
And we're just going to run with this topic tonight.
The Spy Who Billed Me reports:
UPDATE: The online edition of the British newspaper the Telegraph is now reporting:
The senior government source, who is aware of the discussions of the Cabinet’s emergency committee, Cobra, said the picture of the killers that was emerging was closer to bungling assassins than cool James Bond-type killers.
They also added this fact about the hotel room where Litvinenko was staying:
Clear traces of the radiation were found on the floor of a room, thought to be in the Millennium hotel in central London, the source said, as well as on a light switch in the same room. The traces were so strong that they indicated the actual source of the radiation was present…
Translation: "Whoops! Where's the light switch?"
So, they took the pack of loaded cigarettes into his hotel room, dropped them, fumbled for the light switch, and planted them in the carton or on the night stand or in Litvinenko's coat pocket.
Of course, the question still remains as to who did it. Dr. Hillhouse, in "Why You Should Never Use Your Shoe Phone After Stepping in Polonium-210" opines that they were in fact KGB and offers them some tips for the next time around:
- When you’re going through airport security, make sure you carry a big water bottle. Authorities are on the lookout for those and they’ll be so fixated upon taking it away from you that they won’t notice the clicking Geiger counters.
- Ignore the CIA Italian rendition team’s example and quit collecting frequent flier miles. Keep the boarding passes and send them in later when no one is on the lookout for your trail.
- On the flight to London, whatever you do, don’t lower your window shade for the movie. Turn on your reading light to reduce the chances of anyone noticing your warm afterglow.
- When your hair starts to fall out from radiation poisoning because of your leaking packaging, do not keep running to the airplane lavatory to look in the mirror. Flight attendants are trained to be on the lookout for suspicious activity in the loo and you don’t want them to nab you on suspicion you're mixing a liquid explosives cocktail there.
- If British customs catches you with the Polonium-210, it’s no problem to escape British authorities and get out of the UK. Calmly explain that the Polonium is for the jihad. Before you know it, you’ll be on a CIA rendition flight headed back to a former KGB facility, having cleverly escaped from Great Britain. Cross your fingers your colleagues still have the keys to their old digs.
- If you don’t use all of the Polonium-210, don’t take the extra back to Moscow. Dump it in London. Or better yet, act like a true Russian and sell it on the black market and pocket the money.
- NEVER fly the flag carrier of the country where you’re going to do the op. Did you really think British police wouldn’t have access to the BA planes you flew in on to test them for radiation? Next time use Aeroflot. Sure, the service sucks, but when the British police are hot on your trail, act like your former KGB selves and don’t give them access: crash the planes instead. Then lie about it.
All very sound advice. We should email her and ask to whom she sent the invoice for that consultation.
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This is too easy.
Spies R Us
TRex!
Balrog @
1
“Fly! you fools!”
Sounds like a Peter Sellers job.
Smiley!
FITZ!
kirk murphy @ 6
Haydon!
Fitz!
Ok, now I’m going to read the post.
I did it, TRex. I gave him the Polonium-210. :-)
Damn, this spy stuff is fun. Scary and creepy and hideous, but fun…
what a bunch of dummies! how’d they ever graduate spy school?
John Amato @ 10
I thought you invented sarcasm.
Patrick 4/4 @ 8
the lovely Ann….
John Amato @
10
Dude, be careful. The NSA will come after you.
I’m sticking with my original thoughts.
Whoever did this was being “clumsy” on purpose. I feel a little nervous, don’t you? This is murder and terrorism.
Ain’t gonna find no fingerprints or DNA, either!
kirk murphy @ 14
I am not going to take the cigarette lighter back…
The NSA is already tapping my phone, my IM and email account. They already know I’m guilty.
leave it to some dumb Russian spies to think they are being “poetic”!
John Amato @ 18
Guilty of LOOOOVE!!!
OldCoastie @ 19
Well, when Pushkin comes to shove…
TRex !
Patrick 4/4 @ 17
Hope it lay in the weeds for years…until someone picking a chunk of the fallen Wall found it and took it away.
Wish the spooks’ sorceries were so easily dispelled.
Well, getting into the poison thing, this is MUCH easier… grind up a leaf or two…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_nightshade
It’s also a rather attractive perennial…
Marion in Savannah @ 24
Spoken like a true Southern Lady.
And so, who sent those letters laced with anthrax? Don’t think that has been sorted out, eh?
TSF- round 1 of the Macallan 15 is history. Raise your glass for the second one.
Extensive discussion of whiskey is on the last thread, so we’ll have to leave it there.
err – folks – perhaps the discussion of specific poisons* should stay with polonium..
…wouldn’t want to become the rabid Borgias….
[*Laphroaig and bonded libations duly excepted, natch]
faithfulreader @ 26
I’ll get right on that.
Oh, don’t be so strycht.
John Amato @ 18
Is it you, John? Really?
I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done for me and for our country!
You rock, sir!
T- @ 27
Don’t leave it too long – it’ll leave a ring.
TRex @ 25
That would be the “attractive perennial” thing, wouldn’t it??!! I just can’t hide around here, can I?
It’s really past my bedtime, so I’m going to have to say good night, but I wish I could prop my eyelids open. This new side of TRex is fascinating, and so are all of the comments. See you all in the morning.
TRex @ 29
Thanks, TRex. It’s been bothering me for a long time.
angie @
16
How can all this be going on as if, well, as if we were all living in a leCarre’ novel? Why isn’t the terror threat raised? Why isn’t our government sending tiger teams to analyze the substances? Why isn’t the US taking credit for solving this plot, or foiling a larger one? This is clearly terrorism, but our government isn’t making the “protect me, Daddy Bush” noises and neither is the media.
Isn’t the silence from our own government deafening?
From the Independent
‘In Moscow there was growing consensus that the assassination was part of a power struggle between liberals in the regime and hardliners from the security services. Yulia Latynina, a leading commentator, said the polonium 210 “seems to have been left like a spy’s calling card – not to prove to the world that Russia is run by the security services, but to prove this to Putin.””
via lukery
Thanks Angie, I appreciate it!
I already said this wasn’t done by someone ‘clumsy’. But have fun with it if you want. What, our people are calculating democracy subverters but the Russians are ?amateurs?? Think again.
The Britair portion is more about terrorizing their own population for increasing political control than any facts, not that we would know anything about that. Cough V.
And with that I bid you adieu.
Please, Teddy, don’t encourage them!
angie @ 31
Hear, hear!!
You say tomato, I say Amato.
Hmm. Interesting. Why is Reuters sanitizing the story? Contrast and compare:
Reuters on Yahoo
AP at Mercury News
Could be insignificant, could be out of some weird sense of respect…or it could be sanitizing.
I note the stories indicate Yegar Gaidar is doing better. Let’s assume for the hell of it that the Litivenko and Gaidar situations are related; why two different M.O.’s? And what is the connection?
