Robert Ripley made his fortune with “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” a newspaper and later a radio and television series which featured freaks and other oddities he presented as facts to be marvelled at by the public. The following news items may not measure up to Ripley’s weird standards but they are almost equally bizarre.
BURNING BODIES TO HEAT SWIMMING POOLS: In very liberal England, Brits hate waste and have hit upon a unique if offensive method to utilize the dead and, at the same time, to conserve energy and provide comfort to swimmers.
In a ghoulish, green proposal, Sir George Young suggested the 800 degree heat generated by crematoria be used to heat swimming pools and said he would “die a happier man” if he knew his cremation warmed a local pool.
That brilliant idea isn’t too far removed from the governmental practice of using human bodies as nutritional sustenance in the movie “Soylent Green.” Rumors that the Brits will turn to burning people alive for warmth if they run out of dead people are unconfirmed.
PETA KILLS MOST OF THE ANIMALS IT SAVES: The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals bills itself as the pre-eminent savior of all non-human animals and defends animal rights while remaining mute on ethically treating pre-born human beings.
PETA has often engaged in outrageous public displays of its disapproval of wearing clothing made from animal fur yet, when it is “protecting” animals, PETA executes more than 95% of them.
According to documents released by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed virtually all the animals it was caring for last year including 1,911 cats and dogs and, since 1998, has killed more than 27,000 animals at its Norfolk headquarters alone.
I suppose PETA can defend its actions on the basis that it is saving some of the animals from being eaten in Chinese restaurants. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=15269.)
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Monday, December 5, 2011
It's Gingrich Time!
It's Gingrich Time!
All things come to those who wait and now it’s Gingrich’s turn. With the race for the Republican nomination for president seemingly narrowed to a pack of two, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, it was time for the Obama attack team to zero in on Newt since he has been waxing of late and Mitt has been stagnating.
Adhering to the military strategy of focusing on offing the leader, the Obamians have been dismantling the front runner until he is beaten to a pulp then deal with the remnants of the field. It worked with Bachmann, Perry, and Cain so why not go with whatever works?
Of course, even when he was bringing up the rear, Gingrich received his allotted share of undercutting but it’s a whole new ballgame now that he’s in the lead. The Big Guns are being trotted out to reduce him to size, if not to a quivering shadow of his former self.
However, with all his faults and baggage, Newt represents a lot of candidate to cut down and he’s not known to quiver much.
And, to utilize a tempting pun, his quiver is chock-full of arrows with which to bring down Obama, chiefly his knowledge, experience, intelligence, and debating expertise, all of which constitute fearsome forces to reckon with and the re-elect Obama team has evidently been doing a great deal of reckoning.
The latest Democrat stalwart to join the Democrat attack machine isn’t known for her intelligence or expertise in anything other than winning her own re-election in a super-safe congressional district and just launched her initial salvo of innuendo intended to inflict damage on her former House colleague.
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi didn’t really say anything of substance to Talking Points Memo but rather, in her sly fashion, tried to smear and intimidate Gingrich with a threat.
As she inelegantly put it without elaboration, “When the time is right. . . I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
Just think about it. An investigative committee of four so far un-identified individuals investigating an arch political enemy for twelve months behind non-transparent doors and compiling “a thousand pages of his stuff.” It’s a wonder they didn’t find Newt guilty of pulling grandma’s plug and tossing babies into wood chippers!
Imagine any committee secretly investigating Barack Hussein Obama for a year! They could determine he was born in Nairobi, his father was a confirmed Marxist drunk, and his mother had this peculiar thing for Muslim men. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=9629.)
All things come to those who wait and now it’s Gingrich’s turn. With the race for the Republican nomination for president seemingly narrowed to a pack of two, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, it was time for the Obama attack team to zero in on Newt since he has been waxing of late and Mitt has been stagnating.
Adhering to the military strategy of focusing on offing the leader, the Obamians have been dismantling the front runner until he is beaten to a pulp then deal with the remnants of the field. It worked with Bachmann, Perry, and Cain so why not go with whatever works?
