July before ever being charged, he thought there were accomplices.
      =============================================
      That's a summary. Newspapers generally give a summary under a few
      circumstances:

      1) need to compress in lead sentence or paragraph, with full quotation, if needed/available, to follow later in the text.

      2) when they don't have the exact quotation and therefore have to rely on the understanding that the statement imparted.

      Do either of those situations apply here in the thread? No. I had ALREADY supplied the quotation from Leahy upthread; it makes no sense whatsoever, in response, to come up with a 'summary'. Moreover, what you came up with was not a true summary; it was neither fish nor fowl: neither a true summary, nor the quotation as it originally was. You merely added a word for your own weird polemical/obfuscatory reasons. That isn't changed by the fact that some newspaper also used the word "even" in its summary.
      -----
      The situation once again (what you are avoiding): Senator Patrick Leahy,
      Congressman Rush Holt, Paul Keim, and Claire Fraser-Liggett ALL have doubts about the government's Amerithrax hypothesis/belief: that Bruce Ivins, acting alone, committed the crimes of Amerithrax.

      This thread is a exemplar of the underlying reality that Mister Lake's take---
      that doubts about the DoJ's case are based on 'conspiracy theories'----
      is, in the case of all four persons listed above, just flat-out wrong. Leahy knows more than a 100 r. rowleys and a 100 Ed Lakes about 'how circumstantial evidence works'. And that's precisely why he doubts the case made against Ivins........

      Delete
  38. In your Sunday comments of today you keep up your campaign of misstatements regarding me. I should require 10 to 20 posts to remark on all the mistakes in attribution to me, mistakes about what I already said etc. But I'll have to be satisfied with remarking on this: (from today's comment)
    -----------------
    So, what should I do when a conspiracy theorist suggests that the FBI should have totally relied upon "linguist" Don Foster instead of looking at the actual evidence in the case?
    -----------------------------------
    Nowhere did I write that the FBI "should have totally relied upon .....Don Foster".
    What I said was (me quoting my post of June 4, 2014 at 8:20 AM) : half of post plus original footnote:
    ----
    That the FBI was wrong about Amerithrax isn't because I'm right, it's because they didn't properly utilize the co-best* evidence (the texts).
    They did have an opportunity to do so: (see, once again Foster's article on his time as a consultant:
    http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html

    *"co-best" because the genetic sub-typing was equally valuable. But it could, even potentially, merely point to a flask, not a person.
    --------
    Is THAT best summarized by saying the writer is stating the FBI/ Task Force should have 'relied totally upon Don Foster'? It is not, and a clever 12-year old could pick up on the distortions in that pseudo-summary.

    I repeatedly bring up Foster because he is the only person originally involved in the investigation TO MY KNOWLEDGE who ever noted the need to examine and examine at length the St Pete hoax letters with an eye to seeing if they might be from the same person/group*. Certainly there was no need to 'stick to Foster' or use Foster and Foster only in evaluating the prose. If nothing else, the fact that the investigation STILL would have gone on for years might have precluded Foster's protracted involvement. In any event, it worked out great for me!

    *I don't think Foster mentions a 'group' but, in principle, a single group for the hoaxes+ Amerithrax proper is similar to a single perp for both, with the stipulation that spatiotemporal considerations might REQUIRE a group, something I discovered years later.

    Note: the fact that Foster in 2001-3 thought that Hatfill was the best suspect (which the Task Force evidently thought for MUCH longer) isn't to his credit, but it's not to his discredit either. No matter what Hatfill's lawyer said about Foster.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "I should require 10 to 20 posts to remark on all the mistakes in attribution to me, mistakes about what I already said etc."

      You really need to learn how to be concise and factual. It gets VERY tedious reading through a whole bunch of lengthy posts which never get to any point. Your post above is a good example. It's a lot of words, but it doesn't really say anything.

      You don't "totally" rely on Foster.
      You understand that Foster was wrong about Hatfill.
      You don't think Foster ever pointed to any "group."

      What you seem to be saying can probably be summed up in less than 20 words: "I didn't rely on Foster or anyone else for my conspiracy theory. I dreamed it up all by myself."

      As I've explained to you: what you need to do with your conspiracy theory is explain why it is a BETTER theory than the criminal case the FBI and DOJ were making (or made) against Bruce Ivins. If you can't do that, then you're just spouting meaningless nonsense. What is it you are trying to accomplish here?

      I'll start a new thread about "What is evidence?" It will begin with information on the difference between "facts" and "evidence." You really need to learn the difference. Plus, you VERY MUCH need to learn how "circumstantial evidence is used in court." If you can't learn that, you're just going to be spouting the same nonsense over and over and over.

      Ed

      Delete
  39. Mister Lake addressing Joseph from Spain: (partial)(post of December 21, 2012 at 1:11 PM)

    "If you read my book, you'll see that most within the FBI didn't see any evidence pointing at Hatfill, but there were people (particularly in higher management) who felt that, because so many scientists (who are conspiracy theorists) were pointing at Hatfill there must be something to it. But, all the evidence the FBI found said Hatfill was NOT the anthrax mailer."
    ----
    r. rowley: Yeah, that's why he was the main suspect for most of the late 2001 to mid 2006 period! (Here Lake is projecting what HE thought onto the Task Force).
    Above Lake quotation from:
    http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/2012/12/dec-9-dec-15-2012-discussions.html
    =====================================================
    From another site, Mister Lake gives a 6 or 7 paragraph rebuttal to someone who thought Hatfill guilty. The pithiest expression on that point by Mister Lake is:

    "There is nothing linking Hatfill to the anthrax mailings."