TRex @ 30
thallium ’round the fag*
(*in the tobacconists’ sense)
I never heard of that one Pach…hehe
It’s a wild story. A dude actually gets nuked.
It just gets Curie-oser and Curie-oser.
hmm… spies with poetic radioactive poison….
witchdoctors with brocolli curses….
it IS some kind of movie!
(anybody finding reality a little strange these days?)
Seriously, TRex. Yeah, that anthrax question was OT, but no offense meant- with your enquiring mind and scientific take, seemed like a valid question for you. It was the whole “poison” thing that brought this back to mind- perhaps I was just doing too much free associating.
Rayne @ 42
I don’t think it’s sanitizing – note the AP quotes another news agency for the wife’s identity – Reuters chose not to use a secondary source. They’re generally pretty responsible.
ahh, Madame Curie.
Freedom Fries all around– I’ll pay the tab!
I have to see the new Bond movie now…
It sounds like someone who was contaminated had poor bathroom handwashing habits to leave traces in so many places.
Sloppy spooks? The extraordinary rendition in Italy that prompted arrest warrants for 22 (suspected) CIA agents involved were based on an easy trail of sloppy spookevidence…cell phone trace/gps, extravagant hotel acommodations, credit card trails and such.
This po-210 could’ve come from somewhere besides Russia?
Sloppy spooks?
the arrogance of power
faithfulreader @ 47
Oh, greater minds than mine have been trying to crack that one for years. I was kidding, really.
Hey, someone go to the store and get me some smokes, okay? I’m tired.
patrick 4/4 48 — I guess I read it differently.
From AP:
AP quoted an Italian outlet on Scaramella’s spouse’s condition.
Ice Pie
Marion in Savannah @ 11
No. Not fun. How nice that we can sit in our safe homes and be entertained by Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, and other exotic places while we sip our drinks and root for the home team.
These are real people being killed and the stakes are high. Some of us are trying to step between the bullet and the target. This is not facilitated by people who think it is all just a spectator sport and fun.
Fun.
God damn it.
Think what you are saying. Lives are at stake. But it’s amusing.
Is it fun to play spy? And write about exotic stuff in other countries?
Now I bid you adieu, I will persevere in trying to make a difference while other people find amusement in a grave situation. So be it. For anyone who takes this seriously, I beg your prayers for my safety and for the safety of others who put themselves on the line. And especially for our troops.
Rayne @ 54
I wonder if it was through sex that he passed the contamination to her?
kirk murphy @ 52
Sadly, BushCo has also proven the power of arrogance.
Hi folks.
MI-5’s banking get-out-of-jail free cards.
Trex,
I posed a question @129, I think, on the last thread. I suppose you were busy working on this post and didn’t see it.
I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to give me an answer.
Rayne @ 54
My bad.
rumi 57 — if you read the last post by TRex, you’ll see that it’s probably not too hard to be contaminated casually (assuming the information provided by email on Po-210 is accurate).
Let’s say the source was cigarettes; did Litivenko offer an undoped but contaminated cigarette to Scaramello? did the cigarette get finished in the proximity of Scaramella’s or Litivenko’s spouse?
edit: Could casually kissing contaminate a spouse, if undoped but contaminated cigarette was the source of Scaramella’s contact?
kirk murphy @ 59
Best part of the article: “scintillation detectors”
faithfulreader @ 26
While I’m annoyed by the fact that the anthrax letters are conveniently swept under the rug whenever wingnuts talk about how we “haven’t had another terrorist attack,” I don’t read too much into the failure to catch the culprit. It took a really long time to catch the Unabomber, and he was really only caught because he kept sending bombs and because his long rambling manifesto was published in major newspapers where the writing style was recognized by his brother. Catching lone wackos with no direct connection to their victims is really really hard.
T-Rex,
I couldn’t think of her name last night, but it suddenly materialized: If you like Tori Amos, I bet you’d like Tierra Naomi. Same sort of sensitive neurotic white chick schtick, only playing a guitar. Beautiful voice. Please forgive me, back to spy vs spy, skullduggery & the like.
“Whoopee, we’re all gonna die”
/snark
or not;
thank you TRex for exploring this,
Seems the British Establishment decided to give Special Branch and the spooks a pass on Official Secrets:
the plot thickens. posted yet?:
A little OT-Haven’t seen a shrub bumper sticker for months in my community for months though I’m looking for one. This particular sticker I saw when standing in line at the drop-off in 04 was stuck to the rear window of a foreign black auto along with an anti-gay marrige one. Now I’m standing behind this women patiently waiting when the car lurches in reverse. I hop to the side, voicing my objections to see her smiling and mouthing some words(I’m parially deaf). I just want to give her ‘the smile’ back.
oh. “f”.
thank you punaise.
i must go read a book now. g’nite friends.
Patrick 4/4 @ 63
Are those like the doorman at a new club on the Westside?
That’s Tierra LEONE. Sorry, I’ve polished of a bottle of wine tonight and I’m not firing on all cylinders.
Natasha aimed.
LOL! “The Spy who Billed Me”
kirk murphy @ 71
Is that a scintillation detector or are you just happy to see me?
watch your zigs, gents
Are those like the doorman at a new club on the Westside.
or Studio Fifty Pore
I’ll offer another possibility that includes ingestion. He gets a big load of it in his food (much larger than the minimum fatal body load), and like any good Russian spy, has pounded down plenty of vodka with his food or afterwards.
He’s stumbling drunk in the bathroom, pees on the floor, gets urine on his hands shakin’ it off or putting it back in his pants and doesn’t wash his hands, then turns out the light switch. What comes out in his urine would be unmetabolized and with a high enough body load, would appear to be as strong as the source….
Rayne @ 62
I might have missed something along the line. When did the poisoning first happen and was it a single source event? Is that the Nov 1 meeting and lunch that is often referred to? That leaves 3 weeks for contamination from a victim, if that’s how other exposures happened. That sounds more like a transfer from body fluids of some sort. Also, many of the other confirmed contaminations have not been specified as polonium. This all would make a great cover story to explain away evidence of other types of materials transfers.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/113006J.shtml
Truthout has lost some creds because of you know who in the Fitz dustup, but Chris Floyd is a better article. -Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His weekly political column, “Global Eye,” ran in the Moscow Times from 1996 to 2006-
And, the article is worth a read.
–Everyone knows that Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko was killed by radiation poisoning in London last month. But beyond that bare fact, almost nothing is clear about the case. The truth has disappeared, probably forever, into the shadowlands – that murky confluence of crime, violence, money and politics where so much of the real business of the world is conducted. However, an examination of some of the curiously overlooked aspects of the affair might send at least a few shafts of light into the cloud of unknowing that has enveloped Litvinenko’s death.
