Expert Say Risk of Bio-Weapons Has Been Great;ly Exaggerated

Why don't you feel embarrassed when you consistently promote your own views w/o first researching the whole story? Doesn't it give you pause to think that people will stop taking you seriously?

 

When did we ever start?

 

STOP taking him seriously!!??!!??!!

Puhleeez.

 

I think everyone knows what I think about this war. No need for my opinion.

 

Funny.

 

This is like saying "I think you are a fool. Prove me wrong".

If you disagree with the contents of an article, why attack the poster, especially when you do not give any counter arguments to the article?

You keep this up and I will officially stop taking you seriously

 

If someone consistently starts new threads which are clearly heavily biased then I feel no compulsion to waste my time...again...arguing against a severe bias.

My comment was appropriate. Why should everyone else waste their time doing what glynch should have done in the first place?

 

Are you saying that it's okay to possess these weapons? I'm glad our leaders don't take the approach of these guys: "Losing a few people in the London Underground is acceptable."

 

No Worries, the problem is that the article is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that glynch here is trying to achieve evidence through tangental association. He uses this perfectly legitimate article as evidence promoting views that the article's writers weren't intending to promote, or even discuss in such broad terms. He then leaps across a huge gap in logic without even so much as intending to describe the steps in logic that he's supposing to have taken.

 

Well Cohen you are just as biased in your views as anyone else, but I wonder when you will stop forcing others to have the same opinion as your self. I am not talking about this thread but every political thread being posted in the hangout. You always write as if you hold the truth that cannot be questioned it's really annoying but I guess I will just have to learn to live with that.

It's okay to be dedicated to politics and to be excited about your own opinions but when you are constantly making fun of people who doesn't share your views I think you just come out as an arrogant s*** who thinks the world of himself.

It's just an advice from someone who has been reading all your many posts the last couple of months. But I guess you have been able to impress a lot of people so you just keep going.

 

Why don't you support your assertions with some specifics, or it this some kind of 'feeling' that you have? Or are you just holding a grudge?

C'mon stra, what's my bias? What is it that I am so biased about?

I take issue with garbage threads. A simple search brings up a RAND study that says 57,000 people could die from a smallpox attack on an airport. I'm fed up with someone consistently starting new threads and won't even take a couple of minutes to do a simple search to see if their assertion holds water. Why should everyone else have to do the work for him?

And thank you for the info, but I am unaware that I have 'impressed a lot of people'. FWIW, that is not my goal. I enjoy the discourse here because it allows me to challenge my views. My opinions are not cast in stone, as you allude to.

 

And 57,000 people could die at a football game with one UZI and 57,000 bullets....point is what.

People could die from someone bringing in a cup of coffee that spills on the floor leading to someone slipping and bashing their head in. Lets just go after the colombians and their evil coffee beans. And before you even say it, NO Im not comparing Small pox to coffee.

Does Sadamm pose anymore a threat than the Unibomber....or a mass of unibombers?

God, people.....he views might be skewed one way, but at least he presented physical proof.

 

Originally posted by Dreamshake
And 57,000 people could die at a football game with one UZI and 57,000 bullets....point is what.
...

And 57,000 people can die from eating salt. I'll ask you the same, what's your point?

God, people.....he views might be skewed one way, but at least he presented physical proof.

Who presented physical proof?

 

<A HREF="http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/du/Anuclear-agency-iraq.RH9u_DJV.html">U.N. Wants Iraq Surveillance, Interviews</A>
<b>
<i>VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The United Nations' two chief weapons inspectors will accept a new invitation by Baghdad to visit only if Iraq removes major obstacles now hampering inspections, the chief of the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday.
</b>
Mohamed ElBaradei said Iraq needed to allow inspectors to interview scientists in private and to use high-altitude surveillance planes.

"We need to make sure before we go that they are ready to move forward ... on these issues," ElBaradei said on arrival from New York in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We will have first to see what they are offering before we decide on the visit."

ElBaradei spoke a day after Iraq issued an invitation to him and chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix to return to Baghdad for more talks before their next report to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 14. The two head the U.N. inspection teams seeking evidence of hidden nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs.

ElBaradei said he and Blix would be seeking meetings with the top leadership.
<b>
"It's very important that ... we meet at the highest level of the leadership, and hear from them a clear commitment that they are ready to be fully transparent," he told reporters......</b></i>


<A HREF="http://www.wpmi.com/Global/story.asp?S=1101930">Mubarak warns strike against Iraq imminent unless Iraq changes ways</A>
<i>Dubai, United Arab Emirates-AP -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is warning Iraq to be careful in dealing with U-N inspectors.

He says any mistake could result in a war.
<b>
Mubarak tells a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates that Iraq must stop putting obstacles in front of inspectors.
</b>
Egypt is increasingly criticizing Saddam Hussein and his government.

