Dissecting a Washington Post op-ed in which Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius argued for the constitutionality of Obamacare, Wall Street Journal wit and political commentator James Taranto argued that the two Obama officials…
“…can’t even muster a coherent argument in favor of ObamaCare as a matter of policy. The op-ed opens with what is meant to be a heartstring-tugging anecdote: Continue reading
Perhaps it was the story about the camel falling over during the Nativity Scene rehearsal, but I have begun to have ethical qualms about the use of real infants to play Baby Jesus in Christmas scenes and pageants. This morning, Fox News featured another one, with Mary and the gang holding a five-month-old child outside in sub-freezing temperatures. “He’s very warm, ” Mary said of the star of the show (I guess a Christmas pageant is one show where the “star” is literally a star; Baby Jesus is, what, the leading man? A key prop?). “Jesus” was wrapped up like a mummy, though his face looked cold. Was it really necessary to have a real child? Continue reading
Do private corporations have an ethical obligation to allow Wikileaks to use their services? MasterCard, Visa and PayPal stopped processing Wikileaks donations. Amazon kicked the site off its server. Twitter stopped its tweets; Facebook stopped its interfacing.
Columbia University Professor Tim Wu rhetorically asked them:
“Since when are you in the business of deciding who is and who isn’t a good civil disobedience movement?”
Before I address the Professor’s question, let’s make some distinctions. Continue reading
From the Associated Press, the big story of the day:
“A federal judge declared the foundation of President Barack Obama’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, ruling that the government cannot require Americans to purchase insurance. The case is expected to end up at the Supreme Court.”
This matter, as the AP suggests, is far from settled. I just finished the opinion, which will be more accessible tomorrow. Two ethical conclusions jump out from it, however. Continue reading
Randy Cohen,”The Ethicist,” really doesn’t apply ethics to the intriguing questions sent to him in his long-running column in the New York Times Magazine. What he applies is Randy’s customized social justice agenda, which has a strong class bias (Rich people deserve to be brought down a peg whenever feasible), endorses redistribution of income (stealing from rich people is different from stealing from poor people) and a belief that if a rationalization can provide a green light to allow a deserving person to stick it to a company or wealthy citizen, by all means, embrace it. Because Cohen is a smart and instinctively ethical guy, he still get the answers right the vast majority of the time, as he has done for quite a few weeks now. Eventually, however he’ll reveal the Real Randy in a column like today’s
, in which “The Ethicist” endorses vigilante justice. Continue reading
I was traveling by air again yesterday. As usual, I went through airport security and, as usual, I set off the buzzer with my platinum hip, which try as I might, I just can’t get into one of those gray plastic trays. As usual, I was directed to the cattle pen waiting area until an agent could give me my enhanced pat-down, because also as usual, the quick, convenient, preferable and unjustly maligned full body scanners weren’t available.
I was asked if I was familiar with the new procedures, to which I answered, “You have no idea.” And the nice, friendly, professional agent game me the full-body massage, but with a difference: now, as he pointed out carefully, he was directed to use only the back of his hand when approaching my happy places, and he was extremely careful to avoid any touching that would make Sean Hannity complain on the radio.
All the bitching, you see, worked. Continue reading
For reasons no one has yet explained, a provision in the new health care reform law removes a previously Congressionally-mandated discount to children’s hospitals for drugs used to treat so-called “orphan diseases,” illnesses that are not common enough for the drugs to be profitable. Pharmaceutical companies have begun notifying the hospitals that they no longer qualify for the discounts, and the change will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as put sick kids at risk. Continue reading
As it does periodically, Gallup has released the results of its surveys to determine what professions Americans regard as ethical, and which ones they don’t. Gallup notes that there has been very little change over the last two years; on its site, it compares the results to those of polls taken from 2004 to the present.
The professions that have positive ratings from the public are nurses, the military, pharmacists, grade school teachers, doctors, police, clergy, judges, and day care providers.
The rest are in the red, trust-wise, with TV and newspaper reporters coming in below auto mechanics and bankers, lawyers below them, business executives even below lawyers, and well below them, Congress, which comes in barely above car salesmen—and more people actually have a low opinion of Congress members than of car salesmen. Congress inches ahead because a larger number also think that members of Congress are ethical.
Probably federal workers… Continue reading
It seems that cinema innovator and mega-mogul George Lucas is using a large chunk of his “Star Wars” merchandising lucre to purchase the rights to screen images of dead movie stars. His plan is to give his tech-magicians at LucasArt the opportunity to perfect the process of re-animating and manipulating them to appear in new roles in new films. Imagine Humphrey Bogart in “Pirates of the Caribbean 5”! Imagine Marilyn Monroe joining the girls in “Sex and the City 2”! Imagine Cary Grant in a buddy picture with Adam Sandler! Or Jar Jar Binks.
Undoubtedly there are many movie fans who would enjoy having digitally resurrected Hollywood legends appearing side-by-side current idols, and there is probably a lot of money to be made by giving them what they want. Turning deceased stars into computer-generated images and making them do and say anything the programmers choose, with the pace, volume and inflection the directors desire, would represent a significant technological advance. Another obvious benefit is that Lucas’s method is preferable to just digging up the carcasses of the acting greats, hanging them on wires, and using machinery to parade them through movie sets like marionettes.
But not much. Continue reading
[Back in 2007, a ridiculous lawsuit spawned an even more ridiculous pronouncement from Rosie O’Donnell, which prompted the following post (originally titled “The Pants, the Judge, and Rosie’s Mouth”) on The Ethics Scoreboard. I had forgotten about it, but the issue of “loser pays” still comes up, and Rosie (and Joy Behar) continue to require periodic slapdowns, so here it is again—Jack]
The tale of Roy Pearson, the infamous Washington, DC administrative law judge who is suing his dry cleaner for damages of $65.5 million for a lost pair of pants, would normally warrant scant comment beyond this obvious one: Pierson is a bully, his lawsuit is unreasonable and unethical, and he deserves whatever sanctions the legal system can devise. A Washington Post editorial suggested that the lawsuit, which Pierson says is justified by his inconvenience, court costs, and the mental anguish caused by the loss of his beloved pants, is proof enough of bad character and terrible judgement that he should not be reappointed to another ten-year term. [ Update: He wasn’t.] That would normally end the issue, freeing me to move on to more important matters, like global warming and American Idol.
And then Rosie O’Donnell opened her big mouth. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 