“bias makes you stupid”

Comment Of The Day: “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Ah, how I love it when readers send in superb and informative Comments of the Day when I am strapped for time and have ProEthics deadlines to meet! This post in particular has generated several COTD-worthy responses. I may re-post them all.

But first, here’s Michael R.’s Comment of the Day on “From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis”:

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One of my big problems with the whole ‘climate change’ agenda is that the people who are pushing it don’t believe it, either. If they believed it, they would push agendas that would further the goal of counteracting global warming, but they don’t. They push agendas that are outrageously expensive, damaging to the economy and the well-being of people, and don’t do much, if anything, about the warming of the planet.

(1) Electric vehicles. This is an easy one. The demand to eliminate cars and trucks and replace them with electric vehicles is a high-profile and telling example. First of all, electric vehicles are not capable of replacing many of our vehicles, such as semis. Secondly, we probably lack the resources to replace even most of our cars (alone) with electric vehicles, especially since we oddly won’t allow the mining required to obtain the materials. Thirdly, of electric grid is completely incapable of powering this massive addition to the electric load, especially since we are making it more unreliable with renewables. Most importantly, however, THEY DON’T REDUCE CO2 emissions significantly or at all. Their increased energy involved in production and the battery replacement cycle makes them worse or marginally better than today’s gasoline powered cars (depending on your assumptions). For my use, my gasoline powered cars are better for the environment.

(2) Meat. There is a big push to eliminate meat from our diets for ‘global warming’. However, anyone with half a brain realizes that the ‘fake meat’ they are creating takes vastly more energy to produce than a cow does. Lets take a large vat of rhizobium and extract a few hundred milligrams of leg-hemoglobin so we can make our soybean patty taste like meat? Sure, that’s so much more efficient than a cow or chicken. Of course, a lot of our beef is grown on western grazing lands where you are ONLY allowed to graze cattle. Removing the cows from that land, without opening it up to other agriculture (as the Biden administration has done) only reduces the amount of food produced, increasing the world starvation we are facing.

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The State of Certainty And Reliability of Climate Change Forecasts And Analysis

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Since some EA commenters have chosen to send their credibility to die on the metaphorical hill of Rep. Omar’s ridiculous climate change tweet of last week, I felt this paired set of reports made an important point. Amazingly, so far at least, these irreconcilable contradictions—and this is far from the only one in the climate change “settled science” debate—- don’t seem to shake the faith of climate change fanatics even a little bit.

Which itself is useful information….

I Know It’s Too Easy But I Can’t Resist: “An Irish Actor Playing Oppenheimer Proves Once Again That Jews Don’t Count” May Be The Most Hilariously Confused Casting Ethics Rant Yet

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

There is only one ethical way to cast a play, musical or movie: pick the actor whose portrayal will most entertain the audience and realize the full potential of the script. Casting is not the place (if anywhere is) for political correctness, quotas, “diversity,” or affirmative action.

Ethics Alarms is full of discussions of this issue, most recently here, in the post just last week about how Disney decided it was offensive to cast seven little people as the Seven Dwarfs in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Hollywood and Broadway are completely confused and hypocritical in this area, because the people who run both places are 1) desperate to be seen as progressive and to signal their virtue at every opportunity, 2) terrified of being branded as non-woke, giving extreme activist groups representing various tribes and interests groups the upper hand in their bullying efforts, and 3) not very bright, frankly.

This is why a Samoan-African American actor was found insufficiently black to play folk legend John Henry, but a black woman was cast as red-headed fish-girl Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” and the Founding Fathers ended up being portrayed by black, Asian, and Hispanic women and “non-binary” performers in the revival of “1776.” Tom Hanks now says only gay actors should play gay characters, but a director who refused to cast a gay actor as a non-gay character would be run out of the business. It is, as I have written here before, Calvinball.

All of which brings us to the head-exploding essay by Malina Saval, editor in Chief of Pasadena Magazine, titled “An Irish Actor Playing Oppenheimer Proves Once Again That Jews Don’t Count.”

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Apparently “Bite Me!” In Response To Woke Pseudo-Social Science Research Is Facism

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Frequent commenter Other Bill gets credit for the headline as well as the pointer to a telling, if ridiculous, story.

