Polonium-210: Great Taste, or Less Filling?

So my lastest distraction has been the death of Litvinenko. It's got all the headlines grabbing attention that we need.

Oligarchs, a seasoned spy who turned on the all powerful Russian intelligence service, a critic of Putin who needed to be silenced, a daring hit in London. Oh wait, two purported tell-all books that indict the current administration.

But upon closer inspection all of these facts fail to hold.

I wish to thank Kirill Pankratov for laying down the facts. His article Toxic Avenger? forms the basis for this entry, which I'll condense for you non-acquianted readers.

His relationship with the exiled oligarch Berezovsky.

Litvinenko's service bio reads like a flunky who got lucky. He was stuck in an obscure transportation department that guarded convoys and prisoners. This guy was probably hauling expat dumbasses who got busted for drugs to a work camp in Mordvinia. Gets a break, transfered to the organized crime division, suddenly he's cuddling Boris B after his driver's head gets blown off. Who wouldn't take advantage of that connection?

Cut to 1998. His infamous hooded press conference, then his persecution, and finally his daring escape. The only thing else we Americans could ask for is a shot of him riding the Staten Island ferry with an "I HEART NY" t-shirt and a "I'm going to Disneyworld" sound clip. Yes, sounds shallow but we like that kind of sappy crap.

But why Polonium? All roads lead to Poland. I'll let Kirill explain:

"...[t]he element polonium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and named after Poland, her home country. And it is Poland today that's brings about by far the most obstacles to relations between Russia and Europe. In fact Poland has done all it could do to scupper the recent Russia-EU negotiations on economic and security cooperation, culminating in the failed summit in Finland last week. How's that for symbolism? Or do we have to dig up the wily and rather sinister character Polonius from Shakespeare's Hamlet (interestingly enough, in Russian the words "polonium" and "Polonius" are spelled the same). Oh, and another thing: Litvinenko reportedly received his British citizenship papers on the day of the Politkovskaya murder. All this is beyond weird."

Interesting sidebar. My favorite eXile columnist Eduard Limonov has a story in the same issue that deals with the story (NB: just finished "Memoir of a Russian Punk" - the best book I've read all year!). Evidently bald-headed, untimely deaths are not so rare...

Here's the story

One story the press isn't fronting (it appeared on The Drudge Report for a few hours) is the fact that Litvinenko lived next door to a leading Chechen dissident. And, allegedly, he converted to Islam before he died -- was this before or after he dictated his immaculately proofread English language indictment of Putin? I'm sorry folks, this has stage management written all over it.

Links here and there

Here's a questionable story linking Litvinenko with some Al-Qaeda activity.

That story makes as much sense as GW talking about, well, just about anything.

How come nobody's fronting DD's Mossad angle?