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1. #1
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am, YoungAndRestless said:

   Unbelievable! How many cases have school-children been accused of being “terrorists” because in their young anger they have a list of people they want to harm? Or if they even so much as draw a gun on a piece of paper?

   Yet when we have the evidence of: a) ricin, b) anarchist-cookbook (which I bet explains how to make ricin) and c) a firearm… “he’s not a terrorist!”.

   Maybe they should check his belongings and find his “list”. Our country is run by idiots at all levels.

2. #2
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:39 am, YoungAndRestless said:

   I don’t mean to make light of school threats, I think its just annoying when school children are treated more harsh than someone who looks to pose a bigger threat. I know that my friends and I always joked about our “list” when we were in school (people must not remember Billy Madison)… but now if a student makes a “list” even without other threats, or even attempts to purchase a firearm they are branded “terrorist” right off the bat.

   It’s like the police went to the Wiggum school of police…

3. #3
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:42 am, procopy said:

   Suey said people could have any number of reasons for wanting to make ricin.

   “It could be experimental just to see if they can,” she said.

   Certainly she cannot be serious.

4. #4
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am, Dimsdale said:

   I have to agree. Ricin is not something you make “just to see if you can,” considering that 200-500 milligrams can kill an adult.

   The possibility that this is some sort of test run to see what the authorities will do when cannot be discarded, but Occam’s razor seems to demand that this guy was possibly a terrorist of some sort, and intended to use the ricin he had.

   Lombardo said: “I don’t want to make any conclusions with the anarchist-type textbook. It doesn’t make you a terrorist because you have this type textbook. It doesn’t make you a terrorist if you possess firearms.”

   All true, but ricin is a completely different case, covered by neither the First or Second Amendments. It is a bioweapon of the first order, especially so since there is no antidote to its poisoning.

5. #5
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:45 am, TMoney said:

   This story could become a Keystone episode in a minute flat. All the authorities have to do is let the Homeyland Insecurity Department in on the investigation.

6. #6
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am, greenfairie said:

   Let’s see, deadly poisons, no Koran but a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook.

   Moonbat.

7. #7
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am, YoungAndRestless said:

   Also, I don’t think the Anarchist Cookbook contains a chapter on ricin. At least not any of the versions I just downloaded in the past 20 minutes. Not to mention you have to be pretty hard-core to print out an Anarchist-type cookbook and then tab it to the ricin section.

8. #8
   On March 1st, 2008 at 11:59 am, Barry F. said:

   Suey said people could have any number of reasons for wanting to make ricin.

   “It could be experimental just to see if they can,” she said.

   Well, yeah. Just the other day I was concocting a little ricin, along with a side of nerve gas. I get bored from time to time and just feel the need to experiment with my chemisty set.

   /sarcasm off

   What a moronic statement.

9. #9
   On March 1st, 2008 at 12:12 pm, judybeth said:

   Hummm…? Plan a vacation to Las Vegas.
   Arrive and check-in to a suite. Go shopping for chemicals listed for the “Ricin” recipe. Make what is suppose to be ricin. Next step, TEST it to see if the recipe for killing tens of thousands works! The Las Vegas Police do not seem to have a “clue” about the implications of the incident! As for me, I am searching for the plans for an underground bunker ASAP! Any ideas about where to order the plans for one??

10. #10
    On March 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm, Dandapani said:

    “If it walks like a duck and if it quakes like a duck…”

11. #11
    On March 1st, 2008 at 12:20 pm, zorro said:

    One report I listened to on FNC mentioned that the hotel was in the vicinity of a water treatment plant or something of that nature.

    Las Vegas is nothing without tourist. I would expect the authorities and local media to low ball the coverage as long as they can.

    I have not done a search using the name above, I wonder if that is his real ID…

12. #12
    On March 1st, 2008 at 12:48 pm, 24Klady said:

    This sure destroys my faith in the CSI-Las Vegas series. I’ll never believe again they can solve an outrageous crime in under an hour.

13. #13
    On March 1st, 2008 at 12:57 pm, graysonret said:

    I suspected a “rat” when I first read the story. There is something very suspicious about all this. Well, I’m not going there anytime soon, so I just wait and see how this “circus” is going to turn out. Makes another movie plot, for sure, or another tv episode.

14. #14
    On March 1st, 2008 at 1:34 pm, letget said:

    Fox news said this morning that a dog was in the room also. I don’t recall if the dog is sick too.
    L

15. #15
    On March 1st, 2008 at 1:38 pm, twoninerkilo said:

    Well I guess this means O.J.s going to walk, givin the competencey level of Las Vagas law inforcement.

