Agreed. Why should people accused or convicted of crimes have any rights? We should execute anyone accused of breaking laws. Or better yet, torture them and then execute them. Think of the money we'd save in court costs and lawyer fees. Stupid ACLU, getting in the way of sweet justice.

I love the smell of democracy in the morning!

You watch way too much TV dude. In the real world the criminal justice system is nothing like you describe.

sar·casm [sahr-kaz-uhm]

–noun

1. harsh or bitter derision or irony

2. a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark

Henchey, Henchey, Henchey, tsk tsk tsk. Law enforcement already has ready access to ALL your pertinent information. Unless you have been living in a cave for the last 20 years, eating berries and never applying for a driver's licence, a credit card, a car tag, telephone number or paid a utility bill and only being paid in cash in a plain brown envelope we (BIG BROTHER, bwahahaha) already have access to all your records. Some of those records can only be accessed with a court order. Not a secret court of our self-appointed cronies, but an actual district or federal court and a duly (publicly) appointed or elected judge. So, that train has already left the station. Give me your name and the city/state you live in and within 10 minutes, without leaving my office, I can compile an AMAZING amount of information on you. Give me an hour and I'll tell you your social security number, date of birth, marital status, whether you have any outstanding warrants or unpaid parking tickets, what your credit rating is and how many times you been married and whether your alimony/child support payments are up to date. I can tell you EVERY place you've ever lived. I never have to leave my office to do that. So, how does that make you feel, amigo? BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, BWAHAHAHAHAHAA.

What I cannot do is install listening devices in your home, office, car, etc. without a court order. I cannot search your home, office, car (in most cases) and seize your personal property, again, without a duly authorized court order or warrant. Your constitution and your government protect you from all that.

I think you've been listening to Rush Limbaugh just a tad too much.

PEACE

So Elizabeth, when you or someone in your families' DNA is found at the scene of a crime, just because you happened to have been in that area recently, you won't consider that being needlessly placed under suspicion? You're entirely confident that you won't be subjected to extensive investigation by law enforcement due to incidental presence of your genetic material at a crime scene?

Perhaps you could give us a specific example of this, other than something you saw on CSI.

This post is quite amazing. It is the longest post in the discussion and says virtually nothing about the issue at hand. Any chance the OP could boil this down to a paragraph containing a couple of concise legal and/or technical question relating to the article. Whatever point you are trying to make is lost in your attempts at humor.

"They" refers to the scientific community that peer reviews material published. And yes it is necessary in most cases to review the credentials of who "they" are. True in anything, not just science. Things do go wrong or need to be revised occasionally but eventually the rubber meets the road and the science sorts itself out.

The limited sample size in the initial HGP is due to the fact that at the time sequencing the entire genome of many many people was technically possible but financially unworkable. I don't quite see how the limited sample size of the HGP relates the accuracy of DNA testing. If anything they compliment each other. Humans and sufficiently genetically diverse that one sample isn't enough to characterize all of humanity, which also means it is very possible to match separate sample based on a DNA fingerprint due to that same uniqueness.

@APB-1977233:

In some respects, this is one of those topics that is not so easy to summarize without making some significant presumptions, since the fact of the matter is that understanding much of anything about it requires a lot of mathematics, chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, computer science, and so forth and so on--including a strong general understanding of law--so even for someone such as myself who is the source of all knowledge in the known universe, getting to anything even remotely resembling a point is difficult at best, really . . .

Really!

Nevertheless, I am very pleased that your interest is piqued in a good way, which for reference generally is the definition I prefer for "piqued", since I prefer "piqued" to "peaked" although the primary definition of "piqued" is not the one I use . . .

If there is a summary version, then it suggests strongly that nothing is simple about anything involved with using DNA evidence in a court proceeding, which for the most part is nearly the opposite of what proponents of DNA evidence like everyone to believe . . .

As you noted, explaining this perspective is not so easy for me to do, and this is due primarily to my general view that the only practical way to explain my perspective requires addressing a virtual festival of presumptions, each of which essentially is a nearly equally complex topic . . .

In no particular order based on significance, perhaps the best presumption to address first involves law and the general mindsets and roles of the various infrastructure players (judges, juries, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, expert witnesses, and so forth and so on), where among other things at least one reality is that the infrastructure often is based on the concept of playing a game, where the goal is to win the game rather than to achieve anything relating to actual justice, and while I understand the logic that suggests characterizing a trial as a type of game, my view is that this characterization primarily is a patently bad way to simplify everything for people who quite likely do not have the ability--intrinsic or learned--actually to understand the concept of justice . . .

