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Ricin Tainted Letter Sent to Senator and Possibly the President
An anonymous reader writes "A letter addressed to Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) was tested and found to contain ricin, a highly toxic, inexpensive, and easily produced substance derived from castor beans. The letter was intercepted at the U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility and nobody has been injured. The letter was postmarked Memphis, Tennessee, but listed no return address. Sen. Claire McCaskill told reporters that a suspect has been identified."
And, this morning, a letter addressed to the President was discovered containing a suspicious substance. Update: 04/17 16:25 GMT by U L : And the substance is ricin. Apparently, air filters at another facility have also tested positive for ricin.
Source.
I imagine he gets these every single day. It goes with the job.
Oh, wait, we have to take advantage of the bombings! We're still at war with Eastasia, remember!
No sig today...
Its someone stupid enough to think a Senator opens his own mail. (Shamelessly stolen from Twitter)
Test your net with Netalyzr
Sounding a little too much like the 9-11 era all over again (which was punctuated by the anthrax mailings) just on a much smaller scale, overall. Though I think it's likely to be totally domestic this time (including the "main event"; in this case, the Boston marathon).
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Doesn't everybody use email now ? Letters are so outdated.
Obviously we must ban all Assault Beans. Even though castor beans aren't even really legumes at all. All that matters is that word "bean" is used, which qualifies them as Assault Beans.
Just because the Lima Bean ban back in the 1990's didn't reduce the number of assault bean attacks doesn't mean that a properly configured law - which we'll have to pass in order to find out what's really in it, of course - won't save "at least one life."
Next, we'll have to focus on deaths related to soccer and other Assault Sports. I'm looking at you, Kayaking.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Here comes the FUD. Here coooomes the FUD, when the press seeks unrest Here Comes The FUD.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I imagine he gets these every single day. It goes with the job.
Oh, wait, we have to take advantage of the bombings! We're still at war with Eastasia, remember!
This whole every-aspect-of-our-lives-must-be-in-the-context-of-1984 conspiracy stuff has really gotten out of hand ...
Police are looking for a man known as Heisenberg, currently they have no other leads or aliases....
It's a shitty way to die.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Let's ban the letters, the castors and the beans! All for freedom!
Yo, Mr White, I sent those letters like you ask. Fresh peeps yo.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with beans is a good guy with beans. You should make sure to arm all civilians with ricin in case someone is stealing your car stereo.
Maybe I'm overestimating the government's ability to monitor things, but how the hell can you find a suspect for something like this? Someone just needs to drive to a secluded mailbox, drop the letter, and drive off.
yeah, but they still haven't implemented the technology to send ricin over twitter. But twitter is still a virulent vector for stupidity.
I've been wondering about that! Man, Walter trying to kill the president?! The finale of Breaking Bad is gonna kick ass!
Obviously we must ban all Assault Beans. Even though castor beans aren't even really legumes at all. All that matters is that word "bean" is used, which qualifies them as Assault Beans. Just because the Lima Bean ban back in the 1990's didn't reduce the number of assault bean attacks doesn't mean that a properly configured law - which we'll have to pass in order to find out what's really in it, of course - won't save "at least one life." Next, we'll have to focus on deaths related to soccer and other Assault Sports. I'm looking at you, Kayaking.
You're a moron, ricin is listed as a schedule 1 controlled substance under both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. So ... it's already banned and your "joke" is neither funny nor does it any sense at all. Take your failed attempts at political satire back over to Reddit or Facebook ...
Walter White will stop at nothing, until he is the kingpin of the entire world!
If someone wanted to get a piece of [tainted] paper into physical contact with the president or other important US political figure, sending it using the mail system is not the way to do it and I should think it would be more than obvious to anyone. Even without specific knowledge of the fact, various sniffing technologies can and should naturally be presumed as part of the normal mail screening and sorting processes. And even without that, isn't it hard to imagine the president actually opening his own mail?! He must receive 50lbs or mail or more a day from all the concerned citizens and crackpots out there. No way HE goes through it all personally. In which case, even without sniffing and detection technologies, it would likely get to someone else first.
