Month: May 2025

Tough One: Who Is a More Unethical Choice For a Commencement Speaker, Tim Walz or a Muppet?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

How can we continue to believe American higher education is anything but an unethical, greed-propelled fraud if the institutions themselves don’t take their official mission seriously? (That would be education and the conferring of wisdom and inspiration, in contrast to the real mission, ideological indoctrination. Here is a revealing article about Harvard’s corruption, for example.)

The University of Maryland will have Kermit the Frog as its commencement speaker today to send the graduating class of 2025 off into the real world.

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Integrity Test For Climate Change Hysterics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Well waddya know! The U.S. is on the verge of setting records for all-time low temperatures in May. That’s funny. I thought humanity was doomed because the world is burning up.

Of course, I don’t think one unseasonally cold month has any more significance than one unseasonably cold day, but that’s not how the climate change cabal has been playing their game. No, every time the temperature seems especially high anywhere in the USA, the activists, most of whom know as much about climate science as I know about fixing a carburetor, start screaming, pointing, and crying out, “See? SEE?” They do the same thing with seasonal wildfires, hurricanes, floods and, at least on The View, earthquakes and eclipses. They get away with it too, because the unscrupulous politicians they elect and the dim-bulb progressive pundits and reporters who work for those politicians always endorse and rationalize the climate change hysterics’ propaganda, even after every prediction, every projection, every deadline to save humanity proves to be hooey.

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Unethical Commencement Speaker of the Decade: Minnesota Governor “Knucklehead” Tim Walz

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Does anyone still need convincing that Gov. Walz is among the most irresponsible, civically ignorant, repellent and dishonest elected officials in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Apparently so: the University of Minnesota Law School invited him to give the main address as its commencement ceremony. Even if Walz were not a clueless demagogue, constitutional dunce and enemy of free speech (he thinks “hate speech” should be punished), he’s an absurd choice to give a speech to law school grads. Not only isn’t he lawyer, he lacks the rudiments of critical thinking essential to the law. He doesn’t know what lawyer do, or what their standards of conduct are.

Walz didn’t disappoint: he continued on the path of unhinged demogoguery that has characterized his pronouncements since he dragged Kamala Harris and the Democrats down to defeat. (Yes, I know there were dozens of factors that resulted in the Totalitarian Party’s well-earned loss in November, but when I absolutely knew the Harris ticket was doomed was when Walz bumbled his way through the debate with J.D. Vance.)

Here are the lowlights of the unethical speech he inflicted on the recent graduates. There are more gaffes and lies than acceptable sections, which is, I guess, impressive it its own, warped, knickleheaded way. My comments are in bold, his blather is in italics:

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Ethics Hero: Hugo Monteiro

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Who is Hugo? He’s a 31-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Brazil who was arrested outside Cambridge District Court in Medford, Massachusetts last week. Four plainclothes officers approached him as he was leaving the courthouse, escorted him to a Jeep Cherokee and placed him in handcuffs. ” I was calm because I knew I didn’t do anything wrong,” Monteiro said later. “They were just, like, telling me I was under arrest, that I was in trouble. I was confused.”

So were they, as it turned out. When the officers tried to confirm that they had arrested the the right person, they discovered their mistake. “I showed them my ID, my passport and my picture, and they confirmed that it was not me,” Hugo said. So the officers returned Monteiro to the courthouse. The whole episode took less than 20 minutes.

Hugo didn’t scream police brutality or run to the press to condemn “people being scooped off the street and disappeared.” He said that he knew the officers were “doing their job” and supported their efforts.

“Unfortunately, they called the wrong person, but I still support whatever they’re doing,” Monteiro said. “I voted for Trump. There are a lot of bad people in this country, to be honest with you, [who] don’t deserve to be here. No hard feelings,” he added.

Spoken like a good citizen.

Incidentally, Twitter/X Also Sucks, And Can Bite Me.

