Literally an eye for an eye

It's such a good saying, but it's also one that I get the impression that people don't understand very well. But it might also be that I've come up with my own interpretation of the adage. I always interpreted it as a form of justice with a defined start and end point. So if someone attacks you and cuts off a finger then as a form of justice you get to cut off the finger of the person who attacked you. That's it. No escalation of retribution and the attacker has no right to then cut off one of your fingers since he's already done that. Of course in this day and age we have managed to move beyond such things and have come up with a system of monetary reimbursement and imprisonment instead of actually committing the same crime in the name of justice.

The reason I bring this up is that under Sharia law in Islam such a form of justice exists under the name Qisas. Granted the actual concept is a bit more complex and the teachings of it depends on the school of jurisprudence that it followed in the respective Sharia following country but the underlying premise is the same. Punishments should be proportional to the crime in question.

Discussions on this have started appearing again after Iranian courts suspended the blinding of Majid Movahedi after he threw acid in the face of Ameneh Bahrami back in 2004. In 2008 Bahrami took advantage of this concept during the trial when she suggested that he be blinded so he may see what she is going through.

Personally I'm a little conflicted. I clearly understand the arguments made when people say that it's a cruel punishment because it is cruel, but I don't really see why that means that this punishment is necessarily wrong.

This article on iranian.com suggests that Bahrami is unable to empathise with Movahedi by asking for this punishment. The fact of the matter is that I can't really empathise with him either.

This is a man who couldn't take "no" for an answer and did this simply because he was hoping that the attack would end pretty much the same way it did for Burt Pugach. Pugach hired three men to attack Linda Riss, a woman he'd had an affair with, by throwing lye in her face simply because she had gotten engaged to another man. In the end Pugach ended up marrying Riss.

Movahedi had decided that Bahrami was going to marry him no matter what. When he threw the acid on her face he didn't care about her. In the end he left a woman disfigured and in the end blind after surgery to save the sight in her one remaining eye failed due to an infection.

This man has utterly ruined her life. I'm sorry but I can't empathise with such a person. I've tried but I really can't. The only thing is that I empathise with him losing his sight and becoming unable to continue to experience the world as he knows it. I think that but then I remember that he made that decision for another person.

There are two other points that I would like to make. The first is a comment that you can find on other websites which is:

“His mother phoned my parents. She asked for mercy,” said Bahrami in an interview.

“She said that Majid would always work for me if he could keep his eyes. But now it’s too late,” she said.

The thing was that this was the plan Movahedi had. She would be defenceless and he would sweep in and take care of her for the rest of her life. In other words rewarding him for his behaviour. The mother might as well have offered some sort of "rehabilitating marriage" to make the comparison with my next paragraph more blatant.

It would be the same kind of "punishment" that Filippo Melodia was hoping for when he kidnapped and raped Franca Viola in Italy in the 60's. Melodia had tried to court Viola and had failed to.Instead of going to prison he would undergo a "rehabilitating marriage" a practise designed to protect the "honour" of the raped girl (it also automatically extinguished the rape charge for the man, so no ulterior motives there...). Viola refused and Melodia went to jail for 11 years.

Both Melodia and Movahedi committed their crimes for a reason. They wanted to get the girl no matter the cost. Melodia spent 11 years in prison for his crimes. Movahedi will lose his eyes.

The end of this Time article probably makes the most sense of this issue. By blinding Movahedi all that will happen is that he will be an additional drain on the system. But prison for any amount of time would be the same. Money that could be spent on whatever social welfare there is in Iran would either go to support a prisoner or a blind man. Odds are the blind man would get more social support.

The second point is one of forgiveness. There are people out there who think that she should forgive him and not go through with revenge. However forgiveness is a conclusion. There are many factors that lead to the resolution of an event like this. Getting justice would be something that is on the road to forgiving. Who knows, she may feel sorry that she asked for this punishment later on in the future, but at present all Bahrami has at the moment is that her attacker has not been given his punishment, and she is probably feeling that she has lost her life in the process. People are expecting much from a woman they don't know when the chances are if they were in the same position they would make the same decision that she did.

The point is that forgiveness is not something that you do willy-nilly. It has meaning and purpose and is not really something that is given lightly.

I think that it is possible in time Bahrami will come to forgive her attacker, but the important part of that statement is "in time".

