Democrats have been criticizing  oil companies  for making high profits while hoping the public will be unaware that Democrats have been pursuing policies that help oil companies make high profits.

One of the first concepts taught in Economics 101 is the law  of supply and demand.   When the supply of a commodity or product is low, companies can charge  more for a commodity like oil.

Democrats by limiting the ability of oil companies to drill for oil are helping the oil companies keep oil in a short supply so that oil companies can charge high prices.  Limiting drilling also helps oil companies keep their costs down. 

Drilling for new wells is very expensive so paying to drill new wells reduces oil company profits.   Increasing the number of wells would require oil companies to hire more people to operate the wells.

Oil companies know that the oil that is off our coasts or in Alaska will still be there in a few years and the demand for oil will continue to increase unless there is a major economic calamity like the Great Depression.  The longer they wait to drill, the more they will be able to charge for the oil when government allows them to drill for it.  

The new politicians who will be elected to authorize drilling will likely be less concerned about any adverse environmental consequences from accidents near drilling sites.  Environmentalists will have much less  influence after it becomes obvious that they have lied about carbon dioxide causing higher temperatures.

The problem with reporters and other Democrats is that they have memories like a VHS tape.  When they get to the end of the tape, they begin recording over what they used to know. 

The Main Stream Media (MSM) and other Democrats may be about to make the same mistake they made in 1992.  They may again ignore  potential problems with  their presidential candidate.

In 1992 the MSM  minimized  claims that  Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton  was a womanizer.  The MSM and the Democratic accepted  his claim that he had only had one affair for which his wife had forgiven him.  Other politicians would subsequently follow the same format when they got caught with their pants  down. 

Another  potential problem involved  one of the many investigations involving the various savings and loan failures.  The Justice Department had discovered the  Clintons might be linked to a failed Arkansas savings and loan.  Democrats ignored the potential damage that the Whitewater  investigation might cause.

Six years later Bill Clinton's womanizing would produce a major scandal and White House intern Monica Lewinsky would become an instant celebrity.  Whitewater and Monicagate would become intertwined when  Clinton lied to a federal judge.  

As a  result of the scandal Clinton was impeached.  Although the Senate didn't vote him out of office, he and his party were weakened.  Even worse, Clinton tried to preserve his administration by provoking a confrontation with Iraq that resulted in the U.N. inspectors leaving the country.  Had the inspectors remained in Iraq, it is highly unlikely that President George W. Bush could have persuaded Congress  to support an invasion of Iraq.

There are allegations that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus cannot meet the Contitutional requirement of being a "natural born citizen".  If he was born in Hawaii he could easily prove it by authorizing Hawaiin officials to show his original birth certificate to the media.  Instead, Obama has provided only an electronic copy of a Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth.     

Electronic copies of documents and pictures are too easy to forge to provide convincing evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii.  Indeed an expert named  Texasdude has analyzed the document and considers it a forgery.

I don't know where Obama was born, but his response thus far implies that he wasn't born in Hawaii.  Those who suggest he might have been born in Kenya and his mother than flew back to Hawaii to make it appear he was born there provide no evidence to support their theory.  I cannot automatically dismiss the theory because many Mexican mothers take risks to cross the border into the U.S. so their babies can be U.S. citizens.

Texas Darlin suggests that his original birth certificate might have been sealed after his stepfather Lolo Soetoro adopted him and a new birth certificate in the name of Barry Soetoro issued.   Under this more plausible theory,  Obama may want to suppress the truth because it would indicate he once was named Barry Soetoro, but failed to note the fact on subsequent  government documents.  Texas Darlin believes Republicans have a copy of Obama's birth certificate.  If they do and it would hurt Obama they probably won't leak it to the media until after he is approved as the Democratic party candidate. 

An official adoption  by an Indonesian  man would mean Obama would have become an Indonesian ctiizen under Indonesian law.  Obama wouldn't have lost U.S. citizenship because the change was involuntary on his part, but he probably would have had to make some type of official statement that he wished to be a U.S. citizen after he became an adult.  It might be possible that holding citizenship in another country, even if involuntary, would mean he no longer qualified as a "natural born citizen".       

