Ask George Smith e-mail: webmaster at dick destiny
A picture worth a couple thousand words. Zany? You bet.
Winning!
Note: One of Gingrich’s favorite lobbying groups can’t spell his name right — Gingrinch (Freudian slip?) — on the title of their uploaded video.
Keywords: Newt Gingrich, zany, electromagnetic pulse attack
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When not hoping for the role of “Howard” in a remake of the Treasure of Sierra Madre, Ted curses the stinky young hippies to keep himself in the good graces of the 1 percent.
You don’t need to search the Internet far to read story after story of the Occupy stooges committing crimes, fighting the cops, destroying personal property, stinking the place up and engaging in other noble expressions of First Amendment rights. I find that beautiful – priceless, actually. Only human cockroaches spotlight themselves.
While I don’t condone violence, watching the cops pounce on and pepper-spray a few Occupy stooges and then drag the dirtballs off to jail in shackles is good for my conservative soul and gold for my sense of humor. Everyone needs at least one hearty laugh every day.
You have to admit that watching a stinky, dirty hippie being dragged off to jail is as funny watching James Brown drive across railroad tracks on the rims of his pickup truck …
Two months ago Nugent was lamenting that young people weren’t rioting against the president.
“Where are the protests by today’s unemployed and underemployed young people?” he asked. “Why aren’t they demanding answers to fundamental questions about their future?”
Now that they’re here, he hates them and wants them pepper-sprayed.
He’s also offended on the grounds of cleanliness. Yes, the homeless and those who camp out often do not smell rosy.
As long as Jann Wenner and old rock critics have any say in the matter, Ted Nugent will never be in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Even though it’s not that big a deal, it eats at him.
And now he’s a bitter old man — Nugent turned 63 this week — cursing “stinky hippies” and “human cockroaches” because he thinks they’ll fill a bag with excrement, put it on his porch and set it on fire.
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There’s not a defense lawyer in the US capable of arguing a client/defendant out of jail when ricin and accusations of terrorism planning are the central matters.
Never been done. Everyone has eventually gone to prison. And those in jail generally always stay there until trial.
Judges are not swayed once the word “ricin” is uttered. Juries pay no attention to arguments about the relative harmlessness of a handful of castor seeds.
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Citing concerns that the four North Georgia men accused in a plot to bomb federal buildings and disperse the toxin ricin may still intend to harm federal authorities, U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Susan Cole denied bond to the defendants late Wednesday.
If she released them on bond, “I think there is a concern they would not be prevented access to instruments of harm,” Cole said. She also echoed prosecutors’ contention that their arrests are likely to have heightened the “ill-will” the men feel toward the government.
Defense attorneys for each of the men intend to appeal Cole’s decision, they said.
“It’s very disappointing. I thought we presented a good case and I don’t believe he’s a danger to the community,??? said Jeff Ertel, who is representing Thomas.
In a hearing that stretched over the course of three days, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney said the men — two of whom are veterans of the U.S. military — may “love their country,??? but had demonstrated a “hatred??? of their government.
Defense attorneys argued that owning weapons or castor beans –- the key ingredient in ricin -– is not illegal.
Dan Summer, who is representing Crump, said recordings of his client speaking about how to make ricin depict an “aspirational” goal, not something Crump intended to do or was even capable of doing.
“It’s almost like an old man in the throes of the very early stages of senility,” he said.
Barry Lombardo, Adams’ attorney, said his client — who worked in horticulture for the U.S. Department of Agriculture — owned castor bean bushes for the same reasons many Georgians do: for mole control.
But McBurney said the men had taken concrete steps that crossed the line into illegality: purchasing a silencer, explosives activated by a cell phone, and the ingredients for making ricin.
“We’ve moved beyond the hypothetical to reality,??? he said.
During the hearing several family members and friends of the defendants were called to testify, helping paint a fuller portrait of the men at the center of the domestic terrorism case.
Adams’ daughter Melissa said her father is active in masonic organizations and has helped raise money for sick children through the Shriners. Crump’s twin daughters testified that their father, a retired electrician, often donated his services to people in need. Roberts’ wife Margaret said the couple is active in animal rescue and are currently caring for dozens of cats and dogs. And Thomas’ family described him as a peace-loving man who, with 30 years in the U.S. Navy, was dedicated to serving his country.
