What if Nabisco Owned the Store?

    What if you walked into a grocery store and every item on the shelves was made by the same company? Let's say Nabisco owned the store, so they only sold Nabisco products. If you wanted something from Tyson Foods, you had to go around the corner to the Tyson Foods store.

   That's what we have in the oil industry. An Exxon station sells only Exxon gas. One wonders what would happen if we outlawed oil companies from owning gas stations. 

   Right now, Exxon can control the prices at all its stations. Likewise, Chevron controls the prices at its stations. Conoco, the same. Now, the oil companies do not mind making a lot of money, of course, so they don't mind matching the competitor's prices if they go up. 

   If you want to lower the prices, you've got to force them to compete. If the station owner could buy gas wherever he wanted, he would buy the cheapest gas he could find.

  So, one effort to bring gasoline prices under control is to end the monopoly. Exxon has a monopoly at all of its stations. Chevron, the same; Conoco, the same. If you take the stations away from the oil companies, you might end their monopolies. 

   This would be a good place to start in efforts to lower gasoline prices. 

Our Testing Must Improve

    I'm not one for much government regulation, but, yes, I wonder if laws should be drawn up guiding the practice of drug testing. Companies test for drugs. Probation officers test. Jobs are on the line. Reputations are in jeopardy. Jail time can result.

   Surely, we should ensure the job is done properly. No one should be cited for drugs when they only took poppy seeds. No one should get away with turning in a cup of Mountain Dew as their "urine" sample.

   There are many improvements we should make, starting with making the lab work quicker. What would it take to make it so the results come back within hours. And, if it shows drug use and the person says it must be poppy seeds, do a second test, a confirmation test, designed to be more specific. Surely, the morphine metabolites in poppy seeds have a chemical difference. Design the second test to determine if the "drug" is no more than poppy seeds.

   Visually inspect the sample before sending it to the lab. Take a temperature reading. If possible, observe as the person gives the sample.

   Now, there's a catch here. The process could become too expensive once the safeguards are put in place. Companies should have the right to screen employees for drugs. The improvements and corrections should not diminish that. 

Would Just Airing Out the Home Solve the Problem?

    Second-hand methamphetamine ingestion, can it give you a contact high? Can it cause a heart attack? Can it cause your thoughts to become erratic and bring hallucinations and schizophrenia? Can it affect your ability to memorize and remember? 

   And, if so, at what levels of ingestion? Would living in a home where meth is smoked affect a person just as severely as living in a house where it is actually cooked? It makes sense to me that a person ingesting second-hand smoke is not going to be affected as severely as the person actually smoking the drug, at least not unless the person smoking is doing it so openly and without secret that the air is clearly and heavily contaminated. Also, I think it is a given that meth homes are not as harmful as meth labs. It is not as harmful to live in a home where meth is simply smoked as it is in a home where it is made. Yet, today, few homes are meth labs, moth are simply homes where someone has smoked meth.

   And, yet we shut them down, anyway.

  With homes being shut down for meth contamination, costing landlords in the range of $10,000 to clean, these are important questions. The punishment should be just and fair and not excessive. And, on top of the cleaning expense, the residents are asked to throw away upholstery and clothing that could have been affected. It comes to a point that the landlords and tenants lose much of everything they own because they were in the same house as a person who smoked meth behind their back.

  Now, if the health hazards are so severe, we do want to require such cleanups. But, are they? Or do we need more study to determine how harmful secondhand meth is? Remember, we shut down the home for cleanup just because of the meth clinging to the walls and rugs. If the danger was just from ingesting the air, you would have but to air out the building and clean the AC/heater unit, a simple measure that would hardly cost anything. Opening the windows and turning on a big fan doesn't cost a dime, if you have a big fan. But, the meth hanging to the walls and carpets and everything in the home is considered so severe that we require a $10,000 cleanup.

   Talk all you want about not being soft on crime, but this is taking it too far. And, you are raging more against the homeowners than their renters who caused the problem.

   Do we have any studies backing up the claim that meth hanging on the walls and carpets and clothes and upholstery is dangerous? Or, is this a case of government gone rampant? Is it over-regulation, filled with excessive requirements? Is this a clear example of excessive fines and punishments. Government can be vicious and unfair -- and it is. Should we let it?

