Why is CNN talking about Ricin in a Texas dorm

[linazelle]

over and over....and over...?

Found in a roll of quarters...hmmmm. What could this mean?

[Dunvegan]

1. Terra-izng the money supply: Keep yer hands off it! Belongs to Halliburton

[johnfunk]

32. CNN: Keeping America Afraid Just Like Karl Rove Ordered!

Ricin, shmicin. We are talking about a very large university, so should it shock anyone if a nimrod or two decided to play with poison?

[stray cat]

2. Its not exactly a natural substance in a roll of quarters

if it does end up being ricin. Kind of like finding radiation somewhere where it really doesn't belong. Its a good idea to find out where it comes from and if we are likely to be seeing alot more of it shortly.

[Dunvegan]

3. Thank Jeezus we're spending our quarters ovah there...

...so we won't be poisoned by them ovah here.

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

[linazelle]

5. Right. I'm sure we'll find the culprit just like we found the Anthrax

killer. Oh wait...we didn't find the Anthrax killer. Hmmmmm.

Be afraid, very afraid. I'm going shopping. :crazy:

[Kansas Wyatt]

13. "Anthrax killer" is somewhere within

The U.S. Government, which is why the investigation had to stall and go nowhere. Presumably part of the U.S. Government that doesn't like Democrats or reporters, but it's not very good investigating to look at who exactly was targeted.

Oh wait! There is a powerful part of the U.S. Government that wants Americans to be afraid all the time. Ignore the this statement. Move along, nothing to see here.

[Dunvegan]

15. Cool. Just don't buy anything or take change in quarters.

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Read it in LBN, and I just don't get it!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RICIN_DORM?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

It is such a hokey story. RICIN ALERT! in a TX dorm laundry room??? :wtf:

Finding it in a roll of quarters....wow...are our banks are terra-rizing at random? No where is safe! Don't use rolled coin anymore!! :sarcasm:

Speaking of banks...where DID the rolled coin originate? Sure, the dorm was checked, all students checked, dorm sanitized, students return, no one harmed by contact.

Again..sounds oh so hokey.

[linazelle]

6. Sounds same way to me. Maybe Bush's banker friends are helping

him out...giving him a reason to save us? Hmmmm:shrug:

[neweurope]

8. Hokey indeed. They found a "substance" and didn't have

to find out what it was - they suspected Ricin right away! They didn't just tesrt it, they tested it for Ricin at once.

:wtf:

-----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[koopie57]

10. what does Ricin look like?

Did a college student notice it while doing laundry? How would one get a hold of it?

[neweurope]

17. The student told university police she found the chunky powder ...

"Ricin is extracted from castor beans and can be added to food or water, injected or sprayed as an aerosol. It can be in the form of a powder, mist, pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid."

----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Mutley]

23. Does it have a distinct look to it, or smell?

Something unique about ricin that would make someone immediately say, "Oh that's ricin," instead of thinking it could be baby powder, or baking powder, or cocaine, or antrax, or laundry powder (there, I put laundry powder in okay?)?

[Whoa_Nelly]

25. Could it have been...

laundry soap? ****GASP!****

How in the world did a student deduce the substance found should be reported? Did the student have sudden insight of OMG Terrorists! Yes! Ricin! Must Report!

Yeah...hokey indeed.

[neweurope]

28. I don't think so...

"...it will have few indicators because it does not have a strong taste and is off-white in color." I couldn't find anything about smell. But from all the off-white substances in the world to kniow it was Ricin - I find this a little odd.

--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush tol The Hague!

[Mutley]

30. It is odd.

Maybe there's just more too it than CNN is telling us. I'd be more inclined to think CNN is spinning this, or just wording their report badly, than to think some Fed planted it there on purpose. I can't see how someone would just look at it and go, "Ricin!" without there being some distiction between ricin and all the other off-white powdery substances in the world.

[drm604]

34. Or laundry powder? n/t

[Dunvegan]

21. Ricin Images

Ricin can be extracted into either liquid or crystalline form:



Here are the raw castor beans which ricin is extracted from:



Here is the crystal molecular structure of ricin:



Here is picture of the micro-sized pellet used to release ricin, injected via umbrella tip into emigre, writer, and broadcast journalist Georgi Markov by Russian operatives in 1978.



Here is FBi information on the ricin letter sent to the White House threatening release of more ricin is the Dept. of Transportation didn't keep the present laws regarding hours of service regulations.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan04/ricin010804.htm

[Dunvegan]

7. Making Americans afraid of money would jibe with the AQ playbook

The US economy is bin Laden's number one target.

What if every American was afraid to actually handle or even touch money. Could cause a problem greater than suicide bombings.

We're still on the AQ "bin Laden speech" clock...usually something hits within three months of a speech. Could be nothing. Could be crazy college chemists. Could be a warning shot if any more is found.

Wonder if they're checking the place the roll of quarters was purchased from?

