Jan 26 2007

A Plant In A Teapot?

The Blotter news blog is claiming that UK Police discovered a critical clue in the Polonium 210 trail that criss-crossed London last fall. But it took over a month after the fateful poisoning for that supposed clue to the death of Alexander Litvinenkp to show up:

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a “hot” teapot at London’s Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.

A senior official tells ABC News the “hot” teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko’s death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight.

Emphasis mine. First off, it is clear this tea pot WAS NOT under police evidence control since it was in use until mid December sometime. But like the tea cup, it is supposedly very ‘hot’ – showing a significant amount of Po-210. But this is just the same problem, physics-wise, as with the tea cup reporting – it is too hot to have been the likely source of the poisoning of Litvinenko. It is hard to tell, because we do not know Litvinenko’s dosage, but it seems to me the pot and the cup are still many times more contaminated than possible to be the vessel to deliver the miniscule amounts of Po-210 to Litvinenko.

The problem is the fact that mircroscopic amounts of Po-210 can kill, but these same amounts could never scar or permanently impact porcelain containers like the way the tea cup and tea pot apparently are. Let me use another form of radiation as an example to show the different responses different materails can have to the radiation. Microwaves are another form of radiation which can harm biological tissues. In small, low density amounts they will not harm the body, but at high densities they sure as well can cook up a slab of meat quickly – as can be seen in a microwave oven. That is because the rays excite water molecules and transfer heat energy to them, causing the water to heat up and cook the cells of the meat. Notice that your coffee cup is impervious to the microwaves, allowing your coffee to warm but the cup to show no damage.

Litvinenko was killed by something in the range of 0.5-10 millionths of a gram. That range is 10 – 200 times the lethal limit. While this amount of Po-210 ingested in the body will cook your cells and kill them, this same amount sitting on your skin will not and can be washed off with water, even in solid form. So the small amounts needed to kill are insignificant towards impacting a material like porcelain.

But we can look at pure power levels as well. A gram of Po-210 can generate around 140 watts of energy, which is quite a lot for an amount of material the size of a packet of sweetener. That means that packet of sweetener could light two 60 watt bulbs with some energy to spare. That amount of Po-210 might, and I repeat ‘might’, be enough to actually effect porcelain – but I have my doubts. Porcelain is a very tough material. Ceramics are used to protect the Space Shuttle from the super furnace hear of re-entry. While those are special ceramics, the point is still the same – the material is tough. But I do know one thing for sure. Porcelin is tougher than skin. So how is it an amount that would not kill you if it was on your hand can also ‘mark’ porcelain? It cannot.

Litvinenko’s dosage was, at worse, 10 millionths of a gram. Assuming that dose came from a half a cup of tea and the tea pot held 6 cups, that means the total amount of Po-210 in the tea cup would be 120 x 10e-6 = 1200 x 10e-6 or 1.2 thousands of a gram of Po-210 in the entire pot. This is a reasonable assumption because you can multiply the assumptions by ten in either direction to bound ‘reality’. No tea pot holds 60 cups of tea, so that is out. And one twentieth of a cup of tea is probably the minimum ‘taste’ someone would take (as opposed to the assumed 1/2 a cup we used). These orders of magnitude bound the realistic amounts of Po-210 disolved in the cup of tea.

At 1.2 thousandths of a gram, our nominal estimate, the Po-210 only generates 0.14 watts (round off the 1.2 to 1.0) of energy – total. Multiply this by ten to get the worst case boundary we are still talking about only 1.4 watts in the total tea pot. And in a liquid the energy is still being emitted over all the atoms in the liquid, which are quite spread out when dissolved. The point is Po-210 is like microwave energies. Amounts that would boil human cells wouldn’t do anything to porcelain.

So, stepping back from the physics again, what does this all mean? To me it means a tea pot the registers “off the charts” (as the Blotter reports) for Po-210 could not be the vessel for the amounts seen in Litvinenko. I also wonder how this tea pot showed up at the Hotel over a month after the actual poisoning and did not contaminate a lot more guests with serious levels. We believe the dishwasher was the prime source for most of the people who had slightly elevated Po-210 levels since simply flushing with water can remove the substance many surfaces. But this tea pot looks suspicious to me.

