"unbiased investigators"?
584288
Seems the whole purpose of this book is clearly stated in the first paragraph of the conclusion.

"Here's what it all comes down to. There is not a single shred of evidence that alien abductions are taking place other than the tainted testimony of the abductees. The physical evidence to support the claims is nonexistent. What has been offered as proof has been eliminated through testing by objective scientists or additional research by unbiased investigators."

Really?
2911300
What a pig's breakfast--not the book, but the investigation of the JonBenet Ramsey murder. This book is a well-researched, unbiased examination of the case from the murder itself to the grand jury's consideration of the evidence, but for some reason, the author stops short of telling the grand jury's decision--not enough evidence to indict anybody, I know, but one still might have said that, even if it took another few pages to do so.  If possible, I'd rate this book 4.5 stars, docking it half a star for that final omission.
2778073
You missed the point, sir.  Yes, it is true that CBS based a portion of a 60 Minutes II segment on documents that appear to be of questionable validity.  HOWEVER -- CBS has admitted their error and invited outsiders to come into CBS and investigate the matter.  I trust that CBS will give more coverage to the final outcome than they did to the original story.  Ditto for NPR -- I contribute to and listen to NPR and when NPR boradcasts something that is not accurate, they come back and correct their inaccuracies.  As far as I can tell, Fox, the Moonie Times, Regnery Publishing, and the like have never corrected the lies, distortions, and misrepresetations that make up the vast majority of their productions.  The truth is simple:  Fox is Pravda for Republicans.
3068016
This is the ONLY book available that I find to present the other side of the story. The poor reviews, you will notice upon reading, are from those with very pre set & passionate idea of guilt. People do troll book reviews to vent, and I'm glad I overlooked that.

The author is a former prosecutor, his main adult life career in fact. I found him very credible. Geragos fired him as investigator when he articulated concerns over counsel & facilitated the family meeting with alternate law firms. I think it had been made relatively obvious by now that there was validity to those concerns.

Dalton presents all of the fruits of his investigation, his impressions of Scott (wich aren't earth shattering, reinforcing the same emotional introvert, well spoken, engaging but socially 'stiff' personality/demeanor that has been over analyzed as evidence of guilt for the long haul.

Balanced information in this case was more than difficult to find. There is great research added into the information of this book that is criticized as 'far fetched' in several reviews here in regards to cult activity in that area. Living in NJ, I would never have known that their area IS STILL one of the highest concentration area of organized & recogized Satan Worship sects; enough that the county has, to this day, 1) An entire law enforcement division dedicated to such and 2) SEVERAL non profit human services organizations dedicated to helping those that are wanting to safely & effectively leave their cults, gangs, 'churches' whatever people prefer to call them.

Also, the author or his editor does mistate one sentence about Amy Rocha where the words 'why would he have had her sister Amy over....' instead of 'why would he have invited her sister Amy over...'. However, the context around the sentence made it clear this was simply an error that happened somewhere in the process. I did not find it to be nefarious or discrediting toward the author, since the context lent itself to an editing error.