  Yes, we need more studies on whether meth hanging to the walls and carpets is so harmful. But, until there are studies to justify the punishment, unreasonable seizures of property should not be allowed. The Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. How, at this point, do you justify requiring people to throw away all the things in their home when you don't even know if those items are harmful?

Surely We Should Do a Better Job When We Test for Drugs

    Surely we should step it up to make our drug testing more accurate. You can test positive from eating poppy seeds. You can test positive for using inhalers. Nasal decongestants, cold medicines and antidepressants can also cause false positives.

   But, there are ways of dealing with these weaknesses. What are sometimes called "confirmation tests" are more specific for the substance or medication in question. Could we involve this process during the initial tests? If it is more reasonable -- for cost reasons or whatever -- to wait for the initial test to come back before doing a confirmation test, then speed up the lab work so it does not take two days for the initial tests results to come back. The confirmation test needs to be done in a more timely fashion.

   On the flip side, people try to "beat" the drug or alcohol test in one of a number of ways: 1) Dilution. They drink large amounts of water to dilute the content. (The trick doesn't work for alcohol, but does for drugs). 2) They drink of ingest one of a large list of test-beating substances. Pickle juice, vitamin C, salted cold coffee, herbal teas, aspirin, vinegar, fruit juices . . . there's not a shortage of items that can change the constitution of the urine sample to avoid the drug being detected. This process is known as internal adulteration. 3)  External adulteration -- diluting the sample with water from the toilet or sink faucet or adding such things as bleach, ammonia or juices to "clean" the sample. 4) Take someone else's urine into the pissing room and use it instead of their own. 5) Substitute Mountain Dew, water with food coloring, beer, tea, apple juice or cologne for the urine sample.

   Our testing facilities need to guard against these abuses. As is, some test sites might actually encourage those being tested to drink large amounts of water, telling them they must produce the sample in a given amount of time, so they better drink lots of water. Others wisely limit the water intake to 8 ounces an hour -- and that is the correct approach. 

  Other solutions include: 1) Creation of a tamper-proof collection site. 2) Directly observing the collection, a time-consuming measure but perhaps sometimes necessary. 3) Visually inspecting samples before sending them to the lab. 4) Checking the sample's temperature to ensure it has the warmth that comes with just-produced urine. 5) Search the person for juices and other substances before the test. If that is considered a violation of their privacy, then have them take off coats or such which make it easier to bring substances in undetected. 6) Do not have a set time for the testing. Bring the person being tested in when they do not have time to prepare for the test. Sometimes, this might be during the hiring interview. Ask them at that time if they would be willing to submit to a test and test them on the spot. 7) Don't leave it to just one test; test everyone again at random times during the first month. 8) Couple the urine tests with hair follicle and blood tests. 9) Use a lab that provides specimen-validity checks. 10) Have the lab offer comments on the test results, saying whether the sample possibly could have been adulterated, whether it was consistent with normal urine samples, etc. 

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and knocked her son's door. It was early. The dew from the night still was clinging to the windows. No answer on first knock, so she knocked, again.

He came to the door his tall, handsome, regal, dark-haired self, dressed in his sheriff's department uniform and ready for work.

She threw her arms around him.

"Son, I've been thinking all night long about what you told me," she offered, as their embrace ended. She referred to a phone call they had had late that last night, he telling her of how his day had went, including his arresting a homeless couple for sleeping in an abandoned building. Trespass, you know. Invasion of private property.

"Oh, son, what harm did it do that they were there? They simply were seeking shelter."

The officer-son's eyes dropped, but he did not reply.

"Tim, I wonder what you've become. What you've learned and what you've become, comes not from my teachings, but from society." She paused, a gentle look deep in her eyes. "Society teaches us not to tolerate the homeless when they wander into places for shelter. Sometimes, we even shoot them. I know, a man's home is his castle, and he should be able to defend it."

She paused, love still abundant in her eyes. "So they say, son. That is what the world teaches you."

Another pause. For, a moment, she searched for what to say.

"Tim, I'm your mother. I love you, very much. But you are not learning from me, but from society. I beg you not to let go of teachings from me, your mother."

Another pause, this time as she prepared her thoughts on something that had happened years ago when he had shot a fleeing man. "Son, that shooting three years ago, I thought on it last night, as well. You go to the police academy. . . . And, your training from the police academy had you kill him. I would that my teaching was just as important as that of the police academy."