Of course, one of the chief obstacles in assessing the situation is the fact that almost everything we knew about the case for weeks was spoon-fed to the media by the most elite PR operation in Britain. Almost from the moment that Litvinenko fell ill, he disappeared behind a phalanx of handlers paid for by his patron, Boris Berezovsky, the fugitive Russian billionaire and shadowlands operator par excellence. To handle – and generate – the publicity surrounding the incident, Berezovsky called on his old friend Baron Bell of Belgravia, who, back when he was just plain old Tim Bell, served as the private propaganda chief for Margaret Thatcher, as Sourcewatch reports. The baron has also flacked for disgraced media mogul Conrad Black, disgraceful media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and the Coalition Provisional Authority, the mechanism set up by the Bush administration to eviscerate Iraq….[]
Someone who wanted to embarrass Putin might have done it. Someone with motives entirely unconnected to Russian politics might have done it. Rogue elements of this or that faction or agency or government might have done it. But it’s clear from all the facts available that the one person who would benefit least from the murder is the one who has been most widely and confidently accused of ordering it: Putin. []
I trust Chris Floyd as much as I trust Tom Friedman, and for the same reasons.
Servile suck-ups to mass murderers, both of them.
Chris “Pinko” Floyd
While I patiently wait for Trex to look up my post from the last thread and offer me the information I requested, I’ll try my best to entertain those of you whose “toes curl with geeky delight” with science information.
Bullshit indicator #2 from the “reader” whose words lead off the last post (Bullshit indicator #1 I offered in the last post thread), is the comment that “It (pollonium) is a chemical analog of oxygen, but is a metalloid (somewhat like mercury).”
Mercury, in fact, is not a metalloid, but is a transition metal. Though I do not know much about polonium, I know a fair amount about mercury and basic chemistry. I fail to see how pollonium is “somewhat like mercury.”
Heck, I’m a biochemist. I don’t’ even work much with stuff on that part of the periodic table and even I know enough to realize that the “reader” is half-baked. Certainly, someone who doesn’t know the difference between a metalloid and a transition metal should not be separating pollonium from uranium, as the reader claims.
I have a whole bunch more bullshit indicators from that piece, but I will spare you the tedious science drivel unless you just can’t get enough. At this point, I suspect this “reader” gathered a bunch of half-accurate b.s. from web sources, which were then swallowed whole and presented as the lead in to the last post. That’s my best and fairest guess at this point.
Some of the main pagers on this blog have had exposure in national forums (CNN, Olbermann show, and probably elsewhere for all I know). Is ANYONE else here troubled, as I am, by the fact that this kind of information is being slung here? Or is it only a problem when goopers do it? In other words, if the mighty Hammond tells you something, is ok, but you will not accept the mighty Wurlitzer. Or is it ok because the post is “art” and its ok to offer something that is only slightly better than made up out of whole cloth if it serves as a good set up to one’s “art?”
I know some of you probably think I am just nitpicking, but this “reader” presenst himself/herself as an expert when I think there is cause to suspect that. This blog should not be giving a forum to someone like that.
I’m going off topic here, hehe but “Third World” Tancredo was defending calling Miami..well..third world…
kirk murphy @ 81
Well, looks like I need to be informed about Chris Floyd. oops? Tell me more, plz.
John Amato @ 84
Well, with all those brown and black people around, someone like him might well confuse Miami with Burkina Faso…. :)
Just saw Barack Obamba on Leno. He’s done. Look elsewhere for leadership. The problem is America has accepted the Leno nation as reality and the Leno presidency as reality.
This statement appears to confuse location on the Periodic Table (in which Polonium is with the transitional group) with the ionization and bonding properties of the chemical elements
crick @ 83
Your comments are valuable. If TRex took it at face value, and did so mistakenly, I think it was an honest mistake. And, if so, we’re all the wiser. If your comments are rightfully challenged, then we’re all the wiser. Thanks. That’s what FDL is all about.
crick @83-
I think we’re all a bit suspect of comments for that reason. We don’t know anything (or very little, usually) about the person commenting, so it’s best to take very specific info with a grain of salt. Especially science details. At least that’s true in my case. I don’t know enough about the subject to know if that commenter is accurate or not. Your point is well taken.
Crick @ 83:
I don’t know that there’s enough substantive information from “the reader” to make a difference to our otherwise random speculation.
If you have more accurate information about Polunium 210, please tell us. Dark conspiracies about someone who may have just been inaccurate – while fitting in with the theme of random speculation – are probably just going to make people cranky.
It’s a self-correcting medium after all – so correct and move on.
Terra, Tierra, Naomi, Leone… I don’t remember her name. Saw her on Youtube and she was great. Had a song called “A Wish” or something like that. Hell with it. Someone bail me out here.
Rushton @ 92
Sergio Leone?
TeddySanFran @ 35
It seems they have better…er, other things to deal with, security-wise.
Patrick 4/4 @ 91
Or what Kirk Murphy said.
crick,
Interesting that you and whoever it was posted almost simultaneously on that previous thread with the same accusation. I’ve got two ISP’s, two computers, and could pull off the same trick too I guess.
Sock puppet.
[Mod note; let’s stay away from accusations about fellow commenters, especially with no more evidence than your speculation above.]
Hmm. A commenter at Larisa Alexandrovna’s blog noted the little “oversight” that numerous outlets have committed in coverage of the Litivenko story.
The Goldfarb quoted as a friend of Litivenko on Litivenko’s spouse’s condition is Boris Berezovsky’s attorney.
Or so the commenter says.
What a mess.
Patrick 4/4 @ 91
What else? Anyone government with reprocessing facilities for spent nuclear fuel under its control would be able to acquire plenty.
Second, the single largest source for Po-210 is a country’s nuclear weapons program, if they have one. It’s often used as an initiator in such weapons, in combination with, I think, lithium-6. When those two elements are mixed, there’s a big rush of neutrons, which helps get the fission bang going.
Tia Leone (wife of X-files)
crick @ 83
You could make your arguments more accessible to me if you’d include links that would help me fact-check your statements. Perhaps, with no links, your comments haven’t a way to be verified.
More serious science drivel’s probably required for me as well, considering you’ve written a skarkily clever comment, except that you talked down to me, your co-commenter, which kinda turned me off.
just sayin’
oh, and we omit the quotes when we refer to TRex’s art.
Encore!
Kathryn in MA @ 100
Leona Helmsley – wife of Sherman.
Patrick 4/4 @ 103
Leon Redbone – no relation.
You assessed this conclusion from one appearance on a talk show. Well done.
EvilDrPuma @ 104
Chairman Mao – the Great Helmsman.
Patrick 4/4 @ 106
Hikaru Sulu – the Cool Helmsman.
Patrick 4/4 @ 106
Mickey Maouse – the helmsman in “Steamboat Willie.”
Rayne
Have you seen any of This source’s information?
montag @ 108
Willy Loman – a dead salesman.
montag @ 108
Matt Helm – just great.
Neil,
So, this guy is for something or against something? What is that? Would Leno object to that?
EvilDrPuma @ 110
Soupy Sales – a pie-throwing funnyman.
montag @ 113
Mannheim Steamroller – I think it would be funny to throw pies at them.