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

For reasons yet to be explained, my second attempt to maintain an account on “X” was foiled yesterday when I was suddenly blocked from my own home page, “EthicsAlarmist.” I have spent over an hour trying to wade through the laborious process of getting back on, all because the phone number I initially used to set up the account is no longer in use. There is apparently no way to fix this. They keep wanting to send me a code using that number, and when I give them my current cell phone number and try to use the code they send me, the site responds that the phone number I am using is not associated with the account. Like so, so many others, X has a terrible service website.

I just received this in the email they also say is not associated with the account:

Hello,
The phone number you provided does not match the phone number on the account.
If you have a different phone number that might be associated with the account, you can request a password reset via SMS text message using this link: https://x.com/account/begin_password_reset.
If you’re still not able to update your password, we may be able to assist you. Please respond to this email with the following:

  • Are you still logged in to https://mobile.x.com?
  • What is the @username you are trying to access?
  • Is the account linked to an app like X for Android or iOS, postDeck, Vine, Instagram, etc? 

Thanks,
X Support

I’ve gone through all of that, twice. It’s an endless loop. Then I received this:

Hello,

We’re writing to let you know that we’re unable to verify you as the account owner. We know this is disappointing to hear, but we can’t assist you further with accessing your account. If you know which email address or phone number is associated with the account, and you no longer have access to that email or connected phone number, please contact your service provider for assistance. 

For privacy reasons, we can’t provide any information about this account’s registered email address or phone number. We understand it’s frustrating to get locked out of an account, but we have these policies to protect accounts and private data. We appreciate your understanding.

You’re more than welcome to create a new account to get back onto X. 

Please do not respond to this email as replies to this account are not monitored.

Thanks, X Support

My response: “You are welcome to bite me.” I do not understand, and I particularly don’t understand how a Big Tech company can be this incompetent.

Eventually I suppose I will have to open a third account (I abandoned #1 while Twitter was kicking out conservatives and Trump) just to have access to tweets and videos from other sources, but I won’t be investing any time in seeking followers or exposure for Ethics Alarms content.

A platform that behaves like this can’t be trusted—and I even paid for a “blue check.” And after my Verizon experience, Musk’s baby picked the wrong time to mess with me. I’m sure there is some secret to getting my account back, but X has wasted too much of my time already, and I will not forgive or forget.

To Hell with it.

And Now For Something Completely Stupid and Unethical Too: Carmel-By-The-Sea

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I’m not sure why I never learned that the little California municipality of Carmel-by-the-Sea in Monterey has an illegal and unethical law against high-heeled shoes, since my brain is stuffed with even more useless trivia. I know now, however, and my conviction that California is hopelessly estranged from U.S. values and principles has been reinforced (again).

In 1963 the city passed a law, recommended by a City Attorney who was evidently an idiot, requiring visitors to get an official permit in order to legally walk around the place in heels higher than two inches. You can read the local ordinance here. If one wants to walk around wearing heels over two inches in height and less than one square inch of bearing surface, a permit from the city hall is required. The permits are issued free of charge, with the name of the individual making the request and the signature of a city clerk.

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Comment of the Day: “BREAKING! Verizon Sucks!”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Much thanks is due to Ryan Harkins for helping to keep this from becoming “Jake Tapper is an Asshole” Tuesday with some thoughtful commentary about why customer service is almost universally terrible. This comes in the wake of my beginning a vendetta against Verizon, which damaged my business, lied, cost me money, wasted my time, raised my blood pressure, and made it all worse by generously offering me eight dollars and change for my trouble.

Here is Ryan’s Comment of the Day on the post “Breaking! Verizon Sucks!”

***

My wife and I just encountered a situation with Spectrum, for internet services, and Ameritas, for life insurance. In each case, speaking with a different customer service representative ended up in wildly different stories and results, and in each case has left us angry and considering cancelling and seeking another company.