A Baseline for LCN DNA Analysis

This came up in a discussion about JonBenét Ramsey. The main point in the discussion was that a baseline was needed for touch DNA analysis, which became synonymous with Low Copy Number (LCN) analysis. There is quite a bit of background here that needs to be covered as well, because this case will is also an example for this post. If you want to read the short answer, just scroll all the way down to the last line.

Background and Evidence

In 1996 she was found dead in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado and the case is still unsolved. There has been much discussion of who actually committed the crime, some arguing the parents did it, others an intruder, but there is no resolution in sight. In a way it echoes the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance here in Australia in that there are people who think that Lindy Chamberlain killed her daughter and blamed the dingoes.

Back in 2008 the Washington Times reported that the Boulder DA had cleared the Ramseys (although Patsy Ramsey had died in 2006). Forensic Scientists had analysed touch DNA on the leggings that she was wearing on the night she died. This DNA matched DNA found on her panties.

Now it gets a little tricky here. DNA was also found under her fingernails the belonged to an unknown person. Now according to CBS News 48 Hours this DNA also matched that on her panties. I'm having trouble finding corroborating evidence for this, but assuming that it's all true we've got DNA from under her fingernails, DNA on her panties, and touch DNA from her leggings. Apparently these all match.

It's the last one that caused this discussion, but there is still a little more to cover.

What is "touch DNA"?

"Touch DNA" is a term that describes DNA that is left by touching an object.

The concept relates to Locard's exchange principle, which essentially explains the idea behind trace evidence. Whenever you do something you will leave a trace behind. It may not necessarily be DNA but it will be something from you. This includes hair samples, fibres, footprints and fingerprints. The opposite is also true, you will take something from the place you are at. This includes dirt in your shoes, other fibres or hairs and the like.

Touch DNA is an extension of this idea. Since some of the things that make up fingerprints includes skin cells it is possible to extract DNA from a fingerprint. However such DNA does not have to come from a fingerprint, it may come from other body parts as well, so your clothes will contain extractable and examinable DNA as well.

This article from the FBI analysed DNA gathered from clothing. They gathered DNA from both the inside and outside of the clothes and analysed it for DNA. Interestingly they found samples of DNA from other people including spouses and in one case from someone who nobody knew at all. The fact that this was from a newly opened package of hosiery made things all the more interesting.

This article was cited as evidence as to why a baseline was needed.

But before we look at that we will need to look at what LCN DNA analysis is.

What is LCN DNA Analysis? How does it relate in this case?

Low Copy Number Analysis, also called/considered a subset of Low Template Analysis, is the analysis of small amounts of DNA. Normally this analysis is used when regular Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis doesn't provide a testable amount of DNA. The sample sizes that we are looking at here is less then 200 pg (about 2x10^-13kg). Normally samples contain about 0.5 to 2ng (5x10^-13kg to 2x10^-12kg) of DNA usually because you amplify it with PCR. The University of Leicester has a page on the subject.

PCR is best describes as a DNA photocopier. It uses the same proteins that are used in DNA copying, although the taq polymerase comes from Thermus Aquaticus, a thermophilic bacteria, so the polymerase is able to withstand higher temperatures, like those used to separate the DNA strands. It should be noted that it copies the DNA of everything that's in the sample, so contamination is a very real problem and great care is taken to prevent it.

Normal PCR amplification uses about 28 cycles. LCN adds an extra 6 cycles, so the amplification process uses 34 cycles.

As far as I'm aware there is, as yet, no data available as to how much touch DNA was gathered. It was assumed that it was a very small amount, so naturally it was assumed that LCN analysis was used.

Has LCN DNA Analysis been used in other cases?

In Australia such analysis was used in the murder of Peter Falconio. DNA was found on cable ties that were used to bind Joanne Lees. The DNA was found to belong to Bradley John Murdoch, who was later convicted of the murder. The court was told at the time that the odds of it belonging to someone else were 1 in 150 quadrillion.

In 2007 it was used in the Omagh bombing case in the UK. After concerns from the justice in the case the CPS suspended the use of LCN, and ordered a study. In 2008 the CPS announced that there was no inherent unreliability in the analysis.

It has also been used in cases like the murder of Anna Lindh, a Swedish politician, where the DNA came from a knife handle, and in the murder of Marion Crofts. This pdf from the Forensic Science Service has a few more examples.