Patrick 4/4 @ 111
The Great Santini – a matte-green-clad jet helmsman.
montag @ 115
Dominic Santini – Ernest Borgnine played him on “Airwolf.”
Whoa, sorry kids. I went out and got some cigarettes and then got distracted by “Battlestar Galactica”, which finally downloaded on to my iTunes library about an hour ago.
Uh, Crick? I don’t really know who you are, but I saw you comment and emailed the reader with your questions and have been waiting for a reply. As far as the timeliness of my response to your oh-so-courteous inquiries, I’m afraid I didn’t get that check you sent me to do this every night. Why don’t you send me another?
Right.
I’m off to watch some more “BG” and will check back in a while.
EvilDrPuma @ 116
The Great Satan – the U.S. played him in 1979.
Well Montag,
Keep on trucking.
EvilDrPuma @ 114
Texas Rollergirls – Austin roller derby league.
EvilDrPuma @ 116
Dominique Sanda – `nuff said.
TRex @ 117
I didn’t like all the bloodsports in BG tonite. Won’t futurepeople have evolved past bloodsports by the time of BG? Or at least past bloodsports wagering.
Patrick 4/4 @ 118
The Greater Satan – the U.S. played him from 2001-.
TeddySanFran @ 122
If it were “Star Trek,” I’d agree. BG isn’t about anything I’d call a better world.
TeddySanFran @ 122
That would be “no”.
Sorry if this has been posted earlier, but are these predators everywhere in the GOP?
Well-known GOP activist held in sex-predator sting.
Seattle Times, via Aravosis.
Holy fuck!
I just watched the pilot episode of “BG”!!
Now I understand why everyone has been telling me to watch this. It’s fucking fantastic!!
I have managed to never see it all this time. I thought it was just another cheesy sci fi show.
rumi 109 — the linked source you provided is not too far off a few other sources, all seem to think that Berezovsky did this to make Putin look bad, although the underlying reasons are sketchy depending who you read.
I have thought that this could be Erinys’ work…but it’s so damned hard to say whether this was sloppy work done by an immature group, or deliberatly sloppy work done by a more seasoned group.
Whatever it is, it’s really little more than a new-age Tong war.
TRex @ 127
You have much Starbuck-y goodness to look forward to my friend.
TRex @ 127
I’m still trapped in season 1, but no–the show is awe-inspiring beyond anything its cheeseball, “Star Wars” ripoff ancestor ever dreamed of.
TeddySanFran @ 101
Ok Teddy. i never mean to talk down to anyone. I guess I am feeling a little frustrated about being ignored when I nicely ask Trex to qualify the expert “reader” in the last post. You will note that no links are provided by that “reader” for his assertions. At first I just asked for qualification before I made any assertions. But its reasonable that I get looked at with a jaundiced eye. So here goes…
In the last thread, I noted that the expert ‘reader” doesn’t know the correct location of Mound, stating that it is in NY.
Here is where it is:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/P…..mf_p1.html
Here is a link that lists the metalloids…note the presence of pollonium, but not mercury.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/P…..mf_p1.html
here are the transition metals. Note mercury, but no pollonium.
http://www.chemicalelements.co…..ition.html
Be sure to click on the show table with name on the left side for the nice graphical representation.
I knew about Mound without looking up because I have done research as a visting scientist at 4 different synchrotrons, or particle accelerators, one of which is a DOE facility (Brookehaven, Long Island). While monitoring an experiemtn all night once, I passed time by readingg some materials at the site about DOE facilities. I am nonetheless happy to look up and proviuide a link for you.
Likewise, i am a PhD biochemist. I know that mercury is a transition metal, as I have worked with it extensively. Pollonium I would no have known off the bat, but I did look it up in the periodic chart in my son’s high school chemistry book.
Like I said, I could go on with other things in the material from the “reader”, but I hope I have passed the sniff test and am granted some credibility at this point.
I apologize for revealing that i am a working scientist. Its not who you are but what you know, but since you challened my credibility, I am happy to offer.
If you write me at crick02478@yahoo.com and request it, i will send you a copy of my CV, from an e-mail address bearing my own name. You can look up my publications and see where it is cited that research was performed.
Hope that would allay any concerns about my credibility.
TRex @ 127
Yup. His Orangeness, teh Kos, is always right. His rec, some time ago.
crick @ 131
As many nitpicks as you’ve offered, I think your own credibility would be modestly enhanced if you learned how to spell “polonium.”
Cozumel @ 96
That’s simply outrageous. At least the moderator added a cautionary note, but I have to sasy that i am highly offended.
So I challenged the accuracy of something posted here…in a decent way…and you attack me as a sock puppet. Attack the messenger ad hominem. How Rovian of you.
have another glass of Kool Aid.
Alrighty then! I’m off to watch Episode 2!
You kids play nice!
EvilDrPuma @ 133
Another gratuitous attack? Sorry, i am typing fast and I don;t type well when tired.
me no likey.
break time.
TRex @ 127
Are you watching the first episode of season 3, or season 1? I never watched before season 3 and am not really into scifi either, but I’m hooked on this show now.
…not so patiently waiting for the 11pm pacific episode…
EvilDrPuma @ 133
one more thing…I offer links as asked and my qualifications….and you want to talk about the fact the fact that i erred in spelling pollonium and am therefore not credible.
Don;t let yourself be constrained by fact now.
RBG @ 163
sorry RBG :(
(I’m trying to find my indoor voice…)
crick @ 136
Not at all. You assert that errors such as the state in which Mound is located cause major damage to credibility. In the same spirit, I think that a self-proclaimed specialist in any branch of chemistry should be able to correctly spell the names of chemical elements. It’s your jargon, after all.
EvilDrPuma @ 123
The Great Escape – with Steve McQueen.
TheOtherWA @ 142
And the escape comes not a moment too soon.
TheOtherWA @ 142
Escape From The Planet of the Apes – with little plot and less purpose.
TheOtherWA @ 142
Butterfly McQueen – Gone With the Wind….
Easy, gang. There are so damned many inadequacies in this entire Litivenko story that a pissing match about the science behind polonium is really wasted effort.
Perhaps if we concentrated on the victims, the science will work out on its own. Regardless of the content emailed and posted earlier this evening on Po-210, the question really is how did this stuff get delivered to Litivenko, who else had primary exposure, and above all, WHY??
The content at the link rumi posted upthread should tell you exactly how ugly and convoluted all of this is; the science is bupkis compared to the politics and economics involved. That is NO exaggeration, either.
Let’s go easy and simply suspend belief and disbelief for a bit, ask more questions in quantity than the answers we pose.
Neil,
My objection to Barack is distilled in one phrase: “Life is the pursuit of excellence.” As a child and as a man, I believe that is the necessary goal of all human beings. Jay Leno and his opprobrium and goodwill fail this test.
Ok.
Great spy movies – I’ll lead with two of the same suit:
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in “The Ipcress File” and “Funeral in Berlin”.
i’m played….