Both Thomas’ wife Charlotte and son Paul said last week that the 52 weapons found in his home were part of a gun collection. Federal authorities also seized about 30,000 rounds of ammunition, including ammunition compatible with silencers, in the raid.
There is regular discussion of use of castor seeds in “mole control.”
There is no evidence that it actually works.
However, castor seeds have been considered in pest control for many years.
From this blog, a couple years ago:
In the November 1941 issue of Timely Turf Topics, the association grapples with the problem of controlling mole crickets in southern golf courses.
“It is reported that turf in some sections of Georgia and Florida has just experienced the worst infestation of mole crickets in a number of years,??? reads the issue. “Attempts to eradicate them from turf by the use of well-known poison bait as well as by treatments with arsenate of lead, ground tobacco stems and castor meal have not been successful in several localities this fall.???
The point to be made is that people once worked with large quantities of the grind of castor seeds in this country without dropping like flies. Castor beans were considered a renewable resource, used as a source of lubricant and fertilizer. Even golf course gardeners worked with castor mash, noting that it wasn’t so hot as an insecticide, being ineffective against mole crickets.
The working wisdom, embedded during the last ten years, and repeated regularly in the newsmedia is that it is elementary to purify ricin from castor seeds.
It’s not. But from a legal standpoint in the US, this makes no difference. No one is capable of making a legal argument that would change things.
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The Civil War 2 gang gets out its colors.
The above is from a Reuters poll allegedly showing more Americans than not want health care repealed than not. The photo, on the other hand, is very obviously a Tea Party rally. And the Tea Party is far from “most Americans.”
The marker — the presence of nausea-provoking multiple Gadsden flags.
Down with tyranny! Down with the Kenyan Muslim! Don’t tread on me! Don’t tread on me! Gahhhh, don’t tread on meeee-meeeee-meeeeee! See my fierce rattlesnake, baby! Do the rattlesnake shake!
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to review President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, more Americans want to it repealed than want to keep it, a poll released on Wednesday shows.
A Gallup survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found that 47 percent favor the repeal of healthcare reform, versus 42 percent who want the law kept in place. Eleven percent had no opinion.
But the survey also showed that 50 percent of Americans believe the federal government has a responsibility to make sure everyone has health coverage, compared with 46 percent who do not.
The results, which have a 4 percentage point margin of error, suggest a sharply divided U.S. public …
When one entire political party, one whole tv network, and almost all broadcast talk radio is devoted to calling for the destruction of health care reform daily, such polling is unremarkable.
Many images from 2011 USA provoke headache and nausea. For me, the Gadsden flag sure does.
When you get down to it, it’s now functionally equivalent to flying the Confederate flag, the exclusive property of the extremist right. This image, linked from the DailyKos, has to do with the Tea Party and its fondness for it.
Now when seen it just signals here-comes-shit.
Most notably last week, it was in national news for being proud property of one of the members of the Georgia Ricin Beans Gang.
Rather than a symbol of patriotic American defiance, the Gadsden flag has been adopted as the elegant rattlesnake-emblazoned colors for the worst us.
And as often as not it is the favorite towel of hosts of really unpleasant and often frankly repugnant people: angry bigots, whites who want to re-fight the Civil War, precious metal fanatics who wish to blow up the Fed, local GOP politicians interested in grass roots legislation to allow state secession or nullification orders, removers (violent, if necessary) of the reproductive rights of women, heavily armed survivalists, advocates of laws allowing people to appear intimidatingly armed in public, hoarders of improvised homemade weaponry, pro-lifers, theocrats, militia men …
I could go on. If you’re one who is interested in the roots of domestic terrorism, the Gadsden flag is almost always there, somewhere.
The Gadsden flag is a very visible symbol of a vile part of the 2011 United States.
The “Don’t Tread on Me” lovers have come to be known for their bleak philosophies, usually involving direct attacks or persecution of others not exactly like them. And intertwined with this is a hatred of all government because it gets in the way of waging such a patriotic war.
Naturally, they don’t see themselves in this light.
But many of the rest of us sure do.
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I’ve commented on the durability of the poison recipes from the neo-Nazi survivalist extremist right in the United States.
Starting in books, the recipe is now on handwritten papers copied from digital copies, passed down through the years.