And based on the existence of something called "The Prosecutor's Fallacy", I think that I am not the only person on this planet who has the somewhat cynical and dismal view of the practical implementation of the legal system in our great nation--noting that there also is a "Defense Attorney's Fallacy", which is explained in this same link . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy

Stated another way, I give the most weight to the presumption of innocence, and I make it all the stronger by focusing on the most literal interpretation of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and its variations, since from my perspective virtually any even remotely plausible doubt by definition is reasonable . . .

In other words, I am most comfortable having no doubts, at all, since so long as there is even the tiniest doubt, one cannot be certain in an absolute sense . . .

In the grand scheme of everything, this maps to my tendency to give the spirit of the law a bit more weight than the letter of the law, although for me the spirit of the law is not always what its architects might have intended it to be, which by inference tends to make me quite amenable to one of the more abstruse possibilities in determining a judgment or verdict, which to be specific is to declare a law invalid when it simply does not allow what I consider to be a fair and reasonable outcome . . .

And while it might appear that my perspectives should automatically map to no prosecutor wanting me on a jury, the reality is that I might be exactly the type of jurist a prosecutor should want to be part of a jury panel, since earning my vote simply is a matter of proving the case with a sufficient amount of indisputable evidence . . .

For example, consider the O. J. Simpson case where he was accused of murdering his wife and her friend . . .

More than anything, I was virtually dumbfounded that any judge with a functioning mind would have allowed the case to go to trial based on the measly patchwork of "evidence" that the prosecutors assembled, and after watching the entire trial on what at the time was Court TV, I was a bit amazed that it took the jury nearly four hours or so to reach the only possible verdict . . .

And for the folks who might be a bit curious, there are several primary bits of information that convinced me and continue to convince me that the only possible verdict is "not guilty":

(1) Virtually nobody 40 years of age or older who is not a diabetic or does not have a patently strange metabolic system can eat a McDonald's hamburger (a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder as I recall), an order of French Fries, a chocolate malt, and an apple pie starting at approximately 9:25 PM and then do much of anything for at least an hour or two . . .

(2) Anyone who has been in Los Angeles and has experienced a hot and humid summer night knows without doubt that there simply is no way to do the various physical actions O. J. Simpson was accused of doing, since even if one allows the possibility of his wearing some type of protective suit, it would need to be air-conditioned like the space suits that NASA astronauts wear . . .

(3) In a more subtle bit of testimony, one of the first responding criminalists testified that he was bitten repeatedly by ants, but in other testimony which focused on a detailed physical examination of O. J. Simpson, it was noted by the doctor or whoever did the examination that O. J. Simpson had no ant bites. And this was similar to the experiences of the other law enforcement personnel, which perhaps only makes a bit of sense when one knows something about ants, with the primary bit of information being that ants do not appear sua sponte based solely on a strangely compelling attraction to criminalists and other law enforcement personnel, which is one of the many aspects of this case that for a "guilty" verdict essentially would require O. J. Simpson to be so mentally brilliant and physically exceptional that it is mind-boggling, if only because it would require him to be so complete and thorough as to know specifically to apply ant repellent to his body, if there is such a thing as personal body ant repellent . . .

(4) The various detectives and police officers testified that they made the "road trip" to O. J. Simpson's house because they believed that his children might have been in the house and if so might have been in imminent danger. Yet, they made the "road trip" quite a while after arriving at the crime scene, and upon arriving at O. J. Simpson's house and finding the gate locked, they milled around for 30 minutes or so, during which time at least one police officers called his girlfriend or wife on his cellular telephone, and as I recall another police officer ordered a pizza. And this is extraordinarily problematic for me, since in that part of the world there are telephonic search warrants designed specifically to make it as easy and quick as possible for police to get the required permission from a judge by telephone to do a search; at least one police officer had a cellular telephone; none of the law enforcement personnel has any excuse for not knowing about telephonic search warrants; but most importantly any reasonable person, law enforcement or otherwise, would not hesitate to drive through a locked gate if they truly believed that children inside a house were in imminent danger of being injured or killed; and nobody in his or her right mind would wait outside a gate for 30 minutes in this scenario, which insofar as I am concerned is more than sufficient evidence that the detectives and police officers were not credible witnesses and most likely were telling an elaborate set of lies . . .