Overall this book offers the reader an inside & personal view of the process, observations & findings of, perhaps the only, Scott Peterson advocate that didn't have any agenda of his own & was fired as a result of that.
4104151
This is a review of the reviews.  Every single review I've read came from people who got this free or practically free for an "unbiased" review.  Unbiased?  Unbiased means you paid the same price I would ... when you get something for free you don't really care if it's only mediocre at best, and if you're afraid you won't get more free stuff if you give low stars then you can be sure it isn't unbiased.
681690
Seven years after the death of "our last patriarch,"(RFK) the conspiracy trail winds down, but not out. Here, at a southern university, Mr. Buckley confronts the former skeptic, Allard K. Lowenstein, a young, former cynic with regards to conspiracy theories, who rises to the occasion to reveal in one hour the contradictory facts never fully revealed weighed against the government's "stated" and publicized facts openly. After viewing this hour raptly, I was dumfounded that I heard for the first time an alleged tie to the Bush family, repeatedly throughout. (I guess the Bush elder was on the investigating committee)No matter. At that time, the country had suffered the Watergate mess, a farcical House re-investigation of the JFK assassination that called no eye-witnesses with contradictory testimonies,and the ascendancy of a lone independent journalistic team (Woodward/Bernstein), who vanished on the D.C cocktail trail. The only journalist to look beneath the surface of domestic things since, Dan Rather, was disgraced and sent packing. Only an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" in the 90's took up the contradictory eye-witness accounts in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen captured by an eye-witness teen photographer.(What happened to him with his film suggests there is truth to the "ice-berg" Buckley brought up several times) Mr. Lowenstein's immediate grasp of facts and names certified that his revelations would all come out, without witty digressions this time to a disturbing puzzlement. Once more, like the 911 Commission Report, the eye-witness testimony does not match the courtroom press or White House "facts." And, as Mr. Lowenstein shows, if the agencies will not re-test the guns to certify ballistic consistency, and an investigation eye-witness (Mr. X) does not wish to re-state his physical position to RFK in the kitchen, etc. there will be no exploration of the "ice-berg" created by the discrepancy between official accounts and science. The telling remark is when Mr. Lowenstein admits how an untruthful exposure of the facts and contradictions may let untold enemies to influence political campaigns. I don't know if he was thinking of 2001, but it sure seems like it. (Both the investigations(RFK and 911)discard overwhelming eye-witness testimony and good science) Miss Marple or Rumpole would have taken the case on if the "findings" said 13 rounds came from a six-shooter. Not our elected officials.
4023375
I took a class taught by Jonathan Haidt at NYU Stern. His survey questions, survey methods, and resulting "datasets" are inherently biased with leading questions, sampling errors, and implicit assumptions--which is probably why he does not provide information about his surveys or datasets that form the basis of his "moral foundations". He arrogantly dimisses any criticism of his obvious conservative bias with a "oh, but I consider myself liberal" despite telling news sources that he has become more conservative after spending time at the University of Chicago. He also told the class, in earnest, that "libertarians are the smartest people he has ever met" (I suspect he considers himself one".

When confronted with the supposition that he may have missed a crucial "moral foundation", critical reasoning, (e.g. liberals care about the scientific method and truth, but conservatives do not if it contradicts one of their "moral foundations") he acknowledges that this is true, but since it doesn't help his case that conservatives have more developed morality, he does not take it any further nor suggest that this is the reason that liberals are skeptical of the "virtues" of sanctity and authority. Contrast this with his desperation to find a reason why conservatives do not care about fairness--oh, they do it's just proportional!

"I've been reading Jonathan Haidt's work over the years with an attitude that follows an unfortunate trajectory, downwards. At first, it was with interest -- his ideas about moral intuition being defined by a kind of emotional response first with the intellectual response forming a veneer of rationalizations after the fact seems valid. But then he went off on this "moral foundations" stuff, where he identified different axes of motivations, like care vs. harm, and then the axes started proliferating, and pretty quickly it all became a lumpy mush without much utility. He's succumbed to Labeling Disease, something that hits some psychologists hard, in which they observe that which they measure, stick a name on it, and try hard to reify it into existence, even if it has no correspondence to any substrate in the brain at all. Id, ego, superego, anyone?

Then he won a Templeton Prize, shredding most of his credibility. Lately he's been wandering around in a fog of sincere open-mindedness, letting his brain sublimate into a kind of misty moral ambiguity that looks more like blithe nihilism than anything else."

From: [...]
3394602
Right off the bat, let me say that I'm not sure If I believe everything Ed and Lorraine Warren say they have experienced over the years.  For those of us that keep up on these things, I am not the only skeptic.  They are of course one of the oldest and most famous teams of parapsychology researchers, having been involved in the Amityville Horror case, and they claim to have investigated (up until Mr. Warren's death in 2006) over 10,000 cases.  Their research methods have been called "unscientific,"  and they have a distinctly Catholic bias (not a bad thing necessarily).  Mrs. Warren is currently involved in litigation regarding the reprint of "The Devil in Connecticut," in which an involved party alleges that the tale of demon possession was a hoax.  The same has been said regarding Amityville, and that the Warren's were just out to make a quick sensationalist buck.

