Category Archives: Ethics

UPDATED: The Fox Is Guarding The Chicken Scoop [Sic] (On Other Crypto-Leftist Conservatives)

Bush, Conservatism, Critique, Ethics, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Journalism, Media, Propaganda, Republicans

Last week, the once relatively forthright Jim Pinkerton cheerily informed Fox News Watch viewers that the media did a bang-up job in covering the Boston bombing, when the truth was exactly the opposite.

This week, Mr. Pinkerton belatedly changed his story, recounting the embarrassment of April 17, which Barely A Blog reported well before Big, Dishonest Media did:

Over the course of a few hours today (April 17), the hysterical and histrionic US media—front men and women for CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the rest—have gone from asserting the arrest of a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, to screening amateur images of their fantasy felon, to decamping to the courthouse in expectation of an arraignment, to confessing without a smidgen of shame that nothing of the sort had transpired.
We lied. OK, we fibbed. Let’s move on. Quick. There is to be no meta reporting about the misreporting.

Pinkerton went on to shill for Fox News, incorrectly crediting Megyn Kelly (I don’t care if I’ve misspelled her ridiculous name) with breaking the story about the brothers Tsarnaev as welfare recipients. Nonsense. As I chronicled in this week’s WND column, The Boston Herald did that shoe-leather reporting, not whatshername Kelly.

And as for the oozing over the odious George Bush: The entire Fox News Watch panel partook.

They call themselves “Fox News Watch”! It’s more like the Fox guarding the chicken scoop [sic].

Fox News mediated another magic meeting of the minds when it sent ditz Dana Perino to interview her ex-boss George Bush, who, sadly, has seen fit to emerge from hiding.

That chick is dumb.

Good for Tom Brokaw for refusing to attend the Annual White House Sycophants’ Dinner, held tonight. “It’s a sickening specter: Some of the most pretentious, worthless people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—get together to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us.”

UPDATE (4/27): MORE CONSERVATIVE CRYPTO-LEFTISM.

Mr. Pinkerton, who used to be a straight shooter, is an editor at The American Conservative. Recently, a prominent leader on the Old Right commented that TAC “has moved far to the left of The Nation.”

Yeah, Leon Hadar sounds as boring, redundant and ridiculous as Joan Walsh of Salon, when he suggests ever so subtly that Republicans “are hostile toward immigrants and toward Americans who are non-white and non-Christian.” (For a correction, read “The D-Bomb Has Dropped,” for example.)

You can locate a non sequitur in almost every one of Noah Millman’s lightweight, bloodless blogs. The eyes glance over the stuff in speed-read mode, savoring not a thing—not a turn of phrase or an original insight—as the mouth opens in a yawn.

Never boring, Larry Auster, RIP, was nevertheless not the rigorous “thinker” that a leaderless, desperate, dumbed-down traditionalist movement is casting him as, posthumously. But boy!, was Larry 100% perceptive in assessing, to quote Auster, the “founding editor of The American Conservative (known here as The Paleostinian Conservative), Scott McConnell, who has twice endorsed Obama for president yet continues to call himself a conservative.”

On this front, the 2006 “Final Solution to the Jewish State” preceded Larry in deconstructing the dissembling manner in which “TAC’s editor and publisher “introduc[ed his] readers to ‘Palestinian Liberation Theology.'”

UPDATE II: Desperately Seeking Immigrants Who Qualify For Welfare (In Other Words, ‘Undocumented Democrats’)

Ethics, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Welfare

“Desperately Seeking Immigrants Who Qualify For Welfare” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Number 69, number 69,” called an officer of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Number 78, yours truly, was sitting in line at the ASC (the Application Support Center), in Washington State. I was there to renew my green card, the much-coveted US permanent residency permit.

The woman to my left was clutching note number 69. Despite having been summoned time and again, she stayed put. She did not understand English. Like her, the room was packed with applicants who were talking in tongues.

Although a longtime champion of American freedoms, I have decided, for now, against accepting US citizenship, for which a green-card holder is illegible after five years.

Uncle Sam’s foot-soldiers assault me whenever I take to the unfriendly skies. And should I leave the US, after taking the Oath of Citizenship—IRS agents will fulfill their oath of office and hunt me down.

As the chorus lyrics to that haunting rock classic by the Eagles goes, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” In the evocative words to “Hotel California,” Americans who try “running for the door,” soon discover that they “are all just prisoners here …”

Prisoners of Uncle Sam’s device.

If he can tolerate TSA assaults as he departs the country, a US citizen who chooses to live and work overseas cannot escape the Internal Revenue Service. The United States is perhaps the only country “to tax its citizens on income earned while they’re living abroad.”

Although the government’s citizenship stamp of approval is meaningless, there are risks in rejecting it.

