morons

The Game Is Afoot in Missouri, and Boy, Is It Ever Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out this mystery.

The Springfield News-Leader reported on the most ridiculous example of attempted insurance fraud I’ve ever read or heard about. In addition to being spectacularly dishonest, it was also incompetent. Hold on to your heads for this one, and tell anyone in the room to move away to avoid flying pieces of skull…

The Howell County (Missouri) Sheriff’s last November sent out a release about a case of insurance fraud involving a man falsely claiming that an accident involving “a brush hog” had robbed him of both feet. A brush hog is a rotary mower often attached to a tractor; I never heard the term before. See? There are side benefits to even the most ridiculous ethics tales!

The perpetrator of the fraud was a 60-year-old paraplegic who had the brilliant idea of paying someone to cut off his feet so he could claim the insurance money. After all, he couldn’t walk anyway, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. The first problem with the plan was that the responding medics and law enforcement officers couldn’t find his severed feet anywhere. (Usually when someone says they have lost limbs, the limbs aren’t literally lost.) Authorities’ suspicions were also aroused by the tourniquets on the supposed brush hog victim’s legs. Who put them there? Then there were the wounds where the feet used to be. They were far too clean for foot manglings that result from farm equipment mishaps. “If it was done by a brush hog, it would have been a bloody, gory mess,” Torey Thompson, a lieutenant with the Howell County Sheriff’s Office, told the Springfield News Leader. “It was a poorly executed plan.”

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Authentic Frontier Gibberish of the Year: Harvard Divinity School

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Well, this is an upset. I would have bet almost anything that Kamala Harris or Joe Biden would eventually nail down the 2024 Ethics Alarms Authentic Frontier Gibberish Award, but no. A dark horse has grabbed the award, and with eleven full months to go! But no one can compete with this.

The Harvard Divinity School’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging hosted a head-exploding “Gathering to Breathe and Heal” event this week to—are you ready?— help students grieve over the resignation of former President Claudine Gay, who was, in reality, fired, and who richly deserved to be. Moreover, the justification for her removal was irrefutable and beyond debate. “Grieving” for the exit of any incompetent occupant in any job is proof of warped values. “Grieving” for for a cheating and dishonest occupant of any position of leadership demonstrates astounding ignorance of the essentials of being a leader and role model. “Grieving” for the appropriately rapid demise of an incompetent leader and dishonest scholar as the head of a prestigious university is deranged. The exitance of this event on campus is almost as humiliating for Harvard as the debacle of Gay’s short-lived presidency.

I’m saving the spectacular gibberish announcing this loony “Gathering to Breathe and Heal” event until last, because nothing could follow it. Trying to write anything after this is like being next on the program after Houdini, Al Jolson, Judy Garland, Jerry Lee Lewis or Ray Charles. Submit your favorite babble: I’m leaning toward “it is a container for holding emotions in community knowing that the circle holds us all.” Rarit!

Here it is…

If This Poll Is Accurate, The American Public May Be Too Incompetent and Irresponsible to Live In a Democracy…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

A poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for Newsweek found that 18% of voters are “more likely” or “significantly more likely” to vote for a candidate endorsed by pop singer Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift has been essentially dedicated to music since she was 14, though she did graduate from high school in three years. There is nothing she has to offer in trenchant political commentary besides celebrity, and to a large number of Americans, as we already know, that’s enough.

So naturally, as the buzz was in Washington, D.C. today, the Biden campaign is working hard to get Swift to endorse Joe, if possible at the Super Bowl.

It is estimated that 8 million new voters will enter the ranks of the US electorate this year, making a total of 41 million Gen Z voters. This is also a group that surveys show has a low opinion of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, free enterprise and the United States generally, so maybe they don’t even need Swift’s OK to vote Democratic. My guess, and maybe I’m whistling past the metaphorical graveyard, is that most of that 18% may be more likely to vote if Taylor tells them who to vote for, but the majority of them won’t be engaged enough to vote anyway.

If the election is going to turn on somethings as trivial and meaningless as celebrity endorsements, its not even worth worrying about. Those idiots will deserve what they get, and so will their elders, for letting society and the culture get that stupid.

Next, SAG-AFTRA Will Tell Its Members To Paint Themselves Blue And Wear Ducks On Their Heads…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I would quit any union that started behaving in the fascist manner of The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The labor union representing approximately 160,000 media professionals worldwide is currently on strike, and as labor unions seem inclined to do, is making nutsy-cuckoo demands of its members. They have been assimilated, after all, and resistance is futile.

Yes, as that graphic from the unions shows, members have been told that they are doing a bad, anti-labor thing by dressing up as characters from “struck content,” meaning any movie or TV show, recent or ancient. That means they can’t be King Kong, Dracula (but a generic vampire is OK), Abe Lincoln, or Barbie, or else.

Morons. Worse than that, autocratic morons abusing their power.

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Ethics Dunces: Too Many People To Count Who Were Responsible For This:

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Yes, it’s Bluto’s (John Belushi) now iconic gaffe in “Animal House” come true: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” Those are German planes on the cover of Michael J. Clark’s history book for young readers about the sneak attack that brought the U.S. into World War II.

Just think about all of the careless, irresponsible boobs, including the author and the cover artist, who had to breach the ethical values of competence, diligence and respect for that book to be published and put on the market. How many must it have been? Then you can add to that List of Shame our pathetic, ruinous education system, which has produced such a nation of dolts that not even a humble secretary or passing clerk had the knowledge to point out, when they saw the book as it made its way through production, “Uh, aren’t those German planes?” Anyone who did, thus preventing this epic embarrassment, might have received a promotion or a bonus. Or at least someone would have bought him or her a nice lunch.