Of course, even when he was bringing up the rear, Gingrich received his allotted share of undercutting but it’s a whole new ballgame now that he’s in the lead. The Big Guns are being trotted out to reduce him to size, if not to a quivering shadow of his former self.
However, with all his faults and baggage, Newt represents a lot of candidate to cut down and he’s not known to quiver much.
And, to utilize a tempting pun, his quiver is chock-full of arrows with which to bring down Obama, chiefly his knowledge, experience, intelligence, and debating expertise, all of which constitute fearsome forces to reckon with and the re-elect Obama team has evidently been doing a great deal of reckoning.
The latest Democrat stalwart to join the Democrat attack machine isn’t known for her intelligence or expertise in anything other than winning her own re-election in a super-safe congressional district and just launched her initial salvo of innuendo intended to inflict damage on her former House colleague.
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi didn’t really say anything of substance to Talking Points Memo but rather, in her sly fashion, tried to smear and intimidate Gingrich with a threat.
As she inelegantly put it without elaboration, “When the time is right. . . I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
Just think about it. An investigative committee of four so far un-identified individuals investigating an arch political enemy for twelve months behind non-transparent doors and compiling “a thousand pages of his stuff.” It’s a wonder they didn’t find Newt guilty of pulling grandma’s plug and tossing babies into wood chippers!
Imagine any committee secretly investigating Barack Hussein Obama for a year! They could determine he was born in Nairobi, his father was a confirmed Marxist drunk, and his mother had this peculiar thing for Muslim men. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=9629.)
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Ethical Lapses at PSU, Ethical Void in D.C.
Ethical Lapses at PSU, Ethical Void in D.C.
A course in ethics was a requisite for a B.A. at Fordham University in the 1960′s and I have to confess I probably semi-slept through it.
It’s apparent that Ethics 101 either wasn’t required at Penn State University or that Nittany Lions coaches also slept through it. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Barack Hussein Obama has made such a farce of ethics in the federal government it’s hard to believe he understands the meaning of the word.
Ethics was a tough subject although its essence can be reduced to the study of moral principles and their applicability to rules of conduct.
Dictionary.com provides a more detailed definition: “That branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.”
In turn, that definition can be summarized to doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.
Many wrongs are associated with recently-publicized events at PSU. Some may be termed ethical lapses of omission. They include Coach Joe Paterno’s failure to notify law enforcement authorities, university administrators covering up perfidious behavior, and Coach Mike McQueary’s grossly negligence in not interceding on behalf of a 10 year old boy being raped in a school shower room.
The most profound ethical failures committed have been attributed to Coach Jerry Sandusky, illegalities and moral tupitude which allegedly continued for some 15 years, from his initial molestations of young boys to McQueary’s witnessing Sandusky violating the ten year old.
Both Sandusky and McQueary are Penn State graduates but so too are the other 557,000 alumni of that immense and still great school. A few rotten apples can spoil a barrelful but a handful can’t spoil an outstanding university. Now that they have been exposed, they will be prosecuted and victims will be compensated even if that compensation can never wipe clear the memories of what they suffered.
Similarly, an unethical American president can stink up the White House but he can’t spoil a nation.
Obama and the administration he leads have been caught in numerous ethical breaches but, thanks to his mainstream media and stonewalling lackeys, so far they have gotten away with such breaches and only time will tell whether they ultimately ”come home to roost,” to quote his pastor of 20 years. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5954.)
A course in ethics was a requisite for a B.A. at Fordham University in the 1960′s and I have to confess I probably semi-slept through it.
It’s apparent that Ethics 101 either wasn’t required at Penn State University or that Nittany Lions coaches also slept through it. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Barack Hussein Obama has made such a farce of ethics in the federal government it’s hard to believe he understands the meaning of the word.
Ethics was a tough subject although its essence can be reduced to the study of moral principles and their applicability to rules of conduct.
Dictionary.com provides a more detailed definition: “That branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.”
In turn, that definition can be summarized to doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.