16. #16
    On March 1st, 2008 at 1:58 pm, Boomer said:

    When I first saw the headline on this all I could think of in this case was it was someone wanting to get involved in the terrorist business and had accidentally poisoned himself. With the clues provided to the nuclear physicist in law enforcement you would think someone might be raising a couple of red flags over this incident. I guess what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas especially when it might hurt the tourist trade. Nothing to see here move along.

17. #17
    On March 1st, 2008 at 2:00 pm, et said:

    “It could be experimental just to see if they can,” she said.

    And after you have made it you need to test it. Just how do you go about that? Send it to an expensive lab? Not too smart. Try it on a neighbor? Again not too smart. I know, travel to Las Vegas and leave it in a motel room. The LVPD will test it and the press will even report the purity. All free of charge and with little or no chance of getting caught.

18. #18
    On March 1st, 2008 at 2:36 pm, madchef said:

    They keep saying vials (plural) but have not said how many. It was also reprted that there was a dog and 2 cats in the room and that the dog was dead.
    Las Vegas gets huge numbers of tourists. If I was a terrorist, I would target the buffets, they are usually away from the casino floor and the surveilance cameras. Every casino has one, they could infect thousands in a day.

19. #19
    On March 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pm, brooklyn red said:

    The “anarchist-cookbook”?? Hmmmm, & in the same week as those nice people from the “Weathermen” up in Chicago make the news?? Hmmmm…

20. #20
    On March 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm, toubabou said:

    A Conservative might look at this and say, “How refreshing that law enforcement aren’t rushing to try the deceased in the court of public opinion for a change.” And since when are bio-weapons not covered by the 2nd Amendment? Because they’re not used for hunting?

    The government of the United States derives all of its powers from its people. The government cannot derive a right from its people that the people do not possess.

    I agree that this situation looks very suspicious, and I’m not thrilled that people are making ricin, but let’s remember that we aren’t there, we aren’t looking at raw data, and we do have a constitutional procedure to follow in order to find the truth. Let’s leave the jumping to conclusions to the moonbats.

21. #21
    On March 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm, SHoward said:

    I just want to throw this out without comment:

    Didn’t the liberals fight against such measures as the Patriot Act because they were afraid the gov’t was going to be observing what books people check out at the local library?

    If that’s the case, why is any book mentioned in this story?

22. #22
    On March 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm, heroyalwhyness said:

    Police said the man is 57 years old

    On Feb. 22, eight days after Von Bergendorff was hospitalized, one of the man’s “relations” called hotel management to alert them to two cats and one dog that were in the suite, Lombardo said.

    On Thursday, a man who “claimed to be a relative” was in the suite and discovered several vials of ricin in a bag, along with castor beans from which the substance is derived, Suey said.

    Both Tholen and Von Bergendorff have listings in the state of UT. If related, how did Tholen become aware of Von Bergendorff’s illness and location in LV? . . .or was Tholen already in LV? coincidence? How did they travel to LV?

    Several viles of ricin in a bag
    +
    two cats and a dog left unattended for weeks (think of the stench! - yet this article claims Tholen alerted the hotel to the existence of the animals - guess room service ain’t what it used to be)

    and yet the bag containing castor beans & several ricin viles remained unmolested by these starving animals?

    No mention of a computer or cell phone. Lot’s and lots of questions.

23. #23
    On March 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pm, WORK949 said:

    Wierd, huh?

24. #24
    On March 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm, Papa Louie said:

    letget said:
    Fox news said this morning that a dog was in the room also. I don’t recall if the dog is sick too.

    According to an AP report, the dog was found dead in the room:

    Suey said there were several pets in the room when officers arrived. A dog was found dead but the animal had gone at least a week without food or water, Suey said, and she did not attribute the death to ricin.

25. #25
    On March 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm, Papa Louie said:

    “There is no information to lead us to believe that this is the result of any terrorist activity or related to any possible terrorist activity,” Suey said.

    No evidence of terrorism at all? Oh really? The ricin was only for his own consumption? Or maybe he was just doing cancer research in his room. How stupid do they think we are?

    Does anyone else notice a trend here? Every investigation into cases like this begins with something like “we don’t know what the motive was, but we can assure you that it was not terrorism.” If you don’t know the motive, you can’t rule out terrorism!

    A similar thing happened in Salt Lake City about a year ago. A few hours after Sulejman Talović shot up a mall full of people shopping for Valentine’s Day, the FBI announced to the press that they had not discovered the motive for the killings but they knew that it was not terrorism.

