On top of everything else going wrong, my Direct TV reception started going on and off two days ago, alternating between no signal, intermittent signals, and stuttering signals. It started during an overcast night with occasional rain, but continued the next day, with clear skies but high winds. So I called customer service, found my way to tech support, and was on hold for 40 minutes, being told every five minutes that my estimated wait was 10 minutes, then told for another 15 minutes that it would be a five minute wait, and so on. There were 8 “30 second” waits.
The representative was nice, and told me that it sounded like they needed to check out the dish. This, he said, would cost $99 dollars. I asked why that was, since I paid for their service and wasn’t getting it, in addition to the fact that I had not been charged the last time someone had to adjust the dish. Whereupon he said, “Oh! Then there will be no charge.” And he set up the appointment.
What is that? A weenie test? A scam? If I hadn’t objected, I would have paid $99. Are we back to the Middle Easter bazaar, where no price is set and we have to haggle over everything?
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel, in my view, isn’t usually worth writing about on an ethics blog. He’s a despicable human being, and the fact that Kimmel is paid large amounts of money to be a media celebrity nicely illustrates the state of rot in our popular culture. Nevertheless, even the despicable have their uses. A recent outburst by Kimmel on his ABC show stands as throbbing evidence of just how estranged from logic and reality the Trump Deranged are. He also demonstrates just how meager the ethics decision-making skills are of many celebrities. (Very meager.)
Kimmel’s monologue three nights ago began with Jimmy expressing amazement that a poll showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in several crucial swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “How could this be?” Kimmel asked, channeling Hillary Clinton’s absurd lament in 2016 that she should be leading in the polls by “50 points.” Kimmel’s grand proof that Trump’s lead in polls was inexplicable consisted of his observation that many ex-associates of the former president have spoken out against him, so Trump. “doesn’t even lead in a poll of people who worked for him.”
Good thinking there, Jimmy. In fact, close associates and even family members of many, perhaps most popular elected officials and other public figures, like entertainers, have vastly different views of them than the public. The list of prominent figures including successful leaders who have sterling reputations, but who had smelly feet of metaphorical clay or worse is too long to list. The public doesn’t know the candidates they support; they usually only know their carefully constructed images. Moreover, working for someone is completely different from having a stake in their decisions. Kimmel’s reasoning here is incompetent, as usual.
Yet it is still not as damning as believing that there is no reason why anyone would rather see Trump—or anyone—in the White House rather than Joe Biden. To begin with, Trump’s term, until the pandemic derailed everything with the heavy assistance of the Democratic Deep State, was undeniably more successful that Biden’s term so far. It’s not even close. When one asks a loyal, closed-minded Democrat what is so impressive about Biden’s policies and results, all they have is admiration for Joe’s fealty to the progressive agenda, and the gaslighting argument that the public doesn’t appreciate how good they have it.
Biden may have the most incompetent Cabinet in Presidential history. Foreign affairs are an expensive, feckless mess. His Justice Department has politicize law enforcement beyond anything Richard Nixon would have dreamed of. Due process, equal protection, the right to fair trials, the First and Second Amendment and the Constitution itself have been eroded under Biden’s watch. The nation is enduring a totalitarian-style alliance between the central government and the news media, which is dangerous. Major cities are becoming unlivable, border enforcement is out of control, anti-Semitism is epidemic, and the single thing that Biden promised to do, heal the division in the nation, not only hasn’t happened, but Biden set out to make it…
I miswrote a few weeks back when I stated that an assertion by a DEI pimp that “studies show that diversity” makes organizations more successful and effective was a Big Lie, one of those “facts” (like the alleged percentage of women who are sexually molested, or women only making 76 cents for every dollar earned by men for the same job) that have gained currency by repetition by activists without solid evidence to support them. There are studies that purported to support the DEI contention, all from the same management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, carving out a profitable little niche for itself. Aside:I have worked for and with consulting companies. Consulting is a business, not a profession, and such companies strongly tend to give clients what they want to hear, thus making such firms popular and wealthy. Sadly, this is also true of ethics consulting firms and ethics consultants. I won’t provide an expert opinion crafted to make a client happy, and that is why I’m about three months from living in a cardboard box.