She wiped single tear from her eye, before breaking out in an all-out bawl and gathering him in her arms in a desperate hug.

"I think of those from Mexico," she said. "And, of how often you have said we should built a wall against them, of how our president wants that wall, of how they are illegal, and of how they are using our welfare system."

Again, their embrace ended, and she parted to look him gently in the eye. "No mercy. No mercy for the poor. No, Tim -- not in these teachings from society. I love you, son. But, please remember the teachings of your youth. I taught you compassion. I taught you to care for those in need. I taught you to share. I taught you to love others."

She reached out and touched him on the arm. "I must be going, Tim. You must be going. I don't want to make you late for work. But, know I love you."

She turned and walked back to her car. As she drove off, gentle tears continued from her eyes. But, they were soft, not bawling tears. There was comfort in her heart, for she had performed her motherly role. She had taught her son. And, she knew there was hope that he might listen.

(Index -- Stories, My stories, story)

Put Our Best Detectives on the Case of Runaway Inflation

   The latest, biggest, nastiest thing needing to be investigated by the FBI? Inflation, of course.

   See, we don't know exactly what is causing our inflation. Some say it is government spending. But, then along comes studies suggesting that the historical link between government spending and inflation is tenuous. Some say inflation comes from corporate greed -- corporation owners jacking up the prices so they can profit more. Others say it's simply a matter of demand outstripping supply; if there's a shortage of product, the cost goes up. Everyone knows that. Others will tell you the rising minimum wage is a definite factor.

   Here's one interesting tidbit about inflation: It doesn't carry over to the stock market. When car prices, and gas prices, and housing prices and grocery prices rise -- stock prices generally do not. Generally, it's opposite -- they fall. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but it's something the FBI ought to be taking a look at.

   OK, maybe not the FBI, itself, but we need an investigation. We need snoops snooping around and interrogators interrogating retailers and corporate officials and salespeople and maybe even janitors. We need to consider what's going on as a crime, of sorts, and send detectives out to solve the crime.

   Let our sleuths go into the stores, asking who told them to raise the prices.  When they say, corporate did, go to the corporate leaders and ask them why they raised prices. Interview CEOs and those on the boards of directors. 

  But, then there's the problem of people not telling the truth. They probably aren't going to say they raised the prices so they could make a bigger profit. So, seek out witnesses; secretaries, clerks, and sales representatives. Watergate had its Deep Throat; inflation can have the same.

 Yes, listen to the studies. And, do some of your own. But, this goes beyond the need for studies; it requires a full, blooming, deep, searing investigation. The average price of a new car is more than $40,000; the going price of a gallon of gas is $4.09. It's a crime, and it demands an investigation. 

Why Oppose Gun Buybacks?

    Among the arguments against gun buybacks is that they are not effective; they don't take guns out of the hands of criminals. Elderly ladies whose gun-owning husbands had guns -- they turn them in. People who have had the guns for years with no intention of using them -- they turn them in. 

   But criminals? No, they don't turn them in.

   But it should be noted that many of the criminals who have guns stole them. If they know the grandma down the street has a gun, they might break in and steal it. And, if it is their own grandma, they might steal it without her even knowing it's missing. 

   Gun buybacks also -- at least to some degree -- take guns out of the hands of children and youth. Some of the guns turned in are turned in by parents. With those guns out of their homes, perhaps a suicide is avoided, perhaps a little toying around with dad's pistol where one youth accidentally kills another is avoided.

   It is hard to quantify the success of gun buybacks. You can't count up events that never happen. There is no record of the lives saved. 

   But, regardless whether gun buybacks are effective, why should anyone oppose people getting rid of their guns? Why should anyone oppose gun buybacks? If someone wants to get rid of their gun, that's cool. Give the gun to the police and let the police destroy it.

Study Those Who Live in Meth Houses

    We should be testing those who are ticketed or arrested for meth use or having meth paraphernalia in their possession.  

  More studies have been done on the effects of marijuana and alcohol than for the effects of methamphetamine. This is no surprise: Meth is illegal. How do you compile a study group when it would be illegal to give them the drug?

   But, if you test those who are ticketed, you can at least study them. What are the effects meth is having on them? And, don't just stop with the users; ask those who were living in the same home as the meth users if they would be willing to submit to drug tests. How much meth is in their systems and how does it compare to how much is found in the direct users? And, what symptoms are the second-hand users experiencing? 