So why a baseline?

The logic behind the baseline is that with the small amounts of DNA involved there might be an increase in the number of people falsely accused by DNA evidence.

Therefore a baseline of some sort should be found to see if the DNA is coincidental or not. The idea being once you have the baseline you will be able to discriminate between "coincidental" and "relevant" samples.

In my opinion though there is no way to statistically determine whether a sample is coincidental. The DNA needs to be processed and looked at in light of the other evidence. In the Ramsey case it's that this DNA appeared on the leggings, the panties, and under her fingernails. It was found to be the same DNA. But how did it get there?

DNA Transfer

LCN analysis is rather recent, the earliest case is from 1999, but the concept of DNA transfer is older, but has not been studied in great detail. There are plenty of articles out there though.

One of the issues brought up in the Ramsey discussion was that the DNA could have been transferred by JonBenét herself. Theoretically this is possible, but there is limited evidence that it did occur.

It depends on how it transferred, and also how much DNA was found. If we were to see transference we would see much DNA under her fingernails, and less on the clothing in the order that she put them on.

Now DNA transference can be ordered. Firstly we have primary transfer. This is DNA transferred when when you touch a doorknob, or a mouse, or shake hands with someone. The DNA is being transferred directly from you to the person or object. This is essentially a given.

Next is secondary transfer. This is when DNA is transferred to a third party. So let's say Person A shakes hands with Person B. Some of Person A's DNA will be transferred to Person B. This is primary transfer. Then Person B uses the same hand to open a door. Some of his DNA will be transferred (again primary), and some of Person A's DNA will be transferred. The latter is secondary transfer. Person A didn't touch the doorknob but some of his DNA is on it.

There have been studies that examine this. Lowe et al. examined this in the 2002 paper The propensity of individuals to deposit DNA and secondary transfer of low level DNA from individuals to inert surfaces (abstract here). They started by determining how good a DNA shedder the subjects were. Once they determined who was a good shedder and who was a poor shedder they washed the hands of the poor shedder and got them to shake hands with the good shedder. The poor shedder then touched an object and they used LCN analysis to see which profiles they found.

Turns out the poor shedder is a poor shedder for 6 hours after they wash their hands, and they managed to find the good shedder on the object.

However, Ladd et al. found in A systematic analysis of secondary DNA transfer (1999) (here) found no transfer, they also found that primary transfer was:

[H]ighly dependent upon the individual handling the objects or performing the handshaking.

Next is tertiary transfer. In the example with Person A and Person B tertiary transfer would be if Person C touched the same doorknob that Person B did. Some of Person B's DNA would be transferred to Person C's hand, and so would some of Person A's. The former is secondary transfer, while the latter is tertiary transfer.

I have not found any papers that deal with tertiary transfer. The closest that I could find was from G. N. Rutty in An investigation into the transference and survivability of human DNA following simulated manual strangulation with consideration of the problem of third party contamination (abstract) . The article doesn't examine tertiary transfer but uses it as a theoretical pathway as to how the unrelated DNA got on the "victim's" throat. Beyond that I've found nothing.

Parameters and Logic.

There are quite a few parameters that need to be examined. So beyond the level of DNA transfer, we would need to look at shedder type, so the odds of being a good/poor shedder, washing in general, how the people touch the object, and I think it would be fair to say the kind of object that they touch.

We are looking at a vast number of possibilities, and the reason for that is just to determine whether a sample is coincidental or not.

But we also have to look at the evidence. There is very little evidence for transfer beyond secondary. Anything above that appears to be theoretical.

But we must remember that logic would need to be applied based on the evidence.

So one possibility is that JonBenét came in contact with some guy's DNA. That somehow got under her fingernails. One suggestion for that is "dirty hands". She then touched her clothes with these fingers and the DNA transferred. So clothes wise we are looking at DNA that is at least secondary transfer DNA, but could actually be in levels that haven't been examined yet. The other thing is that when stuff gets under fingernails it usually stays there until removed.

The stranger possibility was that the DNA was on the panties when some guy at the factory touched them. I don't see that as logical at all, especially considering that the DNA under the fingernails was found and analysed far earlier then the leggings.

My own opinion is that it was a bunch of primary transfers. The DNA got under her fingernails by scratching, which is primary transfer. The DNA got on the leggings and the panties when the person touched them, which is more primary transfer.

