Today’s right column, above the fold headline in the New York Times: Economy in 2021 Surged by 5.7%, Best In Decades. All that was missing was the exclamation point. “The economic lift was largely provided by vaccination efforts, cheap credit conditions put in place by the Federal Reserve and a fresh round of federal aid to households and businesses,” the story deceitfully “explained.” Note that these are all positive factors that the Biden Administration can take credit for, or at least try.

Is the American public that stupid? The economy “surged’ in percentage terms because it was starting from a point of unprecedented ruin, substantially put in motion by Democrat-led shutdowns of the schools and much of the economy. Emphasizing the percentage increase is a deliberate tactic to mislead the mathematically challenged. One could trumpet a drug that “increases cognitive ability by 300%” if one doesn’t mention that its test subjects were suffering from closed head injuries. Many, many paragraphs into the story, we are told that the “economy has recovered almost 19 million of the 22 million jobs lost near the peak of virus-induced suspensions in activity in 2020.” Oh. So the “surge” still hasn’t brought the economy back to what it was after almost four years of the Trump administration policies—which the Times never praised, only slammed.

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On the other hand, I love having a fire department half-a-block away…

I did finally work out that the spelling of February isn’t unethical, as I had long concluded. I thought the month’s name had been intentionally spelled in such a way to either guarantee that it would be mispronounced, or, as in my case, never spelled correctly on the first try. The Romans called it Februarius, from Februare, “to purify,” and februum , a means of purification or an instrument used to purify. Apparently there was a mid-month freak-out festival, Lupercalia, that was supposed to purify the rest of the year. For a while, around 1200 A.D., maybe because it was so hard to pronounce those two r’s so close together, the month was called Feverer or Feverell from the Old French Feverier. But the Latin made a comeback, damn it.

Having the month contain an extra day every four years, however, is unethical.

1. Legal, not unethical under the legal ethics rules, but still unethical, and also stupid….Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wants his office to prosecute election law violations, but unfortunately,The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that only local DAs can prosecute such offenses also under the Texas Constitution. It’s a pretty basic separation of powers issue. Paxton filed a motion to reconsider what was an adverse 8-1 ruling, and the motion is still pending. Paxton has also urged the public via conservative media outlets to contact the 8 members to pressure them to reverse their opinion. Many have done so by phone and email, with some threats included, of course. The Texas Justices are elected.

There is a rule that prohibits public comments having substantial potential to prejudice court proceedings, and the standard rule prohibiting ex parte communications directly or by third parties. Naturally, some Democratic-tilting law professors are telling the media that Paxton siccing the public on the court is a professional ethics violation. But it is not.

The tactic doesn’t speak well for Paxton, and is one more reason not to have elected judges. I also object to public figures miseducating the already ignorant public into thinking of judges as just another kind of legislator. (See the Comment of the Day.) However, the First Amendment is a complete defense, except for the threats, of course, if they are “true” threats.

There’s no law requiring free speech to be used responsibly.

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