  In short, is second-hand meth ingestion significantly injuring people? We are shutting down homes where meth is found, leaving the homeowners and others temporarily without a place to live. And, it is being done in the name of safety. It is done because living in the home where meth has been smoked is not considered safe. Is this justified? But, do we even know that the meth is seriously harming them? 

   Landowners depend on renters for their livelihood. If you suspend their ability to make a living, you surely should be required to show it is warranted. And, since it can cost $10,000 for the decontamination, you better justify that it is warranted.

   No, you cannot call in a study group and give them meth to determine the damage it does to a person. But, you can test those who are caught with it, and you can ask those who live in it if they will test.

   In closing, I must say it is interesting that when a home is shut down for meth contamination, law enforcement does not suggest the house occupants visit their doctors to determine if they are suffering medical injuries from the second-hand ingestion. If you really believe their health is in jeopardy, you send them to a doctor. When a person is injured in a car accident, you transport them to the hospital. When a person is bit by a black widow, you send them to the hospital. How much different is this? If really believe second-hand meth ingestion is harming them, of course you would suggest they go to a doctor.     

 

Does the U.S. Marshals Office Waste Taxpayers' Money?

    We must wonder if money spent is money wasted when it comes the federal SWAT teams. They swoop in those wanted on trespass warrants and such perhaps as often as they swoop in on dangerous criminals. The units were created to handle riot control and violent confrontations. SWAT (special weapons and tactics) are trained and equipped to deal with snipers, barricaded subjects, hostage situations, and "heavy" arrests.

   So, how does somebody on a trespassing warrant get arrested by a SWAT unit from the U.S. Marshals Office? These offenders often have past criminal records that allow all they've done in addition to trespassing to allow them to be classed as federal offenders. 

   Interestingly, SWAT teams often show up the day before the offender is to appear in court. If they waited until the court appearance, they could simply arrest the offender without so much fanfare.

   But, that wouldn't go in the books as a SWAT raid. Building up the numbers to justify your existence is important. If you are getting all this federal money, you will want to be able to explain it is being used wisely.

   Forgive me, but I have suspicions it is not. How many incidents involving snipers, barricaded subjects, and hostage situations do we have each day in Utah? How about each week; I still would guess there aren't too many.

   Yet, the U.S. Marshals Office SWAT officers still show up for 40-hour work weeks, I would guess. Filling in their schedule by classing those who fail to show up in court, or who move without telling their probation officers might seem worthy to some, but not to me.

  I say train your regular officers in SWAT techniques. Often, officers run into dangerous situations and it is worthy to have them all trained and prepared for them.

   Government waste can exist in our policing units as much as in other places of government. And, it does. 

   

Mentality over Material

    Mentality over material. The mental approach you take is more important than the material you have to get there.

    So, it is not a good idea for the Utah Jazz to "tank" in order to get Victor Wembanyama or Scooter Henderson in next years draft. If you develop a losing attitude, it will be hard to shake. If the players so much as sense the coach and front office don't want them to do well, it will likely affect how hard they try. Plus, losing can pound you down. You come to accept the idea you are not good when you lose too much. 

   New Coach Will Hardy is also establishing habits that will carry over in years to follow. He needs to establish a mentality that he will do everything he can to make his team win give your best effort. The mentality of the coach is as important as that of the players.

   Here's advice from another first-year coach, Amber Whiting, who is taking up the reins of the BYU women's program. "They (her players) are learning me, and learning that I don't half anything. I won't accept anything but 100 percent. Then, when we step on the court, it's game time. We'll always run a drill until they like it and give me full effort."

   Winning isn't so much a matter of who's on your roster; it's the confidence you instill in those who are on your roster. 

A Russian in the White House Tries to Make a Trade

So, Donald Trump thinks it would be a good idea to take documents he stole from the White House  -- that would be the Mar-a-Lago documents -- and trade them for documents he covets about his ties to Russia. Of course it didn't happen, but Trump tried to make it work. 

"You cannot steal something to barter," said former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks. "It does go back to what happened in Ukraine where he was trying to say, okay, I'll give you what you're legally entitled to, the funding, if you this terrible thing for me and make something up about Joe Biden. That is not how America is supposed to be doing business. That is illegal in every aspect." 

