Once Again I Have To Point Out That “Imagine” Is Not Ethical Policy

I hate to pick on well-intentioned commentary from the resident Ethics Alarms Reasonable Cephalopod, but so be it: I can’t let this pass. Several commenters were lining up to defend this bit of circular argle-bargle from Kamala Harris yesterday:

There must be stability and peace in that region, in as much as what we do in our goal is to ensure that Israelis have security, and Palestinians in equal measure have security, have self-determination, and dignity. That there be an ability to have security in the region, for all concerned, in a way that we create stability, and—let us all also recognize—in a way that ensures that Iran is not empowered in this whole scenario in terms of the peace and stability in the region.”

Extradimensional Cephalopod, as always trying to arbitrate, wrote, “Jack, if we separate the statement from the person saying it, the statement itself is fine. It’s a statement of the ideal outcome.”

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Cetacean Ethics: “No, Flipper, NO!”

 Off the shores of Fukui, Japan, a rogue dolphin appears to have attacked at least 53 bathers over the past three years, leaving them with bite wounds and sometimes broken bones. Most of the victims were bitten on their arms and hands, but seven were rammed. That’s how dolphins fight sharks.

Authorities believe that even more people have been injured because some victims did not report the attacks. In each reported incident, only one dolphin was involved: an aquatic mammal with an injured dorsal fin.

And a grudge.

Flipper the Ripper.

Ethics Verdict: When Your Town Is Being Overrun, It’s Not Racist To Use The Term “Overrun.”

How Orwellian of CNN! When former Trump administration official Tricia McLaughlin explained why residents of Springfield, Ohio was being “overrun” by Haitian immigrants, “CNN NewsNight With Abby Phillip” host Phillip insisted that using words like “overrun” was “part of the problem.” Part of what problem? The problem of letting the American public know exactly what is happening in their country as a result of Biden Administration open border policies? Yes, that is a problem for Democrats, and I can certainly understand how our Big Brother party wants to eliminate words that can accurately explain the situation.

What is the nice word for what’s going on when 20,000 recent immigrants from a third world country and hopelessly messed up culture descend on a struggling town of just 60,000? That’s a 30% influx of completely unassimilated foreigners in a town that is having trouble caring for the people living there already. Is the town being “visited”? No, these arrivals are planning on staying: Springfield must seem like Disney World to someone from Haiti. Are the Haitians enhancing the town? No, because such a large group of new residents lacking familiarity with English and other cultural norms can’t avoid causing serious problems, and they are. “Overrun” is as good a word for what’s happening as I can think of.

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Opera Ethics! A Diva Attack In Seoul

Yikes. A performer who did this in one of my shows would have to enter the witness protection program, because I would be hunting her down. With a crossbow.

South Korean tenor Alfred Kim, responding to uproarious applause, was performing an encore of “E lucevan le stelle,” a famous aria in the third act of Puccini’s “Tosca” at an opera house in Seoul. His co-star, celebrated soprano Angela Gheorghiu who was singing the title role, marched onstage and demanded that he stop.

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The Dumbest Ethics Train Wreck Ever Is Still Barreling Down The Tracks!

Australian Olympian Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has been named as the world’s top female breakdancer by the World DanceSport Federation. Raygun topped the ranking with 1,000 points thanks for her single win at the Oceania Continental Championship last October. This, despite her losing every match in the field during the Paris Olympics each by scores of 18-0, and thoroughly embarrassing the “sport,” herself, and the Games themselves.

So how could this academic narcissist, Dr. Rachael Gunn, who hopped around like a kangaroo in her Olympic routine be the #1 ranked women’s breakdancer in the whole wide world in the latest rankings when her total score of 0 points put her in last place among the 16 breakers in the main Olympic competition?

My answer: it’s the “March of Folly” phenomenon. Everyone knows this honor makes no sense, and everyone knows that such a self-evidently absurd rankig will discredit everyone involved. However, just as in the Charge of the Light Brigade, the launching of the Challenger Space Shuttle, and so many other disasters throughout history where it seemed easier to just stay on the path to chaos than to stand up and scream, “NO! Stop! This is insane!” the World DanceSport Federation decided it was easier to look ridiculous than to avoid an obvious fiasco.

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Now THIS Is An Unethical Surgeon…

Don’t you just hate it when you’re under anesthesia for a serious operation, and while you’re unconscious your surgeon lets her 13-year-old daughter take over?

