Posts Tagged ‘lies’
January 28, 2013
Years ago on a cold day I bought a hot dog from a vendor outside Philadelphia’s Franklin Field, and after biting into it and getting a chill in my teeth I asked the boy who sold it how he could call it a HOT dog when it wasn’t even warm. He responded, “It’s just the NAME, not the TEMP-A-CHOOR.”
Two years ago the boy’s remark was topped by a spokesman for then-Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ), who explained an outrageous lie that the Senator had told about Planned Parenthood, ‘his remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”
And now Subway (Australia), whose footlong sandwiches have been discovered to be only eleven inches long, gave their explanation: ” ‘SUBWAY FOOTLONG’ is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length.”
(Thanks to New York Post for the photo)
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Tags:deception, ethics, factual statement, FOOTLONG, John Kyl, lies, New York Post, Planned Parenthood, Subway
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, hypocrisy, Lying, Retail | 2 Comments »
June 9, 2011
I rely a lot on PolitiFact.com, a blog of the St. Petersburg Times, to check the truthfulness of public figures. Today they reviewed all their ratings of Anthony Weiner, It’s a sad record, even before the plethora of lies he spewed over the past week. It’s much worse than I remembered. He was only rated four times, and the highest rating he ever got was “half true.”
I had admired him for his intensity, especially for his raging plea for medical care for the 9/11 first responders, who had been abandoned by Republicans in the House. He won that battle, but I should have been more critical of him. I shoulda checked PolitiFact.com
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Tags:Anthony Weiner, ethics, half-truths, lies, medical care for 9/11 first responders, PolitiFact.com, St. Petersburg Times, truthfulness
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
February 15, 2011
While I believe that political leaders of all stripes have an ethical obligation to speak out against hate speech, distortions, and lies coming from their own side of the political divide, I have to respect the opposite opinion of Jack Marshall in his excellent blog, EthicsAlarms.com. Jack is often right and has often clarified the ethical issues for me. Just not this time.
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Tags:birthers, ethics, EthicsAlarms, Glenn Beck, hate speech, Jack Marshall, lies, Republican leaders
Posted in Ethics-general, Media, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
November 5, 2010
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Except it’s as false as Obama’s Kenyan birth, his Muslim faith, his secret importing of “small quantities of Muslims,” and the death panels in his health care act. The story was reported in an Indian newspaper, quoting an anonymous provincial official.
The White House response was that the “numbers are wildly inflated.” The Pentagon dismissed the report as “absolutely absurd” and “just comical.” And the non-partisan factcheck.org summarized its findings this way:
“This story has spread rapidly among the President’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?” (more…)
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Tags:Afghanistan war cost, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, death panels, ethics, factcheck.org, Fair and balanced, Fox News, Glenn Beck, health care act, India, Kenyan birth, lies, Michael Savage, Muslim faith, Newsweek, Obama Asian trip, Pentagon, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, talk radio, warships
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media | 3 Comments »
July 20, 2010
Until Monday Shirley Sherrod was a low-level political appointee working in Georgia for the Department of Agriculture. A right-wing website posted a videotape appearing to show Sherrod saying she refused help to a farmer save his farm because he was white. Fox News played it endlessly, with all the fair and balanced commentators screaming racism and demanding Sherrod’s head.
The NAACP bit and denounced Sherrod’s apparent racism, and Agriculture Tom Vilsack pushed her out—all the way out—of government employment. The White House announced that the President supported Vilsack’s decision.
As the old saying goes, it was all lies, including the words an and the. The video had been edited to turn Sherrod’s remarks 180 degrees. She had been telling her personal tale of growth out of racism. She had thought of not helping the white farmer, identified in several news reports as Roger Spooner, then realized that the issue was rich and poor, not white and black, and had gone to great lengths to help him save his farm. And the whole thing took place 24 years ago, long before she entered government service. (more…)
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Tags:Department of Agriculture, Fox News, lies, NAACP, Obama administration, racism, Roger Spooner, Shirley Sherrod, Tom Vilsack, White House
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
May 27, 2010
First the good news: The New York Times reports that a Manhattan community board voted 29-1, with ten abstentions, to approve a proposed Muslin community center two blocks from Ground Zero. The board’s vote is advisory, but the Times notes that the vote is a measure of community sentiment. Score one for New Yorkers and one for tolerance.
And the bad news: A Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters showed only 33 percent were less likely to vote for Richard Blumenthal after he lied about serving as a Marine in Vietnam. Sixty-one percent said it doesn’t make a difference. And some indecipherable four percent said they were more likely to vote for him because of his lie. Sadly, 54 percent bought Blumenthal’s claim that he merely misspoke about his military service, while only 38 percent said he lied. Thumbs down for Connecticut.
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Tags:Blumenthal, Connecticut, Connecticut voters, Connecticuters., Ground Zero, lies, Manhattan community board, Marines, military service, misspoke, Muslim community center, Muslims, New York City, New Yorkers, Quinnipiac poll, The New York Times., tolerance, Vietnam
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
April 13, 2010
John McCain is a big fat liar. It’s sad how someone who has been so widely admired can tell such a whopper. McCain told Newsweek, “I never considered myself a maverick.”
No, except for his autobiographical Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him. And except for all his campaign ads calling himself and Sarah Palin mavericks. And thousands of times during the 2008 campaign.
McCain is in the fight of his Senate career: J. D. Hayworth is mounting a serious challenge for the Republican nomination, and the outcome is in doubt. To increase his chances against a challenge from the right McCain seems to have decided he needed to run away from his past and from his self-identification as a maverick.
Sad. And revolting.
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Tags:ethics, J.D.Hayworth, lies, McCain, Newsweek, Palin
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics | 3 Comments »
Years ago on a cold day I bought a hot dog from a vendor outside Philadelphia’s Franklin Field, and after biting into it and getting a chill in my teeth I asked the boy who sold it how he could call it a HOT dog when it wasn’t even warm. He responded, “It’s just the NAME, not the TEMP-A-CHOOR.”
Ethics Bob 