Legal experts are suggesting Trump will surely be indicted for this maneuver. No, you can't trade stolen documents for other documents that might also be incriminating.  Call it a bribe, obstruction of justice, or extortion, but do not let the former president get away with it. 

"He's not entitled to engage in a back-and-forth court to get materials he wants but is not entitled to," said former U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance. "This deserves the highest level of scrutiny from the Justice Department and, increasingly it's more of an issue of when, not if, there will be a prosecution. 

Treat Meth Contamination as Vandalism

    A new law should be written. When renters contaminate a home with methamphetamine, they should be required to pay the cost of cleaning it up -- or go to jail.

  We have vandalism laws, and contaminating a home with methamphetamine is vandalism. Should not it be treated as such? 

  As it is now, property owners require their tenants to pay a deposit. If the place is not cleaned up when they leave, the tenants don't get their deposit back. Such coverage, however does not cover meth damage. Plus, you must consider that a meth cleanup can cost $10,000. That would be a big deposit. 

   Meth contamination is vandalism. It should be treated as such. Perhaps make all damages subject to vandalism laws, not just meth use. How far you take such laws is a choice. Certainly, though, the law should provide that those using meth will be punished for the damage they do.

How Dangerous Is Second-Hand Meth?

    You tell me if all this is fair:

   When health officials believe a home might be contaminated by methamphetamine smoke, they shut it down for cleaning. The property owner pays the bill. It might be the owner was not aware of the meth use, but it is he or she who must pay for the cleanup, not the meth user.

  You might suggest that is fair, for the cleanup is not a punishment for crime, but is done just to make the place clean to live in. The homeowner simply should not be allowed to rent an unsafe dwelling.

  So, how harmful is the air?

   There have not been as many studies on the damages from second-hand meth smoke as there have for marijuana and tobacco, yet it is the meth houses that are shut down, not the marijuana and tobacco homes. Second-hand tobacco is certainly harmful. Is it more harmful than methamphetamine?  

  Second-hand meth smoke causes nose and throat irritation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, mental confusion, and breathing difficulties. Are those conditions enough to warrant shutting the home down and charging the property owner $10,000 to clean it up? Do we even ask the second-hand users if they are experiencing such symptoms before we jump to shut the place down? Do we send anyone to the doctor to help determine if they are infected?

 Catching a cold from living in the same home as someone with a cold can also cause some of those things caused by second-hand meth fumes. Do we shut the homes when people get colds? I do not say second-hand meth smoke is no more harmful than breathing air from those who are infected with colds, but, yes, I wonder where you draw the line. 

  When meth homes are condemned, health officials suggest the clothes and fabric chairs and couches must be thrown away. The carpeting must be thrown out. The walls must be cleaned and rinsed three times, and, no, soap and water will not work, nor is baking soda and vinegar strong enough. Well, some suggest baking soda and vinegar might work, but only if you applied them like 30 times. No, very expensive chemicals must be brought in to do the cleaning.

  Now, it is the air that is breathed that is harmful. Do the particles in clothing and couches discharge into the air in sufficient amounts that they are dangerous? Just asking -- and it is a question that should be asked. Could we just wash our clothes three times, steam-clean our carpets three times, maybe using the special chemicals?

  Would it be enough if we were to just air the place out thoroughly, clean the air conditioner and heater and say it is good to go? Just open the windows and turn on a big fan. I don't know, I'm just asking. Throwing away most everything a person owns seems a little drastic and should be avoided if it is overkill. 

 

This Scandal Might Help Popularize the Sport

    It is not often that a scandal increases the popularity of a sport, but that could be what is happening in the world of chess.

    This might be the biggest scandal in the history of chess, and chess has a long and storied history. A 19-year-old, Hans Niemann, defeated the reigning world champion -- not just world champion, but five-time world champion, and not just five-time world champion, but perhaps the greatest player ever.

   That would be Magnus Carlsen. Magnus responded by accusing the youngster of cheating. Hans is a confessed cheater, but says he no longer does so. Then, today, Chess.com, surveyed the online games Hans has been in and concluded he likely cheated in 100 games. CNN asked Hans for comment, but he did not respond. 

   But, all the publicity is stirring up an interest in chess. People are turning to the game. For the world of chess, more good may come out of this than harm. 