Al Qaeda's economic war against the United States

Although battlefield victories are crucial, history shows that global wars have been decided on a different kind of front: the war between economic powers. World War II soldiers clashed on the beaches of Normandy and Guadalcanal, but only when the German and Japanese war industries ran out of cash and raw materials did the wheels of the Whehrmacht and the Imperial Army finally grind to a halt. The Cold War could have gone on for decades if not for the depletion of the Kremlin's coffers.

The war on radical Islam is no different. Osama bin Laden plans strategies based on his victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Feasibility aside, he believes the way to bring down a superpower is to weaken its economy through protracted guerilla warfare. We "bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden boasted in his October 2004 videotape.

The October video, released just before the U.S. election, offers a glimpse into the jihadist strategy. "We are continuing in the same policy to make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy," said bin Laden. His logic is simple: To bring the U.S. to suffer a fate similar to that of the Soviet Union, the terrorists need to drain America's resources and bring it to the point it can no longer afford to preserve its military and economic dominance. As the U.S. loses standing in the Middle East, the jihadists can gain ground and remove from power regimes they view as corrupt and illegitimate while defeating other infidels who inhabit the land of Islam.

[Whoa_Nelly]

27. Americans SHOULD be afraid of handling money

especially paper money! Much paper money tested showed traces of cocaine.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp

Personally, if I didn't have an aversion to germ acquisition, I would lick all my paper money before handing it off to the grocery clerk :rofl:

[drm604]

9. This is a little odd.

Why would someone freak out about a powder found in a laundry room? Why would someone then test it for ricin of all things? I think we may be missing some pieces of this story.

[neweurope]

19. I quite agree.

---------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[thecrow]

31. This is as weird as CNN's reporting the inhalation anthrax

Cnn last week reported on an inhalation anthrax story developing in NY.
They had the whole shebang laid out for us: the mayor's statement, including the top commissioners and the FBI, etc...
But the thing was...
THIS WAS A CASE OF ANTHRAX BEING CONTRACTED THOUGH NATURAL MEANS

When we had the Anthrax on the loose shortly after 911 and all of DC shut down, they kept saying that a certain number of anthrax cases is expected and reported each year and is contracted through natural means, such as
close contact with sheep. This was such a case, as the man in question had been in contact with animal skins.

Then WHY!?@! all this hoopla about a natural occurance?
I had to ask "Why the alarmist press conference on national television?"
Is it that they expected to scare some ignorant RWingers into submission?
Or was CNN that lacking in actual news? (don't get me started)
And so, I question why someone thought to test a roll of quarters in a laundromat.

Maybe if the money is perceived as tainted they can get us all to use credit card transactions for everything, thereby causing all of our transactions to be traceable?? Of course that would be very strange and I think we would need a lot more evidence to start such a scare.

This is very weird.

[drm604]

33. I know.

Can you imagine if we started testing every powder found in a freaking laundry room? That's gotta be the one place that I'd be the least surprised to find powder in! If we start acting like this we'll be paralyzed. :eyes:

[NYC]

38. I think what they are leaving out about the anthrax

contamination is that the skins were imported. Don't we have some system for inspecting imports? We're not allowed to bring in food, plants, etc. without passing them through quarantine (for plants) or inspection.

Is the budget so low that many skins, etc. pass through without being inspected?

I figure that's what they are trying to avoid by focusing on how "naturally" anthrax occurs, etc.

[Dunvegan]

11. CDC Pages on Ricin

CDC Facts About Ricin: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp

CDC Emergency Preparedness: Agents: Ricin: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/index.asp

The stuff is easy as heck for a kitchen chemist to make from castor beans, and is darned stable, as well as being extremely deadly in near-microscopic concentrations.

[GOPisEvil]

12. Particularly since it was found Thursday...

Why wasn't it news then?

[Dunvegan]

14. It wasn't news for 3 days because Dick Cheney was probably there.

[Bozita]

16. Sounds like a roll of quarters was kept in box of detergent and ...

... was forgotten and left behind in the dorm's laundry room.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Marr]

18. Wasn't there a similar scare at a Texas university a few years ago?

I could swear there was.

[Midlodemocrat]

20. They found a boatload in my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137833879078


Didn't make CNN. :shrug:

[Dunvegan]

24. A lot depends on how pure the Texas ricin is.

Seems the ricin mash found in your neighborhood was not potent or deadly, and was the work of a man who had been threatening his wife and property during a marital dispute.

He was probably a yahoo that thought he could mix up ricin and kill his wife...but was a lousy chemist, thank heavens.