It's seen as a move to prepare the anti-war Arab public that the U-S could lead a war against Iraq.</i>

When Mubarak (Not American or British) of Egypt and El Baradei (Not American or British) on the Nuclear Inspection side mention that Iraq needs to do more in the way of transparency and reducing obstacles for the inspectors, then something smells <i>funny</i>. Perhaps the inspectors haven't found the Nuke Weapons Program yet because Iraq is hiding it.

 

Maybe there isn't a nuclear weapons program Mango.

Your turn.

How many posts have to repeat before stalemate?

 

<A HREF="http://www.wbur.org/special/specialcoverage/feature_bio.asp">Bioterrorism in History 1984: Rajneesh Cult Attacks Local Salad Bar</A>

<i>THE DALLES, Ore. (AP) - In 1984, followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh spiked salad bars at 10 restaurants in town with salmonella and sickened about 750 people.

The cult members had hoped to incapacitate so many voters that their own candidates in the county elections would win. The scheme failed, but the episode spread fear in The Dalles and drained the town's economy.

Seventeen years later, there are lots of things this quiet town would like to be known for - its lush cherry groves, its renovated downtown and its grand views of the sweeping Columbia River, among them. But not its role as the site of the first bioterrorism attack in modern U.S. history.

Some townspeople are bothered that the story is being retold as the news media cover the national anthrax scare.

"We didn't ever expect it to raise its ugly head again and it's not good,'' said Karen LeBreton, a food-poisoning victim who was Wasco County deputy clerk at the time. "For us, in small-town America, it was very overwhelming.''

The Dalles, a town of 12,000 people about 80 miles from Portland, is suffering badly in the weak national economy, said Susan Huntington, Chamber of Commerce director. The closing of two aluminum factories and a downturn in the cherry market have cost 700 jobs in the past year, she said.

The renewed publicity about the 1984 poisonings ``doesn't exactly make people want to pack up their families and move here,'' Huntington said.

There was little national attention given to the salmonella poisonings in the years immediately afterward, largely because it occurred in a remote town and was perpetrated by a fanatical fringe group, said Gary Perlstein, a Portland State University professor and terrorism expert.

"They assumed that it would never happen again,'' said Perlstein, who wrote about the poisonings in his 1991 book ``Perspectives on Terrorism.''

A brand-new book on bioterrorism, ``Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War,'' devotes an entire chapter to the outbreak.

Some residents say the episode was good preparation for the anthrax threat.

"We lived with that fear on a daily basis,'' said Sue Proffitt, who was Wasco County clerk in 1984 and was among those who fell ill. "We understand in The Dalles how bioterrorism can happen.''

Beginning in 1981, Rajneesh assembled nearly 7,000 followers on a 100-square-mile ranch south of town. The cult members incorporated their commune as a city, created an intimidating police force, stockpiled weapons and took over the city council of nearby Antelope.

The cult plotted to win two of three Wasco County judgeships and the sheriff's office by incapacitating non-Rajneeshee voters in The Dalles.

The cult members had planned to contaminate The Dalles' water supply. The salad bar contamination was a test of the salmonella.

Residents suspected the cult members were behind the poisonings, and went to the polls in droves to make sure they didn't win any of the county positions.
The outbreak cost restaurants hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dave Lutgens, former owner of Shakey's Pizza Restaurant, said he lost about $300,000 in sales and $165,000 in liability claims when 400 of his customers got sick.
``We were thinking it was dirty employees or hepatitis,'' he said. ``Health inspectors checked all the food and closed the salad bar.''

In the months that followed, many residents feared cult members would try to spread the AIDS virus or poison the water.

``People were so horrified and so scared,'' said Laura Bentley. ``People wouldn't go out, they wouldn't go out alone. People were becoming prisoners.''

The cult came apart in 1985 and some cult leaders became prosecution witnesses.

In 1986, two leading cult members pleaded no contest to the salmonella poisoning, among other things, and served four years in prison. They then fled to Europe before prosecutors could pursue further charges.

The cult's leader, Rajneesh, was fined $400,000 for immigration fraud and died in India in 1990.

More than 20 other cult members were indicted on charges ranging from immigration violations to concocting a plot - never carried out - to murder a federal prosecutor.

A bronze statue of an antelope stands in front of the county courthouse in The Dalles, a gift from Antelope. A plaque reads: ``In order for evil to prevail, good men should do nothing.''

``That's kind of our ongoing message - that you can't just stand by,'' Huntington said. ``We certainly survived it, and I think the nation also needs to hear that. It's a great American message.''
</i>

That was just salmonella..........there was some thought that the recent ricin discovery in England was going to target a food contractor of the British military.


Achebe,

You speculated on my speculation.......currently a standoff/stalemate. I think he does and you seem to think he doesn't. Yet neither of us can absolutely prove their assertion as the correct one (at this point in time). So call it a stalemate with Non Americans & Non Brits having concerns about the degree of Iraqi cooperation.

 

I don't know if he does or if he doesn't Mango, he 'probably' does I guess.

A hell of a world we live in if we preemptively strike a country b/c it 'probably' has item X though.

 

Better the "collateral damage' be theirs than ours...