And they all serve as tickets to prison and personal ruin in a certain very unique and queer American demographic.
The ricin recipe is self-destructive flypaper for militia members, “sovereign citizens,” agonizingly excessive ammo and gun hoarders, raging anti-Semites, alleged defenders of the sanctity of the Constitution, Gadsden flag fliers, gold and silver bugs, pro-lifers and tax resisters.
As must-have lore, the Saxon ricin recipe and its derivatives have seemingly penetrated into every nook and cranny of the violent white power far right in this country. It speaks directly to an ineradicable crazy white man’s compulsion/obsession ( one held by an always surprising number of people) with having an arsenal for striking back at the government and locals they despise.
It arguably marks a singular and unpleasant flaw in our threadbare national character, one surely not held by the majority but always visible upon closer inspection.
In another manner of speaking, now there’s always some nut sitting at the table, in a quiet rage, convinced he’s a patriot defending against evil and collecting stuff that comforts him in this lonely task.
And if the ricin recipe could have been copyrighted in the way of best-sellers, it would have made the owner a great deal of money.
From Alaska, earlier in the week, a story eclipsed by the Georgia Ricin Beans Gang:
Mary Ann Morgan, the Kenai Peninsula “sovereign citizen” militia member arrested at the Canadian border in October after trying to enter the country with a handgun, also possessed bomb-making documents and instructions on how to make the poison ricin and carry concealed weapons, according to federal court documents filed Friday in Fairbanks …
The documents [found in Morgan’s pickup] included the following:
• A note, apparently in Morgan’s handwriting, with detailed directions on how to build pipe bombs.
• Information downloaded from the Internet on ricin, a deadly toxin derived from castor beans.
• A “plethora of information” on the possession and use of firearms.
• A list of common household poisons and a reference to a “poisonous plants database.” …
Morgan is associated with Fairbanks militia leader Schaefer Cox, currently jailed with others on federal weapons and murder conspiracy charges.
And on the Ricin Beans Gang yesterday:
The assassination of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney was part of the terrorist plot hatched by four North Georgia men, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in a bond hearing for the accused. (Both are African-American and Democrat.)
The four men accused of planning to bomb federal buildings, disperse the toxin ricin in major U.S. cities, and assassinate federal judges and prosecutors pleaded not guilty at the hearing in U.S. District Court in Gainesville.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney said law enforcement officers seized 52 weapons and 30,000 rounds of ammunition from [Ricin Beans Gang member Dan Thomas’] home. The weapons included assault rifles, shotguns, pistols with extended magazines and revolvers, and “sniper round” bullets and “sub-sonic??? ammunition designed to be used with silencers, he said. McBurney did not say where the guns and ammunition were kept in the home.
But defense attorney Jeff Ertel countered that Thomas is an avid gun collector and hunter. He said all of the weapons were legally owned, a point McBurney conceded.
It’s quite a legal arsenal/gun collection but probably not all that remarkable in heartland red state America.
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The Great Divide (or the new Civil War) quote of day:
“I think (the Occupy movement) makes the Tea Party look a lot better. We’re not playing drums, masturbating on the street, or defecating on cars. I don’t think there’s anybody (out on the street) who is for American [sic] the way it was founded. They are like from another planet or something.”
The feeling’s mutual, although I’d vouchsafe my belief that Tea Party members would never indulge in a bit of a polish in public.
And who says “defecating on cars” in the heartland? It’s “s——- on cars.” Everyone knows that. Elitist snobs.
But how do you follow quote alleging your foes are subhuman aliens who jerk off in the roads and take dumps on cars? Everything you follow it with is anti-climactic.
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The Atlanta Journal Constitution had someone call today in order to discuss the literature of ricin-making in the US.
I’m the expert. Hit Google with “ricin recipe” or “recipe for ricin” and the I Feel Lucky button and all roads lead to stuff I’ve written.
What’s remarkable about ricin recipes — all those pertinent here originate in the neo-Nazi survivalist backwoodsman far right — is how durable they have been.
I told the newspaper’s reporter that Kurt Saxon had coined it without knowing much about ricin at all in 1984 for his pamphlet, The Weaponeer. And it had been published again in 1988 in The Poor Man’s James Bond.