Of course, I might be the only person other than O. J. Simpson on this planet who has this perspective, but so what . . .

So what!

And the way this relates to the topic is that DNA evidence was a big focus in this trial and was handled for the defense primarily by Barry Scheck, who soon thereafter established the Innocence Project, which is an ongoing effort to use DNA evidence and testing to exonerate people who were falsely convicted and imprisoned based on a virtual festival of glaring misinterpretations and examinations of DNA, as well as inadequate or simply impossible at the time uses of DNA evidence, really . . .

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Really!

Explained yet another way, one of the most common presumptions is that DNA testing is accurate and precise, hence must be believed, and while there are uses for DNA evidence and testing, when one considers everything involved in DNA testing, there are so many presumptions that it cannot be viewed in any type of high-level and simplistic way, which in the grand scheme of everything is not something that I can explain in a few sentences or paragraphs . . .

For example, if one focuses solely on one of the many computer-based machines used in DNA testing, it does require an advanced degree in Rocketry to understand that a computer-based machine is controlled internally by a set of computer algorithms, and these computer algorithms are designed and programmed by humans, which ultimately makes the computer algorithms highly subject to human error, where since I am a degreed Computer Scientist one cannot help but mention the vast importance of Alan Turing's "Halting Problem", which basically is a variation of Church's Theorem and a few other things that involve paradoxes, where the short version is that for a computer which meets the criteria for being what generally is called a "Turing Machine", a special type of computer algorithm that seeks to prove without doubt that a program is accurate never will reach a definitive conclusion, where the "halting" aspect comes from this special type of computer algorithm indicating that it has reached a definitive conclusion by ending or "halting". . .

This is an example of what happens when a DNA testing machine--in this case a "gene chip"--does not work correctly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/health/research/09age.html

So, even if the DNA evidence was collected correctly; was not inadvertently or intentionally contaminated; and was examined and analyzed correctly by all the other humans and machines, then something so simple as a tiny and apparently insignificant mistake in the computer algorithm for one of the many machines is all that is required to make the test results complete and total nonsense . . .

For those folks who read and study the news diligently, it should be no surprise that there have been and continue to be life-threatening and life-ending problems with various medical radiology machines, including CATSCAN machines and some of the more advanced machines that are used to apply very specifically focused high-energy radiation in various types of cancer treatments, where all that needs to happen to transform one of these devices into what literally is a lethal weapon is a tiny bit of human operator or computer algorithm malfunction or error . . .

And the reality at the dawn of the early-21st century is that the only people who have any possibility of ensuring that these types of machines work correctly in every possible scenario tend to view everything in such extraordinary detail that explaining even the most simple concepts to everyone else requires pages and pages of apparently--but not actually--random thoughts, for sure . . .

For sure!

Regarding the various mathematics involved in the probability and statistics, the short version is that the numbers become extreme virtually instantly, which is an intrinsic aspect of the various equations, rules, and operations, so while it might appear to be obvious that "only 1 out of a population of 1 billion" is significant, it just as easily can be spurious, where for the folks who do not study dictionaries, "spurious" is a fancy word for "bogus", which itself is a fancy word for "garbage", as in "garbage in, garbage out" . . .

And the primary purpose of providing a few perhaps useful bits of information regarding "They" and the Human Genome Project was to shed a bit of light on the differences that exist among facts and what in political science are called "glittering generalities", where to be specific most of what is provided to the general public regarding DNA testing more than anything is a high-level set of glittering generalities, if only because there are so many steps and processes--both human and machine--that understanding and verifying each and every step, procedure, chemical reaction, and so forth and so on requires so much time, effort, and advanced education and training that it literally and figuratively is beyond the capabilities of most people, which is what makes all the presumptions made for purposes of simplifying everything so patently subject to errors . . .

At the dawn of the early-21st century, I think it is reasonable to suggest that most people have great confidence and faith in the belief that computers and machine are infallible, which simply is nonsense, because it is considerably more likely that computers and machines make mistakes routinely in at least some conditions and circumstances, which can be a combination of human operator error or human programmer error, since at a very low threshold the complexity of a computer-based machine or system becomes a Gestalt which easily becomes mind-boggling, with one of the best recent examples in the news being the acceleration problem affecting Toyota vehicles . . .