Democrats need to get this issue cleared up before they approve Obama as their candidate.  They could end up with a candidate who is unelectable.  Democrats  lost in 2004 in part because the truth about John Kerry's service in Vietnam didn't come out until after Democrats approved him as their candidate. 
       

Both presidential candidates and their running mates should provide us with copies of their birth certificates.  No one will steal their identities because they are too well known.  I read recently that I will have to provide a birth certificate to renew my driver's license even though I  have had a driver's license for 46 years.  

 If we average folks have to prove our citizenship we should require those who want to lead us to do the same thing. If the U.S. government believes anybody might lie about citizenship, then we should recognize that presidential candidates might lie about their citizenship.  Presidential candidates lie about other matters, why do we think they wouldn't lie about their citizenship.

By birth certificate, I mean an actual photocopy of the document produced when they were born complete with the signature of the doctor, midwife, or whoever.  

  Hillary Clinton is still officially a candidate.  Perhaps she could start the process by releasing her birth certificate.

Russia's overreaction to the Georgian attack on  South Ossetia  demonstrates Russia is a potential aggressor and  NATO  is needed to  prevent  it from attempting to expand by force.

In my previous post I indicated that Georgia's attack was ill advised and unjustified.  Georgia's argument that it has an historical claim on    Abkhazia  and South Ossetia ignores the fact that Russia can make the same type claim about Georgia.   Russia's claim on Georgia might be even stronger because Georgian Joseph Stalin  ruled the Soviet Union for many years.

Russia could have justified intervening to force Georgian troops out of  South Ossetia by citing the U.S. action against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait.  However, Russia went beyond that and invaded Georgia like it planned to stay.  Russia also made the mistake of allowing some armed thugs to use violence against Georgians and their property.

Russia's invasion of Georgia indicates it may be planning to invade  Ukraine.  NATO should grant membership to Ukraine now to prevent such an invasion.  Ukraine has a strong army that wouldn't need much back up from NATO.  European nations should take initial steps to expand their military forces with indications that they will not follow through if Russia withdraws from Georgia. 

European leaders should consider the success of President John F. Kennedy's strong  response to the Soviet Union's efforts  to place missiles in Cuba.  The U.S. should do what President Ronald Reagan did in the early 80's and increase spending on missile defense technology.   A potential danger with a strong response is that it could bring down the current Russia government.

European nations need to do whatever they can to prevent having to obtain fuel from Russia.  Such actions should include expanding solar and wind energy along with nuclear and clean coal technology.  Coal plants should include algae reactors to produce oil for fuel use.  European nations should work to develop the technology to convert plastic, paper, etc. wastes into fuel.     

Many people don't understand the issue dealing with  Barack Obama's birth certificate.  If Barack Obama doesn't  meet the limited constitutional qualifications for president he cannot legally exercise the powers of the office.  The fact that his claim about being born in Hawaii have been accepted in the past  doesn't mean the claim is valid. 

If Obama was actually born in Hawaii all he has to do is authorize  Hawaiian officials to show his original birth certificate to the media, possibly with the restriction that journalists not make a copy of it or show the document on television.  The computer generated  document Obama  has on his website   to prove he qualifies as a "natural born citizen"  isn't adequate because it would be too easy to forge as  Israel Insider has suggested in a series of articles.   

I had to obtain a copy of my birth certificate last year when I retired to apply for my state pension.  It's an actual copy of the original which was handwritten on a printed form and included the doctor's signature.  I don't know if the state stores the original documents or maintains copies on microfilm.

The document Obama is using includes only a limited amount of information that could easily have been placed on the computer by a hacker.   If Hawaii actually provides such documents, I suspect that those wishing to establish fake citizenship  choose Hawaii as the state they were supposedly born in.

If  Obama is running for president even though he knows he isn't qualified, he probably wouldn't feel bound by constitutional limits on the president's powers.  We've had enough problems with presidents wanting to expand their powers in recent decades.  We don't need a president who runs for office in violation of the Constitution.

Failure to present evidence that he is qualified to be president could create a constitutional crisis.

Republicans could challenge his election in Congress when the electoral colleges ballots are counted.  If anyone on the Republican side has information that Obama isn't qualified to be president, they would likely not release that information until after he is nominated to discredit the Democratic Party.  