So the perpetrator was either immeasurably stupid and thoughtless or this is something else.... more 'theater' for another cause supporting the loss of freedom and liberty.... or both.
Who uses castor beans anymore?
Outlaw them. Register them. Confiscate them.
Why do you need Castor Beans?
Are we seriously testing all mail coming to members of Congress for poisons? How the hell is this accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, with reasonable accuracy, and how much is it costing us?
How about we build a robot that opens the mail, scans the pages into digital form, and skip all that ludicrous bullshit?
Update: 04/17 16:25 GMT by U L : And the substance is ricin. Apparently, air filters another facility have also testing positive for ricin.
What? "air filters another facility?"
You a word or two.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Enquiring minds want to know!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
one Walter White, described as a mild-mannered, former High School Chemistry teacher.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
And shooting people is already listed in a thousand different ways as illegal. Banning the objects to prevent what actions some few people might take is exactly what breathless politicians are screaming for. They know it's meaningless, and you know it's meaningless. Just like banning the objects from which ricin is made is meaningless.
You really are stupid, you know that? We're not proposing a ban on steel, we're proposing a ban on the ultimate object that makes pulling a trigger the difference between life and death. Just like castor beans aren't illegal to walk around with sacks of but it is illegal to walk around with sacks of ricin because it is the final product that allows that person to cause death quickly and without much effort.
Are you saying that ricin, a schedule 1 substance, should be sold to whoever wants it because the act of using it to kill people is already illegal?
The fact that I have to explain this to you really illustrates the frustration of this whole gun control debate. I bet the whole concept of "weaponized" is lost on you when we're talking about mustard and ricin, isn't it?
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Someone has been watching too much Breaking Bad.
John McAfee made some far-out claims a few months ago about Mexican cartels helping Muslim terrorists smuggle tons of ricin into the USA.
Let's hope to all that's holy that he was just bat-shit crazy and the allegations are not true, because if they are then thousands of people could be killed by the alleged "tons of ricin"
It is blatantly obvious that if only we had $Politically_Impossible_Ineffective_Action_Advocated_for_Unrelated_Reasons, this tragedy would have been avoided.
Those who are blaming $Different_Reason_For_Different_Unrelated_Reasons, are just cynically using the current crisis for their own political gain!
Reminds me of this story: John McAfee predicted it a few months ago. Just like his software, he couldn't stop anything.
McAfee is a bit crazy, but if he's right, then the corrupt Belize government along with Nicaragua helped Hezbollah and Iran commit terrorist attacks in the US with ricin. Yeah, it sounds crazy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Smuggle it? You can grow it in your own front yard! The Castor Bean isn't an illegal plant.
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plmar99.htm
If the feds want whoever is putting this stuff in letters, just look for a avid gardener with a few of these in their yard.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Next thing you know, you'll start see blue-tinted crystal meth popping up everywhere....
It's time we stand up to the big bean lobby and institute a background check before all bean purchases. Why does anybody need more than 1 can of beans for supper? You don't, which is why we need to limit high capacity bags of beans to no more than 10 ounces. Additionally, we need to ban all assault beans -- baked beans containing bacon or pork. How many more bean incidents? How much more suffering must we endure?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Why are people smart enough to make something like this...so stupid as to think that the people they name on the letters come anywhere near them?
Newsflash to any mail-related ter'rists in training: Bob Shmoe the Senator doesn't open his mail. He doesn't read it. He doesn't even find out about it. It's some intern or minimum-wage lackey.
Please help metamoderate.
I vote for b-s c, because many natives of the Southwest U.S. know that castor bean plants grow wild all over the place here, in warm regions. Likely they grow closer to the East Coast than than; the South is probably warm enough. If nothing else I'd bet twenty bucks they grow all over most of Mexico; no need to import ricin from Central America. That would be like importing crabgrass.