Back when I accepted gigs to do training in “diversity” for bar associations, there were no such studies, and because the diversity virtue-signaling fad was already galloping along then, I carelessly assumed that some enterprising “researchers” hadn’t manufactured “science” to support what was already conventional wisdom in the years since I decided that I couldn’t in good faith keep accepting money to teach politically correct nonsense. The McKinsey & Company studies, all claiming to “prove” the value of “diversity,” were published in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2023, thus giving the private sector, government, the military, the professions and academia something to justify their woke crusades.
Christina Khalil is the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senator in New Jersey. Here is her campaign bio that sits on her website:
Christina Anna Khalil (she/her/hers) is a native of New Jersey, and she grew up in foster care where she overcame many trials and tribulations throughout her childhood and adult life. Christina has her B.A. in psychology and her Master’s in Social Work both from Ramapo College, which were both major accomplishments for her, and Christina believes that one of the true keys to freedom lies in education. In her free time Christina has avidly volunteered for community organizations doing important work, such as (BCLA) Bergen County LGBTQ+ Alliance.While obtaining her Master’s Degree, Christina worked on the front lines during the height of the pandemic at a medical detox facility and never quit school, while also volunteering at Hackensack High School. While working in the medical and substance abuse field, Christina noticed that our current elected leaders appeared detached from the reality of the current struggles that citizens of New Jersey face and made a vow to herself that when it washer time to step up and work towards change, she would do just that.
Christina’s leadership and resiliency are unmatched, and she is the leader that New Jersey needs to fight to make the New Jersey citizens’ quality of life better.
Impressive! What a pity she’s an idiot. Here’s proof, her tweet yesterday:
Yes, the Green Party has nominated someone who thinks climate change causes earthquakes. Her biography claims that “our current elected leaders appeared detached from the reality.” One can’t get much more detached from reality than believing the movement of tectonic plates in the Earth’s crust are affected by the climate. This woman has a Master’s Degree, and has the critical thinking skills of a pangolin. Score another one for America education.
She exemplifies the people advising Joe Biden, arguing for the banning of gas stoves, air conditioning and gasoline-powered cars while wasting billions of dollars in the process. Some New Jersey residents will vote for her, maybe thousands. How such people get through the day without stabbing themselves in the eye with forks is a mystery.
Here’s Christina…
…she looks nice enough, though I think I see the sky shining through her eyes from the back of her head. She is truly a dolt, and it is unethical for dolts to run for elective office.
Note: WordPress says I should tag this post “art,” “poetry” and “music.” So apparently their bot is affected by climate change too…
As crazy as this loon melting down in her airplane seat was, she had sufficient marbles loose and rolling around to try out the “I can’t breath!” line. This was, you will recall, famously used by two arrest-resisting African American males who really couldn’t breathe while inept and overly-violent police officers attempted to take them into custody.
Eric Garner deserves credit for the line; he really couldn’t breathe after being gang-tacked by three NYC police officers, though it didn’t help that Garner was morbidly obese. (“You take your victim as you find him”) George Floyd then memorably gave Garner’s catchy line an encore. He really couldn’t breathe either, possibly from claustrophobia, definitely from a fentanyl overdose, though it didn’t help that Officer Derek Chauvin was kneeling on his neck.
It was a nice try by the Spirit Airline wacko, but she neglected to consider the absolutely essential feature of playing the “I can’t breathe!” card.
OK, maybe I just telegraphed my personal bias in reaction to this quiz, so I’ll keep my opinion to myself until the commentariat weighs in. I’ll try, anyway.
New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed in a 2018 class-action lawsuit by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who claimed their rights were violated when police forced them to remove their hijabs for the police to take their “mug shots.”
The financial settlement requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and I fervently hope…never mind! My mouth is zipped!