    A year later the investigators released their final report. They still did not know what the motive was, but they could tell us what it wasn’t:
    

    Police do not believe drugs, alcohol, his Muslim religion, terrorism, violent video games or other media influences can be attributed as reasons for the massacre, according to the report.

    Again, if you don’t know what the motive was, how can you tell us what it wasn’t? A man shoots up a mall killing and wounding complete strangers and he wasn’t trying to terrorize anyone?

    There seems to be an effort to deceive/calm the public because they think we are all hate filled bigots who will turn into vigilantes if we know the truth. But if we find out they are not telling us the whole story, how will we be able to trust them in the future? And, if their number one goal is political correctness, how can we depend on them to protect us? It seems that all we can do is hope that the next would-be-terrorist is stupid enough to test his ricin, suicide belt, or some other weapon on himself, first, to make sure it works.

    Here’s a summary of the Trolley Square shooting for those who are unfamiliar with it:

    On February 12, 2007, at 6:44 PM MST, Talović began a deadly shooting in Trolley Square resulting in the deaths of five bystanders and the shooter himself, as well as the wounding of at least four others. Talović was described as wearing a white shirt, a tan trenchcoat and a mullet. He carried both a shotgun and a handgun, as well as a backpack full of ammunition.

    The gunman’s rampage was stopped after trading shots with off-duty police officer Kenneth Hammond… Salt Lake City police officials on February 13, 2007, thanked Hammond as a hero in saving countless lives.

    FBI agent Patrick Kiernan has stated that he has no reason to suspect terrorism. Some family members suggested that emotional trauma Sulejman may have suffered during the Balkan war years of his youth might have contributed to the massacre. Ajka Onerović was quoted as saying, “We are Muslims, but we are not terrorists…”

26. #26
    On March 1st, 2008 at 5:57 pm, brooklyn red said:

    Re: Papa Louie, “How stupid do they think we are?”

    Pretty darn stupid… complete morons actually.

    What I find interesting is the presence of the “anarchist-cookbook” … It hasn’t come up for a while…obviously this guy was up to no good, could it be related to the election???

27. #27
    On March 1st, 2008 at 6:15 pm, MikeOK said:

    “This story could become a Keystone episode in a minute flat.”

    Actually it’s already been a CSI episode (or at least something like it — in “Caged,” a victim accidentally poisoned herself with the ricin she was going to use to poison someone else).

28. #28
    On March 1st, 2008 at 6:51 pm, palani said:

    Come on, bloggers, the guy’s a petty, albeit dangerous, criminal, not a terrorist. If he had some islamic connection, or even name, one might suspect otherwise, but he’s just some Las Vegas low-life.

29. #29
    On March 1st, 2008 at 8:19 pm, almeehan said:

    Not so fast Palani. Remember our 9/11 friends had Las Vegas connections. But…no doubt this is just another Goose Creek episode–nothing to see here folks, just firecrackers, innocent college kids. Just a man and his dog & cat…ho hum..our children will sleep good tonight because lettuce head Chernof has his cell phone connected to the virtual Mexico fence!

30. #30
    On March 1st, 2008 at 10:26 pm, Papa Louie said:

    palani said:
    Come on, bloggers, the guy’s a petty, albeit dangerous, criminal, not a terrorist. If he had some islamic connection, or even name, one might suspect otherwise, but he’s just some Las Vegas low-life.

    Sorry, I didn’t know Islam owned the patent on terrorism. It sounds like you know this guy very well to say that he has no connection to terrorism. Or, are you just making that assumption based on his name?

    If Roger Von Bergendorff had succeeded in poisoning thousands of people in Vegas for no reason other than to cause anarchy and panic, he would still be a terrorist in my book, even if he acted alone. Petty, low-life criminals can still be terrorists if they attempt to kill large numbers of people they don’t know with the objective of creating terror.

    Of course, he may have just been depressed and decided to end it all. Perhaps he wanted to die a slow, painful death while reading the Anarchist Cookbook. And he went to the trouble of making far more ricin than he needed just to “see if he could.”

31. #31
    On March 1st, 2008 at 10:35 pm, madchef said:

    Considering that it is highly unlikely that the ricin was made in the motel room, one has to wonder how much more is in the hands of persons unknown.
    Even a couple of grams could kill thousands of people.