    r. rowley: Got that? Nothing!
    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/kQL2gDSJbeg

    Etc,

    ReplyDelete
  40. As I've explained to you: what you need to do with your conspiracy theory is explain why it is a BETTER theory than the criminal case the FBI and DOJ were making (or made) against Bruce Ivins
    ===========================================
    Once again, an amnesia-based rewrite of our past history: you were BEGGING me, after I had posted extensively on Ivins' innocence (and Ivins' innocence alone), to give my alternate hypothesis (do you really have to beg 'conspiracy theorists' to give you their hypotheses?). Eventually, I relented. But only partially. It's not in my interests to give a full accounting of my investigation. Which indicates, even in general terms, far more than I've revealed here. The Anthrax Killer didn't start killing in 2001.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Hmm. I see SEVEN posts by Mr. Rowley this morning. ALL seem to be incoherent rants. NONE say anything meaningful.

    #1 is a complaint about what I wrote regarding Senator Leahy's comments about Ivins' guilt. Mr. Rowley is arguing his opinion against my opinion.

    #2 is a statement refusing to provide the link and quote to where I said "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill."

    #3 is Mr. Rowley digging up a quote from me dated Aug. 25, 2002, where I said ""There is nothing linking Hatfill to the anthrax mailings." Presumably, Mr. Rowley is using this to argue that it is the same as saying "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill." It's not the same.

    #4 is another attempt by Mr. Rowley to argue that I said something which means the same thing as "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill." I said, "the FBI's investigation found nothing to tie him to the mailings." It's not the same.

    #5 is a message stating that it is not in his interests to show that he has a better case against his "suspect" than the FBI had against Ivins. So, he won't present his case -- except for a few details (which are just opinions and mean nothing).

    #6 is a complaint that I am going to start a new thread titled "What is evidence?"

    #7 is a complaint where Mr. Rowley says that because we argued in the past about how evidence is presented in court, the matter has somehow been resolved in his favor. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

    There is nothing in these posts worth discussing, so I'm going to work on refining the text in the new thread titled "What is 'Evidence'?"

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  42. Okay, I've finished modifying the text for the "What is 'Evidence?" thread, so I'll spend a few minutes arguing the meaning of words with Mr. Rowley:

    What is the difference between "There is nothing linking Hatfill to the anthrax mailings" and "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill"?

    And what is the difference between "the FBI's investigation found nothing to tie him to the mailings" and "there was NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against Hatfill"?

    Answer: I made no mention of EVIDENCE in what I said. I talked about "linking" and "tying." While something that LINKS or TIES a person to a crime would almost certainly be "evidence," there can be all sorts of evidence which by itself does not LINK or TIE a person to a crime.

    Hatfill example: Hatfill once worked for USAMRIID. That could be "evidence" in a hypothetical case against Hatfill. But, hundreds of other people also worked for USAMRIID. So, by itself that "evidence" does NOT - repeat NOT - LINK or TIE Dr. Hatfill to the anthrax mailings.

    Ivins example: Dr. Ivins was in charge of flask RMR-1029, which was the source for the "murder weapon." That is EVIDENCE that LINKS or TIES Ivins to the case. It is not sufficient PROOF to convict Ivins, but it would certainly HELP convict him when viewed together with all the other evidence.

    This is, of course, just another argument over the meanings of words.

    Mr. Rowley wrote: "The linguistics led me to: the writer, and the multiple elements (St Pete hoax letters etc.) led me to the relay system ..."

    Linguistics seem to be Mr. Rowley's weakness, not his strong point, when it comes to understanding the evidence in the Amerithrax investigation.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  43. Upthread I made a reference or two to Don Foster's insight in the late 2001 to 2003 timeframe. I would have done better to just quote the following passage:
    -----------------------
    Most mailed biothreats contain harmless household powder and an anonymous message from the offender. Police and F.B.I. officials have established a routine for this entire class of documents: Confiscate both the letter and the envelope from the recipient without allowing any copies to be retained. Test the powder to confirm that it is nontoxic. Announce to the press that "the incident will be investigated as a serious crime." Then place the documents in what's known as a zero file and never look at them again.

    Unfortunately, when that same strategy is applied to the questioned documents in a case as important as the 2001 anthrax murders, critical evidence may be overlooked.[...]
    --------------
    That pretty much covers: the St Pete hoax letters, the pre-Amerithrax threats from Indy and Trenton, and (eventually) the letter of denunciation against Ayaad Assaad (ie "Town of Quantico letter"). A failure to establish who wrote/sent them. A recognition that all texts were from the same author would have eliminated: Hatfill, Ivins (and doubtlessly others) who were thought to be 'lone wolf' type perps.
    So Foster in 2001 anticipates what's really out there.
    Foster goes on: (inside of next paragraph):
    ---------
    More information has been gleaned from those brief letters than you may suppose. But many of the questioned documents pertinent to the anthrax case have been zero-filed. That is why I have decided finally to speak out.
    ---------
    So Foster's self-professed reason for writing the article in VANITY FAIR to begin with was to stress the need to cast the evidentiary net wider. Indeed one is left with the impression that the ONLY reason Foster saw one of the St Pete hoax letters to begin with is: investigators MISTAKENLY thought it was the source of Erin O'Connor's cutaneous anthrax.
    And finally, quite a bit down the text, Foster writes:
    -----------
    Here, then, were two powder-filled biothreats addressed to the same news anchor, two days and 1,000 miles apart. Neither writer could have known of the other unless they were in cahoots.
    ---------
    Exactly. This insight is by no means mitigated by Foster's concentration on Hatfill, which I would call an 'availablity error' (see: http://www.skepdic.com/availability.html
    )
    http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      I'm not sure what your point is.

