This Is So Stupid I Can’t Even Come Up With A Headline That Does It Justice…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

However, I did summon George Costanza…

CTV News in Calvary, Canada blithely reported this as if it made perfect sense…

“Calgary police have released a photo of a suspect wanted in connection with a fire in the community of Riverbend that damaged multiple homes. Emergency crews were called to a home in the 100 block of Riverglen Crescent S.E. at 12:40 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22 for reports of a blaze. The fire gutted a garage and caused damage to two homes. No injuries were reported.”

And here’s the photo police posted:

Yup, it was that infamous Dick Tracy villain, Blur-Face! “Because police think the suspect is a teen, they blurred the face in the photo that was released,” the CTV says. Oh. Makes perfect sense—in Canada, maybe. “The identity of young offenders is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act,” we are told.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if young offenders’ identities are protected, why are police asking people to identify this one? Officers are hoping someone may recognize the teen’s clothing, you see. My brain hurts: so they can publicize aspects of a “young offender’s identity” as long as it’s…what, not sufficient to be likely to identify him?

How does it advance respect for law enforcement to have police do something this pointless without out their appearing to acknowledge it’s probably futile? How does news media justify reporting the senseless as if it makes perfect sense?

Ethics Quiz: The Offensive… Wristband?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Apparently a biological male who “identifies as female” plays on the Plymouth Regional High School girls’ soccer team in New Hampshire. When the team played its regional rival Bow High School, some Bow parents, protesting the presence of the player whom they regarded as a danger to the born-female players on the Bow team, wore wristbands like the ones above as a silent protest. The Bow High athletic director had told concerned parents before the contest that “in the wake of a federal judge’s ruling that the term ‘girl’ includes males who identify as female,” he felt he was powerless. (He’s a weenie. If he agreed with the parents, he could simply have his team refuse to play the Plymouth team, accept the consequences, and raise the issue.)

When the parents’ “XX” bands appeared at the game, school officials stopped the soccer match, ordered the parents to remove the wristbands, and even “issued [a] police-enforced ‘No Trespassing order’” against two parents who refused.

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Unethical Quote of the Week: President Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“Some things are more important than staying in power.”

—-President Biden at the U.N., stumbling through his speech on world affairs even with the assistance of his teleprompter.

Even though our President is demented, deluded, habitually dishonest and without shame, I am still astounded that he would have the gall to say that at the United Nations. I guess he thinks the delegates are as stupid and gullible as his party evidently thinks the U.S. public is.

No, the context of that head-exploding statement doesn’t make it less nauseating:

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Oh Yeah, This Is a Great System….

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I guess it’s a bit ungrateful to post this after being paid to do an ethics training for a federal agency, but still: anyone who expects governments to solve more problems than they create just isn’t paying attention. The problem, or course, isn’t the nature of government itself, but rather the human beings that operate them. And the brains that operate the human beings.

I present for your edification Craig Adams’ nightmare…

Adams recently learned that his 8,300-square-foot Raleigh, North Carolina home where he lives with his wife is no longer registered in his name. Oh, his mortgage and property taxes are up to date, but never mind—the deed to his home is now belongs to a stranger. Adams said one day he learned that a woman and probable grifter named Dawn Magnum had the deed to his home transferred into a trust she managed. He only learned about this when the property management company for his HOA asked him if he had sold his home after Mangum contacted it to get access to the private gated community where Adams’ property is.

Magnum initially said she thought Adams’ property was in foreclosure so she managed to get the deed to the home into her trust. “She filed a false warranty claim deed against this house and basically tried to steal it,” Adams told the news media.

Dawn Mangum has been arrested and charged with is obtaining property by false pretense.

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Assorted Ethics-Related 2024 Election Notes…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I’m cramming for a legal ethics presentation for a federal agency that must remain nameless, so posts are going to be delayed a bit. I have time, almost, to post a few quick items, as well as this one that has nothing to do with the election: We’re finally having a memorial event in Arlington, Virginia for Grace, my wife of 43 years, best friend, business partner and mots reliable ally, on October 12. A good freind is organizing it for me; I’m going to have a tough time even attending. Commenting on the laborious process of letting friends, clients and distant relatives know about it, my friend said, “You can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to come.”

