When it comes to arson investigations, I’m reminded of a Phoenix case where an arson investigator actually testified that his dog was better at detecting accelerants than the state crime lab. The defendant, Barbara Sloan, was dragged through prosecutorial hell because the key witness was a dog. Think about that. To admit this evidence, the handler had to testify under oath about what the dog supposedly told him. That’s not science, that’s comedy. Yet this kind of junk evidence appears to have resurfaced in the Pacific Palisades arson case against 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht. Before this arrest, the fire was blamed squarely on Southern California Edison’s decrepit equipment, Mayor Karen Bass’s inept leadership, and Fire Chief Kristyn Crowley’s department failures. Then suddenly we’re told it was arson. How convenient. With billions in damages and at least a dozen lives lost, everyone on the hook just got an early Christmas gift, a patsy to absorb all the blame. The utility’s negle...