      Don Foster was obviously upset that the FBI wasn't listening to his screwball Hatfill theory. You are spinning that to fit your own beliefs.

      This quote from Foster is particularly dumb:

      "Here, then, were two powder-filled biothreats addressed to the same news anchor, two days and 1,000 miles apart. Neither writer could have known of the other unless they were in cahoots."

      First, Foster ignores the surge in hoax letters that occurred across the country at that time. In March 2002, I did a survey of how may people were talking about anthrax before the anthrax letters were mailed. Check the info for Sept. 11, 12 and 13, 2001 here: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/timing.html

      Second, Foster doesn't know or say how many hoax or threat letters Tom Brokaw was getting at that time.

      Third, Foster apparently doesn't know what was written in the St. Pete letter. All he knows is that it contained a harmless powder. Foster's specialty is LINGUISTICS, but he's not discussing linguistics. He's discussing things he knows nothing about.

      What you AND Foster are doing is committing the "availability error" you mention. The two events occurred at about the same time, therefore they must be related. NO, they do not need to be related.

      If there were some UNDENIABLE similarity in the handwriting or the text, then there might be some logic behind connecting the letters. But the FACTS (based upon the Toxler envelope) say there is NO similarity whatsoever.

      You point out that Don Foster also wrote:

      "Most mailed biothreats contain harmless household powder and an anonymous message from the offender. Police and F.B.I. officials have established a routine for this entire class of documents: Confiscate both the letter and the envelope from the recipient without allowing any copies to be retained. Test the powder to confirm that it is nontoxic. Announce to the press that "the incident will be investigated as a serious crime." Then place the documents in what's known as a zero file and never look at them again."

      One of the reasons there are so many hoax letters is that it is so difficult to catch the person who sent the letters. They are typically people with no criminal records. Plus, unless they are particularly stupid, they don't usually provide clues to let the police find them. Moreover, when the police DO catch the hoax letter mailer, it doesn't make the same kind of headlines - because it nearly always turns out to be some typical nut case.

      One of the mailings Foster blamed on Hatfill was actually done by a "typical nut case." But Foster wasn't looking for REAL culprits, he was looking for ways to tie the letters to Hatfill. So, he didn't notice that the culprit had been caught.

      In summary, Foster's specialty is linguistics. Foster was NOT using linguistics to tie things together to blame Hafill. He was committing the "availability error" and twisting things to fit his beliefs.

      That's is NOT the right way to do an investigation. It is the WRONG way to do an investigation.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. Mr. Rowley,

      I'm not sure what your point is.
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Then you need to reread what I wrote under each and every excerpt I took from Foster's article. Instead of just 'winging it'.
      -----------------------------------------------------------------------
      Don Foster was obviously upset that the FBI wasn't listening to his screwball Hatfill theory.
      ----------------------------------------------------------------
      It's been almost a decade now and you STILL don't understand the gist of Foster's article, even after it's been explained to you. Whose fault is that?
      ------------------------------------------------------
      "Here, then, were two powder-filled biothreats addressed to the same news anchor, two days and 1,000 miles apart. Neither writer could have known of the other unless they were in cahoots."

      First, Foster ignores the surge in hoax letters that occurred across the country at that time
      ------------------------------------------------
      But you don't cite when "that time" was. It was NOT in March of 2002 (ie 5 to 6 months later). It was in September of 2001. The postmarks were:

      1) 'real anthrax letter' postmarked September 18th 2001. Trenton.

      2) hoax anthrax letter postmarked September 20th 2001. St Pete Florida.

      Same addressee: Tom Brokaw.
      But all Mister Lake sees are "coicidences".

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "But you don't cite when "that time" was. It was NOT in March of 2002 (ie 5 to 6 months later). It was in September of 2001."

      You need to read what I write. You didn't check the dates at the link. At the link it says,

      Sept. 11, 2001 changed everything, including the discussions of anthrax. On this day there were 173 messages using the word, most of which were speculating on whether anthrax would be the next weapon used by the terrorists who had just struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

      Example message:"Imagine if every one of those terrorists who blew themselves up today was carrying a quart of anthrax in his turban. We would have outbreaks in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania... it would be all across the country before anyone knew they were contagious. Shades of The Stand!"

      Another: "I wouldn't be at all surprised if a next attack were biological, something along the lines of anthrax in reservoirs."

      Another: "In ‘Executive Orders’, terrorists are trying to spread the ebola virus in the States, which threat occurred later with anthrax. Is that where terrorists get their ideas? I would never blame Clancy for all this, he's just a writer. After all, if people are crazy enough to act on his ideas, it's not his problem."

      Another: "I remember a couple of years ago when that Bin Laden bloke was threatening to put anthrax in the London water supply. It's scary to think that he actually could, and thousands of people would be affected before they traced it."

      Another: "Imagine if 1 Kilogram of BIOLOGICAL stuff was on the plane or bombed out the entire NEW YORK area would be in danger... I hear on News a guy took his antibiotic for his Anthrax and Malaria... or some sort. I read in the news that it takes: 800$ - to blow 1 mile radius with atomic weapons. 60$ - to blow up or eliminate chemically. 2$ - to do it biologically."

      Another: "For all we know, Anthrax could have been disbursed in this explosion. I am amazed how unprepared our professional fireman etc. are running around without masks"

      Another: "What if they had anthrax in their baggage?"


      There's another bunch of similar comments for September 12 and 13.

      LOTS of people were talking about anthrax related threats right after 9/11. It's not a "coincidence" that there were anthrax hoax letters shortly afterward. It is cause and effect.