Criminals don't pay taxes, does that mean we shouldn't have taxes? Criminals didn't obey the ban on a schedule 1 drug, does that mean we shouldn't ban schedule 1 drugs anymore? The criminal also violated USPS laws about transporting substances through the mail -- so by your logic we should do away with those laws as well? Criminals still murder people with their hands, does that mean we need to get rid of laws concerning murder and manslaughter?
In french, a castor is a beaver. Reading "castor beans" is somewhat confusing.
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Has anyone else noticed that N Korea has been making a lot of noise the past month
Monday was the national celebration for the leader's grandfather the founder of N Korea. A day many analysts pointed at as a likely turning point in their ramp-up.
Tuesday Ricin letters were delivered to the White House and other locations.
I think I need to find a blank to go hide under.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Only a teabagger would be dumb enough to think that such an act would be effective.
Effective at what? A response is underway — if effecting that response was the intent, the act was effective.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Walter is that you?
Quite an assumption. Who's to say it isn't an anti-war activist? Or an Occupy person? Or literally anyone else in the world?
I've seen FB posts saying essentially, "We MUST do something to make sure this can never happen again".
Apparently, these people want a police state, since that's the only scenario where there's even a reasonable probability of that.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If we were to hold gun owners accountable for their weapons, then it would be a lot harder for the thieves to get them. Of course, your average gun nut considers proper control to be too emasculating, so they are always complaining about their penile replacements being under threat.
"Source."
This is premature BS. This info is based on the first tests, which were not conclusive. That's why your "source" says they are "waiting for further tests results"!!!
Actually, it's not anecdotal at all.
In response to someone FB post on how Switzerland offers decomm'd assault rifles to every male, I looked up gun ownership and deaths from guns by country. I chose first world, relatively lawful societies so as not to skew the data with lawless places or countries with insurrections. I chose Finland, US, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and (shoot, can't remember the other two). That's a pretty wide range of laws concerning guns, and a huge disparity in density of guns and people.
The result - 1 death per year for every 8000 guns. Regardless of population or # of guns. The std deviation was in the 300-400 range, iirc. It was a tight grouping. Regardless, fewer guns == fewer deaths from guns. Even in a place like Switzerland where every practically owner is military trained. Even in a place like Japan where they are nearly outlawed. More guns = more deaths / fewer guns = fewer deaths.
Nothing will stop the crazy that was Newtown or Virginia Tech, but fewer guns will, statistically, reduce the number of people who die from gun wounds - and it's 1:1.
FWIW, I'm a gun owner - have been for 20+ years. I'm also in favor of both 100%, kept-on-file background checks and 3 round capacity maximums. Then again, I used to deal with explosives as a hobby, and have friends who manufacture legally. Everything there is fully regulated, licensed, tracked, and recorded. Then again, you almost never see an IED made from mainstream pyrotechnic materials. It's more frequently homemade or common household materials, or commercially purchased black powder which - interestingly - is the only pyro explosive you can get and store without a license. Why? Because gun owners and the NRA bought the 25lb exemption in congress.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If your conspiracy theory is true, it's absolutely fantastic news. Consider this: the top leadership of a nuclear armed state decide to send out international assassins on a murderous rampage. The result: two home-made pressure-cooker bombs kill two random civilians, and a pitifully ineffective poison attack is caught before reaching the same city as the intended targets. If this level of threat is all we have to worry about when North Korea goes into full-fledged wacko murder mode, I'm immensely relieved; I'd think even a pitiful nation like that could pull off something a bit less amateurish.
"So please describe a situation where an honest person can defend themselves without a weapon?"
Eliminate all firearms
Okay, that's a ridiculous question and an equally ridiculous answer. It is, in fact, impossible to eliminate firearms. Case closed.
The thing is, you will never prevent an assailant from killing people in public with a firearm. Unless, of course, you are willing to mow down bystanders yourself.