In other words, I am quite comfortable with using blood type, since there is sufficient general and specific knowledge of it to make reasonable inferences, and at most it is matter of comparing a handful of things, but I am not comfortable with making a lot of inferences based on DNA evidence, because I think that there is considerably less known about DNA than most folks believe or imagine, which as noted was one of the reasons I provided the information about the Human Genome Project and its "population" . . .

For some mostly unknown reason, modern scientists are ready, willing, and able to declare nearly anything to be a universal fact regardless of how goofy such declarations might be, and while one might presume based on various news reports that we now have a complete map of the human genome, my perspective is that what we actually have is a lot of information about a wanker who lives in Buffalo, New York, as well as perhaps another 300 or so people from various countries around the globe, and I think it is a bit of an absurd leap to presume that we understand much of anything, let alone enough to send someone to prison or to cause them to be executed . . .

And regarding "They", my perspective is that simply being part of some "scientific community" is quite insufficient, even when a "scientific community" conducts a "peer review", with two of the recent examples in the news being the equally bogus stuff coming from Britain regarding the goofy research that suggested (a) vaccines cause autism and (b) global warming is man-made . . .

Eventually, peer reviews and follow-up scientific research tend to resolve problems and to reveal facts, but it takes a while, and it is not made easier by what certainly appears to be a disturbing trend in ethics, where so-called "scientists" devote considerably more attention to promoting their beliefs than to discovering facts, which in part is due to the ongoing nonsense regarding Charles Darwin's various theories and the way they have been moved from the factual realm of science into the goofy realm of cults that are motivated primarily by fanatical beliefs in magic, which incidentally is yet another aspect that sooner or later wanders into mathematics that tend to produce numbers in the billions, which certainly appear to be logical but in the grand scheme of everything mostly are nonsense when one takes the time to consider everything as a Gestalt, where for example while in the relativistic framework of humans it might be the case that the Earth is billions of years old, when the observer changes, so does the timeline, which is one of the more fascinating aspects of Albert Einstein's various theories, where the relativistic time for a person traveling in a spaceship at or near the speed of light is very different from the time experienced by people on the planet from which the traveler embarked, with the real and tangible result being that what might be a few years for the traveler is hundreds or thousands of years for the people who stayed on the planet, which from my perspective tends strongly to suggest that what for me might appear to be billions of years could be--and probably is--just a few days or weeks for God or other type of observer in a different relativistic framework, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

That's right Baldenario. Everybody is entitled their own opinions and should be able to say "this is what I believe." or to be able to go into detail the way you do. You have a an amazing gift.

I always enjoy reading your posts whether I agree with a particular issue or not.

@Darrah:

Thanks for the kind words! :)

I definitely have opinions, but over the years I have learned that expressing an opinion in detail sometimes causes it to change, which is one of the reasons I use the opportunity to do as much research as possible, which is a more recent addition to my ongoing routine of writing several pages of thoughts about something every day, which is something I started doing nearly 20 years ago when everything was text-based and people connected to the web via CompuServe and dial-up modems . . .

Once I discovered how to avoid what at the time were called "flame wars", participating in discussions became a lot more FUN, and at this point I generally compose my comments in real-time on the fly at the touch-typing rate of 70 words per minute, although I might do editing, grammar and spell checking, and a bit of additional research for several hours, depending on the topic and how easily I can find whatever supporting information I need, where for example I already knew about the remarkably tiny sample populations used in the Human Genome Project, but it took perhaps an hour or so to find the specific references and some of the other information . . .

I use this same strategy for discussions on guitars and music theory, and it is working very nicely, where as another example approximately two years ago my general view on music theory and classical music notation was that it was a complete and total waste of time, but after discussing various perspectives with guitar players who I know are skilled and talented, I revised my perspective and most recently discovered quite by accident (a) that there is computer-based music composition software and (b) that I know enough about music to do elaborate compositions pretty much off the top of my head, which is a bit mind-boggling . . .

The way it usually works here in the sound isolation studio is that I get stuck on the most astoundingly stupid things, but so long as I am persistent eventually I find a way to get unstuck, which is what happened when I first started teaching myself how to play lead guitar several decades ago but made no progress until I realized that every lead guitar solo ever recorded was played by a guitarist who had at most four fingers and a thumb on each hand . . .

Once I realized that playing lead guitar mostly was a matter (a) of having four fingers and a thumb on each hand and (b) of doing a lot of studying and practicing, it was not very difficult to do . . .