On the Ameritas front, my wife has a life insurance policy that was issued when she was a baby (I’m not permitted to say how many years ago, but she’s an early Millennial…), and we’ve been dutifully paying the annual premium for years for the $50k whole life policy. The problem is that since the policy is so old, the company apparently has no idea how to handle it anymore. It isn’t available to view through their website. Apparently it can’t be converted to a different policy that is able to be posted online. When discussing what to do moving forward, we’ve been told

  • We’ve actually paid all the premiums, and now we have the policy in full, no further payments are needed until an unknown date a few years from now
  • We’ve actually paid all the premiums, and now we have the policy in full, no further payments are needed until an unknown date far in the future
  • We haven’t paid all the premiums and need to pay late fees for not paying this last year’s premium
  • We don’t have to pay late fees, but we do need to pay the premium (that we’ve already paid)
  • We’ve not paid the premium that we have paid and are in danger of losing our policy altogether
  • We’ve not paid the premium that we have paid and our policy is changing into a different, inferior type of policy

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Ethics Hero: Megyn Kelly

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In the clip from her podcast above, Megyn Kelly, who has not always been the exemplar of ethical journalism, deftly eviscerated Ethics Villain Jack Tapper for his role in covering up Joe Biden’s galloping dementia and then turning around after the election (and the failure of his fellow propagandists to defeat Donald Trump) to profit from a book exposing the scandal that he was part of.

Kelly’s coup-de-gras comes when Tapper, cornered, whines, “There is a difference between the clips of Joe Biden falling on a stage… forgetting a Republican congressman had died… Those are embarrassing… but there is a difference between that and the investigative journalism that Alex and I were able to do—and only able to do after the election.”

Kelly goes for the jugular, and get it. “I don’t diminish the importance of the book,” she says. “But there is no way we can have that conversation with an audience that is as skeptical of your ability to tell the story as mine is without addressing your role in this, right?…you’ve watched the coverage since it came out that you wrote this book…. there’s a legion of articles comparing you in some instances to like, O.J. Instead of ‘If I Did It,’ this is ‘If I Hid It.’”

Perfect.

As a side note, should I give Tapper a teeny bit of credit for agreeing to do Megyn’s podcast? Surely he knew what was coming…or did he? I think he is mired in such a bubble and has been so corrupted by his stay at CNN that he really has convinced himself that working for the Axis of Unethical Conduct makes him one of the good guys. Either that, or he’s a moron.

Whatever the case, he’s lucky I wasn’t the interviewer. My questions to Jake would have made Megyn seem like Mr. Rogers….

Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Banners

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This isn’t the quiz question, but are we entering Julie Principle territory here? Should I keep flagging this very Trumpian conduct as ethically dubious, or just resign myself to “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Trump’s gonna troll ’cause he likes to, that’s why”?

Those banners are currently hanging at the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. Naturally, my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends (and certainly the rest of that zombie herd that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting), is triggered. “This is SHOCKING,” writes one of the TDS inflicted (whose posts I have noted before). “Authoritarian craziness is now on full display. What happened to DOGE? We now have Soviet style banners. POTUS is a very ill man.” A reply asserts, “Unfortunately, the ‘uneducated’ would never see this.”

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BREAKING! Verizon Sucks!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

For the nearly four days Verizon’s incompetence cost me, including two angry clients, one lost assignment that would have earned me at least $200, a missed bill payment that resulted in a penalty of 22 bucks, and over four hours wasted on phone calls and technicians, the company just texted me what its penance would be. Here’s the full text:

“Due to a service outage, we’ve issued a credit of $8.61 that will appear soon in your account.”

Anticipating this, yesterday I tried to get through to a human being in Customer Service to register my objections to both the Verizon service I received (and didn’t receive) over those four days, and my conclusion that the company owed me a lot more than just compensation for the time the internet and phone weren’t working. First I was trapped in a loop trying to sell me various products and services offered by Verizon’s “partners.” Next I reached an AI who mimicked a human being, even saying “um” here and there, who wouldn’t stop talking even when I did my best Michael Palin impression from the immortal “Travel Agent Sketch” (his screaming “SHUT UP!” begins at around the four minute mark)….

On my third try, I was told that a live representative would pick up after an estimated “13 minute” wait; the wait time was really 44 minutes. Then I was told that I had reached the repair department, but I was promised that I would be forwarded to a live person “who can help you” without dealing with recordings and AI liars. After a half hour of the most horrible elevator music since Montovani played “The Pina Colada Song,” I hung up.

I can’t even buy a good straight-edge razor to go on my planned “Sweeney Todd” rampage for $8.61.”