Many wrongs are associated with recently-publicized events at PSU. Some may be termed ethical lapses of omission. They include Coach Joe Paterno’s failure to notify law enforcement authorities, university administrators covering up perfidious behavior, and Coach Mike McQueary’s grossly negligence in not interceding on behalf of a 10 year old boy being raped in a school shower room.
The most profound ethical failures committed have been attributed to Coach Jerry Sandusky, illegalities and moral tupitude which allegedly continued for some 15 years, from his initial molestations of young boys to McQueary’s witnessing Sandusky violating the ten year old.
Both Sandusky and McQueary are Penn State graduates but so too are the other 557,000 alumni of that immense and still great school. A few rotten apples can spoil a barrelful but a handful can’t spoil an outstanding university. Now that they have been exposed, they will be prosecuted and victims will be compensated even if that compensation can never wipe clear the memories of what they suffered.
Similarly, an unethical American president can stink up the White House but he can’t spoil a nation.
Obama and the administration he leads have been caught in numerous ethical breaches but, thanks to his mainstream media and stonewalling lackeys, so far they have gotten away with such breaches and only time will tell whether they ultimately ”come home to roost,” to quote his pastor of 20 years. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5954.)
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The President's Worn-Out Clothes
The President's Worn-Out Clothes
. . . Not that it will get any more attention from Obama’s MSM than any of his many previous gaffes and unrehearsed revelations of fallibility and stupidity but The Anointed One really lost his ointment when he was caught with his pants, that is, teleprompters, down in front of an audience at D.C.’s Benjamin Banneker High School.
He confessed not only that he was “not always the very best student” but that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects. He elaborated by saying, “I did not love every class I took. I wasn’t always paying attention.”
Most school kids don’t pay an awful lot of attention to their teachers but at that point Obama dropped his Obamabomb by fessing up to what has been obvious thoughout his career: “I remember when I was in 8th grade I had to take a class called ethics. Now, ethics is about right and wrong, but if you’d ask me what my favorite subject was back in 8th grade, it was basketball. I don’t think ethics would have made it on the list.”
That admission was the equivalent of Ted Kennedy conceding he was an immoral rake and Jimmy Carter agreeing he was inept. Why bother mentioning what is self-evident? The man who announced a string of “ethics rules” after his election has led an administration that has breached more rules of ethics in just the last year than Richard Nixon could ever have dreamed of.
It was nice of Obama to reveal that his ethical shortcomings date back to his childhood. Now it’s time to get out of his imperial clothes and get out of the White House. (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5614.)
. . . Not that it will get any more attention from Obama’s MSM than any of his many previous gaffes and unrehearsed revelations of fallibility and stupidity but The Anointed One really lost his ointment when he was caught with his pants, that is, teleprompters, down in front of an audience at D.C.’s Benjamin Banneker High School.
He confessed not only that he was “not always the very best student” but that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects. He elaborated by saying, “I did not love every class I took. I wasn’t always paying attention.”
Most school kids don’t pay an awful lot of attention to their teachers but at that point Obama dropped his Obamabomb by fessing up to what has been obvious thoughout his career: “I remember when I was in 8th grade I had to take a class called ethics. Now, ethics is about right and wrong, but if you’d ask me what my favorite subject was back in 8th grade, it was basketball. I don’t think ethics would have made it on the list.”
That admission was the equivalent of Ted Kennedy conceding he was an immoral rake and Jimmy Carter agreeing he was inept. Why bother mentioning what is self-evident? The man who announced a string of “ethics rules” after his election has led an administration that has breached more rules of ethics in just the last year than Richard Nixon could ever have dreamed of.
It was nice of Obama to reveal that his ethical shortcomings date back to his childhood. Now it’s time to get out of his imperial clothes and get out of the White House. (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5614.)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
MSNBC, Ethics, and Keith Olbermann?
MSNBC, Ethics, and Keith Olbermann?
It takes a hell of a lot for MSNBC, the cable news station of NBC established in partnership with Microsoft, to suspend someone for violating its ethics policy. It’s a challenge to try to determine whether MSNBC, dubbed PMSNBC by Rush Limbaugh, has any ethics at all considering its programming and commentators.