And for music composition, the key to solving the puzzle was discovering that there is computer-based music composition software, since prior to a few months ago I thought that the only way to do it was either (a) in my head or (b) with pencil and paper, and of these two strategies it was so much easier to do it in my head, although it took a while and since I never remembered what I was doing, everything mostly was done in a stream of consciousness way, which in some respects puts limitations on what one can do . . .

Yet, once I discovered the music composition software (Notation 3), it was virtually trivial to use it to compose a song in a new style of Flamenco that I created in May 2010, which is one of the songs on which I am working at present, where among other things I plan to do a Flamenco Dance and Mime reenactment of The Mayan Story of the Creation of the World during the interlude, since more than anything I have an odd sense of humor, which is fabulous . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/Surrealeria-06-22-2010.wmv

Fabulous!

The rhythm patterns for Flamenco music are so elaborate that the only way I can do the basic drumming is with music composition software and libraries of high-quality sampled orchestral sounds, which is quite fantastic, since I can add real instruments later to extend everything . . .

And while this has nearly nothing to do with DNA evidence, it is a tiny bit relevant in the sense of being an example of how something that might appear to be nearly trivial actually is extraordinarily complex . . .

The basic rhythm section, chords, and melody for the Flamenco song in the new Surrealería subgenre took perhaps 60 hours to compose, and a good bit of the time was focused on making sense of the music composition software and how it interfaces with the various libraries of orchestral samples, but so what . . .

So what!

When used thoughtfully, technology is very helpful, but it is very important that one focuses on "thoughtfully" at all times, because the fact of the matter is that technology can be abused . . .

To the point, I have no problems generally with using familial DNA techniques as an investigative tool, so long as it is used in ways that are appropriate for the various technologies, which for the most part requires the people doing the work (a) to understand the rules and (b) to follow the rules without wandering outside the boundaries, which is the problem, really . . .

Really!

For example, as noted by another poster, there are real and tangible exceptions to some of the otherwise general rules, where for example it is very important to consider the possibility that some people genetically are a bit different and have more elaborate genetic algorithms, with one example being what in genetics is called a "chimera", really . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28genetics%29

Really!

Another perhaps more common occurrence is called "mirroring" in identical twins, where depending on the degree of mirroring the twins might be more dissimilar than similar, with one of the more easily understood aspects being that one twin might be more artistic than the other, yet for all practical purposes they are identical in every other respect . . .

And while it might be intuitive to suggest that identical twins have identical fingerprints, this is not the case, which provides a clue to yet another rule for using science and technology as an investigative tool . . .

But more than anything, my perspective continues to be that while DNA evidence and testing can be useful, if I am expected to make a decision in a criminal or civil proceeding, then (a) I need additional evidence and (b) it cannot be solely circumstantial . . .

More specifically, I would never render a "guilty" verdict if there only is circumstantial evidence, no matter how compelling someone might think it is . . .

I need something real and tangible that does not require me to rely on a "best guess" or whatever, since as noted in my earlier posts, I use the most literal definition of "beyond a reasonable doubt", which for me maps to "no doubt", since from my perspective every doubt is reasonable, otherwise it would not be a doubt, for sure . . .

For sure!

P. S. I like your observation where you noted that since the current suspect in the "Grim Sleeper" case was in the California prison system on at least one occasion, why did a supposedly "complete" search of the prison-system DNA database not find a match for the fellow?

If this is what happened, then how reliable is the type of DNA testing and matching done by the state of California?

If it cannot find an apple in an apple orchard, then why should I believe that it can find an orange in an orange grove?

And if if finds an apple, then why should I believe that it is not an orange?

My concern is that while there are good and honest prosecutors, there also are complete and total flakes--nearly all of whom most likely are psychopaths--and the flakes only are interested in winning cases to the degree that they truly have no concerns whatsoever for justice, since for them it is only a game . . .

And this is the reason that the overwhelming burden in my universe is on the prosecutors, since as a group I generally trust them as far as I can toss a concert grand piano . . .

I need to be convinced, and convincing me is not an easy thing to do, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

As a bit of follow-up regarding the observation that it was a bit strange that the suspect in the "Grim Sleeper" case was not identified directly in a search of the state of California's DNA database for people who have been in state prisons, there is an excellent overview of the sequence of events in an MSNBC Nightly News video, and it provides the definitive information . . .

