Year: 2012

The 77% Lie: Just Because a False Statistic Is Useful and Traditional Doesn’t Make It Less Unethical To Keep Using It.

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Sure, lie to us, Mr. President. As long as its for a good cause.

In 2000, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw used the statistic that “women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar men receive for the same work” in a question to Joe Lieberman during the Vice Presidential candidates debate, prompting me to turn or the TV and write a letter to CNN. The statistic had long been debunked as misleading and inaccurate for years by every objective observer who examined it. The unspoken assumption that figure is meant to convey is that this supposed gap reflects sexism in the workplace. It dates from the early days of NOW and the feminist push for the Equal Rights Amendment, an activist-concocted lie, like many of the global warming “facts” mouthed by Al Gore, designed to simplify a complex phenomenon into something unequivocally persuasive. For Shaw, a journalist, to repeat a false and misleading statistic as fact in a nationally televised debate was inexcusable, and irresponsible journalism.

Did I mention that this was in 2000?

The 77% stat is one of my two pet fake statistics (the other being the statement that 50% of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, used by culture warriors on both the left and right), and I have vowed not to let either pass without a red flag until I either drop dead or people stop lying. So I don’t care to hear, thank you, about how I’m picking on the President Obama when Mitt Romney has been using some misleading facts too. I know he has. But when a President of the United States whose supporters laud as a genius and scholar, and who pledged not to mislead the American people promotes his campaign with a widely publicized statistic that he has to know misinforms the public, I believe that’s alarming, insulting, and infuriating.  The fact that Democrats and feminists have been using the same lie for over three decades doesn’t make it less offensive, but more. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Comment of the Day on ‘Young, Gullible, Lazy, Unimaginative and Unbelievable: I Wonder Why This Lawyer Has Trouble Finding A Job?'”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I couldn’t resist this one.

The thread on my post about an Occupy Wall Street protester who apparently was a law school grad and who held a hand-lettered sign blaming his failure to find work, not on the fact that he was standing around in a park holding a sign, but on his law school, has uncovered some unpleasant truths, such as…

  • Law schools are giving degrees to a lot of people who don’t know what to do with them
  • A lot of law school grads have not acquired some of the basic skills, like unbiased analysis, that their training was supposed to convey
  • A striking number of law school graduates identify with whiny unemployed 20-lear-olds holding signs
  • Too many people want to be lawyers for the money, rather than to serve a higher social function
  • Personal accountability is on the wane in America
  • People will believe the damnedest things if it will prevent them from accepting responsibility for their own plight, and
  • Confirmation bias is a frightening phenomenon.

Embodying many of these qualities was the recent post of someone with the apparently ethnic name of Iwantoremainanonymous-–Indian, perhaps?—who  had many observations typical of the thread that I unfortunately cannot permit to be posted, because he not only defied  the Ethics Alarms no anonymous comments rule, but, in his wealth of legal knowledge, disputes that I even have the right to make such rules.

Here is his jaw-dropping, incomplete Comment of the Day on “Comment of the Day on ‘Young, Gullible, Lazy, Unimaginative and Unbelievable: I Wonder Why This Lawyer Has Trouble Finding A Job?'”: Continue reading →

No, THIS Is An Irresponsible Parent

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“MOM???”

Mistie Atkinson, 32, was sentenced to jail for four years and eight months b in Napa County Superior Court, California this week. After police caught her and her 16-year-old son naked together in a motel room, investigators discovered a sex video, made by Mistie, of her giving her own son oral sex. Mom had no contact with her son for 15 years, then tracked him down on Facebook and began sending him sexually provocative photographs.

This is known as “Not only corrupting a minor, but guaranteeing that his psychiatry bill will approach the national debt.”

Naturally Mistie, who has a disturbingly loose grip on concepts like right, wrong,  boundaries, impulse control, fairness, adulthood and personal responsibility, says that she should not have been charged with incest because the attraction between the two was “genetic.”

The one generous and responsible thing Mistie had done for her son his whole life was to keep him as far away from the toxic influences of her warped, self-centered and destructive character as possible. Then she couldn’t even do that.

 

 

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Facts and Graphic: Daily Mail

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

 

Now THESE Are Irresponsible Parents!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

What could go wrong?

When a mother in Maine Township, Illinois noticed that her 18-month-old daughter’s finger was missing, her first thought, the news item tells us, was that the family pit bull did it. Sure, always blame the pit bull. Pit bulls are no more likely to chomp and infant than any other dog, but if the mother assumed that, why was the toddler permitted to have unsupervised contact with the dog? Well, you see, this particular family never heard of the concept of “child-proofing.” Given the real reason for the toddler’s amputated finger, I’m sure other thoughts were going through her mind, like…

.…”I wonder if she did that with the power saw we always keep plugged in for emergencies?”

…..”Maybe that zombie we keep chained in the basement bit it off?”

….”Has she been in my scalpel collection again?”

But no. The real reason that the girl was missing her finger was that she had stuck it in the fish tank, where Mom kept her pet piranha.

If this kid makes it to 12, she’ll be lucky.

Meanwhile, the parents should alert all those kind contributors to weepy bus monitor Karen Klein, who will doubtless send the parents contributions out of sympathy because that mean piranha mistreated their child.

The Weeping Bus Monitor: A Half-Million Dollars For Incompetence

/ Jack Marshall / 106 Comments

Karen Klein is the 68- year-old bus monitor who is the unwilling star of a viral video (below) showing her being insulted and mocked by 12-year-olds on a school bus.

Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg.”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The recent post about Ronald Page, the gambling addict given an open, no limits ATM privilege by Bank of America, with predictable results, suggests two opposite reactions. That’s why it was an Ethics Quiz. I expected my answer that it would be wrong to imprison Page for a crime committed because BOA’s negligence triggered his addictive behavior to be countered by the response Karl Penny expresses, persuasively, here. This is his Comment of the Day on “Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg.”

“Jack, I do volunteer work in prisons with people who have all sorts of substance abuse issues. In addition, I grew up in a family of alcoholics. I say that not to garner sympathy or whatever, but to establish credentials, however unofficial. Addicts know what they are doing, even while they are doing it, they know it. They know it when they are sober, and they know it when they’re drunk (alcoholics, gamblers, drug abusers, etc—they’re all drunks—not very PC, but brutally honest). They are human beings imbued with all that goes into being human and, as such, they command my compassion and concern. But. They know. Continue reading →

Fast and Furious: AG Holder’s Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Let’s get a few things settled.

If you look closely, you can see Eric Holder in his engineer cap.

Fast and Furious is a true scandal, not a trumped-up distraction, just as Watergate wasn’t a “third-rate burglary.” When the U.S. government intentionally allows laws to be broken, secretly seeds violent crime in a neighboring country and gets both foreigners and Americans killed as a result, that’s a scandal any way you cut it. The U.S. Congress has an oversight role to play after such a fiasco, and getting to the bottom of what went sour is its duty, regardless of how much enjoyment partisan Congressmen appear to have making Administration officials sweat. Any politician or member of the media who suggests otherwise is trying to manufacture a cover-up and intentionally misleading the public. The mantra that “this is a waste of time when Congress should be doing the nation’s business” was used by Republicans during Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Valerie Plame affair, and by Democrats during Whitewater, Lewinsky, and now, as Fast and Furious is finally bursting out of the hole of obscurity where the biased media tried to stuff it. A badly managed, law-breaking Justice Department isn’t trivial, and when utterly stupid, reckless operations like Fast and Furious come to light, it is essential that there be full disclosure and accountability. The voices trying to bury this scandal do not have the best interests of the United States or the public at heart. Let’s start with that.

Fast and Furious was so jaw-droppingly dumb that its very stupidity is almost a boon to defenders of Attorney General Holder’s department, since the normal reaction to such facts is that some crazy Republican must have made up the whole thing. Unfortunately, this really happened.  In 2009, the US government allowed Arizona gun sellers to illegally sell automatic weapons to suspected criminals. Then ATF agents (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives)  were directed to  allow the guns to “walk” across the border and be delivered to the Mexican drug cartels. The House Oversight Committee’s report explains, “The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case…. [The ATF] initially began using the new gun-walking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy.”

Gee. What a great plan! What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, only everything.

1,608 weapons ended up in the bloody hands of Mexican criminals. The ATF lost track of them, until they turned up at shootings and crime scenes. Many Mexicans, though we don’t know how many, died from being shot by the planted guns, and when a US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by one of them in battle with drug-runners, the fiasco became public. (ATF whistle-blower also helped.) In a sensible, fair, ethical system, the next steps would follow like Summer follows Spring:

  • The news media would give the story major coverage  and do its own, unbiased, competent investigation.
  • The Administration would express horror and regret, and set about its own internal investigation.
  • Both parties of Congress would aggressively seek answers, and make certain that systemic failures were exposed and responsible individuals were identified.
  • Those responsible would resign or would be fired.

But we do not have a sensible, fair, ethical system, at least as it is currently functioning. As a result, the Fact and Furious mess has become an ethics train wreck that appears to be gathering steam. The evidence so far: Continue reading →

Remember, Things Are Better Than They Seem…There’s Photographic Proof!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Much gratitude is due to Buzzfeed for this lovely and timely sequence of  “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” of which the photo above is one. Yes, I’m sure one or more may be photoshopped. At this point, I really do not care.

I don’t know about you, but I need a little reinforcement today.

Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

There was a little software problem when Bank of America acquired LaSalle Bank and the two were transferring account data. As a result, LaSalle depositor Ronald Page found that he could make unlimited ATM cash overdraft withdrawals, even though he had only $300 in his checking account.  This tempting state of affairs lasted for seventeen days, and then from December 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009, Page gambled like a man on fire.  Unfortunately for Page and Bank of America—but fortunately for several casinos—Page is a gambling addict. He withdrew, and gambled away, $1,543,104.00

Now the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit says he is seeking to send him to jail for 15 months  after he pleaded guilty to charges of theft of bank funds. He is also going to be required to pay back the money, with interest, guaranteeing poverty for life.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz question:

Is this fair? Continue reading →

When Your Genius Is A Dunce: The Depressing Self-Outing of Rays’ Manager Joe Madden

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I trusted you, Joe. You broke my heart..

Organizations and institutions tell us a lot about themselves by the individuals they hold up as exemplary. To cite an example much on my mind these days, the conservative blogosphere’s canonization of the late Andrew Breitbart, master of the intentional half-truth, makes me dubious about its reliability and integrity. On  the other side of the spectrum, the fact that so many Democrats, and especially Democratic women, worship Bill Clinton reflects horribly on their values and tolerance for hypocrisy. Now, in the wake of Roger Clemens’ well-deserved acquittal for denying under oath acts that he almost certainly did, we have strong confirmation that a prominent individual Major League Baseball holds up as exemplifying, in the immortal and irritatingly pretentious words of “Terence Mann” about that corn field in Iowa, “all that once was good and it could be again”* is in truth an Ethics Dunce, and a big one at that. His name is Joe Madden, the American League’s 2011 Manager of the Year, and I am disappointed and depressed. (Yes, I have named Joe an Ethics Hero in the past.) Continue reading →