Investigating Who is Right - Jessica Alba or Bill O'Reilly

I saw an interesting article on Yahoo today that was Jessica Alba calling out Bill O'Reilly.  She had made the statement that he should be "neutral like Sweden."  Then BIll apparently shot back that she should have said Switzerland.

Well, Jessica was right, maybe more so than you can realize.  She followed with the following statement:
"Last week, Mr. Bill O'Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people...it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland. Check out: [Wikipedia link] if you want to see what I was referring to. I appreciate the name calling and the accurate reporting. Keep it up!!"

Pretty and smart.  Not too bad for a Hollywood type.

Maybe Bill was just a wee bit off on this one.  Sweden is also not a member of NATO or any other similar organization/association.


So don't just take someone's word when they say things - check it out and be your own detective.


Stay Safe!

Reverse Mobile - the "Better" Reverse Phone Lookup

Reverse Mobile is the "better" way to track down reverse phone numbers. The reason I say this is it has the highest customer satisfaction of all reverse phone number look up services on the web. I use and provide several of these services, and by far this service has the lowest dis-satisfaction ratio.

I rarely get any refund requests for it, and it provideds professional reports for a fair price.

ReverseMobile's Satisfaction Guarantee - Our "No Hit, No Charge" Policy guarantees that if your query yields no results, they will not charge your account.

Try Reverse Mobile here on the Blog the Search Boxes are just on the right ---->>>>

It is simple to use, just fill in the boxes and click "search."

You end up getting a report like this:

Stay Safe!

Be Your Own Detective - Investigating Search Engines

I have an observation about this blog and the site it is associated with.  When I search for "be your own detective" in Google I don't know how many pages before this site appears.  Google shows sites that have not been updated for years before mine - and I am somewhat amazed at what kind of logic can be behind Googles search process.

If I search the same in Yahoo, MSN or nearly any other search engine, this blog is always in the top ten.  Now I am not saying that to say this blog is so great, but how is it that all other search engines recognize this site right away, and Google does not?

All I can assume is that once before someone else may have owned this domain and they did something to aggravate Google and get "banned" or something.   I update my blog regularly, I keep my site up to date, but somehow it isn't enough to rate above two sites in particular that have out-of-date information on the,

Well, I will continue investigating this - but I have come to the conclusion that Google is just an odd mystery for me. 

Be Your Own Detective - Lie Detecting

Lie Detecting - it is something investigators have wished they could do from nearly the beginning of civilization. There have been many methods used over the ages - but basically it is all witchcraft.

Yes, even "modern day" polygraph tests are little more than intimidation and witchcraft. The National Academy of Sciences did a study on polygraph testing a few years ago and found that it aw just about as effective to flip a coin to determine truth telling vs. lies. I put "modern day" in quotes as there has been no real advancement in technology for polygraphs since the thirties, despite the fact that they hook them up to a computer nowdays.

What polygraph examiners don't want you to know, is that if they get you to "confess" to something - and it really matters not what, that they have found "deception" and have had a successful polygraph test.

The lie behind the "lie detector." What the examiner does is asks the person a set of questions. They tell the subject that certain questions are "control" questions - when in fact the so-called control questions are just filler and nothing more. Things like is the sky blue - blah, blah. These are technically referred to as irrelevant questions.

The other part of their "test" is that they ask you a question that they expect everyone to lie on. They use this measure to gauge your "level of guilt" on key questions. The problem is, if you answer this question completely truthfully, you will be screwed by the test.

For pre-employment screening purposes, a polygraph exam is totally useless. First of all the test can be manipulated by the examinee. Secondly - vagueness of the test questions invalidate any possible results of the test - no matter which way it goes. The funniest part is to get a "government job" you pretty much need to pass a polygraph. This is one reason our intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies have poor internal security. There is a dependence on this "house of cards" as a security measure to screen candidates. All polygraph examinations do is eliminate basically honest people from the jobs. The really bad guys have no issue with it.