    The active poison in castor seeds is ricin (RYE-sin), a very deadly protein called a lectin. Ricin is found in the meal or cake after the oil has been extracted. Those who occasionally take castor oil may be assured that ricin does not occur in the pure oil. When a gram of ricin is compared with equivalent weights of other toxic substances, it turns out to be one of our deadliest natural poisons. It has been estimated that, gram for gram, ricin is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom. Ricin mixed with food and used as bait is highly toxic to certain pest animals, such as some rodents and insects. E. A. Weiss (1971) states that a dose of 0.035 milligram (approximately one millionth of an ounce) may kill a man, and even small particles in open sores and in the eyes may prove fatal. According to the Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, and Biologicals (1997), a dose of ricin weighing only 70 micrograms or two millionths of an ounce (roughly equivalent to the weight of a single grain of table salt from a salt shaker) is enough to kill a 160 pound person.

32. #32
    On March 1st, 2008 at 11:14 pm, SHoward said:

    Well, while others have answered palani, I’ll add my 1/2 cent worth.

    The OK City Bombing was carried out by two pastey white guys named Nichols and McVeigh. They weren’t Muslim.

    The Unabomber was a former Berkely Math Professor.

    E.L.F. and the other idiot animal rights “persons of interest” aren’t Muslim, either.

    Do I need to go on here? While the cookbook, the gun, and maybe even the Ricin could be explained away individually, found together and in a Vegas hotel room really smells. The gov’t shouldn’t say yet that we know there is no terrorism invloved.

33. #33
    On March 1st, 2008 at 11:17 pm, Jim M. said:

    Too many assumptions and unanswered questions. The press is assuming that the guy’s identity is that mysteriously found in a Homeland Security report.

    What was strange from the beginning is that the authorities refused to disclose the identity of the individual. Even stranger is that everyone at the hotel and the parent company clamed up. No information from hospital sources. No police contacts saying a word. No one is talking.

    Also, there has been no description of the man released. If this was a 50 year old white guy I think that information would have been released.

    No link to terrorism? While all of us travel with ricin, WMD instructions, multiple pets and 4 firearms, you think they would be treating this as terrorism related until they could positively exclude it.

    Let’s not forget that Al Qaeda has published ricin making instructions. And captured tapes early in the Afghanistan war showed the use of small animals used by Al Qaeda to test the potency and effect of their chemical and biological mixtures. And that there are many European muslims (”lilly whites”) that Al Qaeda has recruited into their fold.

    Granted, this could be some depressed chemist who is missing a few cards from his deck. But the fact that no one with any information is talking to anyone from the press makes that possibility less believable as time goes on. What else did they find in the room, who did the guy talk to, what was he doing in Vegas, where was he getting his money, was he paying all of his bills in cash? Lots of questions without answers.

34. #34
    On March 1st, 2008 at 11:34 pm, Papa Louie said:

    The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a few more details I found interesting:

    On Tuesday, management at the hotel began eviction procedures and called Las Vegas police after discovering four firearms in the suite, the Homeland Security memo states.

    Police then found an anarchist textbook that was “tabbed” to a section on ricin, Lombardo said.

    That discovery prompted police investigators to test the room for the deadly substance. The test was negative.

    On Thursday, a man who “claimed to be a relative” was in the suite and discovered several vials of ricin in a bag, along with castor beans from which the substance is derived, Suey said.

    The police found the anarchist textbook that was tabbed to a section on ricin on Tuesday. This prompted them to test the room for ricin, but no one noticed the bag of castor beans and ricin vials until the “relative” showed up on Thursday. How big is this hotel room, anyway?

    Nevertheless, Las Vegas police continued to downplay the significance of the ricin discovery, saying they had ruled out terrorism as a motive.

    “I want to assure everybody that the Las Vegas Valley is safe,” Las Vegas police Capt. Joseph Lombardo said. “We don’t currently have any terrorist threat at this time or possibility of contamination (due) to ricin.”

    Do you think their main concern is to inform the public, or is it to assure the public so we feel safe to come spend our money in Las Vegas?

    I can’t say for sure that this man intended to harm anyone. But until a reasonable explanation for the ricin is given, I’m not going to be as quick to rule out terrorism as the Vegas police seem to be.

35. #35
    On March 1st, 2008 at 11:47 pm, palani said:

    Re: almeehan, Papa Louie, SHoward

    Sorry, but two “pastey white guys”, the Unabomber, and some animal rights persons are not terrorists, and neither are violent abortion opponents. Terrorism involves attacking the innocent because the true targets are too formidable to attack directly. A government entity cannot be a victim of terrorism - rebellion, yes, insurrection, yes, but not terrorism. Nichols and McVeigh had a grudge against the U.S., and bombed a federal facility, not a civilian office complex such as the World Trade Center. They were insurrectionists, were caught and punished appropriately. The Unabomber was a deranged loner, as are many serial killers. Animal rights activists have targeted the places where they believe harm is being done, not some outdoor market filled with innocent shoppers.