And you will never stop a one-on-one assault unless the attacker is a bad shot, even if you own a weapon. The Prosecutor and his wife in Texas? He owned a gun, and it was in his house the day he and his wife were shot. In fact, it is believed he was going to get his weapon when he was gunned down. Guns don't protect you.
Believing that a gun will stop an assailant is a false security. The best you can hope for is that the attacker is a terrible shot and there's nobody behind him when you shoot.
The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun in a public place is the bad guy running out of ammunition.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Why do images of Tyrone Biggums opening Senator Daschel's mail come to mind. (Am I dating myself here?!)
Allow me to illustrate for you who your REAL enemy is in terms of gun control. It's not the politicians. Contrary to popular /. opinion, our politicians are not stupid. It has, I guarantee you, occurred to at least some of our elected representatives that a ban on assault rifles is stupid and doesn't solve the problem. It has also occurred to many of them that the problem really is mentally ill people. However, there are two constituencies that are driving them to gun control measures. The first constituency happens to be socially & fiscally conservative pro-gun owners who insist on better policing of existing firearm regulations (good), and also reduce taxation for everyone in general, thus cutting down government waste and programs. This is admirable, except that mental health programs, asylums, and facilities in general that would benefit society by taking the mentally ill out of mainstream society and rehabilitating them are among the first local/county/state/federal funding expenditures to get cut because there's not enough of a constituency to represent them.
The second constituency, and the one with FAR more electoral power than the NRA, are suburban women voters. If you want to know WHO exactly is driving the push for gun control and pushing all the politicians in the country to do something about guns, it is this group. These are the voters who are working mothers, who have never grown up in a house with guns. Their children go to suburban schools very similar to Columbine and Sandy Hook. They've never been victims of violent crime. They've never had cause to fear a tyrannical government. But they DO know gun nuts. They all know at least one person who talks about government conspiracies, who brings up Obama at holiday dinners and how he's taking the county to damnation and socialism, who whispers darkly of the coming apocalypse over beers with their husbands on the back porch, and who owns a goddamn arsenal of scary-looking assault weapons. To these women, and their families, the Enemy is not urban black thugs. Nor is it black-clad government agents. The Enemy is the crazy gun nut down the street who doesn't seem to have his head screwed on straight, is paranoid and suspicious of everyone, has a whole lot of guns, and is constantly ranting about the government and conspiracies, and how stupid his or her fellow citizens are.
If you want to know the real reason why your gun rights are being taken away, go look in the mirror. You, and others like you, scare the hell out of these people who have no reason to fear the entities you fear. They fear YOU, and they are asking our government to do something about YOU. And they outnumber the NRA, they outnumber the responsible gun owners, and their voices will be heard. It is not a question of if gun control and an assault weapon ban is going to be enacted, but when. And bear this in mind: the day that women take to the streets and march in favor of gun control, is the day the Second Amendment will fall. Why? Because your Enemy won't be the black-clad federal troops coming to take away your guns, it's going to be the scared mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sisters who are marching in the streets demanding political action because they don't feel safe around YOU. And let me ask you this: when it comes to that, are you willing to kill those women to keep your guns? Because THEY are the ones who the federal troops will obey. And THEY outnumber YOU.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
The choice of him and the president just seems rather dissonant.
Do you not get that people that try to kill other people in a calculated pre-meditated way are INSANE?
The guy who shot Giffords was also an anti-Palin nut!
As far as they are concerned, whoever they are trying to kill has offended the bunnies that live on the moon or are stealing their semen through the TV. There is no carefully pulling apart of logical motive, there is just understanding they are wrong in the head and could do anything.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You miss the point of background checks.
No we don't. It's for the government to track who has legal guns among people that will not commit crimes.
It is to make it harder - ON AVERAGE - for people with a history of violent and/or criminal behavior to acquire firearms.
Well then it's stupid on the face of it because "ON AVERAGE" all criminals simply buy or steal guns illegally anyway, since they don't want something that could be traced back to them. They are criminals after all.