In the Zambia’s Kafue National Park, at 8,600 square miles one of Africa’s largest animal reserves, an 80-year-old American woman, doubtlessly filling out her bucket list, was killed when a bull elephant charged the truck containing her and five other tourists on a morning tour to see wild game up close. They got close, all right: That relative of Ethics Alarms favorite Jumbo upended the truck (above) and precipitated the woman’s demise. The other tourist were injured but survived.
The story was sent to me by commenter JutGory, who pronounced it an assumption of the risk by the deceased woman and the others, which it is provide the safari company was crystal clear about what the risks were. I wonder. This has been an obsession with me lately, as lawyers require consent and waivers from clients after what is supposed to be full disclosure and I am convinced that most of the time the supposedly “informed consent” and “knowing waivers” are anything but.
Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire” yesterday in a phone call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him that “strikes on humanitarian workers” and “the overall humanitarian situation” are “unacceptable.” Biden also, we are told, “U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action” and on steps to “address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.”
By pure accident, the first thing I saw was Pentagon spokesman John Kirby (he’s the smart and competent one of the two primary White House paid liars) gaslight the press when asked how the U.S. policy toward the support of Israel in the war could be “unwavering” (as described by officials) and yet the Administration is also saying that it is considering changing that policy in light of the civilian casualties in Gaza. Kirby, with a straight face. said that the two statements were not inconsistent, prompting incredulity from his questioner. Of course they are inconsistent; in fact, they are contradictory. This is one more example of Democrats deliberately playing to the ignorant and uncritical voter.
Life competence lesson learned:Always bring your cell phone.
Resisting “progress” on principle is a self-defeating and futile exercise, not to mention stupid. I find the cultural influences of smart phones particularly, cell phones generally, toxic, deplorable and obvious, as I have noted periodically here before. Thus I only use the thing when I have to, eschewing doing business on it, keeping my email account off of it, and restricting its use to online research and actual phone calls and texts. (I have never used the camera). The remote guidance system has been useful several times too, and would have saved me an ordeal last night. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t take my phone to a performance by the Georgetown Gilbert and Sullivan Society, still producing shows after 51 years (which is how long ago I founded the group as a defiant first year law student), because I detest hearing phones sound during theatrical performances, especially mine.
Everything was going swimmingly by the end of the evening: the oroduction of the musical “Cinderella,” was really good, the student talent was exhilerating, boding well for the group’s future, the audience was large and enthusiastic, and it was nice to have positive thoughts about the Law Center for a change. Then, a bit fatigued at 11:15 pm, I took the wrong exit on the way home (on a route I have navigated literally hundreds of times without incident) and ended up completely lost in the bowels of D.C.
Trust me, you don’t want to be in the bowels of D.C.
Even using the Capitol as a visual guide, it took me 45 extra minutes to find my way home, by which time I was furious at myself, hoarse from screaming epithets at the stop lights ( must have hit 20 of them), and worried about Spuds, who had already been traumatized by Grace’s disappearance and who had never been alone so long since we adopted him.
No, I do not have a good sense of direction (an understatement), and I have never been able to see street signs clearly at night. Obviously my phone’s GPS would have saved me time and terror.
I’m a moron.
Now please start discussing ethics while I continue to flagellate myself…
Branding all critics and opponents racists has been a standard progressive and Democratic Party ploy for a long time, though it shifted into high gear when that was the primary argument used to deflect legitimate observations that Barack Obama was poor POTUS with a great PR machine. Then it shifted into higher gear as the “Get Trump!” effort became an ongoing crusade. Trump didn’t oppose letting illegals cross the border with impunity because it was, you know, insane policy for any nation; his opposition was based in racism. The tactic is dishonest, unfair, divisive, despicable and indefensible, but as the late Harry Reid—forwarding address: Hell—explained cheerily as he defended the Big Lie he circulated about Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign, it works.
I am now noticing that the Race Card has been designated as the Axis’s official counter to the looming GOP recycling of Ronald Reagan’s effective question during the 1980 campaign: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” By almost every objective measure, as with Jimmy Carter’s failed Presidency, the unavoidable answer today is “Are you kidding? NO!” It’s a powerful weapon. So the Axis has declared it to be racist.
Ethics Alarms 