The video report is titled "How did 'Grim Sleeper' suspect elude police?", and it probably will be online at the MSNBC video news website for a few more days . . .

I would provide a link to it, but instead of being a normal link is it something in JavaScript, so this is the URL of the video player window that opens when you click on the JavaScript link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/38182390#38182390

According to the report, while the suspect was arrested 15 times over 40 years, he never was sent to state prison, and this is the reason that his DNA was not included in the state prison DNA database . . .

So, as explained in the MSNBC report, when his son was convicted of a crime recently and was sent to state prison, it was his son's DNA that was included in the state prison DNA database, and what one might call a "Fuzzy" match was made on the son's DNA based on a "familial" search, which put his father on the 'Grim Sleeper' list of potential suspects, at which point detectives apparently followed the father for a while and got his DNA from a discarded piece of pizza, which they tested and got a definite match . . .

So, while it appears to be accurate to suggest that the suspect was arrested several times over four decades, none of those arrests resulted in his DNA being included in the state DNA database . . .

And for the record, although none of this changes my basic views on DNA evidence and testing, I certainly have few if any problems with using "familial" and other types of DNA searching as general investigative tools, with the caveat that they are used in what I call "Fuzzy" ways, in the sense of so-called "Fuzzy Math", "Fuzzy Set Theory", and "Fuzzy Logic", which is at least a tiny bit related to various theories regarding fractals, but generally is so abstruse that wikipedia does not have a simple English definition for it, and the mathematical definitions are so advanced that few people--including me--are likely to understand them, but so what . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_mathematics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals

So what!

Yet, there is a simple English overview definition for "Fuzzy Logic", and it is reasonably easy to understand, for sure . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

For sure!

The distinction is that in contrast to traditional Boolean Logic, where everything is in one of three states (TRUE | FALSE | DON'T CARE}--although there actually are only two states {TRUE | FALSE}--in the Fuzzy Logic universe there are what one might call "in-between" states, where something might be "kind of true", "a little bit false", or whatever . . .

Whatever!

So, for example, in the Boolean Logic universe, if you ask someone whether they "like apple pie", there are two possible answers {YES | NO}, but in the Fuzzy Logic universe there is a virtual festival of answers that range from FALSE (0) to TRUE (1) and all points in-between . . .

In other words, while someone might not "like apple pie" in an absolute "all or nothing" sense, they might consider apple pie to be nearer to something they definitely "like" than it is to something that they definitely "dislike" . . .

And since mathematicians over the years have been quite skilled in creating new job opportunities for themselves, Fuzzy Logic appeared on the scene approximately half a century ago in the 1960s during what must have been a temporary lull in the otherwise full employment of mathematicians, which curiously coincided with the appearance of psychedelic drugs, Heavy Metal music, and a vastly increased general public interest in frosted doughnuts with extra sparkles . .

So, in the grand scheme of everything, one way to understand "Fuzzy Logic" is to listen to the song that started it all, "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" (Edvard Grieg), and the two more recent flavors of Grieg's classic song of the 19th century--specifically, "Purple Haze" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience) and the more recent "(I Want) Angela Gossow's Underpants (Ya-Ya-Ya)" (The Surf Whammys), all of which is a stellar example of what I like to call "Extraordinarily Fuzzy Logic™", really . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hSW67ySCio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecAFV-6rQ7Q

Fabulous!

Explained yet another way, one might suggest that like its predecessor, Extraordinarily Fuzzy Logic is focused more on the strange behaviors that happen in the quantum universe, where (a) nothing is real, both literally and figuratively, and (b) things that might appear to have no possible associations or interrelationships actually have a virtual festival of interdependencies, nearly all of which (c) are remarkably abstruse but nevertheless real and tangible and (d) are quite amenable to participating in various types of quantum entanglement, which among other strange phenomena provides perhaps the only logical explanation for the sequence of jumps that leads one from "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" (Edvard Grieg) to "TAK JE KAK VSE" (A'Studio) by way of "Purple Haze" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), "(I Want) Angela Gossow's Underpants (Ya-Ya-Ya)" (The Surf Whammys), and the curious fact that the Surf Whammys song continues to be in the Top 10 of Highest Rated "Armenian Christmas" videos at truveo.com, which is a bit mind-boggling, really . . .

http://www.truveo.com/search?query=Armenian%20Christmas#Armenian%20Christmas%20sort:highestRated

[NOTE: I am trying to get the lyrics for "TAK JE KAK VSE" translated from Russian to English by someone who is very skilled in nuances, but based on the music and the visual theme of the video my best guess at present is that the song makes the statement that the world is being destroyed slowly but surely by psychopathic bureaucrats, which certainly is one of the most disturbing realities at the dawn of the early-21st century . . . ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmBWFOGu53Q

Really!