In the end all you are doing is tracking the people who will ON AVERAGE never commit a crime, and make it harder for them to buy guns than the criminals that may kill them.
I can't believe that someone on Slashdot is taking the side of the jackboots, so soon after we all feared that civil rights would be further reduced after the Boston bombings. Look no further; reduction is underway. If you are at all about protecting rights you are against further gun regulations; if you are not against gun regulation well then you are just going to have to lay back and take whatever further noxious restrictions result from Boston. Registration when buying kitchen supplies? If gun regulation passes I will be in full support of it, because why go halfway?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No. The answer to ricin attacks, is the increased availability of ricin to the general population without background checks, nor waiting periods. We need ricin in the hands teachers at schools, or perhaps retired police officers. In event of a ricin attack, they will mail there own ricin laced letter to the return address on the envelope. No weight limits on ricin either. You have the right to mail kilograms of the stuff at a time if needed, not a fews grams at a time like the big government liberals would like. A society with powerful poisons is a polite society.
You really are stupid, you know that? We're not proposing a ban on steel, we're proposing a ban on the ultimate object that makes pulling a trigger the difference between life and death. Just like castor beans aren't illegal to walk around with sacks of but it is illegal to walk around with sacks of ricin because it is the final product that allows that person to cause death quickly and without much effort. Are you saying that ricin, a schedule 1 substance, should be sold to whoever wants it because the act of using it to kill people is already illegal? The fact that I have to explain this to you really illustrates the frustration of this whole gun control debate. I bet the whole concept of "weaponized" is lost on you when we're talking about mustard and ricin, isn't it?
You're a condescending asshole you know that?
Ricin's sole purpose is killing people. And you have to take some fairly extraordinary steps to make sure that doesn't happen (safe handling and suchlike). Guns can be used for a wide range of purposes, one of which is killing people, but many of which have nothing to do with hurting people like hunting, sport shooting, target practice, or tree trimming (true story). To take your argument to the completely opposite (and equally invalid) extreme - we should obviously ban hammers since they are used to kill people sometimes.
The simple fact is that "assault weapons" are not the problem. Handguns, if anything, are the problem. But even so, suicides by gun outnumber homicides by a ratio of 2:1. And deaths by car accident outnumber both put together by almost 2:1 again. And death from complications from fatness are probably 10:1 over car accidents. It seems to me that the more it is the case that a person dies due to their own actions (all of fatness, and about half of car accidents) then we are more accepting of that because, well, they took that risk. But with guns, we get completely irrational about it because...they're scary? I guess?
k5.13y.1963@docomo.ne.jp
Premeditated murder does not mean one is insane.
I said people, not person.
Just try to argue someone is not insane for planning to kill a number of totally unrelated and innocent people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Studies have been done on this subject and they don't line up with the gun lobby rhetoric. Please read this and digest it:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mass-shootings-rampages-rising-data
I think what it boils down to is that mass murders are out of their minds and often suicidal. The power and attention they want from the rampage becomes the last and only thing they care about, even to the exclusion of their own lives.
Having some armed people in the vicinity does not deter these maniacs.
The gun culture has worked to protect people who handle and traffic in explosives:
NRA Lobbyists Stymie Effort to Trace Explosives
In America, the Beaver Bean would definitly be a reference to the clitoris...or the name of a super sweet punk band!
Oh the epic, award winning documentary, Team America starring Alec Baldwin, has already taught us this is typical for NK and if we don't try to contain this threat then there may be a severe chance that Mt Rushmore would suffer. Also I do believe the UN is currently authoring a VERY stern letter.
I apologize for any negativity I attempted to infer by the final wording of my post (though the actual debate material I feel is my honest assement). I wrote it before you I got your last reply to the car article. I thought we were still taking sniper shots. Can we be /. buddies?
the recipients are possibly constipated? (back-history: castor-oil used to be a cure for constipation)