The web is abuzz over this viral video, in which a young woman, aided by a videocam-wielding minion, goes to excessive lengths to provoke a young man of significant size:
The question being debated: Is it ever ethical for a man to strike a woman? Continue reading
I’m so confused!
PolitiFact, the Tampa Bay Times’ “fact check” web page, has long been flagged on Ethics Alarms (and elsewhere, notably by the WSJ’s James Taranto) for its lack of integrity and flagrant bias towards the Left, Democrats, and President Obama. It was in June of 2012 that Ethics Alarms produced the “smoking gun” of PolitiFact’s perfidy, when the site pulled off a “when did you stop beating your wife” stunt to cast unfair suspicion on House Speaker John Boehner, “fact-checking” a groundless accusation and despite finding no evidence that it was true, labeling the accusation unsettled, because Boehner might do what he was accused of, eventually. In May of this year, as it slowly dawned on fair, English-comprehending Americans that then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was misleading the American people about what the CIA knew about the September Benghazi attack, and Jay Carney, as his job description requires, lied through his teeth about her performance, PolitiFact could only muster a “mostly false” rating. The site is a partisan spin-machine, using the dishonest guise of a neutral “fact-checker” to undermine trust in Republicans and bolster Democrats when they need cover, particularly the President, who needs cover a lot. Continue reading
Believe it or not, this isn’t the most ridiculous feature of the Slate essay it comes from.
I am constantly being reminded of an old Bob and Ray skit (no, I can’t find it online) they did on late night TV where Bob played an interviewer of a longshoreman (Ray) who had just published a thousand page history of the U.S. that was riddled with errors. “Here, for example,” the increasingly perplexed interviewer sputtered, “you say that Abraham Lincoln was born in 1943 in Bailey’s Mistake, Maine!” Because the internet permits anyone to publish authoritative-sounding nonsense and lies without penalty, that skit seems less and less absurd with each passing day.
Even the content of supposedly legitimate, respected on-line sources cannot be relied upon , because 1) the job of “editor” appears to be obsolete, and 2) if there is an editor, he may be an ignoramus too. For example, a day after after the World Health Organization released a stunning report announcing that citizens of Greece were intentionally giving themselves AIDS so they could get health benefits, it retracted the statement, saying, through a spokesman, “There is no evidence of people in Greece or anywhere else in Europe deliberately infecting themselves.” What happened? It was an editing error. Oh, well then… wait, what? And nobody other than the editor read the ridiculous release before falsely accusing an entire country of breeding idiots?
This brings us to this “correction” that appeared yesterday on Slate….you know, that sophisticated, erudite, eclectic online cultural commentary magazine:
“Correction, Dec. 10, 2013: This article originally misidentified penguins as mammals. They are birds.” Continue reading
The Naked Teacher’s Curse: What she wants the students to see (L); What they THINK they see (R)
So-called revenge websites are run by the scum of the earth. These cyber-offal of the internet, among their other cruel activities, post unauthorized photos of women and men in embarrassing, often naked or otherwise provocative poses, submitted by jilted lovers, assorted enemies, and vicious rivals. Then the site extorts money from the victims shown in the photos, or the photos remain up for all to see.
The existence of such sites ought to convince any rational person that allowing anyone to take digital photographs involving his or her naked body or sexual proclivities is a about as prudent as hiding active land mines in the back yard. If said rational person is a teacher, then allowing this crosses the line from unwise to certifiably insane, with gradients pointing toward a straitjacket and a padded cells according to the ages of the students. This is because, you see, the Naked Teacher Principle does not take into consideration why the teacher’s nude and luscious bod is suddenly a feast for prying young eyes and stimulus for newly minted libidos. It doesn’t matter, to the school, the students or their parents. What matters is that the photos exist, they got out, and he or she will never be looked at or thought about the same way again. Continue reading
“YOU again!”
It can’t.
You can read, here, the jaw-dropping Iowa Supreme Court opinion affirming a one-year suspension of Iowa lawyer Robert Allan Wright Jr.for talking his clients into loaning money to…that ubiquitous Nigerian Prince. Wright solicited more than $200,000 in loans from five current and former clients, promising them they would receive as much as quadruple their investment when proceeds of the inheritance described in that helpful e-mail was obtained. He was only going to take a 10% contingency, which is actually very reasonable…or would be, if this hadn’t been a scam.
