"The Dark Side, if you will..."

Clearly writing a book can be perilous to your health. The notorious D.C. madam who had the misfortune of naming Dick Cheney as one of her clients apparently found the potential seven figure deal she was likely to be offered for exposing the details in her little black book so overwhelming that she hanged herself.

Strange because: Palfrey wanted to make public the names of her clients. Meria Heller (meria.net), who interviewed Palfrey in July. Heller claims Palfrey was "vibrant and filled with future plans."

Similarly, David Kelly the British biological weapons expert was also planning on writing a book. He described what Judith Miller, (his undisclosed but longtime collaborator), said he called "Dark Actors" playing games within the Blair government when the pressure of it all suddenly drove him to end his life by severing his ulnar artery.

Paramedics volunteered that there was a surprisingly small amount of blood at the scene for an artery having been severed.

When the forensic pathologist (Dr. Nicholas Hunt) who performed the autopsy testified, he described copious amounts of blood at the scene. He also described scratches and bruises that Kelly 'stumbling around' in the heavy underbrush may have caused. He said there was no indication of a struggle or Kelly having been forcibly restrained.

However, the police made an extensive search of the area and found no indication of anyone, including Kelly, having been in the heavy underbrush.

Surprising Kelly would so end his life because as the Daily Express reports: Dr Kelly was intending to lift the lid on his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

US television investigators have spent four years preparing a 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, suggesting there is a global black market in anthrax and exposing the mystery “suicides” of five government germ warfare scientists from around the world.

Director Bob Coen: ‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes. We have proved there is a black ­market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare programme in apartheid South Africa.”

Curious how guilt ridden the madam and the scientist became once they contemplated exposing the powerful.

Now just when the public was resigned to "move on" thirteen contemplative British doctors are claiming the esteemed Hutton inquiry into Kelly's death was an "utter sham". Apparently it is impossible to bleed to death simply by slicing one's ulnar artery.

But while the D.C. madam's death conveniently avoids causing powerful men embarrassment the silencing of Dr. Kelly suggests there are indeed extremely dark forces contemplating very dark deeds.

Apartheid South Africa had an extensive biological warfare program, code-named Project Coast.
Anthrax was a key focus in Project Coast, genetically modified to make it incurable by any conventional vaccine.

The arsenal also included plague, salmonella and botulism, as well as antidotes for many of the diseases. The weapons were usually modified and packaged in a way that avoided traditional detection mechanisms. The original intent was that this stealth would aid in assassination efforts against opponents of the government, particularly in the black community.

Which makes this fleeting headline from January: Black Death Strikes Al Qaeda camp in Algeria, suddenly much more worrying.