And this is one more example where cultural literacy rot matters. If you can’t learn your American history, at least know your classic films.

Here’s Bluto:

KABOOM! How Can A Company—A CANDY Company No Less!—Possibly Think This Packaging Is Responsible?

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Well, there goes my head again, and I really need it this weekend.

Hold on to yours: this really and truly is one of the “Pride” packages for Mars Inc.’s Skittles:

I don’t understand how this could happen in a major corpoation. In a pluralistic society, it is unethical for products and services to deliberately polarize the public, politically, socially, in any way whatsoever. True, the temptation for rainbow-colored Skittles to try to exploit the LGTBQ propaganda for marketing purposes must have been strong for some marketing execs with the cranial depth of a walnut shell, but the fact that sane parents don’t want their kids proselytized by their candy shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.

If the type is too small for you to read, the legends somewhere under the rainbow include “Joy is Resistance” and “Black Trans Lives Matter,” both of which are semi-incoherent, but the intent is clear. (Is the character with the sunglasses supposed to be in drag? What does “skate & live” mean? Is skating on the rainbow a metaphor for embracing an LGBTQ identity?)This is the equivalent of forced political speech, and the force is being applied to children. Holding that package sends an unintended message, weird as it is, and once that political message is associated with the brand, eating Skittles at all becomes a political act.

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Unethical (And Stupid—But Funny!) Quote Of The Week: Al Sharpton [Updated And Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“Can you imagine our reading that James Madison or Thomas Jefferson tried to overthrow the government so they could stay in power?”

—-Al Sharpton, MSNBC host and history scholar.

Personally, I have a hard time imagining Al reading.

People actually listen to this guy and care what he thinks. Barack Obama listened to this guy. He is paid to inform MSNBC viewers. No really, he is!

Al takes “bias makes you stupid” to new vistas.

Added: Just in case you think this was an anomaly, here is Al mocking a GOP Congressman for pointing out that the United States is a republic, as if he’s the idiot:

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Congresswoman’s Prayer Breakfast Joke

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Outspoken freshman Congresswoman Nancy Mace, (R-SC), decided to throw away her prepared remarks and riff at the beginning of her speech at fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott’s prayer breakfast last week. That was her first mistake.

“When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45, Patrick, my fiance, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed. And I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning,'” Mace began. “I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.”

Yes, there’s nothing better to warm up the crowd at a prayer breakfast like a pre-marital sex joke!

Seriously, how hard is it to avoid making comments about sex at a prayer breakfast? She probably embarrassed Sen. Scott thoroughly, who was metaphorically batting second behind the nookie narrative in her remarks as she praised him profusely. Scott is running for President, however futilely, and doesn’t need any silly but completely avoidable controversies. Mace also probably made Seacoast Church Pastor Greg Surratt a little uncomfortable, who had honored both her and Scott as a part of his congregation.

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On Lady Gaga’s Frenchies: Not Surprisingly, Criminals Don’t Comprehend “The Unclean Hands Doctrine” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

[In the original version of this post I confused readers by forgetting to erase pieces of the source article that I had pasted to the draft to save me the time of jumping back and forth between screens. My fault. Then I compounded the problem by leaving out the link. Fixed. It was all my fault; can’t blame WordPress this time.]

What a moron.

But then if criminals were smart, we’d be in even more trouble than we are…

Lady Gaga promised to pay a $500,0000 reward for the return of her two kidnapped French Bulldogs Gustav and Koji (two of the three above: sorry, I don’t know which). The pop icon’s dogwalker was shot and injured during the theft. Emulating the plot twist in the Mel Gibson thriller “Ransom,” however, one of the participants in the kidnapping scheme decided to collect the reward, arguing that because Gaga had said she would pay for the dogs’ return “no questions asked,” she was obligated even to pay someone who was involved in the crime.

Seeking the outlandish reward, Jennifer McBride was arrested when she turned in the dogs at a police station. She pleaded no contest to knowingly receiving stolen property and was sentenced to probation. I suppose the scheme was to have her collect the reward and split it with the dognappers.

After Lady Gaga warbled, “You’ve got to be kidding!’ when McBride asked for the money, McBride sued her for breach of contract.

Uh, no.

In rejecting the claim, Judge Hollie J. Fujie of Los Angeles Superior Court cited the ancient “unclean hands doctrine,” which holds that a litigant cannot benefit from a situation he or she deliberately helped to bring about by illegal or unethical conduct.

“The unclean hands doctrine demands that a plaintiff act fairly in the matter for which he seeks a remedy,” Fujie wrote, adding that the UHD “is an equitable rationale for refusing a plaintiff relief where principles of fairness dictate that the plaintiff should not recover, regardless of the merits of their claim.”

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Ethics Verdict: Disney Is Officially Incompetent

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Yes, those are “the Seven Dwarfs” of “Snow White and” fame, according to our national steward of childhood fantasy and iconic fables, the Disney Corporation. That photo is smoking gun evidence of insanity, a production shot from the upcoming live action version of the 1937 movie that made Walt Disney’s artistic vision a cultural force, now retitled “Snow White.” Of course Snow White is going to be Snow Of Color, as the actress playing the German fairy tale princess is Latina Rachel Zegler, who has already embraced the company’s current “screw tradition, common sense and legacy” attitude by tweeting, “Yes I am Snow White; no, I am not bleaching my skin for the role.”

You do recall why Snow White was called Snow White, right?

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