While a US citizen cannot be denied entry whenever he leaves the country and returns home; a green-card holder is essentially asking for permission to re-enter. This, as millions of members in a favored outlaw fraternity stroll across the southern border, giving border patrol the finger (as the other finger dials the ACLU).

Besides, have you ever heard a member of America’s low-brow glitterati and literati advocate for immigrants who are not poor, not brown, and not uneducated? I have not—with the exception of Tucker Carlson, a libertarian-leaning rightist. …”

The complete column is, “Desperately Seeking Immigrants Who Qualify For Welfare.” Read it on WND.

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UPDATE I: Jay Leno on “Undocumented Democrats”:

“And in a groundbreaking move, the Associated Press, the largest news gathering outlet in the world, will no longer use the term ‘illegal immigrant.’ That is out. No longer ‘illegal immigrant.’ They will now use the phrase ‘undocumented Democrat.’ That is the newest – ‘undocumented Democrat.’ ”

UPDATE II (4/5): About “Non-Sycophantic Libertarians,” Todd writes on WND’s Comments:

I’m with you and Tucker on the immigration issue. I don’t know if this is still the case, but it wasn’t that long ago that if you wanted to immigrate to Australia, you had to show proof that you either a) had enough assets to support yourself long term or b) possessed a
skill that was needed there. That would never happen here though..it makes too much sense.
Sometimes it takes a non-citizen to offer real perspective on what it is to be an American, not to mention shining light on some of our more dopey policies (Daniel Hannon is another who comes to mind in that regard). I actually don’t blame you at all for not taking the plunge and becoming a citizen, especially in these times (I’ve heard that even if you
renounce your citizenship the IRS could STILL come after you).
It’s nice to hear some sound perspective from a non-sycophantic libertarian (unfortunately sycophants come in all stripes, including some who cloak themselves in logic and reason). You do make remarkable sense. There’s not enough of that going around.

UPDATE II: ‘Dead Birds Flying’: Help Steve Boyes Help The Cape Parrot

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intelligence, Pseudoscience, South-Africa, The Zeitgeist

Birds in flight are the very symbol of liberty. Yet what do people do to the most sentient, socially and intellectually evolved among them? We cage them and maim them by clipping their wing feathers.

And what a heart has Dr. Steve Boyes!

He has dedicated himself to reversing the destruction humans have wrought on the Cape Parrot. What a heroic commitment he and his team (including Cape communicator Rodnick Biljon, who captures the Cape Parrot on film) have pledged to rescuing the Cape Parrot from extinction, brought about by the decimation of the Yellowood forests of the Eastern Cape. (Your host hails from Cape Town.)

The Cape Parrot Project is one of my favored charities. Owned as I am by an Un-Cape Parrot (a genetic relative to the wild Cape Parrot), I’ve had the privilege of experiencing first-hand the intense brilliance of these precious Pois (mine is Poicephalus fuscicollis; the Cape Parrot is Poicephalus robustus). We rescued Oscar-Wood from a cage in a store, where he had languished for 4 years, plucking his feathers down to the pink skin beneath. This, after having been sold into the trade by a well-known breeder in Hawaii.

LOOK at him then (2009):

Another heartbreaking image (2009):

Here Oscar-Wood is today (2012), fully flighted, nesting in a bag of tortillas. This state of relative well-being has come about only because I work from home and am able to give him the attention and freedom he requires to thrive. And still he plucks; once acquired, this neurotic habit is hard to eliminate.

Oscar-Wood has a facility with … wood (all parrots require wood, preferably from a tree, in the wild):

WARNING. Do not try the above at home. By all means, rescue an abandoned and abused parrot, but do not fuel the wicked pet parrot trade, which everywhere and always involves breeding mills, inhumane by definition. As to wild-life traffickingg … words fail.

Those who’ve bothered to get to know a parrot in flight, if hobbled horribly by the walls of a house (the Cape, for example, can fly hundreds of kilometers in a day), know this: Out of a cage, free to be adorable and impossible as only hookbills are—parrots are so much smarter than any of the domesticated animals (and than some of your neighbors).

Even showmen such as parrot whisperer Clint Carvalho attests that the larger parrots are “twenty times smarter than dogs.” I’m not sure how Carvalho quantifies his findings, but these sound about right.

Know a politician with this magic macaw’s problem-solving skills? Tan’s Japanese admirers are enthralled. As well they should be. Watch Tan solve an impossible magic-cube like puzzle:

What’s positive about Carvalho is that, unlike your average avian dabbler, he has realized that parrots acquire rudimentary language (often greater than those acquired by the bumper crops of illiterates US public schools produce) through conditioning and cognition, just as kids do.

The cognitive capacities of the parrot, however, match his emotional needs.