  Without knowing them personally or having intimate details of their history, I can only say that I do not believe they are manufacturing a majority of what they say they have experienced.  There is a difference between an outright lie, and literary creativity, which is one of the things that makes this one of the most entertaining and interesting books in the field.

  Mr. Warren begins with a brief history of odd occurrences in the state of Connecticut, then specifically to the sightings of the "White Lady" of Union Cemetery in Monroe.  Notable cases include the body of a murdered man that rises from a sinkhole despite having his pockets weighted with lead, A talk-show host who receives a call from a local cemetery inviting him to a rendezvou with his long dead son, and a former U.S. Senator who receives a call from the murdered daughter of his dead aunt on a phone that has long been disconnected.  All of these stories are well-written and related with brilliant creative flourish, most retold from stories related to the Warren's by their clients over the years.  Mr. Warren also relates the tale of meeting a long dead friend and member of their New England Society for Psychical Research in a cemetery in broad daylight.

  Perhaps Mr. And Mrs Warren were too quick to attribute either supernatural or demonic influences to many of the cases they have worked on over the years.  Will the litigation "prove" it to me?  No.  Did they engage in shoddy methods that might give more scientifically skeptical researchers a bad name?  Perhaps.  Was the book highly entertaining and fascinating.  Absolutely.

5 out of 5 skulls.
3687176
Fascinating subject. I live in NC and this case has always held a ton of interest in our area.

Morris accuses the investigators and prosecution of deciding MacDonald was guilty, and then gathering and presenting evidence which only fit their case. He seems incapable of objectively analyzing the evidence and pays little credence to the "girl in the floppy hat" as far as her extensive drug use as a reason to doubt her confession.  And,  if she made a death-bed confession (again) then why wouldn't she give all of the details and why wouldn't she name the other assailants?

Finally, as an attorney practicing in eastern NC, his depiction of Judge Dupree as less than qualified, biased and skipping over a conflict (his ex son in law was involved in the investigation) just is not correct. And, the trial was in 1979. He and Bernie Segal (MacDonald's lead defense counsel) portray the jury as a bunch of hayseeds, which is simply not the case.

Anyway, an interesting story, but nothing new.
1894910
I love reading these reviews!  I am a Democrat and even I think this is very slanted.  To assume otherwise is to ignore the obvious truth.  Personally, I like the biased view but I am open to the fact that it is indeed biased to begin with!
One reviewer notes that K. Harris had the discretion to block certain voter blocks.  Absolutely true!  No one mentions that Democratic Secretaries of State do the same thing in their respective States do they?
Overall, let's get real...George W. Bush won the Electoral College with the help of the Supreme Court.  On the other hand, the race was really too close to call so the courts took the snapshot and picked the winner.  It happened.  I do not blame either Democrats or Republicans for the outcome.  I wish it had not been that close to begin with.
God...Why couldn't Al Gore take his own home State of Tennessee?  If he had, it wouldn't have mattered.  Oh well...The next election is upon us and it looks to be close again...Get out and vote!
76926
I read about finance quite a bit, but was looking for something that would be get me thoughts on the world of finance since the economic crisis of 2008.  This fit the bill nicely.

Someone else said that Bill Bernstein's advice sounds like it's coming from your friendly and wise uncle who is looking out for your best interests.  I agree.

The words "unbiased" and "credible" come to mind.

Enjoy
1629478
Instead of "Chronicling Their Cooperation" in a book, why didn't they sit down with the police for four months, presumably while a "killer" was out there. They did not cooperate, yet now they are  trying to suggest that they did. They are as much to blame for the failure  of this investigation as anyone, probably more so. Maybe they had a reason  for wanting it to fail ?
This self-serving piece is just more of the  same propoganda. These are the same people who are now saying, four years  later, that they will take a polygraph. They would have before, they say,  but "nobody asked us". These people are unbeleivable.
3734343
The professional paranormal investigative stories, personal experiences, and very objective, no-nonsense approach to spirit work makes this book a good read. Impressive credentials held by the investigator Duwane Ledbetter, assure you that he knows what he's talking about and has the necessary investigative tools to get to the root of the spirit activity. Would recommend this unbiased book to everyone!
3989869
A familiar case from media coverage, but covered more completely here.  A well written, unbiased view of the events surrounding this sad case.  The author alludes to several possible reasons for the murders, but draws no  conclusions, and that is as it should be as the evidence doesn't clearly support one or another.  In that sense the reader is left perhaps dissatisfied, but this is a true crime account - and that is the true conclusion of this particular case.
1564646
I have noticed Ramsey supporters repeatedly pouncing on any books that seem to address their guilt - this being another.