Kirk Murphy, I’m sorry but mercury is a clumsy example if you want something “like” pollonium, but I am not of the mind to debate chemistry with you. Yes, metalloids share some properties with metals, but its a clumsy comparison. Others are better.
Evil Dr. puma…jump on the spelling, fine.
The attack dogs at Late Night have been trained well.
okay, then
crick @ 149
As is so often the case, pedants deal with nitpicking like doctors deal with the common cold.
Patrick 4/4 @ 148
Umm, then, “The Odessa File” and “Berlin Affair”
Patrick 4/4 @ 147
If we’re gonna go with (cold war) spy movies, I’ll take No Way Out – Kevin Costner. Great? No, but very entertaining.
montag @ 151
Oh thank god. I had a post started that began with “While I patiently wait…”
My high school composition teachers taught me to identify the rhetorical trick of using a few factual (ish?) paragraphs as the premise for a higly emotive and unsupported conclusion.
Repeated a few times, the emotive conclusion sticks, unsupported by facts.
Here at FDL I use the pattern recognition skills kindly taught me by Mrs. Hall and Ms. Driver.
Just trying to do that truthiness thing.
Patrick 4/4 @ 154
Feel free to wait for me. “Dr. Strangelove” is the only Cold War movie I have any real acquaintance with.
TeddySanFran @ 159
Teddy, you are welcome…but I’d really just rather be joshing annd sharing ideas.
[Gratitude to you and the Lake for tolerating me - I’m still working on shaving my avatar.]
Patrick 4/4 @ 154
Umm, trying to play an email scrabble game at the same time. :)
kirk, thanks for your — well, thanks for everything.
kirk murphy @ 157
I don’t happen to have a “sardonic grin” smiley handy.
kirk murphy @ 156
HMOs IMHO.
montag @ 158
Now that’s hard core.
Dang it Kirk—I gotta go adjust some more track lighting.
EvilDrPuma @ 161
Kinky.
Thank you, crick. I appreciate all the links; I’m one who is very interested in such things but not very well-educated in them.
I can’t understand why but when I was in high school, chemistry was not a requirement.
Hmm. Interesting stuff. Bold mine.
Excerpt, “Health Risks of Radon and Other Internally Deposited Alpha-Emitters: BEIR IV (1988)”, Commission on Life Sciences, p. 161:
[source]
When does the Libby trial start, for dog’s sake. I can’t take many more of these ridiculous Battlestar Gallactica discussions and word games revolving around movie titles.
Whoa, dude. They just swore in President Roslyn.
And it looks like you guys have, uh, handled things here nicely. Kudos all around.
Anyone care for an after dinner mint?
Ees WAH-fair theen!
Montag,
I think discussions of this type should go on. What? Secrecy and censorship should dominate?
At this point we need a fulsome discussion.
TRex @ 167
I got so excited there for a minute – I thought we were in the real world.
Sparkles — I thought I saw the date 17-JAN for the trial. I could be mistaken. Lots of shopping time between now and then, knock yourself out.
Patrick 4/4 @ 164
Umm, is that kosher? Doesn’t kinky bring us right back to the sex club scene in “Funeral in Berlin?” :)
TRex @ 168
Don’t mind if I do.
I don’t know about you–but the one thing about BSG that I have difficulty with is the frequent appearance of very mundane, Earthlike items–neckties, analog clocks, things like that. Sometimes it nags a bit at my sense of being Somewhere Else.
Other than that, the show rocks on toast.
Rayne @ 169
Can you feel the love? I feel the love.
Sh*t. Just reading page 162 of same report.
I think I can tell Larisa it wasn’t delivered by cigarette, not inhaled.
But that doesn’t explain Scaramella’s exposure.
montag @ 170
Friedman’s?
Patrick 4/4 @ 176
Friedman’s?
Men have been flogged for lesser puns.
Sparkles the Iguana @ 166
January 16th jury selection begins. If they allowed cameras in federal courts I’d be a LOT happier, but will be satisfied the trial’s going to take place, finally.
EvilDrPuma @ 175
Men have been flogged for lesser puns.
And we know where they go.
hi mods – as if i haven’t been enough bother…
just ran across the WP glitch where new comments are “upthreaded” to to prior time points.
my comment around 10:55 was “upthreaded” to 140 @ 10:18, wiping out the original 140
(which may well be a ‘net gain all round….)
again, thanks for your work and forebearance…
Le Jackel @
169
Umm, could you give me a hint about what this refers to?
If you’re referring to my prior posts about Litvinenko, I’m just indulging in a some idle speculation. I haven’t been following this in too much detail. All I know is that Po-210 seems now to be found in just about everyone but the Queen, and that’s only likely because they can’t get a urine sample from her. :)
Rayne @ 171
Oh, I’m done shopping. Everyone’s getting either The Clapper or gingerbread laced with Ci*lis.
Patrick 4/4 @ 176
Umm, don’t remember the name in the movie. I do remember reading that it was actually filmed in the Chez Nous in Berlin, and that the club is still there, almost the same as it was in the `60s.
And, immediately after posting the above, I get the joke. Don’t think Kinky speaks German. :)
TeddySanFran @
35
well, fuckwad said that he “looked into putin’s eyes and saw his soul”
or some such rubbish. and somebody said a few comments back that agents wouldn’t be this clumsy. oh yes they would, in a moscow minute, or a d.c. minute for that matter. just because they were FSB, or whatever they were, doesn’t mean they really knew what they were doing (as in, competent) …..
Er, DrPuma — may I humbly request that you tone it down a bit? I go back a long way on the ‘Net, and since the early days, spelling flames haven’t been considered much of an argument.
I’ve gotta say, the description of the incredible wandering polonium that nothing can contain kinda tripped my technobabble filters. And while the experts I’ve heard on the subject agree that polonium can be chemically separated from uranium, they also talk about the extremely low yield and therefore relatively large amount of uranium that would be needed, which the reader’s message doesn’t mention.
The claims there are awfully entertaining, but they’re outlandish enough that I’d take them with a grain of salt without some references.
Well, this might be the Friday afternoon news dump. Trying to cut oversight of government contracts, the head of the GSA says Inspector Generals have “terrorized” employees.
here.
TheOtherWA @ 178
Is Court TV still around?
Rayne @
171
Speaking of shopping, I’m going to go drop $10 into the kitty for empty wheel right now. Anyone care to match it?
fahrender @ 182
I think, as an alternate branch of this tale, we ought to bring Sun Myung Moon into this… isn’t he best fuckin’ friends with the on-the-run Russian oligarch mentioned here. :)
HotFlash — thank you for the donation, appreciate it greatly. Can’t wait for EW’s book to come out.
I can’t match you, sorry, already kicked in $100 when they put up the thermometer. I wanted it that badly.
if they had been competent they would’ve said to their handlers “do we look like suicidal fools? you do it.”
sorry, it’s a busy saturday and i’ve gotta go to work. john lecarre’s head must be spinning. if he decides to write a black comedy this case would offer much. and, oh, while we’re at it, let’s get gaidar too!
have a good one, everybody. i’ll be back in eight or ten hours …..