After his clients lost all their money, Wright was cited for violations of several Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct, including… Continue reading
I don’t want to live in a culture than could produce these monsters. Unfortunately, I have no choice.
Occasionally I read a news item that makes me question my illusions, my optimism, my aspirations, and the rationality of hope. The saga of Jonathan and Sarah Adleta, a couple whose match was made in Hell and whose crimes sound like the rejected plot submission of a Law and Order SVU script writer whose mind has snapped, is just such a story, perhaps the most disturbing I have ever encountered.
If you continue reading, consider yourself warned.
After college student Sarah Adleta became pregnant with Jonathan Adleta’s child and tests showed that the fetus was female, Jonathan told her of his long-held fantasy about having incestuous sexual intercourse with a daughter. A deal was struck: he would marry Sarah, if she agreed to allow him to have sex with their daughter as soon as it was possible. Continue reading
—-Former Reagan muse and current pundit Peggy Noonan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Low-Information Leadership.”
At least President Pierce had an excuse.
This is, of course, rank incompetence, but worse than that, it is arrogant, willful, shocking and frightening incompetence. It gives me no pleasure to say that I saw the signs of this years ago, for years ago there was reason to be hopeful. Presidents learn, most of them, anyway. This one, without any experience to speak of in governing, management, leadership or even organizational process, not only hasn’t learned, but has never shown the slightest recognition that he has anything to learn. Continue reading
“Unethical Website of the Month” doesn’t really do justice to CoveringHealthCareCA.com, and that’s even with the acknowledgement that this is the same Ethics Alarms category where the racist site Chimpmania is filed. CoveringHealthCareCA.com is an intentional effort to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in California, the one place where the “signature achievement” of the Obama administration didn’t completely collapse out of the starting gate. For Republican lawmakers to be doing this is beneath contempt, indefensible in every way, and the ethical equivalent of treason. The people who publish Chimpmania are hateful, vicious bigots, but they are marginal citizens and human beings. All societies have scum, and in the 21st Century, some of that scum will have racist websites. That is inevitable. It should not be inevitable for public servants to try to undermine their own government’s laws, health care system, and citizens for political gain.
CoveringHealthCare.com is a false flag website, launched by Republicans in the California Assembly to deceive Californians into believing it is an official Obamacare website, when it is, in truth, an anti-Obamacare website. Its address is similar—CoveringHealthCareCA.com vs. CoveredCa.com, the real site—and its design evokes the actual Obamacare sites. Its apparent purpose is to help citizens navigate the new health insurance system, except that once you begin clicking and reading, it slowly dawns–how slowly will vary— that this is something else, a collection of attacks and talking points against the Affordable Care Act. Continue reading
The above photo is how “The Bachelor” producer Elan Hale chose to announce to the world that his Twitter tale about “Diane” the hysterical Thanksgiving traveler and his campaign to shame her was all a “joke.” This is Diane! Har!
Truth #1:
Elan Gale is an asshole, and because he is shameless about it, he is also a fick.
Truth #2 Continue reading
Actor and comedian Will Ferrell donned his Ron Burgundy persona from “Anchorman” and delivered the news for KXMB in Bismarck Saturday night. It was a promotion for “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” the sequel to Ferrell’s 2004 hit comedy about a fictional news team in the politically incorrect 1970’s. The station’s sales manager, Tammy Blumhagen, explained that Ferrell’s agent contacted her in May and asked if he could anchor or co-anchor a newscast as part of the promotion tour for “Anchorman 2.” “When they called us, we kind of jumped at the opportunity,” she said.
Well, why wouldn’t she? Since U.S. journalism has abandoned all but the wan pretense of being a legitimate profession, perhaps all TV news broadcasts should just go the route of Bismarck’s local CBS station, and let clowns, reality stars, high school athletes, citizens picked at random, talking macaws and trained seals deliver the news. After all, neither the news judgment, integrity nor competence of what passes for journalists these days can be assumed or even expected. Why not just turn over the broadcast of the evening news to a comedian who plays a idiotic anchorman in films? It’s not like informing the public about what’s going on in the nation and the world is important or anything. The public doesn’t have a right to know. The public has a right to be amused. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 