   

Super PACs and Their Dishonest Advertising Need to Be Reigned in

   Dishonest campaign advertising needs to be reined in, whether it is done by Political Action Committees such as the Club for Growth, or by the candidates themselves.

  To begin with, make it illegal to doctor an audio so a person appears to be saying something he or she simply did not say. The wrongness is clear. The harm is clear. People listening to the audio come away saying, "I heard it myself."

     Super PACS are among the most powerful of political forces. Because they do not contribute directly to candidates or parties, they draw money from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any limit on donation size. Why are they allowed to live outside the rules everyone else must live by?

They 'Shut Down' the Drug House, But the Problem Remains

    You can concentrate on numbers or you can concentrate on results. And, when I say numbers, I mean meaningless numbers, number you generate though they don't really solve the problem.

   Take meth houses. If you clean the house out, getting rid of drug paraphernalia, easing the offending renters out, and getting the property to test negative, you can say, "Look, we shut down this meth house." You can count all the meth houses you have shut down and proclaim what a good job you are doing.

  But, are you. Often the penalty for drugs is a relative slap on the hand.  We've gone through a stage where we've acknowledged throwing everyone in jail for drugs doesn't work and just overburdens our prisons. There's no room to lock up the real criminals if the jails are filled with harmless drug users, goes the argument. 

   So, we let them off easy.

   But, the police can still say they shut down a meth house. Th meth is gone, the paraphernalia gone. The criminals are off the property. The police usually don't actually test for meth in the house before closing it for cleaning (if paraphernalia is found and a confession is offered, that's all they need) , but they do test after the cleaning. So, they can say what was a meth house before, now tests negative.

  Chock up a number, but have you really accomplished anything? The drug user simply moves to another location. You haven't solved the problem, you've simply relocated it. Even if you do get the drug user on a probation program, so he or she must test for drugs on an on-going basis, that won't come until after it's worked its way through the court system.

  And, supposing they do test positive and you send them to jail for three or four months, they spend their time in jail, then are back on the streets. 

  

Such Lazy Practices Do not Reflect Well on Law Enforcement

   I spoke to a lady today who was in court on a charge from 2016. She had been in St. George at the time, and moved to Salt Lake just after that. She was surprised to find she had even been charged with a crime. Someone had forged her identity and committed the crime in her name.

  Here's my point -- or my first point: the police have access to drivers' license records; why not just look her up, find out her new address, and arrest her? My friend is not alone, many people have outstanding warrants that could be cleared up quickly if the police simply looked up the public records on them. But, instead, police wait until they pull them over on traffic charges, not taking action until then.

  My second point is that the police should have went after the real criminal. Once my friend told them it was not her, they should have reopened the case and searched for the person who really committed the crime. Is it just easier to stick with the innocent victim and not pursue the real criminal? 

  Such lazy practices do not reflect well on our law enforcement agencies.

 

Will You Believe Magnus or Hans?

   Will you believe world champion Magnus Carlsen or will you believe Hans Niemann, for this is perhaps the greatest scandal in the history of chess.

   It was Sept. 4 when the 19-year-old Niemann defeated Carlsen, ending Carlsen's 53-match unbeaten streak. Rare is it that anyone defeats Carlsen. He is the reigning five-time world champion whose accomplishments include notching the  highest chess rating in history. The best player the world has ever known? It would be hard to say he isn't.

  Then along comes this kid who was a relative nobody at age 15, but broke through just two years later to become a grandmaster. He is an admitted cheater, but says he has put that behind him. No more, he says.

   "I believe that Niemann has cheated more -- and more recently than he has publicly admitted," Carlsen said on Twitter, further shocking an already shocked chess world. One must be careful to accuse another of cheating. FIDE, the international governing body for chess, has rules against making unfounded complaints against others. "The rules are meant to deter players from accusing others without concrete evidence," warned a FIDE official. "Mr. Carlsen's statement did not include evidence to support his accusation."

   Or did he? Did Carlsen provide evidence. “Throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do,” Carlsen said.

  Although Carlsen did not make mention of it, Many of Niemann's moves matched what a computer would make if it were making the moves.

   Oh -- forgot to mention -- shortly after Niemann defeated Carlsen, he defeated him, again. This time, it was in an online tournament. Carlsen, perhaps sensing a cheat coming on,  resigned before making his second move.

   So, who will you believe -- the chess icon or the chess upstart.