I first heard this in Deborah Tedford’s NPR piece, Scientist In Anthrax Case Dead Of Apparent Suicide, but The Smoking Gun has more details about Dr. Ivins’s mental history as revealed in an application for a “peace order”, Maryland’s version of a restraining order, filed by a mental health counselor.

Someone is going to be required to explain what Dr. Ivins, with a long history of talking about “homicidal actions, threats and plans” going back to his graduate student days, was doing with a security clearance and working in a bio-weapons lab.

When you are being investigated for a major security clearance one of the first things you are required to do is sign releases giving investigators access to all of your records, including medical records. How could something like this be missed?

If the Feds weren’t ready to arrest him on the anthrax charges, he was facing a forced commitment hearing, that he had avoided in July by voluntarily checking to a clinic, and then checking himself out.

He did the Feds a big favor by going for suicide, because he had a solid insanity defense available.

Blue Gal and Ellroon at Rants From The Rookery have been tracking the “victims”.

alicublog, The Impolitic, Plush Life, Dawg’s Blawg, skippy the bush kangaroo, Guys from Area 51, Pen-Elayne, Hootsbuddy’s Place, Monkey Muck, Phydeaux Speaks, Blast Off!, Frieda Bee, SteveAudio, Roger Ailes, and WTF is it now? were all reported affected.

Ellroon also discovered the culprit: it was Google in the Server Farm with an Algorithm. “Even though it’s a Friday” they are working to clean up the mess they created. Well, maybe if you tested the software a little more rigorously and didn’t deploy changes on a Thursday night, you wouldn’t have to work late on Friday.

Major league congratulations are in order.

The title of her post, Bob Newhart Names “Mad” Kane Winner of 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor, pretty much says it all.

She has a scan of Bob Newhart’s note up with the post. Being compared to Robert Benchley by Bob Newhart is as good as it gets for a satirist.

The BBC reports US anthrax ‘suspect’ found dead

A top US scientist suspected of anthrax attacks in 2001 has apparently killed himself just as he was about to be charged, a newspaper reported.

The Los Angeles Times said Bruce Ivins, 62, had taken an overdose of painkillers. It said he had recently been told of the impending prosecution.
…

The FBI focused more on Dr Ivins after the leadership of the investigation was changed in 2006.

Another scientist at the Fort Detrick laboratory, Dr Steven Hatfill, who had been named a “person of interest” in the case in 2002, was exonerated of any involvement.

[Read more →]

Update: OK, skippy the bush kangaroo can get snarky, and the Guys From Area 51 can be downright weird, but Elayne’s Journal‽

Segments of blogtopia™ are Bloggered, or, more accurately, blocked from posting including the marsupial master of minuscule who coined the word.

Corrente has the list of those who have reported in as blocked for spamming.

It isn’t clear whether this is a Google fault, some cretin tagging people as spammers, or possibly the result of the new ‘Net attack redirecting people, which is very possible if Blogger uses the AT&T backbone out of the Bay Area, which still isn’t patched.

I would note that WordPress.com doesn’t seem to have these problems, but they aren’t as large, and if everyone shifted who knows how it would scale to the demand. This is one of the reasons I have my own site, for my hobby. I have enough frustration that $3/month is not a lot to avoid any more.

Chilling Out

Doesn’t everyone sleep like this?

[Editor: An oldie because we have had a series of thunderstorms through today which means the ferals and the insiders are hiding. As flashes of light have been followed by loud bangs all day, inside pictures were not happening. Oh, Sox sleeps like this whenever it’s hot to maximize belly exposure.]

Friday Ark