      Ed

      Delete
  44. As I indicated before, there are SO many errors in Mister Lake's comments about me on Sunday, that I could write about them for a week solid, and still not exhaust that (sub-) topic.

    Just another sentence:

    "Inexplicably, the conspiracy theorist doesn't even believe that Don Foster identified the correct suspect when Foster pointed to Hatfill."

    It's inexplicable only if you haven't followed what I've written about Foster for 3 or 4 YEARS now (where ya been, Mister Lake? You SEEMED to be on the same threads as me but you show no sign of understanding what I have been writing!)

    People go with what they know. And not just in 'investigations'. Foster found the totality of the linguistic evidence consistent with a scientist who was trying to distance himself from that scientific knowledge. Among other methods by (purposely) misspelling "penicillin" (2 errors in the one word).

    So, if it's a scientist who: is VERY interested in bioweapons; claims to know how to prepare anthrax POWDER; had access in 1997-9 at USAMRIID to the very flask* from which the killer strain was derived; directed a program in which the possibility of sending anthrax through the mails was examined**(See major footnote); etc.
    then someone like Foster, who knows of few other scientists who fit the bill, will go with Hatfill. Understandable. And the very reason(s) the Task Force stuck with Hatfill for so many years.

    *"From the very flask" or "aliquots" derived directly from that RMR-1029

    **Wiki treats of this 'project' thusly (partial):
    By this time there had been a number of hoax anthrax mailings in the United States. Hatfill and his collaborator, SAIC vice president Joseph Soukup, commissioned William C. Patrick, retired head of the old US bioweapons program (who had also been a mentor of Hatfill) to write a report on the possibilities of terrorist anthrax mailing attacks. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg (director of the Federation of American Scientists' biochem weapons working group in 2002) said that the report was commissioned "under a CIA contract to SAIC". However, SAIC said Hatfill and Soukup commissioned it internally — there was no outside client.

    The resulting report, dated February 1999, was subsequently seen by some as a "blueprint" for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Amongst other things, it suggested the maximum amount of anthrax powder - 2.5 grams - that could be put in an envelope without making a suspicious bulge. The quantity in the envelope sent to Senator Patrick Leahy in October 2001 was .871 grams.[11] After the attacks, the report drew the attention of the media and others, and led to their investigation of Patrick and Hatfill.[12]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote: "Foster found the totality of the linguistic evidence consistent with a scientist who was trying to distance himself from that scientific knowledge. Among other methods by (purposely) misspelling "penicillin" (2 errors in the one word)."

      That MISTAKE by Prof. Foster just shows how he was twisting things to fit his beliefs. We now know that the misspelling of "penacilin" was part of a code Bruce Ivins put in the letters. You may not believe that there was a coded message in the letters, but the FACTS make it virtually UNDENIABLE except for the most closed-minded. By ANY measure, it is a BETTER explanation than Foster's theory.

      I don't understand what you are trying to argue. All of the nonsense from Foster was published before we learned about Bruce Ivins and the evidence against Ivins. We now KNOW why "penacilin" was misspelled. We now KNOW that Hatfill had nothing to do with the attacks. We now KNOW that Bill Patrick's report had NOTHING to do with the attacks.

      You seem to have closed your mind to the evidence against Ivins and discuss things as if we were still living in 2007. There is a LOT of information we now have as a result of finding that Ivins was the anthrax killer that we did not have back in 2007. You can't just ignore all those facts as if they don't exist. They DO exist.

      Ignoring the facts makes your arguments pointless.

      Ed

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "Foster found the totality of the linguistic evidence consistent with a scientist who was trying to distance himself from that scientific knowledge. Among other methods by (purposely) misspelling "penicillin" (2 errors in the one word)."

      That MISTAKE by Prof. Foster just shows how he was twisting things to fit his beliefs.
      =======================================
      His "beliefs", as you call them, coincided 100% with what the Task Force's own take was on things at that time ( in late 2001: remember Foster's writing in 2003 about his participation as a consultant in 2001) : (from the "Linguistic/Behavioural Analysis" of 2001):

      "if employed, is likely to be in a position requiring little contact with the public, or other employees. He may work in a laboratory. He is apparently comfortable working with an extremely hazardous material. He probably has a scientific background to some extent, or at least a strong interest in science."
      http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/anthrax-amerithrax/linguistic-behavorial-analysis-of-the-anthrax-letters
      -----------------------------
      And was Steven Hatfill a scientist? Yes, he was.
      What about Bruce Ivins? Yep.
      So where's the "mistake" there?

      Oh, I forgot, Mister Lake still believes (BELIEVES) in the fairy tale of an 'amino acid code'. Sorry, I and Max did our best for 120 posts (out of an eventual 129 posts in the thread) to enlighten you; you're unteachable in the matter. You prefer your fairy tale of a 'code' to reality.

      (For that thread, see most of this:
      http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/2014/01/subject-truthers.html#comment-form ) Despite Max's very eloquent first post, it required DOZENS of posts for Mister Lake to even get what the 'problem' was. He never even attempted to address it (the non-establishment of the assertion that there was a 'code' of any sort to begin with).

      Delete
    3. R. Rowley wrote: "His [Foster's] "beliefs", as you call them, coincided 100% with what the Task Force's own take was on things at that time"

      I'm talking about Foster's belief about the reason why "penacilin" was misspelled, and you twist it to a comment about the fact that both Foster and the FBI believed that the killer was an American scientist. You are just wasting words and my time with such distorted arguments.