P. S. This is the link to the A'Studio website, where there are 12 stellar music videos with high-quality audio and high-resolution video (FLASH), with the most recent songs from 2007 and 2009 being state-of-the-art in every respect, as well as being artistic visual masterpieces and more than a tiny bit surreal, for sure . . .

http://www.astudio.ru/

For sure! :)

Great job, Baldenario!

The Grim Sleeper should have been sent to prison for being a habitual offender. Of course he wouldn't have stayed long, but his DNA would have been taken under those circumstances. Even though there's overcrowding in prisons, SC had them them stacked up in triple bunks at one time. He would have been sent to prison here. I remember a case in which a teenager was sent to prison for a mo. because he stolen a bike. Of course he wasn't place with hardened criminals. But the judges don't play around in SC. And prison has been shown to be a deterrent to some crimes. Of course it wouldn't be the case for the Grim Sleeper, and we're using a lot of "what ifs", but then some lives would have been saved.

My concern is that a savvy defense team can cause doubt among jurors regarding the familial DNA. Therefore we might end up with an acquittal or hung jury. If you can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt, then a murderer walks. And of course by law, he has to be found quilt or innocent within a certain amount of time.

It's a good thing that we have familial DNA (to an extinct) but it should only be used when there are no other alternatives and only by experts.

James, are you Eric and Henchey living in a log cabin in the backwoods in Idaho somewhere? If not, you might want to look into it. Just don't sign up for any public utilities, squat on the land, don't buy and don't register your cars or yourselves (or you guns for heaven's sake) and I think you might be safe.

Unless of course if it's me that sent to find you. Then you are doomed, I'll know right where to look for you. BWAHAHAHAHAA

James, do us all a favor and exercise your right to remain silent. Please.

Eric,

You DO NOT have a constitutional protection against investigation for allegedly committing a crime. You have a right against unlawful search and seizure, but the operative word there in "unlawful".

If you are the prime suspect in a crime, I (as an investigator) have a duty to look at you inside and out (so to speak) past and present, up and down and believe me, I will.

If, on the other hand, you are a law-abiding citizen and NOT the suspect in a possible violation of the law then you will never have the pleasure of meeting me or sitting down in a little room with me for a chat. As a state-certified civil rights investigator I know EVERYONE of your constitutional rights and I will preserve those rights. But trust me amigo, if you are my prime suspect I will leave no stone unturned and I will use every LEGAL means at my disposal to prove your guilt. DNA sampling is just another tool available to me and my fellow investigators. As are court approved wire intercepts (wire taps) search warrants, etc.

And you, my friends, are all safer for the fact that we have those tools at our disposal.

Abuse? Yep, there are those who do that. But the vast majority of investigators through out the world are hard working, law abiding, finders of FACT, not fiction. Evil? No. Necessary? Yes.

PEACE

If 'authority figures' do not have the unrestricted right to search you, your home or listen in on anything you may say or write, they can not just plant evidence to clear a ticket or steal your busisness plan. Can a person think or reason creatively with a whip hanging over their head?

The question is: 'does the government having your DNA information constitute a whip over your head'? What are the chances of the DNA information creating a negative health insurance or employment file? (nothing to do with any type of crime)? In short, we need our rights protected because punishment must be related to guilt and not raw power.

Where were you in '68? I was a war protestor. I appeared at mass rallys against the war. I exercised my constitutional right to freedom of speech and expressed my opposition along with tens of thousands of other Americans. I was never arrested for my views. The only time I was hassled was by the true "patriots", the "America, Love it or Leave it" boys and girls.

The scenario you are attempting to propose is possible under any circumstances and any government. The so-called "patriot act" was an unconstitutional abomination. That single piece of legislation comes closer to your scenario than the creation of a DNA database to aid law enforcement in their efforts to solve and prevent crime.

Where were you when George II and Darth Dick rammed that piece of legislation through the congress?

Here's some more wisdom direct to you from the 60's:

"Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep, it starts when you're always afraid the man will come and take you away."

Wake up and smell the coffee, it's the 21st century.

PEACE