Any government agency that can prove Obama isn't a citizen might use that information to blackmail him rather than make the information public as J Edgar Hoover is believed to have done.

An unqualified president cannot sign legislation into law.  Someone charged with violating new laws could challenge the constitutionality of the laws and request the government to prove that Obama is a "natural born" citizen of the United States. 
  
After 9/11 we learned that many government officials had been lax about issuing government documents.  Obama may not have had to have a birth certificate when he moved in with his grandparents in 1971.  He would have obtained a passport when he was very young because his mother moved across national boundaries.  In the 1960's he probably would not have needed a birth certificate if his mother provided a statement about his birth.

What was Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili  thinking when he attacked the former Georgian provinces of  Abkhazia and South Ossetia?  Did he really think he could conquer those areas without a Russian response?

As the oldest of three boys he should have been aware of what can happen when big brother decides to get even with little brother for some provocative action. As the oldest of four kids I learned that  parents don't take kindly to an older child taking advantage of size when dealing with younger siblings.  Those who don't have siblings  probably have seen the following scenario on  a tv show or movie.  Little brother teases big brother until big brother responds by hitting little brother.  Little brother then complains to dad  who, depending upon when the program or movie was made, takes off his belt to punish big brother or sternly lectures big brother.

Saakashvili thinks Georgia should be able to control the provinces because they were historically part of Georgia.  However,  Russia can make the same claim about Georgia being historically a part of Russia long before Russia started calling itself the Soviet Union.   In fact, native Georgian Joseph Dzhugashvili (aka Joseph Stalin) helped turn Russia into the Soviet Union
 
The provinces left Georgia during the same period when Georgia left the Soviet Union / Russia.  If Georgia can justify retaking the provinces by force, then Russia can justify retaking Georgia by force.

Georgia needs to abandon all claims to its former provinces and try to find a way to peacefully coexist with the Russian bear.  That is if it isn't already too late.
  

Continued questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate demonstrate that the major parties  need  to  institute a requirement  that  those who want  a party's nomination should first have to undergo a full scale FBI background check before seeking the nomination.  Such a requirement would insure party members had all necessary information before choosing candidates. 

Israel Insider, a major online newspaper in Israel, is claiming that the birth certificate Barack Obama is using to claim  to have been born in Hawaii is a forgery.   Analysis indicates   it might be  a modified version of his half-sister Maya Kassandra Soetoro's birth certificate.  You may recall that online experts exposed a forged document Dan Rather attempted to use to discredit George W. Bush four years ago.

If the claim is correct, it would not necessarily mean Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.  He could have simply have used her birth certificate instead of obtaining a copy of his own.  I don't know why he would do so, but it is a possibility.  Perhaps there is some type of adverse information on his birth certificate.

Obama's citizenship is potentially questionable because his parents were not both U.S. citizens as was the case with John McCain's parents.  Being born to a mother who was a U.S. citizenship would not automatically have conferred  U.S. citizenship because his father was not  a U.S. citizen.  Being born  in  the United States or  their possessions would have eliminated  any question.  The laws in effect at the time were complex and his mother's extended residence outside the U.S. would have worked against him.  

The citizenship question is important because the Constitution requires presidents to be a "natural born citizen"  but does not define the qualification.

The Democratic Party should request  Hawaiian authorities and/or the FBI to investigate to determine if there is a valid birth certificate on file for him.    Past elections indicate that the truth will eventually come out.  Democrats need to find out the truth before they nominate someone who might be using an invalid document to claim eligibility to run for president.  Nominating an ineligible presidential candidate would  probably  give the election to Sen. John McCain, regardless of whom Democrats chose to replace Obama.
 
Democrats had to replace vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton in 1972 after it was belatedly discovered he had been treated for depression.

Presidential and vice presidential candidates have no secrets.  Anything questionable in the their past will likely come out  like  George W,. Bush's DUI arrest when he was young.   A background check would insure that party members would know about such problems before choosing a nominee.
 
The issue in this case can be resolved easily if Obama will authorize Hawaii to show a copy of his birth certificate to the media.   For the future, the parties need to have background checks.