Did someone tip police off so that is why they came back in mid December to ‘discover’ this magic tea pot? Is this where some of the Po-210 I believe was still passing through London on one of possibly three consignments during October? Did the smugglers have a fourth, later shipment come in during November, just in time to be used in a tea pot? If someone could drop Po-210 into Litvinenko’s drink to kill him, what makes police think someone couldn’t do the same thing to a tea pot to frame Lugovoi?

There is no link between this pot and Lugovoi if it has been out in the public being used for a over a month since the poisoning, and at least two weeks since the death of Litvinenko. They have no way of knowing if this pot was contaminated after the poisoning to deflect the investigation. The tea pot is too hot to be the source of Litvinenko’s poisoning, and too convenient to be believable. If the tea pot had shows signs it contained a solution of relative equal dose as that find in Litvinenko, I could buy it. But ‘off the charts’ doesn’t sound like 10 millionths of a gram to me.

Addendum: Let me just get to the bottom line. Since the tea pot was not found for over a month after Litvinenko was supposedly poisoned on Nov 1, then the authorities have no idea when the tea pot was contaminated during that time period. Not a single clue when.

66 responses so far

66 Responses to “A Plant In A Teapot?”

  1. Carol_Herman says:

    Now, it’s a teaPOT, and not a teaCUP? What a tempest then, you can get in a teapot.

    Scotland Yard is being run by Lewis Carroll. It’s Alice in Wonderland, over there.

    Which isn’t very surprising. Since I just read Mark Steyn’s “passage” of Britian’s last great detective. His name was Jack Slipper. I kid you not. And, he found Mr. Biggs. (The Great Train Robbery guy.) Who got out of jail, after being sentenced, by using a rope ladder. And, after that got him over the wall. He fell into a furniture truck that had a hole on top.

    But since then the muslims control. And, everything reasonable has been outlawed. I guess big eared charlie is worried that his mum’s reign could end with her. So he’s converted to islam. (Like his uncle, the guy that gave up his throne for a lady that it was said also had a penis), wasn’t just because he was colluding with hitler, either.

    Since, it’s london. And, you gotta squat in front of the queen. So she can run a sword over your shoulders. It seems the elites just love being knighted. And, that’s why there isn’t gonna be much to improve upon.

    While I still think the POT was used to discard EVIDENCE. And, to hell with anyone else.

    Litvinenko wasn’t assassinated. And, in russia lots of people die because they’ve been exposed to radiation. Some? Because they don’t want to leave Chernobyl. And, go back there for the “quiet.” Others? Because they’ve served on russian subs. Those that just don’t stay underwater, tend to radiate their crews, anyway. But nobody makes a big production over it.

    As to the smugglers, it’s the story you don’t know that’s really interesting. Who CAME UP WITH THE IDEA that graduating to “suitcase nukes,” is possible with the stock of martys, looking for virgins, still out there. (But, darn that imam. Got threatened by Litvinenko’s casket. While the teaPOT was “still in service.”) Aw, arn’t those british so frugal, huh?

    You wonder how much “collateral damage” is ahead? And, Litvinenko will only turn out to be PATIENT ZERO.

    Anyway, it seems like the bad guys wanted to get rid of much of the evidence (not swallowed, hook, line and sinker, by Litvinenko.) So they go back to the hotel. Where they scamper about in the wide open. And, they slip the contents of tea out of the teaPOT. NO EARL GREY, folks! It’s as if the smugglers are also the greatest of scam artists.

    And, the smugglers are at least teaching you that in our world, “you don’t have to knock some secret door, three times. And, say Joe sent ya.”) Ya just go, and use your plastic card. And, take a hotel room in a five star hotel! It’s that easy! And, when you’re inside? The phones aren’t tapped, either.

    By the way, I always thought drinking tea was to drink poison.

  2. crosspatch says:

    Couple things:

    1. I believe it was Litvinenko’s wife in a recent interview that said that Litvinenko had tea. The tea had already been prepared and that he didn’t drink much of it because it was cold. Now if Litvinenko had only a sip or two from the tea and received 50 to 100 times the fatal dose, then the amount used in the tea is significant.