As far as getting crooks to confess crimes- the polygraph is great. The test cannot be used in court, but any confession made as a result can. This doesn't mean the polygraph works, it just means that the examinee believes it works and is afraid and confesses because of it.

You can find more information on polygraphs here. They even tell you how to beat the polygraph. Interesting stuff there.


Good luck trying to really detect lies.

Stay safe!

Be Your Own Detective - Check Out That Car

OK, now I have a lot of information on checking out cars - and I always forget to post about this. Now when I say cars - I mean vehicles: Trucks, cars, pickups, and yes motorcycles. So when I say car throughout this post it applies to all of these (within reason).

Sometimes you just need to check out a car that you are going to purchase. Sometimes you may want to know if that suspiciously acquired car that a neighbor has is stolen. Well, now you do not have to report it to the police - just run a VIN Check here. It is from the same place that trains most auto-theft detectives across the United States.

So what is a VIN? It is the Vehicle Identification Number. All cars sold in the US since around 1982 have been required to have this number. On most cars you can find the VIN on the dash by looking through the windshield from the outside on the driver's side of the car. The driver's doorpost or door will also have the VIN displayed. On new cars you will find little stickers all over with the VIN.

As a cop I used to get sick of hearing other cops say "VIN Number." The N is for number! Anyways, back to what I was saying.

Each digit in the number means something significant from the country of manufacture to automaker to year model and the actual serial number.

You don't have to be concerned with all 17 characters in a vehicle's VIN Number. For your convenience I will only speak about the key ones.
The first three characters signify the make of the car, usually as follows: The first character of your VIN represents the country of manufacture 1 = USA J = Japan Y = Finland, Sweden2 = Canada K = Korea3 = Mexico W = Germany

The second character represents the manufacturer or make of the vehicle, as follows: A = Alfa Romeo, B = Dodge, C = Chrysler, D = Daihatsu, E = Eagle, F= Ford/Eagle, G = All General Motors vehicles (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn)H = Honda/Acura, J= Jeep, L = Lincoln, M = Mitsubishi, N = Nissan/Infiniti, P = Plymouth, S = Subaru, T = Toyota/Lexus, V = Volkswagen. Note that the VIN Numbers tell you who really makes what - Like Nissan makes Infinity and Toyota makes Lexus, etc.
Other makes use a 3-character combination: TRU/WAU = Audi, 4US/WBA/WBS = BMW, 2HM/KMH = Hyundai, SAJ = Jaguar, SAL = Land Rover, 1YV/JM1 = Mazda, WDB = Mercedes-Benz, VF3 = Peugeot,WP0 = Porsche, YK1/YS3 = Saab, YV1=Volvo, 8 = Isuzu

The fourth character is the type of restraint system or brake type: Example: R represents hydraulic brakes

The fifth, sixth & seventh characters are the car line, series and body style. These are obviously different for each make (manufacturer).

The eighth character is a description of the engine: This will be different for all makes as well If it is a Ford and character 8 is a W: W represents a 4.6 liter V-8 engine

The tenth character represents the year of the car. Pay close attention to this one: B = 1981 F = 1985 K = 1989 P = 1993 V = 1997 C = 1982 G = 1986 L = 1990 R = 1994 W = 1998 D = 1983 H = 1987 M = 1991 S = 1995 X = 1999 E = 1984 J = 1988 N = 1992 T = 1996 Y = 2000 1 = 2001 2 = 2002 3 = 2003 ... I am not sure what they will do for next year.

Of course there are plenty of paid services like CARFAX and the like that will give you the history of the car. Nearly all car sales places will give you a CARFAX report on the car you are interested in. So get them to run it if the car is on a lot.

Whatever you do concerning vehicle checks - Be Safe!!

My Favorite Posts of 2008

First of all, I want to wishe everyone a Happy New Year!!!

Some of my favorite posts of last year were:

1. Be Your Own Detective - Bring Families Back Together
2. Be Your Own Detective - Know Someone by Their Trash
3. A Great Blonde Joke
4. Caylee Anthony - Update
5. Be Your Own Detective - Basic Interviewing

Y'all Be Safe!!