GRcade

Ironhide wrote:I don't know why but I can't see any of Garths posts in this thread.

Maybe a Twitter thing? My posts on that page contain tweets.

Oddly, I can see everyone elses posts containing tweets.

Myth busting: Why didn't the Skripals die on the spot?

I feel this will become another "but the jet fuel couldn't burn hot enough to melt steal beams, it must be the USA or Israel" bullshit conspiracy. Russians mastering the fake news to cause doubt.

A 'fun' and potentially more likely theory is that the Russians deliberately administered the nerve agent in a crap way so that they could then start anti-UK conspiracy theories about it.

I don't really believe that either, I think they probably just messed up and have tasked their propaganda machine with making the best of it.

I don't get why they'd both touch the door handle when leaving the house? And also if it's slow acting then wouldn't there be more of a delay between them both becoming sick, and not at exactly the same time after leaving the restaurant?

Karl wrote:A 'fun' and potentially more likely theory is that the Russians deliberately administered the nerve agent in a crap way so that they could then start anti-UK conspiracy theories about it.

I don't really believe that either, I think they probably just messed up and have tasked their propaganda machine with making the best of it.

I think that's likely as well. The whole job seems like a complete botch.

satriales wrote:I don't get why they'd both touch the door handle when leaving the house?

Maybe he couldn't remember locking the door and asked her to check.

Ironhide wrote:

satriales wrote:I don't get why they'd both touch the door handle when leaving the house?

Maybe he couldn't remember locking the door and asked her to check.

Yeah, there's nothing unusual about that tiny detail at all. But people love a conspiracy.

Tragic Magic wrote:

Ironhide wrote:

satriales wrote:I don't get why they'd both touch the door handle when leaving the house?

Maybe he couldn't remember locking the door and asked her to check.

Yeah, there's nothing unusual about that tiny detail at all. But people love a conspiracy.

I wasn't suggesting it was a conspiracy.

Leaving the house is something you do everyday, I don't buy that one of them closed the door and then the other went back to check it was locked, but that doesn't mean I think it was a conspiracy, just that the real timeline of events hasn't been figured out yet (or at least made public). With them both now recovering the full picture will become clearer.

Ironhide wrote:

satriales wrote:I don't get why they'd both touch the door handle when leaving the house?

Maybe he couldn't remember locking the door and asked her to check.

Or she pulled the door shut, but he had the key, and had to lift the handle to lock the door.

Is it really that surprising that two people living in the same house would both touch the same door handle?

They could have also touched it at different times, but it only properly got into them when they later ate with their nerve-agenty-hands. There are a lot of possible explanations.

Ex-Soviet scientist on the news the other day was saying that it's possible to be exposed to a non-lethal dose; it's not just exposed = death (at least not immediately). Plus if it was put on the door handle it's probably been combined with some other kind of agent, like an adhesive, which would also compromise the potency of it. The touching the door handle thing could be explained in dozens of different ways.

Fair enough. I live in a house that doesn't even have a door handle and locks automatically so that might be why I find it harder to see that scenario.

Obviously it's also possible that the timeline of events that's been pieced together is a bit off. I assume we will probably have a definitive answer in the coming days.

Lotus wrote:Ex-Soviet scientist on the news the other day was saying that it's possible to be exposed to a non-lethal dose; it's not just exposed = death (at least not immediately). Plus if it was put on the door handle it's probably been combined with some other kind of agent, like an adhesive, which would also compromise the potency of it. The touching the door handle thing could be explained in dozens of different ways.

I think we saw the same news clip.

From memory, the chemical isn't as effective when just dropped onto bare skin compared to being inhaled or entering the blood stream which almost certainly causes a rapid death. At room temperature it's actually a liquid and less effective in this form compared to a gas being inhaled.

A tremendous amount of luck to collapse in a public place and top quality medical services no doubt helped too.

Plus "military grade" isn't a real standard and would vary massively depending on what country we refer to. If the chemical is 20+ years old and stored as a liquid, maybe it has degraded. Additionally, Russia could have deliberately weakened it and deliberately used it liquid form rather than gas due to the complexities of keeping it in gas form safely.

Remember in The Jackal when Bruce Willis sprays some nerve agent on the handle of his car boot, and the bad guy looking for him touches it and starts foaming at the mouth and then he dies and then Richard Gere does a weak Irish accent and saves the day. Amazing.

Nothing to see here Comrades. Clearly an accident like the man who shot himself in the head 4 times.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/novichok-scientist-hit-by-car-in-russia-61260

Russian Novichok Developer Hospitalized Following Car Accident.

Grumpy David wrote:Nothing to see here Comrades. Clearly an accident like the man who shot himself in the head 4 times.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/novichok-scientist-hit-by-car-in-russia-61260

Russian Novichok Developer Hospitalized Following Car Accident.

Reminds me of that poor unfortunate voter from Dunny-on-the-Wold who accidentally brutally cut his head off while combing his hair.

twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1037281132725841927

twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1037282551566622720