Erik's space

There are so many troubling things about that case.  The only connection between the suspect and the murders is that the bodies showed up in a bay where he claims to have been fishing on the day in question, which somehow showed up over four months after the disappearance rather than, e.g., drifting to sea, and after the bay was thoroughly checked. 

 

The prosecution's theory of the case is wildly implausible and doesn't match Peterson's personality profile.  He's the family man-player type, who always wants somebody on the side but doesn't want to get serious about it.  If he did it, the likely motive would be because she threatened to leave because of all the affairs.   When on his own evidence he went fishing on Christmas Eve rather than being with her, the relationship isn't looking that healthy.   Many aren't, and we shouldn't automatically convict the spouse of a murdered person unless they can prove that their relationship was perfect.   The chance of a miscarriage of justice would be unacceptably high. 

 

In the recordings taped by one of his girlfriends, Amber Frey, he is clearly blowing her off while pretending to be interested.   The idea that he got rid of his wife to be with her is preposterous and I believe that the prosecution's proposed motive is false. 

 

I'm inclined to accept the position of the Peterson supporters that Amber Frey, who has perhaps delicately described as a "masseuse", is a woman scorned.

 

Which should have made her the primary suspect from the outset.  Amber Frey wanted him.  She admitted in 2005 that she still thought about him and wondered if he still thought about her.  After a murder conviction???  That woman is obsessed.

 

The one obstacle to their relationship is removed, she thinks, but he still isn't that in to her...and then the bodies miraculously pop up in an area that presumably had been very thoroughly checked by police months earlier.

 

Photos of Amber Frey make my hair stand on end.  She already looked like a psychopath when she was around six.   If the cops didn't immediately pick up what was wrong with her it was because they wanted Peterson too badly. 

 

Is Amber Frey's motive in cooperating with police revenge, or is it that she realizes that she went too far and she figured that the best defence was a good offence?  If Peterson connected the dots, he might finger her first.   She had to assume that the police knew about the affair or would eventually. 

 

It wouldn't be the first time that the star witness ought to have been the star suspect.   Amber Frey had the strongest known motive.  Scott Peterson may have had a motive, or maybe he didn't- that's all speculation. 

 

Initially Peterson wasn't a suspect because Laci's friends and family had faith in his innocence.  That tells me a hell of a lot.  If a woman is thinking about packing, she's always going to tell her girlfriends.  If the guy is an abuser, either she's going to tell her girlfriends or they'll pick up on it.  There is no indication whatsoever that there is any merit to the prosecution's version that Peterson is a violent type sociopath.

 

Something that Peterson did have a motive for was to keep the affair out of the press and outside police attention as it would suggest a possible motive for him,

which would explain trying to keep Frey happy by calling her all the time while keeping her at arms length.   She could have never replaced Laci because he could never introduce her into his life. 

 

If Frey did it, my profile of her would be that she would be at high risk of doing it again under similar stresses.

 

Then there is the Evelyn Hernandez case where a woman was killed with a similar MO.  There may be another parallel in that the woman's wallet was found near the place of employment of her boyfriend, which could be an attempt to cast suspicion on him. 

 

Of course an MO can be copied, particularly where the details are publicly known, and which can be an attempt to divert attention to suspicion of a serial killer.

 

And then there are other avenues to look at, including that Scott Peterson had an awful lot of resources for somebody that had been waiting tables a few years earlier, hiring a celebrity attorney the likes of Mark Geragos.   Of course his father has a trucking business so it may be that he was supported, but then look at his inventory at the time that he was arrested, carrying a lot of cash and 4 cellphones.   If he were doing something illicit on the side, that could lead to certain gaps in his various stories that he would not be comfortable elaborating on with police.  They could have sensed something off- but that can mean that he is guilty of something else.   It could also suggest unknown parties with motives. 

 

Any way you slice it though, he's received a death sentence for adultery.   Whether he did it or not, who's to say- although my gut goes with Amber Frey-  but convictions should be supported by evidence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

North Korea has crossed the line and has to be destroyed before it can develop any more weapons.   Nuclear force should be authorized if necessary. 

