CDR: Declan on Bell

[Eric Cordian]

In a Wired News article, Declan reports:

"In Bell's 1997, plea agreement, he admitted to owning chemicals that
 could be used to produce Sarin gas and to stink-bombing the carpet
 outside an IRS office."

Yeah, and I own chemicals for making chlorine gas.  Sodium hypochlorite
solution, and sodium bisulphate.  I use these "dangerous" chemicals when I
do my laundry, and when I clean my bathroom.

I think "chemicals that could be used to produce..." is pretty sleezy
journalism, which could describe virtually anything.  I think using the
word "admitted" in describing a plea bargain taken in lieu of a much
longer prison sentence is also pretty sleezy journalism.

What were the chemicals in question?  Does Bell, outside of documents the
government makes him sign, claim to have made the IRS doormat smell bad?

Does anyone with a clue think nitric acid is a ominous chemical for a
chemist to own?

I'm really getting tired of Jim Bell articles whose tone suggests that
despite the egregious mistreatment of Mr. Bell, the government apprehended
him just in the nick of time, before he killed millions with homemade
weapons of mass destruction.

Bell's Common Law Court was political theatre, his Assassination Politics
essays satirical commentary on political accountability, and his
documentation of smart-assed IRS employees consumer activism.  Aside from
not giving his government-issued Social Security number to an employer, 
the entire compendium of alleged Jim Bell crimes is little more than 
one of IRS Agent Jeff Gordon's more extreme masturbation fantasies.

--  
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"