Those of us who were around in the 50's and 60's remember the way  teenage school girls  swooned over rock stars like Elvis Presley and the Beatles.  The articulate versions of Ted Baxter who masquerade as journalists are behaving like school girls around Barack Obama.

These phony journalists  think that the only requirement for  presidents is the ability to mouth the proper political cliches.  Obama is saying what the school girls want to hear so they blindly  endorse him as the next Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I mean President of the United States.    

The school girls believe that Obama will move into the White House and make all the problems go away like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz supposedly could do. They don't think it matters  that Obama has never actually held a position  in which he solved major problems.  But then school girls readily accept the claims of adolescent males who say they can do anything.

Babies shouldn't be used as props on any kind of  television show.  Babies are human beings, not objects to be used for a television network's profit.  If the purpose of the NBC series  "The Baby Borrowers," was to give young teen couples  an idea of what  dealing with a baby would be like, the network didn't need to use real babies.

Professional educators have been teaching teens about being a parent without using real babies.  North Carolina Cooperative Extension centers in Cumberland, Richmond and Scotland counties won an award for its “Baby, Think It Over” program in which over 500 high school  students experienced parenting using dolls programmed to function like a baby on a normal 24 hour schedule.

The Mexican state of Chihuahua as well as various areas in the U.S. and Britain have used more advanced dolls made by RealCare for similar programs. 

Hollywood has some very  capable technical people who could have worked with RealCare to make the dolls even more effective.  However, that wouldn't have had the entertainment value of showing real babies and might  have cost more.    NBC obviously didn't produce this program to help teenagers.  It produced the program to make money.

If NBC wants a program to educate teen viewers about the realities of taking care of babies, it can do so using professional actors with  child psychologists helping to write the scripts  and show the actors  how to deal with different situations.  Programs could have the characters make mistakes and show the consequences of those mistakes.

NBC could accomplish a similar goal in a reality show context by using real young couples who are first time parents.  Child psychologists could monitor their activities and help them correct mistakes.  These psychologists could explain to viewers what the couples were doing right or wrong.      

In  previous posts I discussed the abuse of babies for profit by NBC  on its reality show  "The Baby Borrowers,"

If  you  agree that  this series should be ended you can protest in various ways.  You can tell NBC what you think on the NBC FORUM

You can protest  to your local NBC affiliate about the program.  You  could also file a protest with the FCC, although the situation would not seem to fit into a specific category of protest topics on their website.

You can link to  Dr. Jan Hunt's letter criticizing the show on your blog,  post it on sites that reprint  articles from other sites or write a letter to your local newspaper.

You can contact your Senators and Representative in Congress to request a congressional investigation of  the program with the possibility of prohibiting  television from using children, especially babies, in reality shows.  Congress should at the very least require NBC and its advertisers for the program to establish a trust fund to cover any subsequent mental health problems the children might experience because of the program.   Currently only California has legislation protecting child actors from exploitation by the entertainment industry and "stage mothers".

Many child actors have experienced serious  psychological problems as adults.      Paul Peterson  who played  Jeff Stone, the son on  "The Donna Reed" show, has spoken out for years on the problems of child actors.

 You can contact the companies that advertised on the program and request that they not advertise on any future programs in the series.  A partial list of advertisers includes:  Verizon Wireless, Tylenol, Subway,     Mentos gum,  Hot Pockets, Klondike Bar, All Bran, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep,   T_Mobile, Wanted,  (Pizza Hut) CoffeeMate, Samsung,   Listerine, Vagisil, All State.

Director of the Natural Child Project child psychologist Dr. Jan Hunt, who is the director of the is very concerned about the potential negative impact of the treatment of the babies on the NBC reality series "Baby Borrowers".  

Hunt is concerned that the separation from parents could increase production of the stress hormone cortisol in the babies:    "When cortisol is produced due to emotional stress, the next stressful experience creates an even larger surge of cortisol. By the time a stressed child reaches adulthood, he is likely to overreact to all stressful situations, making it harder to cope with life's challenges. For all these reasons, babies and young children should be kept as stress-free as possible, to protect their future psychological and physical health."

