Whodunnit?

POLONIUM 210 is a nasty way to off somebody. The assassination of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 was the first known use of the radioactive isotope. WIRED's Deborah Blum has an article about the history of Polonium, "A Poison for Assassins", which takes a close look at the substance. The reason it's so lethal is that it radiates alpha particles (essentially Helium nuclei) intensely. Outside the body, alpha particles are quite innocuous; inside the body, they kill.

How bad is this? By mass, polonium-210 is considered to be about 250,000 times more poisonous than hydrogen cyanide. Toxicologists estimate that an amount the size of a grain of salt could be fatal to the average adult.

The Curies, the discoverers of Radium and Polonium

In other words, a victim would never taste a lethal dose in food or drink. In the case of Litvinenko, investigators believed that he received his dose of polonium-210 in a cup of tea, dosed during a meeting with two Russian agents. (Just as an aside, alpha particles tend not to set off radiation detectors so it’s relatively easy to smuggle from country to country.) Another assassin advantage is that illness comes on gradually, making it hard to pinpoint the event. Yet another advantage is that polonium poisoning is so rare that it’s not part of a standard toxics screen.


ALJAZEERA has paid for analysis of Yasser Arafat's personal artifacts, after rumors "somehow" emerged that Yasser had been assassinated. According to an article by George Galloway, the UK activist-politician, "The strange death of Yasser Arafat", while toxicology results are yet to be posted, apparently those artifacts were "hot".

The Al Jazeera report drew heavily on the hitherto silent widow of the late Palestinian leader, Suha Arafat. She provided the program investigators with his underwear, socks, toothbrush, even his ubiquitous kaffeyah which were then tested by a leading Swiss laboratory.
All showed that the Palestinian icon was positively glowing with radioactive material. Those of us who were at the hospital when Arafat died were in no doubt whatsoever that he had been poisoned. The only conversation between us - his veteran comrades - was on the subject of by whom?

This is where the fun starts. George, being the politically-correct activist that he is, automatically accuses the Israelis. Hating Israelis is fashionable these days amongst the intelligentsia, with some justification, when you look upon the trials and tribulations of the Palestinians. Problem is, it doesn't really account for why the Israelis would want to off Arafat especially when his Hamas successors were even more difficult to deal with.

And when you ask the question, "Who has a vested interest in keeping the Arab-Israeli hostilities at the boiling-point?", other possibilities appear: IMHO, that's Syria, you know, Vlad's "little buddy" — and Vlad sanctioned the Polonium hit on Litvinenko.


Syria has never gotten over the loss of the Golan Heights — and unfortunately, Bashar's Bullies just don't have what it takes to off the Israelis. This can be difficult for the politically-correct to accept, but tough noogies. As well, the Syrians were not supporters of the Fatah political party and Arafat, preferring Hamas.

So, whodunnit? 

When you deliberately weave religion into government...

... the anti-abortion leaders, including many of the political leaders like Jesse Helms, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and many others... Randall Terry, the leader of Operation Rescue, have used highly inflammatory language which has invited and encouraged people like this assassin to go kill Dr. Tiller.

[...]

The only difference between the American anti-abortion movement and the Taliban is about 8000 miles.

Dr. Warren Hern
2 June 2009

From Rachel Maddow. PSA has the video.

Spinning Caesar's murder

THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT is a site worthy of your perusal. One bon-bon is "Spinning Caesar's murder", a book review by Mary Beard, who is a mavin on the era. The review is about the final book in a series on Republican Rome by T. P. Wiseman, "Remembering the Roman People Essays on Late-Republican politics and literature". Oxford University Press. £55 (US $110). 978 0 19 923976 4

This little chunk made me recall Dallas in November, for some reason:

The watching senators, several hundred of them, were at first stunned by the attack. But, as soon as Brutus turned away from the body to address them, they regained their wits and took to their heels. In their flight from the Senate house, they must have almost bumped into the thousands of people who were just at that moment pouring out of a gladiatorial show in a nearby theatre. Hearing rumours of the murder, this crowd too panicked and ran home, shouting “Bolt the doors, bolt the doors”. Meanwhile Lepidus, a leading Caesarian loyalist, left the Forum to rally the troops stationed in the city, just missing the blood-stained assassins who turned up there to proclaim their success – closely followed by three loyal slaves carrying Caesar’s body home on a litter, with such difficulty (you really need four people to carry a litter) that his wounded arms trailed over the sides. It was two days before the Senate dared to meet again, and perhaps another two before Caesar’s body was cremated on a bonfire in the Forum.