Unlike dogs and cats, birds are wild animals, ill-suited to captivity. Moreover, they’re flock animals who wither without the physical proximity of a feathered family with which they fly, forage, communicate and mate, often for life.

The trade is fueled by consumer demand.

Being slaves to authority and convention, the mass of humanity doesn’t much like or appreciate the independent-minded individuals among them. Imagine the fate of a creature as smart, as independent-minded and as individualistic as the parrot?

Consider the cruelty of excluding parrots from assorted public-awareness campaigns. Funds are invariably solicited for and awareness raised over the airwaves about abused and needy dogs and cats. Not so for parrots. Despite their popularity as pets and their prevalence in American homes, natural disasters come and go without any mention of the plight of the Psittacine victims.

Coveted. “Consumed.” Discarded.

That is the fate of parrots bred for the pet trade. Break the cycle. Adopt a neglected and abused animal from a shelter. Support your community based shelters.

AND donate to save the Cape Parrot.

Writes Dr. Boyes:

Most people know about the popular African Grey parrots of central and western Africa, but very few people know about Africa’s most endangered parrot, South Africa’s Cape parrot. Today, there could be as few as 800 Cape parrots remaining in the wild and they are considered Critically Endangered due to continued habitat loss, poor nesting success due to lack of nest cavities, a severe Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease epidemic, historical persecution as a crop pest, and illegal capture for the wild-caught bird trade. If Africa was to lose this “green and gold” ambassador of some of our last-remaining Afromontane forest patches, it would be a sign of very bad times to come… We would have lost one of the last Afromontane endemics clinging onto these forests through their own ingenuity and collective intelligence. Intensive logging in their forest habitat, persecution (e.g. being shot or caught in nets and clubbed to death), nest poaching and mist-netting adults for the wild-caught bird trade, and very little or no conservation intervention, has left the Cape Parrot in ruins with an aging populations in declining physical condition. We need to intervene now and stimulate positive change for Cape parrots in the wild

UPDATE (3/25): Following the Facebook thread.

JP: Point taken, but parrot are picky about friends and partners. The chances of a friendship being struck up are greater when the other parrot is of the same species. Personally, I recommend against taking on two parrots. That’s much like planning for one toddler and learning that you’ll be giving birth to twins. It’s never easier. Better that you be a good parront to one parrot than shortchange both and yourself. Of course, if you do not work, or your work is not too demanding (because parrots are), have a large enough house and homestead (maybe even place for an outdoor aviary)—by all means. Caring for parrots under the right conditions is rewarding. There is nothing like the love of a parrot, once earned.

Baby is currently doing lapse from his cage to kitchen cupboard (or what’s left of it; our kitchen has not been renovated and we’re delaying that job until we can think of how to parrot proof Sean’s planned maple-wood cabinetry).

Oscar-Wood is also talking up a storm. Singing his musical repertoire; knocking, and then demanding, “Hello, hello”; asking if I’m going, “Bye-bye-bye?” and if he’s been a “bad bird?” He’s also doing his raspy chest cough, because he knows the sound worries me. Should I dare to attempt to bathe him (parrots bath themselves pretty thoroughly), it’s an indignant, “Hey, hey!” Tell me that’s not a very decent attempt to communicate.

Only Following Orders

Ethics, Healthcare, Law, libertarianism, Morality

Forgive the hyperbole, but the, “I was only following orders” excuse for evil action or inaction comes with hefty historical baggage.

It also conjures the nurse at Glenwood Gardens, a California retirement home, who refused to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on an “87-year-old woman who had collapsed in the home’s dining room and was barely breathing.”

The woman was later declared dead at Mercy Southwest Hospital, officials said.

At the beginning of the 7-minute, 16-second call on Tuesday morning, the nurse asked for paramedics to come and help the 87-year-old woman who had collapsed in the home’s dining room and was barely breathing.
[the 911 operator] pleads for the nurse to perform CPR, and after several refusals she starts pleading for her to find a resident, or a gardener, or anyone not employed by the home to get on the phone, take her instructions and help the woman.
“Can we flag someone down in the street and get them to help this lady?” [the 911 operator] says on the call. “Can we flag a stranger down? I bet a stranger would help her.”

The relationship between the parties—the ruthless healthcare worker and the deceased—is governed by contract. By following her cruel heart, the nurse was also following the law—and this includes the libertarian law. There is no duty to act, as far as I know—all the more so if the contract by which the two parties were bound stipulated this pathetic policy: We don’t do CPR.

One can only hope that other elderly residents up and leave Glenwood Gardens, if they can, and that the facility is forced to change its policies for fear of bankruptcy.

Listen to the pitiful 911 call and you hear a 911 dispatcher (Tracey Halvorson) with a heart; a healthcare worker without one.

There is not much you can do to change someone without a heart. Name and shame says I.