And there is some real disgrace in the hard fact that Saxon’s legacy is one in which his work has some responsibility in the sending of many people he wrote his materials to advise — to jail.
However, in spite of this and the passage of decades it has persisted. Although sent around the world and copied into many different digital forms, in this country it has remained signal in the unusual subculture of exclusively white guys who are really angry with the government.
Young, middle-aged or old, they all share a virulent and deeply entrenched common paranoia.
The government is taking away their rights in many ways, threatening their existence, and inevitably expected to come for them.
The irony in this is that post-9/11 and the expansion of homeland security domestically, the acquisition of improvised weaponry — in particular castor seeds and the recipes from the extremist far right — seem to guarantee that their belief will come true.
When the US government finds out you’ve been talking about ricin and fiddling with a few castor seeds, it will come for you.
Historically, whenever a Democrat is in power, their presence in the land becomes much more visible. And the Presidency of Barack Obama, for the obvious reason that he is black, has brought them out like never before.
Frederick Thomas is a man of clear loyalties. In his yard, deep in the woods of White County, a yellow flag with the image of a snake warns: “Don’t Tread On Me.??? Nearby, affixed to the wall of his imposing wood home, a sign proclaims: “Frank Sinatra Fan Parking Only.???
So, which is he? An ordinary American of advancing years who calls his Sinatra-loving wife of 51 years each night from jail to say he misses her? Or the angry, alienated man who emerges from federal affidavits, his own heated rhetoric online and the pages of a novel he allegedly took as a blueprint for revolt?
One thing is certain — until last week, local officials had no reason to suspect him of leading a plot to assassinate federal officials, blow up buildings or murder innocent Georgians with deadly nerve toxins.
In [on-line militia forums], Thomas broadcast his determination to resist a government of “the Obummer,??? which he accused of destroying the Constitution.
“Most of my adult life has been spent in service to America, and here in the twilight of my years I find that my sacrifice and the blood I’ve shed for this country has led to the enslavement of me and mine,??? he wrote in January 2009 on a forum maintained by the Militia of Georgia.
“I’ve decided I can sit idly by no longer, and so I freely join with you to do something about this intolerable situation.???
Thomas’ wife and acquaintances were interviewed for the story. They say only that he was very old and seemingly harmless, so aged “He can hardly walk.”
We should treat elderly people more respectfully,” adds the neighbor.
Over the years, mental and physical fitness have never meant beans in cases such as this. The US government has jailed a troubled autistic man, an enfeebled drug addict who couldn’t get ricin but indicated he had tried to make it from castor oil (you can’t) and others who fair people would judge to be impaired in one way or another.
Note: Ricin is not a nerve poison, as the news item states. Ricin works by inhibiting protein synthesis at the ribosome.
My briefing of the Atlanta newspaper resulted in an article asserting ricin could not have been used as the Ricin Beans Gang envisioned. I told the newspaper the same thing last week. So the newspaper went out and found a couple of other experts to buttress it.
In any case, blog readers know all there is to know on the issue:
George Smith, who analyzes bioterror threats for GlobalSecurity.org, said the men were “steeped in poison lore” spread through the Internet.
“What is absurd about it is how this lore has become so solidified in a certain subculture,” Smith said. “People are utterly convinced of the realness of it.”
He added he thinks the people who subscribe to these beliefs have let their imaginations outpace their ability to accomplish their goals.
He believes the men lack the training to convert castor beans into a weapon of mass destruction.
“Ricin is a protein … the more you purify it, the harder it is to keep it around. People don’t understand that,” Smith said, explaining that proteins are easily broken down by heat, ultraviolet light, acids or elements such as lye.
Note: Lye is sodium hydroxide, a compound, not an element.
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Even FBI special agents make typos.
From the indictment of the Georgia Ricin Beans Gang:
“Castor beans are used for food and agriculture …”
From the Wisconsin office of the Dept of Homeland Security:
“The beans are not normally used as food …”
The Ricin Beans Gang discussing their (actually quite ludicrous) plan to use the poison:
Sam Jerry Crump: What I’d like to do is make about ten pounds of that … Give you 2, me 2, Ray (Adams) 2, Dan (Roberts) 2 and somebody else 2. Put it out in different cities at the same time: Washington DC, maybe Newark, Atlanta, Jacksonville, New Orleans. Dump that little (unintelligible) … that’s all you gotta do is lay it in the damn road, the cars are gonna spread it.
