ScienceIsCool said:But why would you go to the trouble of using an amazingly lethal substance and apply it to a door knob where anyone could come into contact and betray its use? A-234 is also a volatile substance, so why would you apply it to a surface exposed to the sun, wind, and rain? And if applied in liquid form it would be sticky, meaning that anyone contacting it would be aware. Aerosolized and it wouldn't stick to the knob.
If you knew they were returning to their home soon (people have routines, you know), who else would be touching the doorknob? Generally speaking, no one touches the doorknob to your home except people who enter it, and they are usually the people who live there.
And how else are you going to expose them to it? Run up to them and spray it in their face, sort of like what happened in the Malaysian airport?
"Lavrov said the Swiss laboratory also identified a high concentration of A-234 agent, known as Novichok. Such a concentration would have quickly resulted in Skripal’s death, Lavrov said. " - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-skripal-lavrov/russias-lavrov-says-skripals-may-have-been-poisoned-by-substance-russia-never-made-idUSKBN1HL17K
This is new. This is not the same story that you linked earlier, and which I was referring to. That story said nothing about a high concentration. When different stories say different things, it’s hard to know exactly what the situation is.
Quote: "Lack of contamination with what? BZ or A-234? And where was there no contamination where it should have been and was tested for?"
Uh... Wouldn't this have been the basis and origin of any investigation?
I really don’t understand what you mean by this. Let’s back up. Why would both BZ and A-234 be used? Why not just BZ? Because it was developed in the U.S.? That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used by Russians, just as the fact the Novichok was developed in Russia doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been used by a Westerner (note the hypocrisy here; Russia made the latter point, while at the same time using the origins of BZ as evidence it couldn’t have been them).
Second, how were the Skripals exposed to BZ? The door or something else they came into contact with was dusted with it? According to your logic, that would run the risk of exposing others to it, and give away the game. But any direct approach would run the risk of the perpetrators being identified.
Third, as I mentioned before, why were the Skripals hospitalized for weeks? This doesn’t sound like the effects of BZ to me. Also, the symptoms are quite different from those of an organophosphorus agent. Unless the Skripals as well as the hospital staff were in on this, this information might leak out, running the risk that someone would figure out it wasn’t Novichok. I can’t speak for the Skripals, but if I had just undergone what they had, I would compare what I experienced with the known effects of what I was supposedly exposed to, and draw my own conclusions.
Fourth, why would the British government want to do this? What have they gained from all this? Increased tensions with Putin—to what advantage?
I’m not saying you're wrong—I take this possibility seriously—but it’s a classic conspiracy theory. You begin with a conclusion—as I recall, you were saying from Day 1 that it was a false flag—then bring up all the evidence that is consistent with that conclusion. You don’t discuss the evidence that doesn’t fit.
I could say the same thing about the recent Syrian attack, though at least in that case I can understand why some anti-Syrian government forces would want to stage a chemical attack, to garner Western sympathy and maybe hope for more Western aid, though that’s a pretty naïve position.