 

North Korea has traditionally used it's nuclear weapons program to receive bribes to discontinue the program.  Now with a serious famine problem they are engaging in nuclear blackmail.  If they are allowed to build up any momentum and build a number of nuclear weapons they will be a threat.

 

It is time for somebody to do a "half Rumsfield" and go in and wipe out the dangerous weapons and the leadership.  Don't try to hold a country with 100,000 men though.  Just walk away.

 

This may actually provide a useful exercise in world discipline.  Nuclear blackmail was going to happen sooner or later and this provides a great opportunity to show that those who engage in it will be blown to bits without quarter.  That may head off a worse problem later.   I would like to see that happen as a joint US, China and Russia military exercise.   Maybe Britain and France too- if you are going to be permanently on the security council you ought to be doing something to make the world permanently secure in unison with the other members.

 

With the idiotic Iraq invasion the US has put itself in a position where it needs other support to properly sustain such a mission.  The North Korean government are also practically a religious cult that diefies the leader and an embarassment to communism and it would be nice if the communists stepped up and took out any deranged factions so that the necessary actions can't be seen as east vs. west. 

 

Iran on the other hand may fix itself.  At one point Iran had a republic and the US overthrew that to install the corrupt puppet the Shah, who was not as protective of Iran's oil as the prior administration.   The karmic consequence of this was that an inherently unstable situation was created where at some point the corrupt puppet government was going to be overthrown. 

 

The present administration does not seem to be mindful that it is creating the same sort of opportunity. 

 

I haven't any idea who really won the Iranian election.  The faction that is rebelling has associations with the revolutionary movement of 1979 and when in power was not particularly friendly to the west.  They may have had a change of heart.  It is a remarkable PR coup for them to have successfully depicted themselves as champions of freedom and justice.   We would have to see their actions in power to be quite sure that all is as it seems.   I am hopeful that their views have become more liberal.  "Islam" does after all mean "Peace" and any faction without that as the end objective has lost its way.

 

The ruling faction on the other hand has made a huge PR blunder.   I believe that a sense of justice is part of the makeup of social mammals, cats for instance I've seen to have a strong reaction to perceived unfairness or partiality.   Go against a sentiment that deeply embedded and you are going to get into trouble. 

 

The lack of transparency leads to an inference of a coverup and procedural unfairness, whether such exist or not. 

 

The supreme leader of Iran by backing a secular figure in a whitewashing action, thereby turned himself into a secular partisan.  More sensible would be to insist that justice be seen to be done and that there be transparent procedural fairness.  Religion can have a role in upholding high standards but that needs to have a limit.   A degree of separation between church and state among other things protects the dignity of the church. 

 

Note further that there is no inconsistency in saying that the faction with the most votes may have also taken steps to pad the ballot boxes and perform dirty tricks. 

 

The islamic revolutionaries have erred in considering there to have been an islamic revolution.  There is only one kind of revolution.   Iran had a revolution in recent history that had an islamic slant.   Stir the same sentiments and it could happen again.

 

But would such a movement have the support of the populace?  There is insufficient evidence about which faction has the greater strength.

Am I the only one that was sickened by the official bias in favour of the Pittsberg Penguins?  The worst act was forgiving on of the Penguins' better players a mandatory one game suspension that likely would have lead to a series sweep by the Red Wings but that wasn't the only error. 

 

Since Crosby is the new poster-boy for the NHL I'm sure they thought it was best for the league that he have a championship.  But isn't it best for the league to have credibility?  They altered a final series with official misconduct.  Apart from too many non-calls against Pittsburgh, the forgiveness of Malkin was a WWF style moment.  The irony is that if Pittsburgh had won it straight up I would probably be a fan, but with them taking a cup they didn't earn that isn't possible.  That puts them to the top of my hated list.

 

I remember when the NBA officials threw the final series to the Celtics last year.  I'm not much of a basketball fan but I could see that there was blatant bias there in favor of some player named Pierce on the Celtics.   The commentators were going on in nauseating fashion about how long Pierce had waited for a championship but not commenting on anybody that attempted to defend against Pierce was assessed a personal foul and he would go to the free-throw line.  He was untouchable, but skill had nothing at all to do with it. 