I have a long standing interest in how the brain develops and functions.  At one time I was considering  going into the field of  what is called "artificial intelligence" which involves  simulating  human intelligence on a computer, but decided I was more interested in dealing with the actual ideas rather than the detailed process  the brain uses to form them.

 Much of the baby's brain development involves  developing brain cells to control the muscles for movement of various parts of the body, eventually including the complex process of speaking.  The baby also develops neurons to store information about the baby's environment.  Baby's normally don't form specific memories about individual events in their lives, but they use those events to learn how to react to their environment in the  future.  
   
Babies don't remember  what actually happened on  early birthdays and Christmases,  but they may remember these events as happy events to look forward to.

Babies may remember what they consider traumatic events in a general fashion.  For example, adults' fear of receiving shots may result from a memory of vaccinations received as infants.   Claustrophobia and other fears sometimes are the result of very unpleasant childhood experiences.  The sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic  Church have publicized the fact that children may suppress memories of  sexual abuse for long periods of time, but suffer from psychological problems during that period.   For a baby a traumatic experience doesn't necessarily involve anything wrong or illegal.   For a baby a doctor's exam can be a very unpleasant experience.

Babies may not remember how they have been "mistreated", but they may associate similar situations or people with a similar appearance to that mistreatment.   A baby who was particularly upset by an exam by a doctor with a mustache might in the future have a negative reaction to men with mustaches. 

Babies respond differently to the same situations depending upon their genetics and experiences and possibly the way their brains have developed prior to the event.  Not all babies react the same way to being separated from the parents and put in the care of individuals with no child care experience.  The babies in this experiment may suffer  psychological  problems  sometime  in the future.  that may be triggered by persons or situations that remind the baby, child or even adult of something "bad" that happened during the experiment.

 

NBC is abusing small children by using them for a "social experiment"  and profit on a show airing on Wednesday's at 9 EDT/ 8 CDT beginning June 25  called "The Baby Borrowers"    .  On the program teenagers  pretend to be the parents of babies by substituting for the babies' real parents.

Dr. Jan Hunt director of the Natural Child Project   says:  "As a parent, child psychologist and family counselor, I am deeply concerned about the premise of your new show "The Baby Borrowers," and for the present and future emotional health of the babies and young children whose lives will be so strongly affected." 

Scientists have only limited knowledge of how the brain develops in young children.  Babies cannot say  how they feel.  The information the baby receives and its feelings about the information  influences how the neurons in the brain develop.   Scientists  know  that events in a baby's life can positively or negatively  affect brain development.     

According to the news story about the show on the network's Wichita, Ks., affiliate KSNW, the people appearing on the show are volunteers who are not compensated.   How does a baby volunteer to be on a television show?   Using children as performers on a commercial television show without payment should be illegal if it isn't already.   If adults are stupid enough to appear  on a commercial television show without compensation they should be allowed to do so.  But children should not be exploited for profit by heartless television networks.   How can the network know the reasons  why these parents allowed NBC to exploit their babies

Small children should not be used for experiments with the only possible exception being controlled experiments conducted by professional scientists that pose zero threat to the physical or mental health of the children. 

The program claims to show teens how to be parents by taking care of the children for an extended period. Does that mean the babies are working longer than babies would be allowed to work if they were paid television actors?  Hollywood typically has used twins for very small children on television shows to avoid overworking the children.

The program claims to be a "reality show", but the situation is not realistic.  The teen guinea pig parents cannot relate to their pretend babies in the same way a real parent would.   The babies will not relate to total strangers the way they would to their parents.

 I have heard enough about the psychological problems many  former child actors had to  believe that children should only be used in television programs if  absolutely necessary.   This program is not necessary.  

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign slogan "Change We Can Believe In" is a nonsense phrase.  It has no real meaning.

Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn't make any sense to believe in "change"?   I can see believing in religion or love or maybe even music, but believing in "change" makes no sense.  It might make sense to believe in Sen. John McCain's ability to handle the presidency, but believing in some vaguely defined  change is ridiculous.

Bill Clinton suggested "It's time to change America" when he ran in 1992.  I don't recall him changing much of anything, although two years later voters  changed Congress by replacing many Democrats with Republicans.