    2. If the pot from which the tea came is contaminated, I might suspect that everyone else that had tea from that pot at that meeting also became just as contaminated as Litvinenko.

    Something doesn’t smell right about all of that.

  3. Soothsayer says:

    I suggest you employ Occam’s Razor in your deliberations, Mr. Strata. Your voluminous theorizations on the source of Litvinenko’s poisoning are filled with assumptions and declarations that may or may not be based in fact:

    this is just the same problem, physics-wise, as with the tea cup reporting – it is too hot to have been the likely source of the poisoning of Litvinenko. It is hard to tell, because we do not know Litvinenko’s dosage, but it seems to me the pot and the cup are still many times more contaminated than possible to be the vessel to deliver the miniscule amounts of Po-210 to Litvinenko.

    “. . . it is too hot to have been the likely source . . .” – based on what? The fact you had Raisen Bran for breakfast this morning?

    “it is hard to tell – we do not know Litvinenko’s dosage” – exactly, so your suppositions are based upon . . .?

    “it seems to me the pot and cup are many times . . .” – it SEEMS to you? Are you a forensic physicist?

    Again –

    To me it means a tea pot the registers “off the charts” (as the Blotter reports) for Po-210 could not be the vessel for the amounts seen in Litvinenko.

    – To YOU it means – again – if you’re not a nationally recognized forensic physicist – what does it matter what your OPINION is? It’s like someone saying they’re not an aeronatuical engineer, but that space shuttle thingie doesn’t look to them like it will fly.

    Again – Occam’s Razor – a Russian dies from Polonium poisoning – he is known to have met with a shadowy Russian agent – and a teapot at the hotel shows radioactivity – but the idea that Litvinenko was simply poisoned is what? – just too simple too believe? Because your conspiracy theory is getting so weighty it appears on the verge of collapse from its own weight.

  4. Carol_Herman says:

    Criminals don’t care what harms they do!

    I’ll bet that the smuggling ring wanted to get rid of their evidence. And, had no trouble going back to the hotel room they’ve already used. Just booking it IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!

    Once in the room, they called “hospitality” for room service. And, ordered up a pot of tea. They thru this down the toilet, I’d bet. And, stuck the contraband, NOW IN LIQUID FORM, into the teaPOT. Left the room. Closed the door.

    And, let housekeeping (and perhaps people from room service), come up and “clean up the dishes.”

    There ya go. Stuffed into the dishwasher in a routine manner. And, subjecting everyone who was in the room to deadly exposure.

    Add to this that the media doesn’t tell the truth. They’re wall-to-wall propaganda. FOR THE BAD GUYS! You’ll never see follow-ups getting detailed by the media. So, you’ll jump to the conclusion that “nothing happened, except Litvinenko was “assassinated.”

    Talk about the bad guys operating in broad daylight!

    Of course, the martyrs, so far, if the imam in that london mosque is to believed, happen to be terrified of radiation touching THEM. How’d that happen?

    It also means, fer shur, that the “plot,” whatever it was hit some snags. And, may have gotten “hung up” because Litvinenko has demonstrated the DOWN SIDE of handling this crap.

    Occam’s Razor doesn’t waste time on crooks. It’s there for scientists to use; when explanations get drawn out and complicated. (And, along came Einstein. With one equation. E equals MC/squared. And, opened Pandora’s Box.)

    The russians have reason to lie! The italians and the french are in cohoots, too, to destroy at least this President. If not much, much more. But it’s the muslems who get shy with fears about being radiated by a corpse in a box.

    Hello, Occam. I think the bad guys met with a severe setback to their plans. But the truth? It will never tell. Everybody’s out there on their own. And, Alfred Hitchcock is dead. So we won’t get a very scary movie, to move a lot of revenge-seeking blacks, browns, lesbians and gays, to get off their duffs. And, join us in at least improving news gathering for the sakes of our kids. And, grandkids.

    We are, in fact, alone.