Oregon State University researchers had circulated a survey regarding LGBTQ students in STEM to engineering undergrads. As described in the scholars’ paper, published in the Summer 2023 edition of the “Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies,” many of the students surveyed resented the questions about their gender as well as the premise of the research, and demonstrated their disapproval by entering gag and satirical responses to request for their gender and ethnicity.

Among the answers:

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Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month (Well, One Of Them) And Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

Observations:

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Easiest Ethics Quiz Ever!

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Your Ethics Alarms Easiest Ethics Quiz of All Time is…

Do you detect any bias in the CNBC lists of the Best and Worst States to Live and Work in?

Here they are:

CNBC’s top 10 worst states to live and work for 2023 are…

  1. Texas
  2. Oklahoma
  3. Louisiana
  4. South Carolina and Alabama (tie)
  5. —
  6. Missouri
  7. Indiana
  8. Tennessee
  9. Arkansas
  10. Florida

CNBC’s top 10 best states to live and work for 2023 are…

  1. Vermont
  2. Maine
  3. New Jersey
  4. Minnesota
  5. Hawaii
  6. Oregon
  7. Washington
  8. Massachusetts and  Colorado (tie)
  9. —
  10. Connecticut

One of the criteria for determining the best states to live and work in is is the extent to which they permit relatively unrestricted abortion, since many single women regard this as a priority. Ironically, such states are not desirable places for unwanted children to ever have a chance live or work, but this was not one of the criteria.

USA Today and other mainstream media outlets reported the CNBC woke propaganda effort uncritically without noting the obvious. The USA Today article began, “How does life in your state compare to the rest of America?”

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

It’s Unethical For Democrats, the News Media And Activists to Gaslight The Public, But On The SCOTUS Affirmative Action Smack-Down, They Did It Anyway

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The coverage of the recent rulings in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard almost universally created the impression that they were further attacks on democracy by a rogue Supreme Court, foiling the will of the people. In particular, these decisions blocking institutionalized institutional racist discrimination, which is what higher education affirmative action is, were assailed as creating disastrous hurdles to black Americans as they strive to succeed in this nation plagued by systemic racism.

Two recent polls show that this narrative was fake news from the news media and misinformation from the Left. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey found that 65% of “Likely U.S. Voters” approve of the rulings, with 49% approving “strongly”. Just 28% disapprove of the conclusion that the prohibition on discriminating by race means no discrimination by race. You can read how the questions were posed here. Another poll from YouGov/The Economist asked “Do you approve or disapprove of Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action?” Both sexes, all races, every age group, and every level of income approved more than not. (See here.)

Yeah, I know: polls. In this case, however, these easily manipulated surveys perform a service. The Supreme Court’s function does not and should not involve following the mob, but appealing to mob emotions has been a central strategy by progressives as they seek to de-legitimize the one branch of the government they don’t control. An accompanying myth is that the Roberts Court is an obstacle to “the will of the people,” even when, as in this case, the will of the people is supported by the Constitution and our laws.

Even after a concerted and ongoing effort to inflict Marxist goals, racial quotas and “good” discrimination on the culture, our core values have stood up to the propaganda siege—so far.

There is hope.

Ethics Hero (Corporate Division): In-N-Out Burger

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Among the many ways the last few years of Wokemania has reduced the quality of American life and our access to the pursuit of happiness is the creation of the ideology-linked addiction to virtually useless masks and a near-crippling phobia regarding the threat of air-borne illnesses created by fearmongering during the pandemic.

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Ethics Quiz: “Colored People” Bad, “People Of Color” Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I almost missed this kerfuffle completely. Of all people, one of my most reliably Democrat-supporting friends raised it, beginning by saying. “I know this is not something a good progressive is supposed to say or think, but….

…why in the world is it ‘racist’ to say ‘colored people’ but politically correct to use the term ‘people of color’ when by the undeniable rules of English, they mean exactly the same thing?”

She continued, “And how can anyone belonging to an organization called ‘The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’ accuse someone of being a racist for saying it?”

Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane was arguing for his amendment to the defense budget and policy bill, as he wants to prohibit the Pentagon from requiring participation in DEI training or the use of ” race-based concepts” in the hiring, promotion or retention of individuals. In the course of debate, Crane said “My amendment has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or black people or anybody can serve, okay? It has nothing to do with color of your skin… any of that stuff.”