As the left’s response to Fox News, MSNBC has been beyond lame. As the left’s entry into the ethics sweepstakes, MSNBC finished as an also-ran.
However, someone has been suspended, indefinitely and without pay, for violating that vague policy. None other than Keith Olbermann, former sports maven and now former political pundit in MSNBC’s 8 pm slot, the man who proved that one host was able to sink a cable network almost single-handedly, has, possibly, been handed his pink slip.
Actually, that’s hyperbolic since Olbermann had a lot of help in that regard from such people as the raving, leftist lesbian, Rachel Maddow. As of today, though, Rachel is still in and Keith’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” is being counted out. It remains to be seen if Maddow survives longer than MSNBC. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2521)
It takes a hell of a lot for MSNBC, the cable news station of NBC established in partnership with Microsoft, to suspend someone for violating its ethics policy. It’s a challenge to try to determine whether MSNBC, dubbed PMSNBC by Rush Limbaugh, has any ethics at all considering its programming and commentators.
As the left’s response to Fox News, MSNBC has been beyond lame. As the left’s entry into the ethics sweepstakes, MSNBC finished as an also-ran.
However, someone has been suspended, indefinitely and without pay, for violating that vague policy. None other than Keith Olbermann, former sports maven and now former political pundit in MSNBC’s 8 pm slot, the man who proved that one host was able to sink a cable network almost single-handedly, has, possibly, been handed his pink slip.
Actually, that’s hyperbolic since Olbermann had a lot of help in that regard from such people as the raving, leftist lesbian, Rachel Maddow. As of today, though, Rachel is still in and Keith’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” is being counted out. It remains to be seen if Maddow survives longer than MSNBC. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2521)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Questions of Ethics: Charles Rangel, Bradley Manning, et al.
Questions of Ethics: Charles Rangel, Bradley Manning, et al.
Making ethical judgments is a complex business, fraught with nuances and subjectivity.
Ethics has been defined as “the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. . . the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed for themselves or as the body of obligations and duties that a particular society requires of its members. Ethics has developed as people have reflected on the intentions and consequences of their acts.”
That definition may be reduced to four words, doing the right thing.
There’s a narrow distinction between unethical behavior and simply lying although some form of lying is usually associated with a lack of ethics.
Thus, when Elena Kagan dissembled in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by saying she had merely “suggested” changes in the language of an anti-partial birth document to which she objected she was both lying and acting unethically to accomplish her goals: http://tiny.cc/9l5jb
On the other hand, when President Obama appeared on “The View” today and listed dealing with the H1N1 “pandemic” as one of the “thorns” of his first 18 months in office he was dramatizing, bloviating, in a word, lying. There was no H1N1 pandemic in 2009 as he well knew. It was no more a pandemic than the average year’s flu. The Center for Disease Control had grossly exaggerated the H1N1 virus danger and the manufacturers of the Swine Flu vaccine reaped a windfall in the billions.
Much more clearcut as unethical behavior were the actions of United States congressman Rep. Charles Rangel and Pfc. Bradley Manning of the 10th Mountain Division Second Brigade in Baghdad. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1812)
Making ethical judgments is a complex business, fraught with nuances and subjectivity.
Ethics has been defined as “the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. . . the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed for themselves or as the body of obligations and duties that a particular society requires of its members. Ethics has developed as people have reflected on the intentions and consequences of their acts.”
That definition may be reduced to four words, doing the right thing.
There’s a narrow distinction between unethical behavior and simply lying although some form of lying is usually associated with a lack of ethics.
Thus, when Elena Kagan dissembled in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by saying she had merely “suggested” changes in the language of an anti-partial birth document to which she objected she was both lying and acting unethically to accomplish her goals: http://tiny.cc/9l5jb
On the other hand, when President Obama appeared on “The View” today and listed dealing with the H1N1 “pandemic” as one of the “thorns” of his first 18 months in office he was dramatizing, bloviating, in a word, lying. There was no H1N1 pandemic in 2009 as he well knew. It was no more a pandemic than the average year’s flu. The Center for Disease Control had grossly exaggerated the H1N1 virus danger and the manufacturers of the Swine Flu vaccine reaped a windfall in the billions.