TRex,
Since, and perhaps as a result of, Jane’s Language post earlier this week, I’ve been curious and thinking about the phenomenon of “projection”.
Yep folks, that’s right! That ol’ psychological bugaboo whereby one sees the world through their own uniquely rose-tinted glasses, and believes everyone else sees it that way too.
It seems that there are readers here (Oh no, not here!) who would “project” their worldview on what should or should not be posted here, what causes should or should not be supported here, what someone should or should not say here.
It’s like:
Longwindedness notwithstanding, I don’t remember Jane ever posting her “rules” to live by. Like many, I at times ponder what makes “Jane Run”. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t know, and that it doesn’t really matter. That I continue to like this place, does!
I’ve also come to the conclusion that “projection” of my unique worldview onto this site would be tantamount to thinking that this site is about me. Tisn’t!
So for those who simply can’t deny themselves their “projection”, you might be setting yourself up for a fall. With real fondness as you depart, hope you didn’t get bruised too badly.
fahrender @ 189
have a good day, fahrender!
(and if you enjoy that yummy Austrian chocolate today, please savor a bit for me!)
TeddySanFran @ 184
Well, in truth, in one way or another, the Bushies have been trying to eliminate oversight of all kinds ever since Sandra Day O’Connor bonked Shrub with her magic wand.
But, the fact that it’s the head of the GSA that’s complaining is sort of interesting. The Pentagon uses the GSA to hide all sorts of contracts….
fahrender @ 187
Spies with gaydar? That can’t be a good thing.
Patrick 4/4 @ 193
Well, in the bad old days when everyone who was anyone was in the closet (particularly in the UK), spotting homosexuals in government was almost as important as spotting spooks. I would suspect gaydar’s been in use for some time…. :)
Stephen Hadley has always seemed really gay to me. I know he’s married and all, but so was Pastor Ted.
Good gravy. This case gets weirder faster than I can imagine.
Nuked Spy Case Lawyer is Dying, says The Daily Record.
Weird.
just watched “An Inconvenient Truth”.
.
.
.
uh-oh……
HotFlash, I’ll match you. Ten bucks to the book!
Huzzah!!
There. Ding!
Anyone else? Ten bucks for the first FDL book?
Must be a butt-kicker, punaise, if you’re not punny after watching it.
I suspect the bottomline of An Inconvenient Truth is exactly why 1) we are in Iraq, 2) we are up to our ears in a asymmetrical economic war with China, and 3) Litivenko died.
All of these things are connected by our demand for hydrocarbons.
edit: YAY TREX!! thanks for the donation! Keep ‘em coming in!!
Rayne @ 198
it is weird! any chance the lawyer is the one who delivered the poison to the spy and then later contaminated himself accidentally? (yes, witless idle speculation)
OT
Look at the photo here. Chilling.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061201/ts_nm/iraq_dc
Battle in Baghdad
hi mods -
Thanks for both your kind interest in the glitch and your assessment*
In the interest of glitch tracking, the same thing happened with comment 156/157 – wp moved it upthread so it precedes the comment it responded to.
Temporal paradoxes make me dizzy.
I need to have some tachyons and lie down.
Or up.
(*i think i read that – it’s gone now. If i hallucinated, please do block my IP)
[Mod note; no hallucinations tonight. Just a triple WP glitch that’s even weirder than what you originally reported. Thanks for the heads up]
Agh. I have to hit the hay. Up way too late once again with you folks. Going to have a swig of tea and toddle off. See you in the morning for Pull Up a Chair, gang.
I ponied up what I think was a C-note for the EW book to mark my return from September hiatus.
of course, in today’s dollars….
Rayne @ 196
My first thought is stupid people are communicating with really stupid people. Hope they get the message. The thing is, what goes around comes around.
montag, that’s an elegant description of 12/11/2000.
montag @ 193
Which makes it so hilarious that the big British mole case in MI 5 centered around a gay Cambridge in-crowd. It would be as if a gay pederast congressman was the sponsor of the Missing and Exploited Children Act…um…
Margot @
204
I see a couple of helicopters in the sky, with a minaret in the background. what’s particular about this photo for you?
punaise @ 197
Yup, and in the meantime, Bush is wasting time, money and intellectual resources on the war on terra.
Uh, huh, makes sense to me. Not.
Kirk … glad to learn about the origin of the bizarre comment order … sitting half asleep in a hotel in Montreal, sipping a drink (not laphroig) and thought I had completely lost my mind.
Interesting posts, Trex! Beeb doing news update now – I’ll let you know if they say anything interesting on all this. They had a report from one of their Moscow correspondents that the UK was supposed to send investigators to Moscow to check one of the planes and talk to someone(did not catch the name) but had not shown up and the plane instead was flown to London – beeb guy was wondering if Moscow was blocking the investigation to some degree.
have folks mentioned that Litvenko’s wife is contaminated too … just checking since I may have missed it.
Siun @ 212
shhhh….beeb airy, airy careful….
(hey Siun!)
Mad Dog—I’m truly impressed by your bravery. If you actually defined Jane’s Rules, she’d probably have to ban you from her site.
But why do you hate whales and baby seals?
TeddySanFran @ 206
Too bad she didn’t have the same sort of buyer’s regret then that she does now…. *sigh*
hey Punaise!
heading off to get some sleep – too many cities in one week and not enough sleep!
see y’all in the am!
(sheesh I love Montreal!)
RBG @ 216
Cause hate is cheaper than love. *g*
Hi Siun -
I thought I’d lost mine (and quite possibly have!)
I’m not certain, but I think that each new comment (in time) of mine showed up further back (in time) – as if they were piling up from comment [n-1] in the direction of [n-x].
Weirdness….
Hope you are well, the drink is tasty, and the Montreal visit is good to you.
Salud!
Ok,
Going to sleep. Want to know anything about the universe? Nuclear structure? Molecular? One is wealth the other is doom. Okay u g 5.
punaise @ 211
Reading the story and looking at the photo, I can’t help but be reminded of Mogadishu.
Margot @
222
OK, that thought did cross my mind
tbogg should get a drink for this little bit.
They’re gonna save Civilization (with a capital “C”) from the Islamofascists, whoever they are…. Guess that means gas prices are rising again, and by their lights, we’ll have to invade Iran to fix that problem. After all, invading Iraq worked so well in that regard….
A Kurd has questions for B/H-ISG.
well, in the spirit of the Tinkers to Evers to Chance name-a-thon that I missed upstairs (9:43 to 10:04) I offer this:
No New CommentsKnown Nuke Amens
you got five
five what?
Jane Harman’s mea culpa
punaise @ 223
Known Nuke Allah Weapons… saith Chimpy….