FBI Informant: Yeah, but what’s it take to make it? I haven’t got a clue.
Sam Jerry Crump: Just some seed. I got the, got -uh — one more ingredient, and I’ll get it today …
Other statement concerning ricin from Samuel Jerry Crump:
“Ya got, ya can’t let none of it get on your skin. Got to be a closed environment when it’s made. No wind. If it gets up your nose there’s no cure.”
[Ricin is not a contact poison.]
Samuel Jerry Crump also mentioned another toxic substance, probably botulinum toxin:
“That other kind, 1 pound can kill 30 million people … We need somebody to back us with money so we can make that other shit … This is worse than anthrax … That shit’s deadly! There ain’t no damn, there ain’t no cure for it. And it works, I think, in 2 hours.”
Finally, on prodding, Ray Adams names the more deadly toxin.
Crump: “Kills about 30 million people at one time, one pound of it. It’s caused from dead food.”
Ray Adams: “Oh, botulism.”
Crump goes onto to roughly describe the ricin recipe devised and distributed by Kurt Saxon in his pamphlet, The Weaponeer, back in 1984.
Further along, he goes into details on his plan to disburse it. First the castor powder should be mixed with charcoal to make it black. Presumably so it would be hard to see at night, one guesses.
Later, Sam Jerry Crump makes one astute observation:
“[But] if they find that shit on your computer you’re hung.”
Crump later mused on “going to Africa” to get “botulism”:
“Well, I thought you can’t make that botulism (unintelligible) … got some good backers … go to Africa, uh, and get some of that to make.
“We’d bring it back over here. Ya don’t make it over there. You just get the samples of the stuff out of the soil. It comes from dead animals, from rotten meat. That’s where botulism comes from. It’s more potent than the stuff (ricin) … I know somebody can make it.”
Ray Adams, another member of the Ricin Beans Gang, alleged to a lab technician at one time, discussed making ricin:
“Well, I’ve never done it (made ricin) but I have laboratory experience and once you extract that stuff enough just splashin’ it on your skin can kill ya. Once it dries, while it’s wet, any kind of solvent, like anything, it just takes water solution to soak through your skin. It’s highly permeable through the skin. There’s no antidote.
“I’ve handled all kinds of deadly stuff, pesticides and that kind of stuff, so … ”
[To emphasize the level of knowledge on display, it’s worth repeating that ricin is not a contact poison.]
The entire Ricin Beans Gang indictment is here.
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A news story from Georgia reveals a marker on what the geriatric ricin beans gang was working from:
ATLANTA — Four men who were indicted in alleged terror attacks had the weapons they wanted and were one ingredient away from making deadly toxin ricin, according to a criminal indictment.
Two days before they were arrested defendants Ray Adams and Samuel Crump said they needed just one more ingredient to produce ricin, according to the indictment. Adams said he needed one pound of lye and was ready to begin the process of making the deadly toxin.
This means the ricin beans gang had a copy from Kurt Saxon’s Poor Man’s James Bond, or something similar descended from it.
Soak castor seeds in lye, Saxon advised as early as 1984 in The Weaponeer, one of his pamphlets later incorporated into the Poor Man’s James Bond volumes.
Ricin is a protein. Proteins are destroyed by strong base. Lye is a a strong base.
Saxon had no real idea what ricin was. The Poor Man’s James Bond contains a couple methods for working with it, some seemingly made up out of whole cloth. At one point there’s a procedure recommending using a strongly acid solution, which is also very harsh on proteins.
And article discusses using ricin on bullets, an absurd idea since the heat and explosion in the barrel of a gun would destroy all the poison. The idea here was that if you only winged somebody — a “degenerated person” — the poison would do them in later. Quaint.
However, another part of the news story shows the ricin beans gang repeating the treasured old and undying script of the far right extremist:
Thomas is quoted in the affidavit from a recorded conversation with the informant: “There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save the country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly illegal. Murder. That’s (expletive) illegal, but it’s gotta be done. When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”
Saving the country, saving Georgia, saving the Constitution — by, among other things, following almost thirty year-old poison recipes manufactured by the US backwoodsman neo-Nazi survivalist right.
A member of the Ricin Beans Gang, photo taken in 2001.
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