 

The height of the absurdity was one particular play when Pierce ran straight in to a guy and put his shoulder in his guts and knocked him on the floor, intentionally, with the other guy standing still and not moving to obstruct him.  I was thinking, in any sport you hit another player like that with no purpose but intent to cause injury, that has to be at least a game ejection.   Not so with Pierce.   He got sent to the free-throw line again.  The other guy was penalized.  There was nothing ambiguous to see. 

 

Needless to say I haven't bothered to watch NBA since.   If I watch sports I do so to watch sports, not to see something carefully scripted by league writers so that the real heros get beat.  

 

I also remember a couple of years back when the San Diego Chargers were 16-2 and the best team in the NFL, but they were up against the NFL's version of "America's team", the Patriots, in the playoffs.   The Chargers were beaten by calls that were obviously wrong, including at least one which was subjected to replay where the call was unambiguously wrong, but wasn't reversed.   That shifted the game enough for the Patriots to win. 

 

No more "America's team" crap.  Any team that gets gift-wrapped championships I have less respect for than the last place team.   I doubt if I'm the only one that feels that way.   

 

 

The SEC gave the go-ahead for companies to cook their books rather than rate assets at the present market value.  Even with the shoddy standards that used to exist for these things, there was  way too much cooking of the books which is how we got into this economic mess in the first place.  Now it has the blessing of the regulators that are supposed to be preventing that sort of thing. 

 

The price for such temporary apparent stability is that there will be more sudden crashes and these will be more likely to create a cascade effect with investors that get sucked in with rosy outlooks. 

 

After the SEC made the ruling that you can say your assets are worth whatever you say they are worth, there have been lots of conspicuously rosy quarterly statements coming out from e.g. banks who somehow did better although the mortgage end of their business continued to get worse, the consumers that pay the mortgages continued to get laid off at accelerating rates, the value of their collateral continued to deteriorate, etc.  All this is, is smoke and mirrors.   The result is likely to be more Enron style abrupt collapses. 

 

Of interest is that the most voracious banks that have been constantly swalllowing up other banks in mergers are in danger according to the administration's stress tests.  If we buy up all of the bad debt, etc., then the general public will be financing mergers to make the companies with the greatest market share even more powerful. 

 

We need to look beyond the issue of this corporate machismo though to who has benefited the most, that being in the case of mergers, those who were bought out.  It needs to be looked at to see if anybody consistently benefited or excessively benefited from those deals, particularly if they were not properly arms length or not truely bona fide purchases for value.   The idiots that created enormous, crippled companies need to be dealt with but may not have the resources to compensate for the damage, whereas those who were bought out got cash in hand.   The question of who is at fault is important for various reasons but it is maybe more important to follow the money. 

 

Of course, the machismo induced mega-corporations can also start spinning off assets they gobbled up if they need cash rather than having their mergers financed by the bank of you and me.   Or they should be mostly nationalized and control only returned to private hands on terms where the taxpayers generate a profit proportionate to the risk taken with public money.

 

 

There may be a problem with "availability bias", that is, putting too much emphasis on the available information without first considering what information is not available and the significance that information might have. 

 

Most of the cases are in Mexico.  We know how many Mexicans sought treatment.  What we don't know is how many Mexicans didn't seek treatment.

 

The cases in the US and Canada have been generally mild, little different from an ordinary flu. 

 

So is the Mexican version different? 

 

Probably not.  It could be that the greater heat, for example, causes more fatalities in combination with fever, or there could be different strains, or some other issue.  In the absence of evidence of some issue like that it may be that the reason most of the US cases are mild is that the infection is generally mild.

 

The critical missing evidence here has to be assessed in some way, such as by taking samples from populations with mild symptoms in Mexico that have not previously been seeking treatment.   If the virus kills 5% of those infected it could cause more deaths than the second world war.  If it kills 100 out of every million infected then it's just another flu bug and we should go about our business.