  5. AJStrata says:

    CP,

    The reason I looked at one tenth half a cup (which is the one twentieth) was to allow for ten times the dosage from a sip. But the difference between 10 millionths of a gram and 100 millionths of gram is not enough to affect porcelain. The energy goes from .14 watts to 1.4 watts, not enough to damage porcelain. Remember, in a liquid the Po-210 atoms float freely if in solution and are evenly distributed in the liquid. And at these amounts the only way to ‘handle’ the material is in solution. This will not leave any mark on the porcelain.

    Now, if it was a solid massed at the bottom then it is possible. But lets play that math. If the dose was 10 millionths of a gram, but it was through a sip that represented one hundredth of the amount (being way too conservative) in the tea pot then the total in suspension would be 1 thousandth of a gram. And lets assume only 1 percent of the material in the bottom was being released into the liquid, that means the total amount is 100 thousandths or .1 percent grams. Still too small to handle or require mutilple trips.

    No, if Litvinenko’s dose was in a tea as a poison it would be disolved, not some lump of metal dropped in. Possible? Yes. Likely. Not really.

  6. magicsam says:

    The nuclear smuggling theory is the simplest explanation for all known facts. Such theory is indeed the application of occam’s razor. As for the teapot, its authenticity must be questioned given the investigators’ suspicious and unexplained failure of protocol in the collection of evidence.

  7. Carol_Herman says:

    And, it could have started when he “inhaled.” Or, after “washing his hands,” as a precaution after handling the stuff; didn’t think anything of picking his nose. And, eating the booger.

    By the way, smuggling really tiny bits runs into a logic flaw. You could have MAILED THIS STUFF! It could have gone by post. Just dropped off in a postal box. Arriving as an innocent (but expected) letter.

    Here you have grown men, passengers on airlines. Sitting in seats. And, this stuff left the seats of their pants.

    You also have Kotvon, I think, visiting his ex-wife in Hamberg; and managing to spill this stuff on his own kids! Wow, is that hard to explain by “tea cup fulls.”

    Let alone, grown men, up to mischief, getting done in because they “stopped to have a spot of tea.”

    More interesting to me, however, is how OUT IN THE DAYLIGHT these transactions seem to be! Smugglers usually look for out-of-the-way places. They don’t register in rooms under their own name! Even Scaramella, the “tourist,” didn’t have to find the “hide out.”

    And, russian men having time to go to restaurants aren’t even sneaking time “off of the time clock!” Their jobs don’t seem to have them doing any work at all! Outside of homosexuals, whom else do you know who “cruise?”

    Of course, math is interesting. Especially the math that would explain HOW MUCH MONEY you could get if you were a “lucky participant.”

    Of course, the hotel staff, and others, aren’t gonna turn out to be so “lucky.”

    But Scotland Yard? Where were they? Because if they were looking around, you’d see the bad guys going to ground. And, also setting about MacGuffins, wherever they can!

    While ideas like this don’t just pop up on their own! Somebody’s got to think this one up. And, start the ball rolling.

    While everything out of russia is BLACK MARKET! Heck, they can’t even manufacture pencils. (Okay. Vodka. But russian vodka’s cheap enough, the bootleggers would go broke if they tried to compete.)

    So, you’re back to square one.

    Who’d want this stuff?

    Why was the imam spooked with fears about getting radiated from Litvinenko’s coffin?

    And, HOW MUCH MONEY was involved?

    What did Scaramella respond to, except that he must have smelled huge amounts of money.

    Ah. And, don’t forget Turki’s flight out of DC. It’s very unusual for a diplomatic-pants-dancer to flee. Heck. he’s got diplomatic immunity! Yet, the guy RAN. In one hell of a hurry. Should’a made people suspicious, if you were asking me.

    Ya know, in russia, a lot of smuggling scum succumb to radiation poisoning. As to sailors who sail on their nuclear subs. Russia really doesn’t have OSHA. OSHA would’a made everyone wear hats.

  8. AJStrata says:

    CP,

    Yeah, I saw that! Sort of wild hey? This little old slice of cyber space (which is enormous!).