      R. Rowley also wrote: "Oh, I forgot, Mister Lake still believes (BELIEVES) in the fairy tale of an 'amino acid code'. Sorry, I and Max did our best for 120 posts (out of an eventual 129 posts in the thread) to enlighten you; you're unteachable in the matter. You prefer your fairy tale of a 'code' to reality."

      All you and "Max" did was argue your beliefs against the facts.

      I pointed out how the decoding process was SCIENTIFIC and the way SCIENTISTS do such decoding. You and Max simply didn't believe it. You BELIEVE your beliefs are "reality." That's just plain silly.

      And you somehow feel that is sufficient argument for me to agree with you and not with the SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.

      That is just plain NUTS.

      But it's also your basic argument. If you believe something, it's true regardless of what any facts say. And if anyone doesn't agree with you, then they are wrong. It shows how pointless it is to argue with you. Your "reality" is what you believe it to be. My "reality" is what the FACTS show.

      Ed

      Delete
  45. And one last passage from Foster and then I'm done:
    -------------------
    It was now December 2001, yet Dolan and Altimari's Hartford Courant story was the first I had heard of the Quantico letter. S.S.A. Fitzgerald had not heard of it, either. In fact, there were quite a few critical documents that Fitzgerald had not yet seen. What, I wondered, has the anthrax task force been doing" Hoping that the Quantico letter might lead, if not to the killer, at least to a suspect, I offered to examine the document. My photocopy arrived by FedEx not from the task force but from F.B.I. headquarters in Washington. Searching through documents by some 40 USAMRIID employees, I found writings by a female officer that looked like a perfect match. I wrote a detailed report on the evidence, but the anthrax task force declined to follow through: the Quantico letter had already been declared a hoax and zero-filed as part of the 9/11 investigation.
    -------------------------------------------
    Three points:

    1) I find Foster was misstaken in attributing the letter to "female officer" at USAMRIID. Her writing may indeed have been something that looked like a 'perfect match', but such evaluations are subject to errors. It's really more reliable to say that writing styles diverge than to say that they are a match, even an IMPERFECT one.

    2) But notice Foster's modest claim(s): "Hoping that the Quantico letter might lead, if not to the killer, at least to a suspect,[...]"; clearly Foster wasn't expecting forensic linguistics in isolation to identify the culprit. I would say, in general, forensic linguistics is more reliable in eliminating a suspect that in identifying or convicting one.

    3) Once again we see the tendency to 'file away' letters that the investigators can't make heads or tails of.

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

    ReplyDelete
  46. R. Rowley wrote that Don Foster wrote: "the Quantico letter had already been declared a hoax and zero-filed as part of the 9/11 investigation."

    The Quantico letter was NOT a hoax. It was a letter that pointed to Assaad as a "potential" terrorist. It is NOT a crime to tell the FBI about someone you suspect of being a potential terrorist - even if your suspicions are erroneous.

    The FBI checked on Assaad and found no reason to suspect he was dangerous. End of story. There was no reason for the FBI to launch an investigation to find who wrote the Assaad letter. The fact that conspiracy theorists see connections to other events is NOT sufficient reason.

    As usual, your arguments are POINTLESS. You are arguing as if we were still back in 2007. We know a lot more now than we did back then.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R. Rowley wrote that Don Foster wrote: "the Quantico letter had already been declared a hoax and zero-filed as part of the 9/11 investigation."

      The Quantico letter was NOT a hoax.[...]
      ==========================================
      It was a letter of denunciation. For that very reason it was (rightfully) viewed with skepticism. In going over this topic many many times, I realize that Mister Lake clings to the idea that the letter writer was sincere. His mistake and his problem. In previous exchanges on this topic, I repeatedly brought up historical instances of massive waves of anonymous letters that proved unreliable. I linked (and I think quoted from) a(n) (American) law enforcement official with 15 years experience who said that anonymous
      letters were given little credence because typically the letter-writer has his/her own (usually hidden) agenda.

      Mister Lake's counter-evidence? There was none. Unless you think attitudinizing via extended gratuitous bold-face passages is evidence.
      (See above, practically the whole thread).
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      There was no reason for the FBI to launch an investigation to find who wrote the Assaad letter.
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Yes, there was. The letter-writer was showing foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks (it was postmarked September 21st, ie about 13 days before Stephens was diagnosed, about 12 days before he became ill). It was a red-herring letter. A provocation.

      Delete
    2. R. Rowley wrote: "Mister Lake clings to the idea that the letter writer was sincere. His mistake and his problem."

      Your opinions have no value here. Arguing opinions against opinions is a STUPID waste of time.

      Mr. Rowley also wrote: "The letter-writer was showing foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks"

      NONSENSE. The letter was sent AFTER 9/11 when MANY people were worried about a possible attack by terrorists using biological weapons. I just showed you where you can find comments by many people from 9/11 12 and 13 expressing concerns. The Assaad letter said NOTHING about anthrax.

      You state "It was a red-herring letter. A provocation." That is your OPINION. Stating it as if it were a fact doesn't make it a fact. It just shows you can't tell the difference between facts and opinions.

