And yet there's hope? The gun legislation didn't pass.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the FBI arrested a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to Barack Obama and Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and possibly other government officials. The arrest was a relief to anxious members of Congress and staffers, surely mindful of the five deaths and 17 illnesses that followed the anthrax letters sent to Capitol Hill and several media outlets in September 2001.
But the arrest, which the FBI says is not connected to the Boston Marathon bombings, also spotlights the strange past of a bioweapon that has attracted numerous bumbling would-be domestic terrorists, a rogues’ gallery of antigovernment cranks who in some cases managed to scare people, but mostly just wound up in federal prison.
Among their ranks may now be Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Miss., whom a local newspaper describes as a celebrity impersonator of everyone from Johnny Cash to Prince to Bobby Chesney. He appears to be the same Curtis who claimed, in a comment under this article on an Elvis website, to have gone “undercover” to expose corruption in Elvis impersonation contests. The comment suggests that its author may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer: “Consumer-reports mag published article last year stating Mississippi as the most corrupt state in all 52 states in the U.S. so go figure!” How Curtis might have acquired ricin, and whether his letters contained more than harmless trace elements, isn’t known.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/17/yemenis-militias-and-angry-truck-drivers-the-strange-story-of-ricin-as-a-terror-tool/#ixzz2Qn0BBT4B
To be clear, ricin is no laughing matter. The toxic compound, which can be extracted from widely available castor beans with relative ease, is lethal in tiny quantities. In a John le Carré–style plotline, a pellet of ricin deployed with a jab from a pointed umbrella tip killed the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978. If ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin, ricin can cause vomiting, bloody urine and seizures, then massive organ failure. It has no antidote.
Hence its appeal to some nasty characters. Saddam Hussein tried to weaponize it in large quantities. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate has worked to produce ricin, and the organization’s online English-language Inspire magazine touted the substance to aspiring lone-wolf terrorists in America who “possess basic scientific knowledge.”
There have actually been several domestic ricin plots in recent years, none involving jihadists and most the work of antigovernment radicals. Not that any have come close to executing a successful attack: in late 2011, for example, federal agents arrrested four Georgia men with militia ties whose plans included bombmaking and killing government officials with ricin. “This is worse than anthrax,” one of them reportedly boasted. “There ain’t no cure for it either.” The men, all in their 60s and 70s, were busted before they even began brewing the substance, which experts said they likely would have been unable to use on the mass scale of their imagination anyway.
This compilation of ricin-related cases reveals numerous other motley characters caught seeking or trying to use ricin: Denys Ray Hughes, a Phoenix survivalist nabbed trying to manufacture ricin in 2006; James Kenneth Gluck of Tampa, Florida, who planned to kill federal judges in 1999 and was found with ricin ingredients, recipes and lab equipment; Debora Green, an oncologist who tried to kill her husband by surreptitiously feeding him mail-ordered castor beans; and four members of the radical anti-tax Minnesota Patriots Council, nabbed after they ordered a ricin kit by mail from an ad in a militia magazine.
And let’s not forget the peculiar case of Roger Von Bergendorff, an unemployed computer graphic artist found comatose in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2008. Von Bergendorff had apparently inhaled ricin he’d produced himself. Prosecutors later said a vial in his possession held enough ricin to kill hundreds of people, though it was never clear why Von Bergendorff had the stuff. (After awaking from his coma he was sentenced to three years in prison.)
One person who has delivered ricin and gotten away with it is someone who goes by the name Fallen Angel. In late 2003 authorities discovered two ricin laced letters sent by someone using that name, one addressed to the Transportation Department and one to the Bush White House. The letters had a peculiar axe to grind, complaining about pending new regulations on the trucking industry requiring more rest hours for long-haul truckers . “If you change the hours of service on January 4, 2004, I will turn D.C into a ghost town,” warned the author, who described himself as the owner of a tanker truck fleet company. Fortunately, his ricin was of a relatively non-lethal grade and no one was sickened. But the FBI still posted a reward of up to $100,000 for him, though he was never caught.