My two cents about all the hand-washing cracks: I’ve done a lot of work with radioactive phosphorous-32, and I can tell you that “transfer” of radioactive material by direct touch is much easier than you’d think, even after you think you’ve washed it off. I contaminated a piece of equipment with it once, and it took two days for me to finally get the damn thing clean. There are stories of people getting it on their shoes, and the radiation safety people can just track their footprints with a Geiger counter. And that’s with very small doses of the stuff. With the amount of radioactivity this guy got, I’m not surprised that they’re finding traces of it everywhere.
montag @ 230
“Sharif don’t like it
rockin’ the casbah
rock the casbah”
Okay,
Generally, across a wide range of phenomenon molecular orbitals are half integer, that is half a wave. More complicated molecular structures, which typically result from observation are in fact accelerated states of molecular structure. Conasequently the diffussness observered by human scientists.
punaise @ 229
“I shot the Sharif, but I did not beat the deportee….”
montag @ 234
DHS anthem?
Haile unlikely
Kevin Drum:
punaise @ 233
Said the Scot on vacation in Jamaica: “There Selassie that’s fond of reggae.”
montag @ 238
hey, would Jah knock it off?
re: Rayne @ 198
UNREAL!!! (deep breath) Okay, the BBC hasn’t picked up the “Scaramella definitely dying” story yet. Do you suppose it’s bunk?
“The material, a by-product of nuclear reaction, is so powerful that even in a properly sealed container it leaves traces wherever it has been.”
This quote from the article contrasts sharply with everything else I’ve heard about Polonium-210. Argh!
According to the article, Scaramella went to Italy, was tested negative, was asked to return, returned, and came back positive, VERY positive. A second poisoning? With the same poison? Unbelievably risky, yes? What with everyone and their poodle running around with geiger counters?
My brain hurts. Going to bed.
punaise @ 234
Umm, yeah, people like DeLay and Debbie Riddle of Houston have made a septic tank of Texas politics, but I doubt Kevin has been looking too hard at either Mississippi or Alabama, or about half of Florida and Georgia. It’s still mint julep time in many places in the south….
PSoTD via Daou Report:
punaise @ 239
montag @ 238
IRE ally don’t understand….
punaise @ 236
Yah, weh to go… now, I’ve lost my soul, and it’s pasta fer I an’ mine….
montag @ 244
keep your Zion the prize
I dred this.
punaise @ 242
Or, though, doxies might be more fun. Explore the temporal.
oops. here’s my stop.
Rasta manana!
punaise @ 243
Locks of fun, eh? :)
punaise @ 245
I’m a tired little guy, looking for an interesting question.
Irie-ly don’t see what you guys get out of these cascading puns, mon.
Okay, I am now officially a Battlestar Galactica junkie. I have watched all the episodes from the mini-series and I’m pawing around in the carpet to see if maybe I dropped any.
Sigh.
Off to bed.
montag @
247
I can’t keep up with, let alone compete with you guys. But I did make a border for a big platter of potato salad two summers ago with cold-smoked sockeye salmon, sliced in long thin strips, then braided.
I called it d’ Red Lox…
Ed*ard Teller @ 248
That’s funny!
Not going to happen.
Sen. Obama:
I stand before you riven by my belief in the Constitution of the United States. My devotion to the Constitution is absolute. I seek higher office to fulfill that devotion. My fellow citizens, my dear friends, we are together in our devotion. We strive and we fail. This is the path God has lain before us. But we will persist. This is the road we hew to. We will persist.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russ…..54,00.html
The Guardian is also now reporting that the lawyer received a potentially fatal dose of polonium, but other parts of their story differ from the one in the Record linked to above.
OT and apropos of the previous thread about polonium poisoning.
Six weeks ago in mid-October, I was talking with some folks from KPFK, a progressive station in LA. Somehow I got asked what my favorite conspiracy theories were. One that I mentioned was the death of Cyrus Hashemi. Back in July 1986, I came across a third page newspaper article about an Iranian named, Cyrus Hashemi, who had suddenly taken ill, checked into a London hospital, was diagnosed to have leukemia, and a week later was dead. His brother said he’d been assassinated, and it seems that he had been selling U.S. arms to Iran via the Israelis. This was four months before the Iran-Contra Affair broke in November 1986, which explained what he was up to, though I don’t think I ever saw his name mentioned during the hearings. Here is a useful article that I found recently consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile3.html. Apparently the Hashemi brothers figure prominently in the theories about a 1980 October surprise.
My real question — it wasn’t a theory — was how he had been killed. Without a moments pause one of the KPFK guys said, “They slipped him a polonium cigarette.” And with that the conversation moved on to other topics.
It was a noisy bar, and actually, I thought he had said “plutonium cigarette,” since I’d never heard of polonium. But this guy seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. And now, six weeks later, we have Litvenenko dying under almost identical circumstances.
My point is that apparently assassination via polonium cigarettes is a known technique in some circles, and not just Russian circles. It appears to have also been used by some group within the U.S. power structure and/or the Israelis in the Hashemi case.
Strangely varied news accounts of the condition of Mario Scaramella. This one, from Reuters courtesy of Yahoo, says that Scaramella is currently well, although in the hospital and not in good spirit:
Meanwhile this one from the Daily Record (Don’t know ‘em; British Enquirer, or what?) has Scaramella at death’s door:
The Record article quotes various sources from Scotland Yard and the Counterterrorism Command. A source from the latter suggests that Scaramella might have been separately poisoned after Litvinenko.
The dispersion regarding key facts among these and other accounts that are being filed within the same time frame is, er, striking. Both articles provide some motivation for the officially low-key attitude. From the Record:
The Record article also reports a rumor that suggests Scaramella might have been vulnerable to criminal elements in one way or another:
It’d be nice to have actual time stamps on these articles.
C. Hashemi mentioned in Walsh Report, Ch. 15 on William J. Casey:
(*)Hashemi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was indicted in 1984 for violating the weapons export ban to Iran, as described in A Very Thin Line by Theodore Draper, p. 134. In Draper’s account, Hashemi was trying to use the U.S. hostages as leverage against his legal situation, evidently assuring the Americans he had contact with that certain weapons would bait the Iranians effectively. Draper suggests the main players, i.e. names we already know better than Hashemi, regarded him as a nuisance or interloper. Draper continues:
Cyrus Hashemi seems to be the small fish in that group. Anyway, it looks as though whether you try to prune the suspect tree by restricting to those with possible access to the method, or to those with a direct motive, or those who might try to use the method to misdirect or smear, you don’t get very far.
A link for the Walsh Report:
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/
The wikipedia article on polonium is actually pretty good. Most articles in the MSM contain at least one major technical error, and most more.
One thing I’m curious about from your previous post. The reader implies polonium is impossible to contain. Yet both antistatic brushes and sample “buttons” (used in advanced university lab courses for physics undergraduates every day around the country) have encapsulated polonium that is safe to handle. So clearly it is possible to handle and transport polonium safely.