      Ed

      Delete
  47. Since I sense that I have veered off into the negative (not for the first time!) on this thread, I'll say something positive: Mister Lake's analysis of yesteryear was, by my lights, spot-on (or nearly so): (from this very website): (with my comments between numbered items)
    ------------
    Profile of the anthrax refiner/mailer:

    1. The refiner/mailer is probably in his 40s.
    (Both the mailer and refiner were in their early 30s, and now 12 1/2 years later
    are in their mid to late 40s)

    2. The refiner/mailer may currently work in the health industry or in academia.
    (true for refiner)

    3. The refiner/mailer has almost unlimited access to scientific equipment and facilities.
    (Bingo! (but for refiner only))

    4. The refiner/mailer probably lives within commuting distance of NYC.
    (Mailer yes. Refiner no)

    5. The refiner/mailer was in the Trenton, NJ, area late on Sept. 17 and October 8, 2001.
    (Yeppers!)

    6. The refiner/mailer probably reads the New York Post.
    (Online edition, probably)

    7. The refiner/mailer probably lives alone.
    (Both men did in 2001)

    8. The refiner/mailer is probably an American citizen.
    (Yep. Both of them)

    9. The refiner/mailer may have some connection to the publication of a newsletter that expresses his beliefs.
    (This I'm unaware of, but I don't rule it out for the refiner: he LOVES to write)

    10. The refiner/mailer thinks that voting is a waste of time. If he belonged to a political party, it would be the Fascist Party.
    (Probably the first statement is true for both men. Fascist Party? I doubt it; is there a true fascist party in the US?)

    11. The refiner/mailer may be a have mood swings between blatant egotism and deep anger.
    (Yep)

    12. The refiner/mailer may be divorced.
    (Refiner divorced in 2001, mailer then never married)

    13. The refiner/mailer may have a small child and visitation rights with the child.
    (This is possible for the refiner; the mailer seemed to have no children)

    14. The refiner/mailer may have used his child to address the envelopes and to write the letters.
    (No comment: I'm keeping positive!)

    15. The refiner/mailer may already have published his "manifesto".
    (In a perverse sort of way, that's true!)

    16. The refiner/mailer probably uses the Internet frequently.
    (Do they ever! And they've communicated with Mister Lake on it!)

    17. The refiner/mailer may have expressed anti-Muslim sentiments during the period before the 9-11 attacks and followed that with a lot of "I told you so" comments after 9-11. He may have expressed concerns about the number of Muslims living in Central New Jersey.
    (True, except probably for the NJ part).
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    How Mister Lake came up with such a brilliant analysis in ?2002? ?2003? ?2004?
    I'm not sure. But my hat's off to you!

    ReplyDelete
  48. R. Rowley wrote: "How Mister Lake came up with such a brilliant analysis in ?2002? ?2003? ?2004?
    I'm not sure. But my hat's off to you!"


    The difference between you and me is that I do not stick with an hypothesis when the FACTS show it to be wrong.

    When the FACTS showed my hypothesis to be wrong, I changed my hypothesis. That is the way things are supposed to be done.

    If the facts show YOUR hypothesis to be wrong, you ignore the facts and stick with your wrong hypothesis. That is NOT the way things should be done.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  49. How Not To React To A Compliment 101, class taught by Prof. Ed Lake:
    ----------------
    R. Rowley wrote: "How Mister Lake came up with such a brilliant analysis in ?2002? ?2003? ?2004?
    I'm not sure. But my hat's off to you!"

    The difference between you and me is that I do not stick with an hypothesis when the FACTS show it to be wrong.
    ------------------------------------------------
    Not true. I tried over the course of MANY MANY months to explain to you how my own hypothesis had changed from late 2005 to 2009. Some (minor) stuff I'm still learning. One or two things that DXer brought up were particularly stimulative for me.....
    --------------------------------------------
    When the FACTS showed my hypothesis to be wrong, I changed my hypothesis.
    ----------------------------------------
    No, you just mindlessly glommed onto the Task Force's hypothesis, lock, stock and amino acid code!
    (Psst, bold face printing still not very persuasive!)

    ReplyDelete
  50. R. Rowley wrote: "No, you just mindlessly glommed onto the Task Force's hypothesis, lock, stock and amino acid code!"

    Not so. The FBI just uses FACTS where you have only OPINIONS and BELIEFS.

    I strongly disagree with the FBI on who did the actual writing on the letters and envelopes. They have witnesses who say that the writing looks like how Ivins would write when sending anonymous letters to the women with whom he was obsessed. I say Ivins used a child from his wife's day care center to write the letters. That is in total disagreement with the DOJ's case.

    I state that the powers were air dried. The FBI makes no statement about how they were dried, other than there were many ways Ivins could have done it.

    I state that the spores came from plates Ivins use to do dosage estimates. They FBI doesn't say anything about how the spores were made.

    I state that the silicon in the spores was the result of growing them at room temperature. They FBI says nothing about how the silicon got into the spores - other than it appears to be from some natural process.

    I state that Ivins originally planned to use a BOMB with the anthrax letter, but changed his mind. The FBI makes no such statement.

    I state that Ivins constructed the coded text for the media letter in early 2000, a year and a half before the actual anthrax mailings. The FBI says nothing about when Ivins devised the hidden message in the media letters.

    I state that there is evidence that Ivins also sent the "J-Lo letter," although the evidence is very inconclusive. The FBI says nothing about this.

    The FBI makes a very good case against Ivins. You make no case at all against your suspect. "DXer" also makes no meaningful case. You both just endlessly argue your beliefs and opinions.

    I look at FACTS. The FACTS say Ivins was the anthrax mailer. If you want to persuade me otherwise, YOU NEED BETTER FACTS. Simply arguing your beliefs and opinions over and over and over and over isn't going to persuade me.

    Other conspiracy theorists have different beliefs and opinions. DXer will argue that Muslim terrorists did it. Why are your beliefs and opinions better than his? Why don't you argue with him? Other conspiracy theorists will use beliefs and opinions to argue that the CIA did it. Why don't you argue with them? Or the conspiracy theorists who believe Jews sent the letters. Or the conspiracy theorists who believe Dick Cheney sent the anthrax letters. Why don't you argue with them? Opinions and beliefs prove nothing.