Graz University Hospital in Austria ( Graz is the regional capital of Styria, Austria’s second-largest state) released this apology: “The hospital’s management would like to express its utmost regret and extend its sincere apologies for this incident, and is working to fully clarify the matter.” The “matter” is this: After a 33-year-old man was flown to the hospital with serious head injuries following an accident, the female neurosurgeon, whose name has not been revealed so far, apparently allowed her 13-year-old daughter to scrub in. Maybe it was “take your daughter to work” day or something, but the aspiring distaff Doogie Howser was accused by a whistle-blowing member of the surgical team of actively taking part in the emergency surgery, including drilling a hole in the patient’s skull to relieve pressure from cranial bleeding.

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Well, I Guess I Feel a LITTLE Better Now That It’s Clear That a Lot of Israelis Are As Ethically Clueless As So Many Americans…[Expanded]

Over night, Israel’s largest labor union called for nationwide strike to push for a hostage deal, threatening to shut down “the entire Israeli economy” Tel Aviv’s international airport announced that it would halt departures and arrivals of flights for two hours, and intense protests have broken out in response to Israel’s military recovering the bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza. The protesters say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not done enough to protect the hostages. To be blunt, the protesters are ethics dunces and morons….much like the American students, Democrats, pundits and the Biden administration trying to pressure Israel into a ruinous cease-fire with Hamas.

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Once Again, Ethics Alarms Must Ask, “How Many Insults To Their Intelligence From Biden and Harris Will Voters Tolerate?”

It was the fatuous and insulting “Biden” message above about the American hostage found murdered in Gaza that mandated this post, but I was already thinking about the ongoing insults after seeing a Harris TV ad last night that made my head explode.

I couldn’t find it on YouTube this morning, but Kamala was smirking as she again wafted vague about the “opportunity economy” while giving the political equivalent of singing “Imagine.” She said that “everyone should be able to get a car loan.” How would that work, exactly? It was Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank’s delusion that everyone should be able to get a home mortgage that set up the 2008 economic collapse. She says that she will lower prices and lower taxes, yet Harris cast the deciding vote on trillion-dollar government pork buffets that exploded inflation and made more taxes crucial if the U.S. is going to avoid a National Debt Armageddon. She says she refuses to return to the “politics of the past,” whatever that means—when governments didn’t try to lock up their political opponents, maybe?

There is literally not a single substantive policy statement in the whole ad, not one. Isn’t everyone insulted by ads like that? What kind of dolt would see and hear such deliberately non-substantive boilerplate recycled from “Hope and Change” and say, “Wow! I’m going to vote for her!” Why would anyone vote for a candidate who is so obviously using platitudes to avoid letting them know what she is really planning to do?

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Comment of the Day: “As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn: The Sequel”

This is an unusual Comment of the Day by Chris Marschner (on the post,“As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn”), but it makes an important point, indeed, the crucial point that exposes the intellectual dishonesty of the Times’ “Think of the Children!” campaign to demonize Israel as it tries to defend its right to exist.

***

I reworked the original Times story to reflect a similar situation in the mid-20th century. All I did was change the name and the players. If the Times had written its report this way, then the Brits, the French, the Poles, the Czecks and others would be goose-stepping to their new bosses and Israel would not exist.

It is obvious to any rational thinker that when a nation faces existential peril from zealots who believe they are the rightful heirs of the entire region and that no one except the devout believers of Mohammed may live peacefully there, that when they are attacked they must eliminate the immediate as well as the long term threat in order to minimize civilian losses. We did this twice in the Pacific and Europe when despots saw opportunities for empire building.

My NYT rewrite:

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“As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With ‘Think of the Children!’ Porn”: The Sequel

Today the Times published another in its continuing reporting efforts to demonize Israel, encourage anti-Semitism, support the unconscionable Biden -Harris pressure on Israel to agree to a ruinous cease-fire, and to validate Palestinian terrorism. The Ethics Alarms commentary on this piece is essentially identical to what appeared in its predecessor, As the NYT Enables Terrorism and Anti-Israel Hate With “Think of the Children!” Porn…which stated in that the Times report…

“…can evoke no possible response from typical semi-attentive and easily manipulated readers than “Think of the children! The Jews are monsters! Cease fire now! The Gazans have suffered enough! Justice for Palestine!”

And this is exactly the end result that Hamas sought when it launched its cease-fire shattering surprise terror attack on Israeli civilians, including infants, on October 7.”

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