The slogan "Change We Can Believe In" sounds like something a child might consider impressive, but it has no real meaing.    Not surprisingly, Obama has more appeal to inexperienced  young  voters than to wiser older voters who have seen a lot of fast talking phony politicians.

Obama  a few months ago commented about the psychological state of small town people who believed  in  religion, etc.  What is the psychological  state of  people who believe in some vaguely defined "change"? 

Obama's supporters  must have very empty lives to believe that some vague "change" is going to make their lives better.   Do they expect the president  to provide them some type of psychological satisfaction?

The term sounds like it might be some type of code word that Obama and his supporters understand, but whose meaning is supposed to be unknown to others.

As an historian I am inherently suspicious of politicians who rely on oratorical ability to reach people on an emotional level.  Southern populists like Huey Long and George Wallace used such emotional oratory to succeed.  Adolph Hitler was a master of the technique. 

I am also suspicious of politicians who use vague code words.  Politicians sometimes use code words and phrases to cover up what they are doing.  For example, white southern politicians used the phrase "states' rights" to convince people outside the south that southern whites should be allowed to mistreat black American citizens.   Southerns whites argued they were attempting to "preserve their way of life" without mentioning that their way of life involved rape and murder of black residents.       

How can we be sure the that Barack Obama  is not talking about a "change"  designed to reduce the level of democracy in the United States?  What guarantee do his supporters have that "change" is just a con to get them to vote for a candidates who doesn't have the necessary management experience to run one of Donald Trump's small companies?

In Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union a political party offiicial could be more powerful than government officials. In communist states the head of the communist party is often the most powerful person in the country because he determines who holds the government offices.  In the United States, government officials elected by the people are supposed to be more powerful  than  political party officers.  

At one time in the U.S. political party leaders chose political candidates in secret to insure the candidates would serve whatever special interests controlled the party.  State governments created the political primary system to eliminate this form of corruption and insure popular control over the candidate selection  process. 

The Democatic Party is attempting to circumvent the popular selection of candidates by claiming it can tell states when they can hold  presidential primaries.  Allowing political parties to order state to follow  party orders rather than the will of the people in the respective states is a direct assault on the idea of government by the people and a movement to the type of political system of Naxi Germany and the Soviet Union. 

The states of Michigan and Florida need to tell the Democratic Party to seat their delegates or face the prospect of not having a presidential candidate on the November ballot.  Allowing the a small group of  Democrats to deny voters in their states the right to participate in the candidate selection  process would  a violation of the oath state officials take to defend the Constitution.

You've seen the following plot dozens of times on television.  The police decide a death is an accident or suicide and someone like Jim Rockford, Harry Orwell or maybe Jessica Fletcher has to convince the police the death was a murder.

Today two real live Harry Orwells,  retired NYPD detectives  Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, are attempting to convince law enforcement officers in  many jurisdictions that a series  of drownings  are murders rather than  accidents or suicides.  Like the cops on  PI shows the police in most of these cases have taken the easy way out and written the cases off  so they don't have  to  risk investigating  crimes that might be very difficult to solve.  The Federal Bureau Investigation  isn't interested  if local police don't think there is a problem.

The investigation began with the death of college student Patrick McNeill, who drowned in New York City in 1997. Gannon made a promise to McNeill's parents that he would never give up on his case. They have already convinced Minnesota authorities that the death of University of Missesota student Christopher Jenkins was a homicide instead of an accident. 

They believe 40 or more college men have been murdered many by drowning them in rivers, even in winter.  In the best  tradition of "CSI" they have examined  data on  river currents to determine where each body likely entered the water.  Subsequent examinations of the area around the points of entry has revealed various different smiley faced graffiti.   

I saw an 60's or 70's era movie about urban terrorism years ago. The only thing I remember about the movie is the quote:  "Once is an accident.  Twice is a coincidence.  Three times is enemy action."  

The number of drowning deaths of men with similar characteristics with the associated smiley face indicates the work of a serial killer or killers.  The fact that nine were students at  the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse  is particularly suspicious.  

The idea of murdering  people by drowning them isn't new.  Characters in old gangster movies often talked about  this method of  eliminating someone, although the victim was often first fitted with "cement overshoes" so the body wouldn't be found.   In murder mysteries victims might be drowned in bathtubs, swimming pools, rivers or the ocean.

