guess who breeds Ricin - Texas Tech Univ.

http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr231003.html

Ricin breeding and production projects
at Texas Tech University raise questions

Since the mid-1990s, researchers at Texas Tech University (TTU) in Lubbock have conducted several projects to produce ricin, a toxin found in the seeds of the castor bean plant. Ricin is deadly in very small quantities and is subject to tight restrictions under both the Chemical and the Biological Weapons Conventions. At TTU, agriculture researchers bred castor to create high-ricin yielding plants specifically adapted for toxin production. TTU chemical engineers also built a machine to extract the highly potent toxin. The peaceful biomedical demand for ricin is extremely limited, and TTU’s efforts far outstrip it in many aspects. TTU's public explanation of all its ricin projects is required. The activities are of particular concern because of TTU's quiet but intense involvement in Pentagon biodefense programs.

-snip-

Scale and Purpose: In many countries, castor is grown for its oil, which has many uses. In commercial castor production, ricin is a dangerous nuisance, and it is systematically eliminated from the oil and byproducts. TTU efforts work in the opposite direction - they relate to producing the toxin at a scale for which there is absolutely no legitimate use. A small plot of many existing types of castor will produce many times more toxin than is needed for legitimate biomedical purposes. With TTU's ricin extraction technology, even its small test plot is capable of producing enormous amounts of toxin. With normal harvests and farming practices, TTU's two acre (.81 hectare) plot, sown with an average ricin-level variety, can yield in excess of 150 kilograms of toxin if it is efficiently extracted. By way of comparison, the international terrorism scare prompted by last year's discovery of ricin in Europe was provoked by a few grams of the substance.

-snip-

Conclusion: The effort at TTU to develop ways to produce and use ricin involved a coordinated effort across several academic departments and activities that, if conducted in many countries, the US would consider proof of a weapons program. While TTU is not the only university to experiment with transgenic ricin, the creation, much less release, of genetically-modified ricin-producing species is an extraordinarily bad idea. Either through accidents or abuse, such plants could result in widespread problems from ricin toxin. TTU's work to breed a ricin production variety of castor is completely unwarranted. Selection for ricin production characteristics should never have been performed, and the germplasm should not be released. TTU's construction of a ricin extraction unit in the absence of any legitimate demand for the weapons agent product was sheer folly.
-snip-
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well, well, well

so this university is doing secret, dirty work.

Is this a surprise to you or something? The NSA has secret contracts with plenty of universities, including Penn State and Maryland, to produce new computer technology or train linguists. The Army used college bio labs all over the country to try to find the ultimate bio weapon. And so on...

Castor Bean plants are a common garden plant and seeds are available in almost any seed catalog:

http://www.selectseeds.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/03239.5.12624445305213140789/2004/html/productnew2.htm?

Seems to me any idiot with a handful of Castor Oil Beans and a coffee grinder could whip up some "Weapons of Mass Destruction."

making stuff that is more potent/toxic than previous means less can be used and therefore it is easier to agglomerate to small particles to make a letter bomb.

Now, I am no huge conspiracy theorist, but Lubbock, home of TTU is also a strong hold of Shrub's. The attacks were made known on a day when the primaries or caucuses of 7 states were being held. (Note, that the letter(s) were known of on Monday during the day, but they chose not to public for a little while) This after they intentionally schedule the SOTU for the day after Iowa. I smell a rat.

The news now reports that ricin, that it says wouldn't hurt anyone??? was found in Republican office of Frist. They then omit "Democratic" when noting that the anthrax was sent to Democratic offices and media outlets only, i.e. no Republicans only to Democrats.

This leaves the sheeple thinking that the anthrax was sent to the government, rather than realizing that it was sent to the so-called liberal media and Democrats, something that might start them thinking the lie could be so huge the media cannot formulate speech to express it.

Colin Powell held up viles of antrax nearly everywhere he talked about Iraq. This keeps sheeple from thinking that the antrax was traced to Fort Detrick, Maryland. And, not to recall that the FBI asked Ames, IA to destroy their samples before they could be tested, that would have left doubt on the source. Enough doubt for sheeple.

"The other thing that makes it very scary, you can concoct it in your own kitchen with everyday materials. You can make it at home. In fact, there's a video out in the Patriot Circuit which teaches you how to make this stuff."


http://www.uncp.edu/home/vanderhoof/m-trial/butler/report.html

Same story with the anthrax. These are RW shenanigans designed to up the terror level.

The only thing Bush has to fear is the people's lack of fear itself.

seem to lead back to the defense departments bio-weapons program?

????

The Bugman's district is suburban Houston. Tech is in Lubbock, probably close to 600 miles away. :-)

Lubbock is over five hundred miles away from Sugar Land.

My theory is that Bobby Knight got pissed off but since he is already in hot water with the NCAA, he broke into the bio labs and sent ricin all over the country. I dare somebody here to disprove it!

Edit: (that's just creepy GOPisevil)