But now I think it's time to answer the question.

Is a baseline even possible?

In my opinion it's simply no. LCN DNA already relies on standards set by the relevant government. It still needs to match 13 loci in the US. In the UK they would still need to match the 10 loci, and according to the University of Leicester the last 6 cycles are amplified in duplicate and alleles that appear in both can be used in a profile.

The legal standards will not change because the analysis is different.

One thing that I have noticed is that there are no baselines for other pieces of trace evidence. This is probably the most damning factor in the argument for a baseline. Why should one type of trace evidence have a baseline while all other types of trace evidence be exempt from such a baseline.

It's simply because there is no way to statistically discriminate between relevant and coincidental evidence. In a crime everything collected is potential evidence. It doesn't matter if it's touch DNA, a fibre, or blood spatter on a carpet, it's all evidence until it can be determined that it isn't. In a way it's backwards to what we would think. It's evidence until it isn't, not it's not evidence until it is.

Once we know that, say the vomit in the sink, actually belongs to a paramedic who didn't tell anyone that he threw up, it's potential evidence and should be processed accordingly. That's the reason why it's called an investigation. Because you investigate leads. There are no statistics that will allow you to discriminate evidence.

Lastly there is one other reason why a baseline is stupid. It's just one big red herring.

And That's Why People Hate You Catholic Church

Brazil, a country known for the Amazon, beaches, women, and religion.

Within this predominantly Catholic country lies a state in the north-east known as Pernambuco.

In this state lives a little girl. A girl whose name is unknown, but the events surrounding her, however, is known.

This is about that little girl, and the reaction of the biggest Church in the world.

This girl, who is nine by the way, was raped, by her stepfather. She has been abused by this man since she was six. He also abused her older sister who is 14.

However, a situation arose. She became pregnant.

With twins.

Doctors examined her, and believed that she would not be able to deliver the babies. She would need to have an abortion to save her life.

However abortion is illegal in Brazil, except in cases where the health of the mother is in jeopardy. Her's was, and so it was legal to give her an abortion.

It happened on Wednesday.

However, there were repercussions.

The Catholic Church were annoyed. They had tried to stop the abortion and failed. So they did something that most people think stopped happening ages ago.

Excommunication.

The doctors and nurses involved, and even the mother of the girl are now forbidden to receive the Eucharist, do anything in Mass and a few other things.

There has been no mention as to whether the rapist has also been excommunicated.

The story of the girl ends here. She was not excommunicated because she is too young. Those who were will have to go to the bishop, the local ordinary, or someone who has been empowered to remove excommunications. However I doubt that in this case it will be easy.

The sad thing is that the Church has really moved anger towards themselves, instead of against the rapist in question. They should have just kept out of it, but they didn't.

As I said before, the girl being pregnant was a health risk. According to Fatima Maia, the director of the hospital, and I'd assume a doctor, stated:

"She is very small. Her uterus doesn't have the ability to hold one, let alone two children,"

However a person by the name of Marcio Miranda, who is a lawyer for the diocese, believed that the girl should have carried the twins for the full term and had a caesarian. Becasuse we all know that ignorance is the best way to make any decision at all.

The archbishop isn't any better:

"The law of God is higher than any human laws, [...] When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication."

(Source: Fox News)

So it works this way. The director quoted the opinion of doctors. These doctors however, don't know the human body as well as a lawyer. The lawyer on the other hand, most likely knows less about the law then the archbishop.

But the archbishop is just parroting something that the Church has been claiming for about 1500 years. Popes have convened councils that ended up stating that the Pope, with spiritual authority, was the first amongst those with temporal authority because God gives people temporal authority, and since the Pope is the messenger of God, he is first.

It's not very logical but I don't think the Church actually cares.

I don't know where it says that you can't have an abortion, but I think that it is something that has no actual biblical roots, or from any teachings of Jesus. But apparently it's God's law, and a God who people claim is all about love and compassion shall not be overruled by man, who want to save the life of a little girl.

The actions here, along with this unrelated event, show that the Church is at least trying to be consistent. But do you really think people would give a damn if you did nothing in this case? Are people really going to cry "The Catholic Church is hypocritical" because you don't excommunicate these people?

Ok, the answer is probably.

