This case gets more ludicrous by the day

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has an fascinating and excellently researched article up that details the latest release of evidence by the FBI, evidence that's supposed to make us believe that Bruce Ivins was the sole culprit in the anthrax case, and Greenwald seems to agree with me that being a somewhat creepy man does not a poisoner make.

Basically, according to Greenwald, here's the FBI's case against Ivins:

1. Ivins had an obsession with a sorority.

We've already discussed how this "fact" makes no sense with regard to the anthrax crime, and even if it did, how exactly does it prove Ivins' involvement? Greenwald discusses how there isn't even a sorority house close to the mailbox used to send the envelopes (a mailbox that Ivins has never been placed at), but merely a storage room for a sorority's Greek gear, a room that Ivins couldn't possibly have known anything about.

2. Ivins supposedly ordered porn and had it sent to a post office box under a fake name, and may have had an alcohol problem.

Just like any one of a million other men in this country. This is more "evidence" that proves absolutely nothing, except that Ivins had normal male urges and problems.

3. Ivins had unauthorized access to a machine that allowed one to process the anthrax spores into a highly weaponized form.

As it turns out, Greenwald has done a masterful job of finding out that Ivins not only had clear authorized access to the machine, he (along with others) invented it and possessed a patent for it. It's kind of hard to imagine someone having to skulk around with their own creation, which was apparently properly used in his work on anthrax vaccines.

Greenwald also mentions one other interesting nugget reported by the Frederick News Post, a local paper covering the case. The restraining order taken out against Ivins by the mental-health professional, used by the FBI to paint him as an out-of-control psychopath?

"She decided to get the peace order after an FBI agent working the case suggested it."

Just a helpful suggestion, I suppose. Manufactured evidence, anyone?

I am by no means a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, but something is really off-kilter about this story. If this is the best the FBI can come up with, well, they haven't convinced me of jack squat.

Read Greenwald's article for yourself, and see what you think of this "closed" case.