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writing for godot

Legitimate Suspicion

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Written by Richard Butrick   
Monday, 24 June 2013 21:42


“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” The meddlesome priest in question was Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the utterer of this lament was Henry II. His faithful knights took heed and in that same year, 1170, four knights confronted Thomas Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral as Becket headed to vespers. They cut off the top of his head and began stabbing him, leaving him to die, and smearing Beckett’s brain matter on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral.

Young, Harris, Bridges, Breitbart and now Hastings.

Young? Donald Young’s bullet-ridden body was found in his Chicago apartment on December 23, 2007, in what appeared to be an assassination-style slaying. In an interview with The Globe, Norma Jean Young, the 76-year old mother of the late Trinity United Church of Christ choir director, declared that persons trying to protect Obama murdered her son at the height of the 2007 Democratic presidential primary to protect Obama from embarrassing revelations about his homosexual relationship with her son.

Harris? Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigation regarding Obama’s passport, was found
(4/08) slumped dead inside a car. He had been shot once in the head.

Bridges? Comic actor and impersonator Steve Bridges, known for his impressions of U.S. presidents, especially of Barack Obama, was found dead at his Los Angeles home. Bridges was 48. It was rumored that the White House had tried to put a stop to Bridges’ Obama impersonation because the President was deeply offended by Bridges’ act.

Breitbart? Ok. That story is well known. Breitbart had vowed to release a video of Obama’s college days that would change the 2012 elections. He suddenly collapsed and died while walking near his home in southern California. He had had a few drinks at a neighborhood bar.

Just recently, at the age of 33, investigative reporter Michael Hastings was incinerated in his Mercedes when it suddenly jackknifed and blew up into flames. According to one witness it sounded like a bomb went off. The engine was blown 100 feet from the incinerated wreck. Hasting gained fame as an investigative reporter with his article in Rolling Stones that ended Gen. Stanley McChrystal career. Hastings’ last article was “Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans.” According to friends he had been in a very agitated state of mind and worried about government surveillance.

The common denominator? All of the above were in a position or seemed to be in a position to seriously harm the President’s stature. None had highly powerful constituencies backing them up. All cases were sudden deaths.

Well, what is to be made of all of this? Correlation does not prove causation. The rooster does not cause the sun to rise (it’s the other way, actually). Fine. But the question here is to what extent does increasing the number of correlations increase the probability of connection?

Each case is a case of sudden death correlated with the potential to cause serious personal/political harm to Obama. At what point does piling on such correlations begin to make the case for a connection? It is a question of probability not proof. From a common sense perspective if a person is suspected in a given 7-11 robbery and then is a suspect in more and more 7-11 robberies, the probability that there is a connection goes up. And indeed the mathematical theory of evidence backs up and rationalizes that intuition. No matter how low the probability of connection in a given correlation, increasing the number of correlations increases the probability of connection.

Let us say that the probability of connection in any given correlation is p, then the probability, P, that there is a connection goes up upon additional correlations according to the following formula:

P = 1-(1-p)^n, where n is the number of correlations.

In other words, the probability of there being a connection between correlated events is 1 minus the probability of there not being a connection, (1-p), raised to the power n of the number of correlations.

Let us see how this formula behaves.

p:initial probability of connection of a given correlation. n:number of correlations. P:the final probability of connection.

p n P
_____________________
0.1 4 0.34
0.1 5 0.4
0.1 10 0.65
0.01 10 0.09
0.01 100 0.63

Thus while in any given case the probability of connection may be slim, piling on correlations does increase grounds that there is a connection. If the body count of persons who had the goods on Obama rises to, say, 20 correlations with 0.01 probability of connection then P = 0.18 or nearly one in five.

Now please note this is not a matter of proof. The issue here is not a matter of proof but of grounds for suspicion. The logic of proof and the logic of correlation do not dovetail. Grounds for suspicion of guilt, no matter how strong, do not prove guilt. Moreover. assigning initial probability of connection is at best problematic.

Like Henry II, a mere lament from Obama may have sent his Knights-errant in action. Or it might not even be the President that is the Moriarty behind the deaths. Perhaps the Moriarty is none other than Ax …. . Perhaps there is no Moriarty. At least one case must be proven to be a crime. Piling on suspicions, while not grounds for proof, is grounds for investigation.

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