    If you cannot discuss the FACTS of the case, you have nothing worthwhile to say.

    End of story.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  51. I state that Ivins originally planned to use a BOMB with the anthrax letter, but changed his mind. The FBI makes no such statement.
    ===================================
    You certainly never made such a statement in 3 years (plus) of discussing Amerithrax HERE with me (and others). What sleeve did you pull THAT out of?
    ================================
    I look at FACTS. The FACTS say Ivins was the anthrax mailer.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    I listed on this thread in one post 15 (count 'em 15! ) FACTS that say Hatfill did
    Amerithrax*. It was a copy and paste from a previous thread (another venue).

    In that other thread/venue you did NOT DENY that the 15 items were FACTS and FACTS related to anthrax/Amerithrax. And this time? You deleted the post (and its companion), saying that the contents implicated an 'innocent man'. That's a backhanded way of ADMITTING the listed items were FACTS, and FACTS (gee, isn't capitalization fun?!?) related to Amerithrax, ones that implicated 'an innocent man' (Gee, just like the Amerithrax Investigative Summary!).

    Meaning your pretense that FACTS (notice the capitalization, Mister Lake?) are what is driving you is just that: a pretense.


    *But once again, I don't think Hatfill did it; I, in contrast to Mister Lake, don't pretend that facts (lower case) interpret themselves. If I could write up a list of 300 FACTS that said that person X did Amerithrax, that would not prove that person did it. Facts need to be interpreted and interpreted in a credible manner, and, if you had understood TWELVE ANGRY MEN you would have realized that that's exactly what the Henry Fonda character does in that jury room: tears apart the prosecutor's case via reinterpretation of the facts presented during the trial. As the film wears on, the Fonda character is joined by first the elderly juror and then others who notice (interpretive ) weaknesses in skein after skein of 'evidence'........
    ====================================================
    DXer will argue that Muslim terrorists did it. Why are your beliefs and opinions better than his?
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Because I knew the Anthrax author years before I started studying Amerithrax (a coincidence) and I noticed some odd things about his writing style.
    See Louis Pasteur :
    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/louispaste134068.html
    -------------------------------
    But you keep on making it out that I'm trying to convince YOU, Mister Lake, and
    that's just not true. In fact NOTHING could be further from the truth: you BEGGED me to give my hypothesis, this a few years back and after I did in a general way, a few days later (like 2 days) suddenly you were into your Internetese jargon: I was making "claims" that I had to "prove" (Your words, your dopey Internet jargon).
    I pointed out that you had begged me on that very thread (and I copy and pasted your request) to give my hypothesis. What I had feared happened: instead of talking about something you were fairly competent on you started TELLING me what my hypothesis was. And, as usual, you kept on screwing it up.
    -----
    The ONLY thing I'm trying to convince you of is: Ivins' innocence, which Paul Keim
    Senator Leahy, Rush Holt, Claire Fraser-Liggett et alia., at a bare minimum, suspect..... Suspect, not on 'not knowing the science', not on 'not knowing how circumstantial evidence works', not on being 'truthers/conspiracy theorists', but on knowing that facts do not interpret themselves and the hard evidence (spores in Ivins' vehicle/domicile; printing style match; evidence of late-night driving to Princeton; evidence of spore drying/purifying) is conspicuously absent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Rowley,

      Again you distort the facts. I don't recall ever "begging" you to give me your hypothesis. I've repeatedly tried to get you to stop using other people's ignorant opinions to argue about Ivins' innocence and to instead show me how you have a BETTER case against your suspect than the FBI had against Bruce Ivins. For various reasons, you couldn't provide any meaningful evidence against your suspect, much less make a better case.

      Arguing opinions against opinions is a waste of time. I'm only interested in discussing FACTS AND EVIDENCE. The FACTS and EVIDENCE say Bruce Ivins was the anthrax mailer, regardless of whether the people on your list of doubters fully accept that or not. Apparently, you have NO FACTS or EVIDENCE that can convince anyone of the guilt of your suspect.

      So, once again, the FACTS and EVIDENCE say Ivins was the anthrax killer - regardless of how many people you can find who say they are not fully convinced because they are either ignorant of the evidence or simply do not believe the evidence.

      Ed

      Delete
  52. R. Rowley wrote: "In that other thread/venue you did NOT DENY that the 15 items were FACTS and FACTS related to anthrax/Amerithrax. And this time? You deleted the post (and its companion), saying that the contents implicated an 'innocent man'. That's a backhanded way of ADMITTING the listed items were FACTS, and FACTS"

    Ah! I see where you fail to understand facts and evidence!

    1. When you look at facts, you ALSO need to look at facts which show innocence.
    2. When you look at facts, you ALSO need to look at the "strength" of those facts.

    Why did you fail to include the FACTS which showed Dr. Hatfill to be innocent?

    He had an alibi for the time of one of the mailings. He was at a wedding.
    He didn't have the required expertise needed to make the anthrax powders.
    He didn't have access to the equipment needed to make the anthrax powders.
    He didn't have access to the contents of flask RMR-1029, the "murder weapon."

    Example of a "weak" fact:

    3) He FALSIFIED resumes, claiming at least one Ph.D that he hadn’t achieved.

    Yes, it's a "fact," but it has very little meaning regarding the anthrax attacks. It's a very "weak" fact.

    Five examples of STRONG facts:

    Ivins was in charge of the "murder weapon."
    Ivins had no alibi for the times of the mailings.
    Ivins had all the expertise necessary to make the anthrax powders.
    Ivins had all the equipment needed to make the anthrax powders.
    Ivins had no explanation for what he was doing alone in his lab at critical times.