    Cheers – AJStrata

  9. BarbaraS says:

    I thought at one time that the teacup itself was a plant but it could have been used to hold a leaking container or the contents of a leaky container. However, I do think the teapot is a plant. How could have the police missed this piece of evidence. How embarrassing. I’ll bet they investigate how this pot came to the surface of this investigation and if it actually was in the Pine Bar kitchen for the last 2 and 1/2 months. Sounds fishy to me. Does anyone think Bereszovsky’s PR machine is not capable of planting this pot. Hell, the people behind this PR machine are capable of planting the cup too. Also, I should think that if the pot had been in the kitchen all this time more people would be poisoned bigtime.

  10. Soothsayer says:

    As for the teapot, its authenticity must be questioned given the investigators’ suspicious and unexplained failure of protocol in the collection of evidence.

    Oh, great, that’s that same lame argument that got OJ off. The LA cops suspicious and unexplained failure of protocol.

    There’s a reasonable argument for you.

  11. Snapple says:

    I agree with Soothsayer. Putin poisoned his critics to silence them. The British police just didn’t find this teapot right away.

    I believe the professional investigators. Perhaps they don’t tell reporters everything because they need to protect their investigation, but I think the basic outlines of the story are correct.

  12. Soothsayer says:

    I’m with Snapple on this. These investigators aren’t politicians – they’re just guys dong their job. IF they’re lying – then WHY are they lying? You’ve got to crate a pretty ambitious conspiracy matrix to justify it – and the other alternative is that Putin – a former bloody-handed KGB agent – ask the Chechens -had somebody whacked. Not exactly hard to believe.

    Altho George did say he had looked into Putin’s eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.”

  13. copydude says:

    Snapple says:

    “Putin poisoned his critics to silence them”

    But Polonium doesn’t silence anyone. The noise made by Litvinenko is ample proof of that. Which is why no-one would ever use Polonium for that purpose and no one ever has.

    Snapple says:

    “I believe the professional investigators.”

    We don’t know who is leaking to the media (but I think we can guess.)
    The ‘sources’ are unnamed and unverifiable. Moreover, their story changes with the wind.

    Today, the prime suspect is Lugovoi. Only last week, it was a mystery Russian called Vladislav.

    Remember: Mario Scaramella had 5 times the lethal dose of Polonium. Now, Aldermaston – Britain’s premier nuclear weapons establishment – apparently ‘made a mistake’.

    The ‘basic outlines of the story’ were concocted by a PR agency with an agenda. And so far, there are no credible facts to support it.

  14. Carol_Herman says:

    Putin’s more efficient at assassinating rivals and enemies, than Scotland Yard is at collecting evidence.

    If the hinge to this story is that “Putin did it,” I think this information is NOT showing up in the last reel.

    In other words? Putin didn’t do it. But Scotland Yard is clueless. And, there are a lot of people who WANT Putin to have been in charge; only because that would make this crap easier to solve.

    But for starters, according to this theory, Putin got “only one.” And, brought way too much attention to himself, as a louse. That “kiss” to the little boy’s tummy, however, puts him in the leage of pedophiles. Would you explain the motive as Putin’s hate for the world? So thousands could get exposed to radiation? All in a lucky shot that got one guy, because he didn’t wash his hands off well enough? That’s on par with making a lot out of Bush using Purell hand cleaner after shaking hands with the multitudes. And, for me, it doesn’t wash.

    I still think this was a smuggling operation. That called forth the black marketeers in russia, who’ve got lots of access to “old soldiers” and the storehouses where the soviet’s old nukes are decaying away. (You’d also have to wonder, since they were used for display purposes. IN PARADES. If those old nukes were “stage sets” … or the real McCoy? Because from what we’ve learned about out own state department, those jerks wanted to be fooled.

    Chernobyl should’a taught ya something.

    And, the fact that the shelves in stores in russia are for the most part EMPTY, should have taught you lots about russia’s inability to manufacture anything, including pencils, it could sell to global markets. But fear? You can sell that! Just gather up suspicious “containers.” And, you’ll find people who will answer your ads that appear in gun magazines. Or other “queer” places. Since not all advertisements are for empty apartments. Or lost dogs.

