Word: cruder
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...that Bush administration officials have been sending out a lot of mixed signals over the past two weeks. First we were told the anthrax spores found in Senate Majority Leader Daschle's office were "weapons-grade." Days later, authorities backtracked, saying the bacteria appeared to be in a much cruder form than originally thought. Soon after that, two U.S. Postal Service workers were dead and several more were infected with the inhaled form of the disease - catastrophes linked, apparently, to the Daschle letter. Now, suddenly, we're back to "weapons-grade" anthrax...
Generally, yes. For anthrax spores to be used as a weapon, they need to be dried and processed into a stable, powder-like form that will disperse in the air. The most refined bacterial spores form a fine, white dust. Cruder preparations have a brownish tint and are heavier; these spores tend to clump together and drop to the ground, making them less effective terror weapons...
...Swire wonders whether one of those cruder timers, which he says can't be set for longer than 45 minutes, was used to bring down Pan Am 103. The more sophisticated timer the prosecutors linked to al-Megrahi and the Libyans, he says, could easily have been set to blow the plane up over the ocean, foiling efforts to trace the perpetrators. Swire says the "provenance was unusual" of the timer remnants found outside Lockerbie, thus raising again suggestions that they had been planted on the scene. He and some other families want to see politicians in power...
...pressure to produce were misplaced. During the final push, Jeb dodged inquiries about his effort by saying how much he loved his brother. W. joked that if Jeb didn't deliver, he'd "be washing my car over vacation." In private, the joke was a tad cruder but no funnier...
...recently retranslated and re-released The Path to the Spiders' Nests, Calvino tells the story of Pin, a street urchin. Pin, mischievous and impish and all those other cute things we expect of urchins, lives a difficult life. (This too we expect, although Pin's life has cruder aspects than most...