Meanwhile:

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: ‘Nah, Pro-Abortion Fanatics Haven’t Lost Their Minds’

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I presume I don’t have to explain all of the ethics alarms pinged by this amazing tale from academia….

An event this week at Arizona State University, “Jenny Irish’s HATCH: A Speculative Future for Reproductive Rights” held both in person and via Zoom, featured Irish, an English professor at ASU, and Professor Angela Lober, director of the Academy of Lactation Programs [ Wait, WHAT???] at ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation.

Professor Lober began the one-hour moderated discussion by stating that she “got into this space because the United States hates women and everything the female body does.” Okaaaay—that’s certainly not “misinformation”…or inflammatory. Lober went on to say a “lack of financial incentives in breastfeeding and maternal-child health care” was proof of this hostility and showed that economic interests often override health concerns.

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I’m Sorely Tempted To Offer Ivanka’s Question As An Ethics Quiz…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

But I won’t.

Ivanka Trump, Donald’s eldest daughter, asks on Twitter/X: “What comes to mind when you see this team?”

You’ll be sorry you asked, IT, at least that you asked me.

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What Does THIS Poll Tell You?

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Often astute by quirky ex-law prof/blogger Ann Althouse presented readers with a poll this morning asking who she should vote for and whom they thought she would vote for. Althouse is a denizen of Madison, Wisconsin, and believed to be a moderate liberal who typically votes for Democrats. A long-time blogger whose readers are swelled by the ranks of former students, she has somehow accumulated a group of mostly conservative commenters. They also tend to be knowledgeable, analytical and articulate

The results of the poll are overwhelming enough to suggest some accuracy, at least in regard to the group polled. 79% said that Althouse “should vote for Trump.” Only 4% voted that Ann should vote for Harris. The rest opined that she will vote for no one.

What’s going on here?

Name Ethics: Well, the British Government Bureaucrats Are Still Worse Than Ours…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

…I guess that’s encouraging in a faint-praise sort of way.

Seven-year-old Loki Skywalker Mowbray, pictured above, was recently denied a passport to accompany his parents on a family vacation to the Dominican Republic because the British Home Office, which is in charge of the nation’s immigration, security, and law and order, claimed it couldn’t print “Skywalker” on the document because of Disney’s copyright on the name. Some idiot told the shocked parents they either had to change the child’s name or get permission from Disney to use “Skywalker”—and we all know how reasonable Disney is about such things.

After an initial scare, non-morons in the Home Office prevailed eventually. The vacation wasn’t wrecked, and the child got to keep his name (Now watch Disney try to sue the parents.)

A more justified instance of government over-reach would have been questioning the fitness and judgment of parents who name their child after a Marvel villain (even in Norse Mythology Loki is a bad guy) and who feel compelled to saddle a kid with “Skywalker” because he happened to be born on May the 4th, as in “May the forthe be with you,” which is how Obi Wan said it after his front teeth fell out.

At least they didn’t name him “Chewbacca” or “Darth.”

Final tangential thought: Not too long ago Ethics Alarms used to have an entertainingly didactic British commenter whom I could count on to “pounce” on posts like this. I miss him…

Once Again, Trump Is Being Skewered For Telling the Truth

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Donald Trump handed the Trump-Hating Axis another stick to beat him with when he commented on recent polls showing American Jews supporting the Democrats by a 60%-40% margin. “I’ve said long and loud anybody who’s Jewish and loves being Jewish and loves Israel is a fool if they vote for a Democrat,” Trump said. “If you want Israel to survive you need Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States, it’s very simple.”

For this typically blunt observationTrump is being called, of all things, “anti-Semitic.” No, the correct word is “undiplomatic.” Another word is “correct.”

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