    You’ll also notice that London is CRAWLING with spies. If DC is. And, our government doesn’t have a watch dog operation in place, to spy back, then why do we have Homeland Security? Why haven’t we plugged the holes? Because London’s rife with them. And, their police? More handicapped, it seems, than the Keystone Cops. Only it’s not funny.

    The teapot would make sense as a receptical that was used to “throw away” evidence, AFTER Litvinenko died. Perhaps, the russian smugglers not only called Goldfarb for PR cover; they also did something terrible with the crap they had on hand. Now that the light was shone onto this “assassination?” You’ll just never know for sure.

    But take heed. OUT IN THE OPEN! Since when do spies go about doing things OUT IN THE OPEN? You’d think they’d be well versed in hiding what they’re doing from passers-by. Here? Not even from hotel staff! Teacups, indeed.

  15. Carol_Herman says:

    I’m only old enough to remember this in the vaguest way. But in the 1950’s, a russian spy was caught in NY City. I think his name was “ABLE.” And, he was caught because he used a fake nickel to buy a newspaper. This was turned over to the cops. (The nickel’s body pulled apart, so “ABLE” had been using it for decades (?), as a dummy nickel, in which he could pass secrets. Then, by mistake, he handed it off to buy a newspaper. Caught. And, convicted.

    Maybe, here, something similar? Spies who felt comfortable enough not to care; chose 5-star hotels, to check into. Under their own name. No disguises. Familiar with the bar staff. Very jolly fellows. BROAD DAYLIGHT. When most people “at work” are also close enough to time clocks, that they’re not gad-about-ing in fine hotels for their wages. You do see a difference between the russians and the hotel staff, no? Where do you get jobs where you don’t have to turn up at a desk “to go to work?”

    You’d think at least, a little surreptitiousness, would have been TRAINED INTO the spy-workers. It’s missing here. Even all the way up the chain, to the itallians. Go figa. No wonder Amb. Wilson (nee Munchausen), had no trouble “blending in” with this crowd!

  16. Gotta Know says:

    It is not credible that investigators could have missed the teapot. They were too fastidious about the rest of the investigation. I had always assumed there was no teapot, that he had a single cup of tea with teabag. If the hotel had teapots, they had to have been checked.

    Now ask this: What would be the single best way to discredit the smuggling theory? A tainted teapot, if authentic it would be a smoking gun of a murder.

    How hard would it be to go back and contaminate a teapot? It must be the easiest thing in the world, and now, months and thousands of guests later, we’ll never know who did it.

  17. copydude says:

    One teapot is not evidence of multiple assassination attempts, nor does it explain contamination at multiple locations. Unless they carried the teapot around with them in case Sasha suddenly wanted a ‘hot drink’ 🙂

    Since they have already put out the teacup theory, why the new and suspect addition of the ‘overlooked’ teapot?

    I think it’s just another invention to keep the momentum of the propaganda story going – like last weeek’s ‘mystery man, over 30, with a limp and three passports’ and ‘using Polonium to heat the water’.

    Interesting that this plant was leaked to ABC – the British press is running with Lugovoi as the prime suspect.

  18. Carol_Herman says:

    Here’s a teaPOT “choice.” You can only choose ONE.

    The teaPOT was a method of discarding the collected po-210. Dumped in by “who knows who?” But with a total disregard to life. Since AFTER the “dump” the teaPOT went to the dishwasher. And, got used over-and-over-again. UP AHEAD? Guests who ordered “a spot of tea” from room service, stand a pretty good chance of coming down with leukemia; or some other types of cancer, within the next few years? (What’s the time line? Broader than five years, after exposure? On par with smoking 3-packs a day?) NOBODY KNOWS!

    Choice #2: The teaPOT was “discovered” contaminated, by “alert staff,” as soon as the dump of the contents was made. No harms intended, or any that will be “received by subsequent quests.”

    Because Goldfarb threw out the PR, you’re also given a choice. He did so to “halp?” Or to confuse those who’d come into this story? Ya know? Convincing people that Putin is a monster has legs all its own. Doesn’t have to fit the plot.