But, we do see some Catholics who don't like what happened. Like the President of Brazil, who even stated that the doctors were right.

That is all that this comes down to in the end. Do we save the life of someone who is already alive, by sacrificing two foetuses that aren't?

Of course.

But the Church, I guess, prefers to see three people die instead of seeing one person live.

However it is backwards views like this that cause outrage. It's like telling people not to use condoms regardless of how effective they are against the spread of AIDS. People are going to call you out on it because it is a cruel thing to say.

The message that the rest of the world sees is that women who are raped and become pregnant have to carry the child of the rapist. The other message that we see is that abortion is wrong even when the health of the mother is at risk. Are these really messages that the Church wants to send?

In case you are wondering, the stepfather is now languishing in a jail cell. The police found him trying to flee to another part of the country.

---------------
Hat tip toPharyngula twice.

It Makes You Wonder...

A 29 year old mentally disabled woman was tortured to death.

She was pregnant.

Her captors beat and abused her and they stole her money. The woman, Dorothy Dixon, faced this abuse from several captors, including a 12 year old boy, and the daughter of the woman who abused her the most, who was 15.

My own opinion at this time is that I wish that the captors could face the same treatment as they treated this poor woman, who has left behind a 1 year old boy.

Unfortunately that cannot happen because it is an abuse of the human rights of these sub human people.

Right now is Easter, the most important time in the whole of Christianity.

It is when Jesus died for our sins on the cross.

For those who know anything about me it is that I am agnostic, so this religious bent is perfectly fine for me.

At this time I really wonder if Jesus died for everyone's sins, including people like Michelle Riley.

In a way it saddens me to think that Jesus probably did.

He forgave people who sinned and helped those who needed to be helped. Unfortunately there is nothing there that talks about him forgiving a sadistic murderer.

I really wonder if he would have.

It is situations like this that make me wish that there is some form of afterlife, complete with punishments for those that do such evil like torture people who cannot defend themselves and steal their money, for they would have a welcome place in the pits of hell.

This is where using the Bible gives me contradicting ideas. Should I think of them in ways that they have shown how they would like to be treated, or should I think of them in ways that I would like to be treated? Or should I, like everyone who shows outrage over what happened in the US, try to turn the other cheek and forgive them?

Charles Taylor on Trial

The BBC has reported that the trial of Charles Taylor has resumed.

For the world it will be an important event. For those that don't know the Charles Taylor that I am referring to was once the ruler of Liberia.

Now some of his charges relate to his actions during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

During that horrific time, rebels and government troops committed numerous atrocities against the civilians of Sierra Leone. Taylor is believed to have financed the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by trading guns for conflict diamonds from the RUF controlled mines near the Sierra Leone - Liberia border.

Thanks to his greed he helped to kill 75 000 Sierra Leoneans, maimed probably more then that, and traumatised even more.

With his help he was responsible for the use of child soldiers by both sides, which will, undoubtedly, have scarred those former soldiers for life.

And I think the most unfortunate thing about this is that he will never face the vilification that he deserves.

At least we can see that apparently Africa's most prominent warlord is too poor to pay for his own defence team.

My reason for feeling this way stems from a book.

The book in question is A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. In many ways it opened my eyes to what happened over there.

In that book you got to see what the RUF and the Government forces, helped do to a generation of children, deprive them of their childhood and turn them into drugged-up killing machines.

If I were a more eloquent person I would be able to give the book the praise it deserves, but I am not.

I won't tell you too much about it, I would prefer that you read it for yourself.

Mr. B.

I wrote about the Beaumont Children a while ago it was my second post.

Then I read this today.

So they call Bevam Spencer von Einem a suspect in the Beaumont case. Brilliant.

There is only one thing that I can think of that might be positive. It might change the status of Mr. B (a witness in Von Einems trial for the murder of Richard Kelvin, son of the newsreader). Mr. B has been portrayed currently as something of a crackpot.

It might make him less crazy in the eyes of history.

Hot Chocolate Rapist

When I first read about this today I wondered why I hadn't heard anything about it.

From what I can tell the crimes that I am about to write about happened around 10 years ago now.

I first heard about these crimes in passing on Triple J news on Friday heading to Uni, but I missed some of it and I didn't try to look up more about it.

However from what I have found it seems that this man raped 22 women and has been charged with 61 offences that involve 24 women.