    While I’ll agree that there can be single cell terrorists, in general they are part of semi-organized groups and are pursuing political objectives through fear, mayhem, and intimidation.

36. #36
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 am, Papa Louie said:

    palani, maybe you are right that an anarchist can’t be a terrorist in the strict definition of the word, unless he is part of an organized group, but then he wouldn’t really be an anarchist. I don’t understand why the distinction is so important. I really don’t care if someone attempts to murder large numbers of innocent people because he is a terrorist, an insurrectionist, or simply a psychopathic mass-murderer. The end result can be the same.

37. #37
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 12:37 am, SHoward said:

    Palani, I’ll buy your explanation about McVeigh and Nichols. I agree, in fact. One point about that is that our gov’t and most of the population consider them terrorists. Why then would the same gov’t pronounce this guy in Vegas not a terrorist? As Papa Louie just alluded to, it’s a pretty fine distinction.

    Now, the animal rights wackos, I’m not agreeing with you there. These people are terrorists. They are attacking people in an effort to scare them into stopping some action they are opposed to.

    And the Unabomber? Not a terrorist? He was absolutely against the very foundation of our culture, but could not assault the gov’t, Wall Street, or really any size target, so he went after individuals that had done him no harm. He’s the very definition of a terrorist.

    A terrorist does not have to belong to any group. He can be alone and act alone. There doesn’t necessarily have to be an organized political reason. If the purpose is to scare people into doing something, or to attack innocent people for no logical reason, that is a terrorist.

38. #38
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 am, old trooper said:

    Ricin…Hmmm, real smart!

    This moron could be acting entirely on his own. Ricin is very lethal stuff.
    He is quite obviously dangerous to both Himself and Others.

    I read a previous post about a 2nd Amendment application of Ricin. I can assure that there is absolutely NONE.
    The 2nd Amendment covers FIREARMS, not Chemical Weapons or WMDs.

    The presence of an Anarchist Handbook makes Him neither An Anarchist or a Terrorist. The presence of Ricin makes him both very stupid and very dangerous.

39. #39
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm, palani said:

    Re: Papa Louie, SHoward #36 and #37

    The distinction between a murderous criminal and a terrorist is important because, without it, those who oppose the war on terror use your examples as excuses to not toughen our laws and approach to a very different type of threat. Sure, almost any violent criminal can frighten and “terrorize”, but overusing the “terrorist” characterization diminishes its impact. Consider how everything from health care to climate change is now a “crisis”.

40. #40
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm, greenfairie said:

    A terrorist uses violence and intimidation to get his way, whether it’s a group directing terrorism at thousands or one loon going after a few selected targets. ETA in Spain targets politicians for car bombings and usually pre-warns authorities if it’s going to set off a (small) bomb somewhere. It’s nevertheless a terrorist organization.

41. #41
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm, SHoward said:

    Palani,

    Top of the mornin’.

    First I certainly agree 100% that making everything into a crisis is a problem itself. If everyone that owns a certain type of firearm, for example, can be called a terrorist, they can be dealt with harshly for no legitimate reason.

    I still disagree on characterizing certain people as not terrorists. There are still different types of terrorists, as well as different reasons to terrorize. In fact, one reason the OK city bombers were considered terrorists is the fact that their target was not military. The Federal building may represent the government, but it contained purely civilian personel.

    I see your point about not calling every bad act we see terror, but that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t. In this particular case, we still shouldn’t rule it out until we know more.

42. #42
    On March 2nd, 2008 at 5:01 pm, palani said:

    Re: SHoward

    Good points, although I disagree that the Oklahoma City Federal building was really a civilian target. Definitely a gray area, but if the sign says it’s the government, then it’s the government.

    In the broadest sense, every violent criminal is a terrorist, but by using the term judiciously, we maintain our essential focus. I disagree with much of what George Bush has done, but I do credit him for staying on target.

    Let’s wait to see what happens in Vegas.

43. #43
    On March 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 am, heroyalwhyness said:

    As mentioned on Saturday:

    Both Tholen and Von Bergendorff have listings in the state of UT.

    Authorities have extended their search to Utah

    and San Diego, CA

    Von Bergendorff’s neighbor in La Mesa also recalled his experimenting with dangerous substances when he lived there.

    Von Bergendorff lived in a house near Salt Lake City for more than a year before moving to Las Vegas about a year ago, said Tammy Ewell, who lives across the street

    snip

    They have said Tholen arrived in Las Vegas after Von Bergendorff summoned an ambulance and was hospitalized Feb. 14 in critical condition.