    While MacGuffins, by Alfred Hitchcock’s definition, come out early in the unfolding story. Designed to get the audience captivated enough, that they sit on the edges of their chairs. In other words? A plot device that manages to get the story going, by deceitfully covering up what will become exposed, later.

    The other thing to notice? IF the russian smugglers couldn’t care less about the well being of ordinary citizens, then they’re just like smugglers of old, who sold alcohol; once Prohibition set it, that turned people BLIND.

    An interesting development took place around 1990. When about 60,000 men in Havana, went BLIND. And, Castro accused the USA of sending poisons out of Guantanamo. We didn’t see these stories in America. But they were all over the tubes everyplace else!

    Worried, the CIA contacted an American eye doctor. Very famous guy. And, charged him with going to Cuba, with a delegation, so that these charges could be CONFIRMED. Or not.

    The doctor went. (I already told you he told a bunch of Cal Tech students and professors about this trip. Around 1996. Because I typed up the tape from that lecture. So, I know.)

    About 100 scientists went to Cuba to investigate. And, this professor met Castro, in person. Found him very bright. But also flawed. Because to be the brightest man in Cuba, Castro killed anyone who showed signs of being smarter. I heard this, too. On that tape.)

    Anyway, it wasn’t a virus. And, it had nothing to do with Guantanamo. But in fact there really were about 60,000 blind people, in beds, in Havana’s hospitals. Yet, at no time did the wives of these men get sick. And, another interesting fact? BOTH EYES! (Viruses and cancers don’t attack BOTH EYES!)

    So the question of “alcohol poisoning” came up. And, again, the scientist shot this down. Why? Because cubans KNOW HOW TO MAKE BOOZE! They don’t make “bathtub gin that can kill ya.

    But the cause? LACK OF GREEN VEGETABLES IN THE DIET. This blindness epidemic broke out as soon as russia was kaput. And, left cuba. Not knowing any better, Castro “sold off” the green vegies. And, the population was STARVED of essential vitamins. Which caused men (from 16 to 65) to go blind in both eyes.

    The recommended cure was to give everybody vitamin shots. Even Castro dropped his pants. And, this scientist said what’s “good” about dictatorships is that the despot in charge can tell everyone they’re gonna get shots. And, nobody dares say “no.” So the problem was solved. (Except that the remnants of the blindness? Cancelled out a spot directly in the center of the eye. And, how did the lack of vitamins do this? Because NOT HAVING THEM caused the smallest nerves in the body, to erode.)

    I tell you this, because even our government FEARED that the blindness was somehow caused by the Americans. That’s why the CIA went to this doctor. And, didn’t let him refuse. Because they even went to his bosses at USC Medical College; and arranged everything.

    Governments are able to do things average citizens cannot.

    And, this whole story, so far, is not being challenged by governments. Because they don’t want to give you clues that are really, really secret.

    Still, before the facts come in, there are camps. Just like with Libby. Some people think he’ll be convicted. Where I give Fitzgerald the best shot at having the jury hang.

    But like a topical event, what’s happening now? Will be discussed for a long time to come. Because the media is handling Plame’s “story” like it was all gonna be just bad PR for the President. That’s just the way the world IS. And, it’s the reason restaurants serve food by offering menues.

  19. jerry says:

    I’m going to predict that a tea tin was also found in room 411, I’ll predict that:

    if it’s radioative, AJ will say the metal was scarred by alpha radiation from massive amounts of radiation (that no one could survive), then go on to envisaging chunks of Po210 smuggled in the tin, dropped on the floor, inhaled, ingested, inspected, and excreted, the whereabouts of majority of this Po210 are presetly unknown.

    if it’s not radioactive, AJ will clain that a capsule containing horrendous amounts of Po210 was smuggled in the tea tin and later removed in this hotel room (quite sensibly, the perfect place to toy with grams of Po210), thus leading to the massive spill on the floor and the massive contamination of multiple hotel rooms around London, and… the present location of these chunks of Po210 are still unknown, but they’re out there somewhere.