He looked respectable, and would buy the women hot chocolate which he would lace with drugs.

In 1998 the case went cold until possibly July this year when two of the victims appealed for other victims to come forward.

Yesterday a man was charged with 61 charges against 24 women.

The man goes by the name of Harry William Barkas who is in remand until December 12.

The article gives the charges:

Mr Barkas has been charged with four counts of rape, one of indecent assault, five counts of administering drugs to render a person unable to resist sexual penetration and one count each of using and trafficking cannabis.

Now the problem that I have with punishing rapists is that do they really understand what they have done? How they have hurt the people that they raped?

I want to link to a thread in the Myspace forums where someone posted that they should legalise rape, but it might have been deleted.

The reason why I wanted to link to it was because this person didn't seem to understand the difference between rape and rough sex.

I wonder if rapists have the same problem, that they equate rape with having rough sex?

How could you punish someone like that? Let them be raped to see the difference?


Finally if all goes well the women who were raped will finally get to see some justice for what has happened to them. And justice after a crime is really all that matters.

The Ghost of the Ghost of the Beumont Children

I noticed this at work yesterday.

The article in question is about the appearance of one Bevan Spencer von Einem in some archival footage of the search for the Beaumont Children.

Firstly the only real link that I can see between the two is that they both have something to do with the criminal history of the city of Adelaide.

For those that don't know, Bevan Spencer von Einem is a convicted sex offender and former Good Samaritan. I know that sounds weird but he did save the life of Roger James, a man who had been beaten and thrown into the River Torrens for being a homosexual. However von Einem was later convicted of the rape and murder of Richard Kelvin. He was convicted in 1984, and the series of murders that he was suspected of at the same amount of time are known as the Family Murders, since the media believed that there was some form of secret society covering his tracks.

The Beaumont Children disappearance (1966) has a few dubious honours. Firstly after the Wanda Beach murders of the previous year it is considered a major turning point in the Australian lifestyle. Secondly it is remembered for having the largest police investigation in Australian history. Now so I don't spend too much time prattling on about this and not getting to what I want to say, I will give a background that is probably shorter then it should really be.

On Australia Day (January 26^th) 1966 the three children of the Beaumont family, Jane (9), Arnna (7) and Grant (4) went to Glenelg for a day at the beach. They lived in Somerton Park which is not that far away from Glenelg or a beach. They left in the morning and never returned home. Despite police searching, false letters, help from the media, 'psychics', and a rather substantial reward no trace of them was found. To this day the case remains unsolved and also changed the Australian way of life. Unlike the Wanda Beach murders where the two girls, Christine Sharrck and Marianne Schmidt were murdered in a somewhat remote part of the Sydney foreshore the Beaumont's disappeared from a packed Glenelg beach. This fear was reinforced after the disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirsty Gorden (11 and 4 respectively) from the packed Adelaide Oval in 1973 and parents became more vigilant (this case was never solved as well).

And now to the whole point of this post.

There are two 'ghosts' of this case. The first is the actual case the ghosts of the children who most likely never grew up at all. The second is one of the media's creation.

Every few years the media will dig up this case and bring it to the limelight. I would say that the first instance of this would have to be with the trial of Bevan Spencer von Einem. There a witness, known as 'B', stated that von Einem was the culprit in the Beumont and Adelaide Oval cases with no actual evidence to support it.

From it's start in 1994 the current affairs show (read: phoney made up rubbish designed to provide people with a different kind of soap opera) Today Tonight has been bringing this back into the limelight with it's latest "The Beaumont children are located in [insert location here]" (i.e. New Zealand, a cult somewhere, Queensland) or "We have 'evidence' as to who did it" story which is stupid enough because the show has no real credibility to begin with.

However it has spread. On the Crime and Investigation Channel they ran a programme about the Beaumont Children and the Wanda Beach murders. The end of the programme they some interviews with some people who 'claimed' that their father had done it.

And now we have this, what you could really call a return to the earlier "von Einem did it" sort of thing.

The problem is that after all the TT 'stories' things that are probably legitimate seem completely pointless, the grasp of stupid television is starting to create an apathetic view on the case. People don't really care any more because the stupid stories have drowned out anything relevant.

Would people care about more important issues like in politics if a show like Today Tonight or A Current Affair produced stories that dealt with an important issue such as the budget to death?

I think so.