Also, I wanted to make a note that radiation sensors are insanely sensitive. A good counter would have no trouble picking up even emission rates as low as a dozen or so a second. (Incidentally, I don’t know if they are swabbing, and looking for alphas, or “fishing” with a Geiger-like device looking for the rarer characteristic gammas.) It takes many trillions of emissions to pose any danger to someone. Our ability to detect is very sensitive; a microgram of the stuff would contain something like 100 quintillion atoms, and I imagine it wouldn’t be so hard to detect the presence of as few as a trillion (i.e. contamination of about 0.0000001%.) So the fact that it’s being found everywhere doesn’t necessarily reflect that huge amounts were used, or even that the tradecraft was particularly poor. And as has been noted, exposure to the contamination would not be particularly dangerous as long as you didn’t ingest or inhale it.
Mornin’ All!
- Crick“Some of the main pagers on this blog have had exposure in national forums (CNN, Olbermann show, and probably elsewhere for all I know). Is ANYONE else here troubled, as I am, by the fact that this kind of information is being slung here? Or is it only a problem when goopers do it? In other words, if the mighty Hammond tells you something, is ok, but you will not accept the mighty Wurlitzer. Or is it ok because the post is “art” and its ok to offer something that is only slightly better than made up out of whole cloth if it serves as a good set up to one’s “art?”
I’m glad to see this thread is still going strong after leaving it last night, because I wanted to unpack some of “Crick’s” statements.
The purpose of the mighty Wurlitzer is to advance an agenda regardless of the facts. The repug machine and their enablers mistate empirical data long after their errors have been brought to their attention in service to their political position.
1) There is no political agenda in this thread. It is simply an exploration of something interesting that’s in the news.
2) T-Rex has not claimed to be an expert in this field. He’s a skilled analyst looking at information as he gets it. At no time has he argued for his “facts” to support an agenda.
3) On a few occasions, during the couple of years I have been reading this blog, some of the main posters have mistated a fact either by accident or through quoting someone else who had the facts wrong. On these occasions, someone in the community would point out the error and the blogger would post a correction, even if it required abandoning a theory they were developing.
One of the reasons I feel such a bond with the FDL community is that I trust the integrity of the people who run this blog. I do not expect anyone to be infallible, but I do know that none of the front page folks are going to allow a political agenda to overtake the facts.
Crick, I call bullshit on you.
Mornin’ twolf
Professor Foland @
259
Thanks for that perspective.
The author of the previous article seemed to be writing from a 1950s perspective. From what I’ve been able to google up on this stuff, polonium hasn’t been used in nuclear weapons for decades. And, I ran into one article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main……son130.xml that indicates polonium isn’t so all that deadly.
When I read the Wikipedia entry on polonium it indicates that polonium kills via radiation damage to cells. But per the article at the top of the previous thread:
That sounds like a chemical poison, i.e., killing via chemical bonds, etc.
Also, per the Wikipedia article:
But, I was told in mid-october, well before the Litvinenko news, that Cyrus Hashemi had been killed via polonium poisoning.
BTW, when I google on “polonium poisoning”, all of the hits are articles prompted by the Litvenenko affair.
There seems to be some misunderstanding of a few comments that were made in general terms. The appearance of this being amateurs or sloppy professionals contradicts the complexities of the substance that was used. If it were a matter of simply a targeted hit or assasination, there are cleaner ways to do it. This lends to the thinking that the method (and surrounding events) is the story that isis the intended focus.
The handwashing cracks are serious comments that refer to the continued elimination of the substance from the victim since the time of exposure. That would explain the trace amounts in so many places better than crediting sloppy professionals.
As always, this is just my understanding of what’s been discussed and just another opinion among many.
crick @
83
I don’t follow all of that, but I share your suspicion about the lead article for the previous thread. Either polonium kills via chemical means or by radiation, probably not both. Everything else that I’ve read has indicated that it kills via radiation damage to cells producing leukemia-like symptoms.
Morning all — fresh thread, available for the posting.
Good morning, pups.
Today’s NYT columnists, from behind the firewall:
Thomas Edsall, “The Purse Changes Hands.”
http://select.nytimes.com/2006…..amp;emc=th
http://select.nytimes.com/2006…..amp;emc=th
Maureen Dowd, “What’s In a Name, Barry?”
witchywoman, Wigwam, thanks for what you’ve added to this thread. Greatly appreciated.
Ditto Professor Foland – nice to hear from someone with experience working with radioactive materials.
The Oligarchs are seldom subtle.
One need only ask, “who benefits?” But you won’t see US newspapers doing even that.
That “Nuked Spy Case Lawyer is Dying” article from the Daily Record doesn’t seem credible. None of the new info it provides is being picked up in any of the RSS feeds 12 hours later.
Any lung/radiation specialists in the FDL house? Are Litvinenko’s symptoms consistent with a radioactive inhalant exposure? Is there a hospital device which could oxygenate blood as substitute for lungs? (L was not on a respirator) Did L even smoke at all?
If it was a cigarette, then the tracking evidence does make a little more sense. Cig tobacco or ash is more likely to spread around a few unsuspecting people seated at a cafe than, say, soup or sushi juice, right? It can get on fingers when one puts out the cigarette, then to light switches, or drop onto the hotel floor, or rub off on luggage or one’s wife, etc.
Final thougtht: hate to lay a suspicious eye on who may have been an innocent victim, but we’d expect that the perpetrator would likely have exposed him(her)self to contamination in the process. So Scaramella’s behavior at the sushi place seems a bit odd. Who goes to a sushi house and just orders water?
TRex: thanks for the insider’s dope on Po-210. its aggressive mobility described in the previous post may be related to the fact that it is chemically an oxygen analogue (i.e., group VIA in the periodic table); it also helps explain its insidiousness in how it attacks living systems that metabolize O2 for energy. Cool stuff.
By the way, how is the evidence coming along for your silky cigarette hypothesis?
The inclusion of the story about Hashemi broadens our view of who might have used a polonium cigarette before. I see fingers pointing in all directions. This is why it reminds me of 9/11. The story is obviously ‘out there’, outrageous and entirely confusing. But, it’s all out in the public which seems so unnecessary.
Clearly someone wanted this done publicly. In that respect it does sound like the ‘poisoning’ of the Ukrainian.
Is there any similarity to what happened to Sharon or Arafat? Isn’t it curious they died (is Sharon dead) so soon together?
Is this what WWIII looks like — a nuclear war without bombs going off?
Without any way to track down who dunnit they’re unaccountable and that means we’re living in a semi-anarchic era. Of course, the people who are being attacked, blackmailed and controlled know what the game is and who’s really in charge or challenging for the top spots.
Real politik apparently doesn’t need us peons to know what’s happening. It’s all a battle between kings and their barons, common folks need not know what the deal is.
It’s something like the American slaves who watched the business of White folk and how their lives occasionally spun out of control because of things they were completely unaware of. We, on the sidelines, watch and wonder, but aren’t actually involved (for now).
God, and perhaps a handful of other people, know who has nuclear materials or bombs and how they’re being used today.