    When I talk about "looking at the facts and evidence," I constantly say you have to look at ALL the facts and evidence together.

    ONE strong fact showing innocence can easily outweigh a hundred weak "facts" showing guilt.

    One strong fact showing guilt for Suspect A can outweigh ten weak facts showing guilt for Suspect B.

    ALL the 15 facts you listed regarding Dr. Hatfill were relatively WEAK facts.

    During the early part of the FBI's investigation they repeatedly stated that they had a list of about 20 possible suspects. That almost certainly meant that they had WEAK facts and evidence to show that any one of the 20 might have done the crime, but they had no STRONG facts showing guilt and no facts at all showing innocence.

    Gradually, they sorted out the people who had FACTS showing they were innocent, and they sorted out the people who only had WEAK FACTS suggesting they could be guilty. They eventually ended up with just one person with many VERY STRONG FACTS showing he was guilty, and NO FACTS SHOWING HE WAS INNOCENT. All together it would be enough strong facts to convince almost any jury. That person was Bruce Edwards Ivins.

    I hope this clears up your misunderstanding about facts and evidence. How you can ignore facts showing innocence is amazing to me.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  53. R. Rowley wrote that I wrote: "I state that Ivins originally planned to use a BOMB with the anthrax letter, but changed his mind. The FBI makes no such statement." and Mr. Rowley responded:
    "You certainly never made such a statement in 3 years (plus) of discussing Amerithrax HERE with me (and others). What sleeve did you pull THAT out of?"

    I pulled it out of my book "A Crime Unlike Any Other." The discussion of Ivins' "bomb plot" begins on page 33 with this:

    In January of 2000, Ivins purchased ammonium nitrate,8 very likely for the purpose of constructing a "fertilizer bomb" similar to the one Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April of 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring over 800 others.

    Ivins wasn't a cold-blooded murderer, however, so his bomb would be much smaller, and his plan was very likely much more complex.


    It continues to the end of chapter 4 where Ivins tells a psychiatrist about the bomb.

    Also check my web site comment for June 26, 2011:

    June 26, 2011 - For awhile now, I've been wondering: What was Bruce Ivins planning to blow up when he purchased "bomb making ingredients" early in 2000? According to page 50 of David Willman's book "The Mirage Man," Ivins had purchased ammonium nitrate to make a bomb sometime prior to his first session with Dr. David Irwin. It appears that Ivins called Dr. Naomi Heller when he began worrying about what he might do with the bomb. But, Dr. Heller had retired, and she referred him to Dr. Irwin. Page 238 of the EBAP report says that Dr. Irwin ("Dr. #2") treated Ivins from February 1, 2000 to July 24, 2000. So, Bruce Ivins told Dr. Irwin that he'd bought the ammonium nitrate to make a bomb, and Ivins had probably made the purchase in January. But, there's no hint of what Ivins planned to blow up.

    The link: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Update-History2011-Pt-2.html

    Also check my web site comment for May 6, 2012:

    The biggest mystery the emails might help solve is what Ivins was planning to do with the ammonium nitrate bomb he was thinking about making in January 2000. What was on his mind at that time when he first started seeing Dr. David Irwin, evidently because of his concerns about that bomb plan? His emails from that time might enable me to figure it out with greater certainty. For my book, I've already determined the most likely reason for making the bomb, but my reasoning was based upon very few very tenuous facts. I would like to have a lot more facts.

    Also check my web site comment for May 8, 2012:

    On my interactive blog yesterday, "Anonymous" brought to my attention a question about the other subject I'll be looking for in Ivins' emails: What did Ivins plan to do with the ammonium nitrate bomb he was making in January 2000? David Willman's book "The Mirage Man" seems to make it clear on page 50 that Ivins mentioned the bomb plan to his psychiatrist Dr. David Irwin in February of 2000. But a newspaper article by Willman suggests that Ivins may also have mentioned the bomb plan to one of his mental health counselors in July 2000.

    Also check my web site comment for May 20, 2012:

    "I'm also waiting on the Ivins emails which are supposedly going to be released sometime soon. If they do get released, will they generate some new headlines? Will they contain clues as to what Ivins was thinking about blowing up with his ammonium nitrate bomb in January 2000? Will they contain clues as to what made him think about building an ammonium nitrate bomb in the first place?"

    The link: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Update-History2012-Pt-2.html

    I also mention the bomb in my April 29, 2014 (A) comment. Here's the link: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Update-History2014.html

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  54. Anthrax: US-Seuchenschützer schludern mit Milzbrandbakterien
    ZEIT ONLINE-by Sven Stockrahm-6 hours ago
    Juni lösten nun die Seuchenwächter der CDC Anthrax-Alarm aus, im eigenen ... es gelingt, die Sporen als Aerosol aufzubereiten und grossflächig zu verteilen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spritz,

      Google translates that to:

      U.S. epidemic protectors schludern with anthrax bacteria

      June have now solved the disease guardian of the CDC Anthrax alert in their own ... it is possible to prepare the spores as aerosols and spread over a large area.


      I think you are probably saying what I wrote today on my web site at www.anthraxinvestigation.com:

      It's possible to aerosolize anthrax spores without any kind of "weaponization" using silica. The CDC just did it accidentally.

      Or, as Google would translate that:

      Ich denke, Sie werden wahrscheinlich sagen, was ich schrieb heute auf meiner Website unter www.anthraxinvestigation.com:

      Es ist möglich, Anthrax-Sporen ohne jegliche Verwendung von Silica "Militarisierung" vernebeln. Die CDC hat es nur versehentlich.

      Ed

      Delete