Drowning provides certain  advantages to murderers.  There is no murder weapon for the police to find  and link the murderer to the crime.  The water may wash off any DNA or fiber evidence.  

Getting the victim into the water can present a problem when the victim isn't cooperative, especially if the victim starts yelling.  The possibility of being seen also increases the risk of being caught.  The first problem can be reduced if the victim is drunk which is one of the similarities of the victims in the smiley face murders.  Putting the victim in the water at night, expecially during cold weather would also reduce risk.  Night fishing isn't as common in cold weather as it is in warm weather so there  would be less chance of someone seeing the crime. 

The fact that people sometimes drown accidentally or commit suicide by drowning benefits murderers, particularly if law enforcement officers don't want to bother with cases that are difficult to solve.  A drowning death might reasonably be classified as an accident if the person was known to be swimming at the time, was at a party along a river bank or perhaps drowned near his or her residence particularly if impaired by alcohol or medication. 

However,  a drowning should be considered suspicious if the police cannot place the person in the vicinity of the place where he or she entered the water or there is anything suspicious about the condition of the body, such as the placement of the arms in some cases studied by Gannon and Duarte.   If the person had been drinking before the death, the police need to determine if the person was physically able to get to the point where the body entered the water particularly if the drowning didn't occur near the route the person would take to get home.
 
If the victims were predominately black instead of predominately white, the Rev. Al  Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson would be screaming for an investigation.  If the victims were female, the news media would be speculating about another Ted Bundy. 

So, why is the FBI refusing to investigate the case? Don't the feds  think white males can be the victims of crimes?

What if the 40 deaths had involved some  symptoms  that might indicate a disease?  For example, what if all  of  those who had died had reported  muscle aches followed by a rash and then an extremely high fever.  The Center of Disease Control and the World Health Organization would both be investigating to determine if there was a common cause for the deaths.  The CDC  would want to know if those who died had had physical contact or perhaps contact with the same individual or individuals. Perhaps they  all could have consumed the same food product before becoming sick.  Health officials would rather investigate something that doesn't turn out to be a crisis than risk having an epidemic develop because they didn't take the situation seriously enough.  AIDS was discovered because  doctors  became  suspicious after noticing the increasing appearance of previously rare disorders.

Shouldn't the FBI be just as diligent in investigating a possible criminal epidemic?   The FBI is supposed to be the nation's premier law enforcement agency.   Local law enforcement  agencies are often underfunded and understaffed. They may not have the type of facilities and personnel seen on CSI.   They may be prone to concentrate on obvious crimes instead of attempting to deal with  situations that might  or might not involve crimes.  Local departments  are unlikely  to recognize  serial crimes  that occur in many different jurisdictions. 

Gannon and Duarte  believe more than one killer might be involved because  in some cases  deaths occurred in more than one state on the same day.    Who could be the killer or killers?  The fact the victims were men could indicate female killers, perhaps women wanting to emulate Aileen Wuornos who admitted to killing 7 men.  A woman could lure a man by promising sex or pretending to need help with her car.    A satanic cult is an obvious possibility.   The fact the victims tended to be successful in sports, academics and/or popular could indicate the killers are young males with similar attitudes  of the  Columbine  High School killers.   Members of an informal group  might  link to each other on the Internet and  help each other plan the attacks. 

Perhaps I'm expecting too much from the FBI.   After all  today's FBI isn't the FBI  of Ephrem Zimbalist's Inspector Lewis Erskine.

Today's FBI is the organization whose leaders didn't think  the number of Saudis  learning to fly airliners  in  2001 was worth investigating.  Today's FBI couldn't figure out that a man who wanted to learn how to fly airliners, but not land them,  might be planning to hijack an  airliner and crash it into something.  The FBI initially believed the DC sniper was a lone white male instead of the two black males they eventually caught.

If the FBI refuses to investigate and the Smiley Face deaths turn out to be murders rather than a bizarre coincidence, Congress needs to consider replacing the FBI with a real law enforcement agency that is capable of protecting us from criminals and terrorists.