While the presentation of this book may be imperfect, the technology of Reverse Speech, developed by Australian researcher David John Oates, cannot be questioned. Oates himself has excellent credentials, having worked with a number of official bodies, including law enforcement agencies.

The Reverse Speech website reversespeech.com has a section devoted to the Ramsey case, and one of the most haunting audio clips is the one in which JonBenet's song is reversed, and played back at three different speeds. While the effect is unsettling, the words 'Mommy, now I know evil love' can be clearly discerned by the second time through.

Like Rubacher, Oates concludes that the Ramseys did not intentionally kill their daughter, a view held by many of the people who consider them to be in some way responsible for her death.

One of the problems with the book content is that there is no real background to the case, so the data appears in something of a vaccuum.

However, it remains one of the most intriguing insights into the case so far, and confirms the view that I have always held, that the Ramseys were responsible for the un-premeditated manslaughter of their child. The Intruder theory was provably nonsensical, and every single 'clue' that the Ramsey defenders have tried to cling to has been debunked years ago.

Not only was there no clear evidence of an intruder, it was physically impossible for a killer to have had such close and prolonged physical contact with the child and yet leave no clear, full spectrum DNA behind at the crime scene.

The suspect John Mark Karr has predictably turned out to be a nut job, and cleared completely of any involvement with the case.

As Rubacher, Oates and others have shown, despite the carefully orchestrated propaganda from the Ramseys and their lawyers, their own unconscious words have betrayed them.
2664939
I just saw a thing on ABC News Primetime last night---Arthur Leigh Allen, by DNA comparison (from his autopsy, and saliva from the flaps of authentic Zodiac letters) isn't the Zodiac killer. Several other suspects were eliminated by DNA comparison also. I guess everyone needs to return to the drawing board.
3555338
Dear Ms. Samit,

My wife and I, based on a colleague's recommendation, went to Melvin Green to have our taxes done.  At the time he mentioned that his accountant was named Sariah (or something similar).  According to Green it was the Hebrew name for Sarah.  He also stated that she was from China originally, which, as a Christian, seemed strange to me.  This was in the early 80's or late 70's.  I could check our records for exactly when, if it is of any help.  I do remember seeing her on our first appointment, but not thereafter.

I have never in my life come this close to a murderer.  So if I can lend anything to your effort to tie the assassin to this crime maybe the information that you could glean from Melvin's ex-wife would help.  It does seem that you have not attempted to follow that possible source of information.  If the assassin was located across the street from Green's business, as one source suggested, it may very well be that Green's ex-wife knew that person from having visited Greens office.  I would expect that court records would reveal the ex-wife's name, and if you are not able to find her perhaps a PI could.  Ive heard that their fee for this type of service is not expensive.  Did you ever consider the fact that Green may have also prepared the assassins tax return?

One other thing I remember about Green, which may be relevant to his violent nature, is that he liked to show clients his ability to take a thick LA telephone directory and rip it in half for the entertainment value, which he did demonstrate to us.  He was a rather large man and I can only imagine what his wife, Anita, might have suffered, either directly or through implied threats.

I haven't read your book, and am too busy to do so.  My sole purpose is to provide a suggestion that might lead for any information you might discover in identifying the assassin by the suggestions above.  I just happened to think about this today and decided to see whether the assassin had been identified and sent to prison.  In the process I discovered the book you wrote and a YouTube account by Unsolved Mysteries.  The Internet is a wonderful tool in learning about things past that never would have been possible before it existed.