For a moment this week it appeared that Fallen Angel might have returned. The ricin letters to Obama and to Wicker were both postmarked in Tennessee, as was Fallen Angel’s letter to the Bush White House. It happens that long-haul regulations are scheduled to tighten this summer. And, bizarrely enough, a Pennsylvania man was arrested outside the White House last week after threatening to detonate a truck bomb there over his anger about–you guessed it–trucking regulations.
It doesn’t appear that Paul Kevin Curtis is Fallen Angel. There’s no indication that his letters, both reported to contain the phrase “to see a wrong and not expose it is to become a silent partner to its continuance,” made reference to trucking. Both were signed with his initials. Or, more accurately: “I am KC and I approve this message.”
Say this for Fallen Angel: He was smart enough not to reveal his initials. And in the hapless world of America’s would-be ricin killers, that may pass for genius.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/17/yemenis-militias-and-angry-truck-drivers-the-strange-story-of-ricin-as-a-terror-tool/#ixzz2QmzUEL5R
Castor Oil
Other common name(s): castor, castor bean, palma christi, Mexico seed, oil plant, mole bean
Scientific/medical name(s): Ricinus communis
Description
Castor oil is extracted from the seeds of Ricinus communis, an herb native to Africa and India. For most uses described here, castor oil is applied to the skin rather than swallowed, but it can be taken by mouth.
Overview
Available scientific evidence does not support claims that applying castor oil to the skin (called topical use) is effective in preventing or treating cancer. Taken by mouth, castor oil works as a laxative. And, castor oil is used in mainstream medicine as a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancerous tumors.
How is it promoted for use?
Castor oil, taken by mouth, has been used as a laxative for many years. It may also be used to treat some eye irritations and skin conditions and is used in mainstream medicine to deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancerous tumors.
Naturopathic practitioners (see our document, Naturopathy) and some others claim that castor oil boosts the immune system by increasing white blood cells, which help the body fight infection, and other immune cells. Some also claim that castor oil can help "dissolve" cysts, warts, and tumors, as well as soften bunions and corns. Other claims for castor oil include treating lymphoma, bacterial and viral diseases (including HIV), arthritis, skin and hair conditions, eye irritations, diseases of the colon and gallbladder, bursitis, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson disease. It is also promoted as a way to "detox" the body and stimulate digestion.
What does it involve?
Treatment involves massaging castor oil into the body or using a warm or hot castor oil pack or compress. The castor oil is massaged along the problem region, spine, abdomen, and sites (or pathways) of lymphatic drainage. If using a compress, the warm castor oil pack is placed over the affected joint or organ and left in place for up to an hour. Promoters say castor oil should be applied until the problem is healed.
Some treatments may include taking small amounts of castor oil by mouth.
What is the history behind it?
Ancient Egyptians were the first to record the use of castor oil for medicinal purposes, and since then it has been used by many cultures as a folk medicine. Castor oil was reportedly used as a medicine during the early Middle Ages in Europe. Edgar Cayce, a medium who entered a trance state to offer patients his thoughts about their diagnosis (and past lives) claimed that castor oil helped to heal the lymphatic tissue in the small intestines, thus increasing absorption of fatty acids and allowing for tissue growth and repair. Most of the plants used in producing castor oil are now grown in India and Brazil.
Castor bean is a herbacious annual which can reach to nearly 15 feet tall when growing in open spaces in warm climates. Large leaves are alternate, palmately lobed with 5-11 toothed lobes. Leaves are glossy and often red or bronze tinted when young. Flowers appear in clusters at the end of the main stem in late summer. The fruit consists of an oblong spiny pod which contains three seeds on average. Seeds are oval and light brown, mottled or streaked with light and dark brown and resemble a pinto bean. The plant itself is fast growing, but the seeds require a long frost-free season in order to mature.
Distribution
Castor bean is native to the tropics (Africa) but is planted as a garden plant throughout the U.S. for its large, striking appearance. It is now commerically grown in the U.S. in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon and California. As a result, it is naturalized in the south where winters are mild and most often is found near streambeds, dumping grounds, barnyards or along roadsides.
Conditions of poisoning
All parts of the plants are toxic, but most dangerous are the seeds. The most susceptible animal species include cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, fowl, rabbits and other small animals. Seeds ingested at 0.2% of body weight have caused toxicosis in cattle and 0.01% of body weight was toxic to horses.
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