Testing the Texas ricin should be a quick thing. If it's laboratory pure, it's a very deadly problem.

http://www.aramsco.com/dopage.htm?i_itemno=55861&_mc=dp

• The Guardian Reader System™ Provides Rapid, On-Site Detection of Biological Agents
• Most Comprehensive System: Tetracore's BioThreat Alert Test Strips™ are available for anthrax, ricin, botulinum toxin, SEB, plague, tularemia and brucella
• First Choice of First Responders: 600 HAZMAT teams depend on the Guardian Reader System every day
• Most Accurate System: 99.8% field accuracy rate: second generation technology delivers high specificity and sensitivity
• Fast: Results in 15 minutes, 6 tests can be run in parallel in 30 minutes

[AngryOldDem]

22. Slow news day

This will be front and center all weekend long, as they try to blow it up into something that it isn't. The CNN anchor I heard this morning was trying to browbeat the Texas health official into saying that this could infect the entire campus. ("Well, what if students shook hands..." "It can't be spread that way." "Oh.")

Fox had it as a NEWS ALERT.

[leftchick]

26. Perhaps it is better than talking about the Civil War in Iraq

our troops are smack dab in the middle of...

<snip>

This is where the shit hits the fan just as Rep. Murtha predicted.....

<snip>

The gravest crisis since the U.S. invasion in 2003 threatens Washington's hopes of withdrawing its 136,000 troops from Iraq.

"If there is a civil war in this country it will never end," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a minority Sunni Muslim in the Shi'ite-led interim government, told a news conference.

"We are ready to fill the streets with armored vehicles."

Iraq's 200,000-plus, U.S.-trained security forces have few tanks but U.S. forces, which routinely patrol Baghdad with heavy armor, are also standing by, commanders said. The loyalties of the untried police and Iraqi army could be tested in any clash with militias from which many were recruited.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_dc

[neweurope]

29. Or the ports / UAE...

-----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[drm604]

35. Here's the answer.

I did the research in about 15 minutes via Google. Castor oil (which, for those who don't know is made from the castor bean which is also the source of ricin) is sometimes used in the manufacture of surfactants. From the wikipedia entry on "surfactant":

Applications

Surfactants play an important role in many practical applications and products, including:

* Detergents
* Emulsifiers
* Paints
* Adhesives
* Inks
* Alveoli
* Wetting
* Ski Wax
* Snowboard Wax
* Foaming
* Defoaming
* Laxatives
* Agrochemical formulations
o Herbicides
o Insecticides

Notice the first one, "Detergents". Now check out this patent: Wrinkle reduction laundry product compositions

Inventors: Murphy, Dennis Stephen; (Leonia, NJ)
Correspondence Name and Address:

UNILEVER
PATENT DEPARTMENT
45 RIVER ROAD
EDGEWATER
NJ
07020
US

Serial No.: 131110
Series Code: 10
Filed: April 24, 2002

U.S. Current Class: 510/276; 510/426; 510/487; 510/492
U.S. Class at Publication: 510/276; 510/426; 510/492; 510/487
Intern'l Class: C11D 017/00; C11D 017/08
Claims


What is claimed is:

1. A laundry detergent formulation comprising one or more wrinkle reducing agents selected from the group consisting of sulfated vegetable oils; and sulfonated vegetable oils; said wrinkle reducing agents being present in an amount effective to reduce the occurrence of wrinkles in laundered clothing; said laundry detergent formulation having 10 to 60 wt % of a surfactant.

2. The formulation according to claim 1, wherein the wrinkle reducing agent is a sulfated vegetable oil.

3. The formulation according to claim 3, wherein the wrinkle reducing agent is sulfated castor oil.

There it is, "sulfated castor oil", a wrinkle reducing agent in laundry detergent. Like I said this took me about 15 minutes to research, and another 5 minutes to post. What's up with CNN? :eyes:

[Dunvegan]

36. Yes, ricin has been confused with detergent products before.

In the UK charges were dropped when government laboratories could find no trace of the poison in seized material. In Spain all the suspects were released when the poisons turned out to be bleach and detergent. In France, ricin samples were revealed to be barley and wheat germ.

=====================

The 'ricin' which cleans your clothes

REMEMBER THE headlines when in January Spanish police arrested 16 North Africans who lived in Barcelona and Girona? "Major Al Qaida Attack Foiled" trumpeted the BBC. Tabloid papers ran lurid tales and the Guardian declared that "the group was poised to launch bomb attacks in Europe".

A Spanish government press release, rehashed by the bulk of the British media, claimed police had found "containers of unidentified chemicals". The "chemicals" were quickly identified by the British media as the deadly "ricin". In this week's New Statesman magazine Justin Webster reports on what has happened in the case.

The "ricin" the British media talked of was simply an ignorant translation of the Spanish "resina" mentioned in an initial Spanish government press release. Resina simply means resin and it has nothing to do with ricin at all. The examining magistrate in charge of the case in Spain has already released 14 of the 16 arrested without any charge, and is expected to do the same with the remaining two soon.

He says the supposed evidence is "very weak". The "ricin" turned out to be nothing more sinister than detergent. And there were no "explosives" at all. Sohuil Kouka, one of those arrested and held for 56 days, is now back with his family in Spain. "I will not be buying any more bleach," was his wry comment to the Spanish press.

[ladjf]

37. Filler.

[SoCalDem]

39. or....