Recognizing a “gotcha!” when she saw one, black Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an enthusiastic member of the racist Congressional Black Caucus, demanded Crane’s words be stricken from the congressional record. “I am asking for unanimous consent to take down the words of referring to me or any of my colleagues as “colored people,'” said the dues-paying member of the NAACP. Crane wanted to amend his comments to “people of color,” but Beatty insisted that she wanted his words stricken. Censorship is, after all, her party’s way, and no Republicans had the guts to object.The chair ordered Cranes entire statement stricken by unanimous consent.

Beatty then worked to exploit the gaffe for all it was worth, writing on Twitter: “I am still in utter and disbelief that a Republican uttered the words ‘colored people’ in reference to African-American service members who sacrifice their lives for our freedom… I will not tolerate such racist and repugnant words in the House Chamber or anywhere in the Congress. That’s why I asked that those words be stricken from the record, which was done so by unanimous consent.” Then the Ohio Democrat told CBS that Crane’s explanation that he “misspoke” was a lie. “He didn’t misspeak,” Beatty said. “He said clearly what, in my opinion, he intended to.” 

In other words, he intended to use a racist slur.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

What is fair treatment for Rep. Crane?

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Why The White House Cocaine Incident Matters

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

In a depressing AP story about a poll supposedly showing that a large majority of Americans don’t believe democracy is working as it should in the U.S. today, one disillusioned voter, a “moderate Republican,” singled out the GOP’s investigations of Hunter Biden as a prime example of misplaced priorities.

“Hunter Biden — what does that have to do with us?” he asked, neatly demonstrating why the Founders decided that a pure democracy was dangerous, and that a republic was much safer in many respects.

Hunter Biden is not important at all isolated from what he represents, which is strong evidence that the President of the United States is 1) lying 2) abusing power and influence to assist his pathetic ne’er do well son 3) possibly benefiting from his son’s influence peddling 4) corrupting the justice system to protect his family, and 5) untrustworthy, because he is willing to place other priorities above the interests of the United States of America. The fact that the “moderate Republican,” whose argument is that the President’s son has “nothing to do with the economy,” can’t comprehend this, is a perfect example of how most U.S. citizens don’t understand the basic concepts of ethics, government and law.

Consider the White House cocaine fiasco. A white substance in a plastic bag was found in the White House library and identified as cocaine. Hunter Biden had been to his father’s abode three days before the discovery. Hunter has been a cocaine user in the past, and there is video and photographic evidence of that. From the beginning, the White House made every effort imaginable to keep the public and the media’s suspicions going to the obvious place. On July 5, less than 72 hours after the discovery, a law enforcement source leaked to Politico that the owner of the drugs would likely never be known. National security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested the drug could have belonged to construction workers renovating the West Wing Situation Room, and Joe’s paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre flipped into indignant “How dare you!’ mode when a reporter asked if the envelope might have belonged to a Biden. She also said, laughably, insisted that the Secret Service would never allow the President to dictate how they handled delicate matters at the White House. “We are not involved in this,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is something that the Secret Service handles. It’s under their protocol.” Sure. Who believes this?

On July 13, the Secret Service concluded its investigation without naming a suspect, saying that it could not narrow the group of people who had access to the area to “a person of interest.” Hunter was never questioned. The Secret Service briefed members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on its findings.

Senator Tom Cotton had an amusing analogy to this narrative.”This is like if the Hamburglar lived in the White House, all the hamburgers disappeared, and they said they didn’t have any suspects or no one they could question,” he said. Meanwhile, conservative pundit and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino says that his former colleagues are furious, and that they know who brought the cocaine into the White House, adding,

“So there’s probably less than 200 people who could have left this cocaine, by the way, in a bag which is plastic, which is non-porous, meaning it’s probably not that hard to pull a latent print. They’ve got to know who did it. The question is, who’s pressuring them to not find out who did it? And it’s gotta be coming from this White House. This is terrible. Don’t destroy this agency like the FBI. It’s really unbecoming. A lot of my former colleagues at the Secret Service who retired, they are absolutely furious about this. Oh yeah, yeah, I can tell you, I got 50 emails, communications, texts from people. ‘This is embarrassing, humiliating.’ These are good guys, man, guys who worked for Obama and Bush, non-partisan guys, most of them aren’t even political. This is embarrassing. They know exactly who it was.”

And sports bookies are releasing odds on who owned the drugs.

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