Much more clearcut as unethical behavior were the actions of United States congressman Rep. Charles Rangel and Pfc. Bradley Manning of the 10th Mountain Division Second Brigade in Baghdad. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1812)
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Ethical Murder
Ethical Murder
. . . On a much smaller scale is the ethical issue of killing one man or a group of men who you are reasonably certain are plotting to decimate cities and commit mass murder. Today we have the ability to accomplish such precision acts of war without risking the lives of the guys with boots on the ground or of the pilots in the sky.
Some are calling the use of very successful predator drones in the Afghani war as unethical, others call it a great advancement in the conduct of modern warfare. Pinpointing a high value target certainly seems to beat the destruction of large swaths of real estate tenanted by unknown numbers of innocent non-combatants.
And, yes, there will be drone mistakes, casualties that occur in the fog of war described with the sanitized term ”collateral damage” which happens no matter the military tactics employed but do those mistakes constitute unethical warfare?
A related ethical question has arisen in conjunction with Islamic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1685)
. . . On a much smaller scale is the ethical issue of killing one man or a group of men who you are reasonably certain are plotting to decimate cities and commit mass murder. Today we have the ability to accomplish such precision acts of war without risking the lives of the guys with boots on the ground or of the pilots in the sky.
Some are calling the use of very successful predator drones in the Afghani war as unethical, others call it a great advancement in the conduct of modern warfare. Pinpointing a high value target certainly seems to beat the destruction of large swaths of real estate tenanted by unknown numbers of innocent non-combatants.
And, yes, there will be drone mistakes, casualties that occur in the fog of war described with the sanitized term ”collateral damage” which happens no matter the military tactics employed but do those mistakes constitute unethical warfare?
A related ethical question has arisen in conjunction with Islamic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1685)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Ethics? Schmethics! Part One
Ethics? Schmethics! Part One
Ethics: the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc. (Dictionary.com)
There’s something about celebrity whether achieved in the entertainment arena or in that other entertainment arena, politics, that imbues stars with a sense of entitlement to greater power, to greater greed, to a greater number of the opposite sex.
They tend to forget those “rules of conduct.”
It must be the adulation from enthralled audiences that convinces many entertainment and political celebs that they’re exceptional, above it all, the cat’s meow as was said in olden times, and not subject to the same moral and ethical constraints applicable to the hoi polloi.
In politics, ethical lapses are certainly not confined to Democrats. Remember Florida Congressman Mark Foley and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. (Maybe it’s the name, Mark?)
However, Democrats are just so damned good at perverting power that they can’t be denied the title of Consummate Ethical Thrashers.
If Ya Can’t Beat ‘Em, Buy ‘Em! President Obama learned that trick of the political trade from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Stifle recalcitrance with remunerations. Or maybe he learned it in Chicago, but there they usually just smash kneecaps.
Harry bought the Obamacare vote of Senator Mary Landrieu . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1538)
Ethics: the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc. (Dictionary.com)
There’s something about celebrity whether achieved in the entertainment arena or in that other entertainment arena, politics, that imbues stars with a sense of entitlement to greater power, to greater greed, to a greater number of the opposite sex.
They tend to forget those “rules of conduct.”
It must be the adulation from enthralled audiences that convinces many entertainment and political celebs that they’re exceptional, above it all, the cat’s meow as was said in olden times, and not subject to the same moral and ethical constraints applicable to the hoi polloi.
In politics, ethical lapses are certainly not confined to Democrats. Remember Florida Congressman Mark Foley and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. (Maybe it’s the name, Mark?)
However, Democrats are just so damned good at perverting power that they can’t be denied the title of Consummate Ethical Thrashers.
If Ya Can’t Beat ‘Em, Buy ‘Em! President Obama learned that trick of the political trade from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Stifle recalcitrance with remunerations. Or maybe he learned it in Chicago, but there they usually just smash kneecaps.
Harry bought the Obamacare vote of Senator Mary Landrieu . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1538)
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