Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Satire: Apology in Advance for Hypocrisy

 

Denver Mayor Mike Hancock had already appeared in this blog for giving a 'please don't travel and cut the family get together'' post just before boarding a plane for a Thanksgiving family get together..

Per a satire, he topped his previous performance on 20 December. 

He announced that he was traveling for Christmas to meet friends and family and would try to wear a disguise to avoid being seen. He 'pre apologized' to anyone who thought he was being hypocritical. 


He concluded his remarks by telling people not to travel and avoid gatherings.

I'm not 100% convinced this is satire but I think it more likely than not.

Image (which is probably photo shopped) and story here.

 

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Monday, December 21, 2020


 Dr. Deborah Birx is the Corona Virus Response Coordinator, appointed in February 2020.

Dr. Birx is also the owner of an apparently enormous collection of scarves.

As with many people she has on numerous candidates counseled people to avoid exposure. One part of this is to curtail travel. The week before Thanksgiving she counseled to avoid travel and reduce holiday gatherings to immediate family.


As it turns out, Birx traveled to Fenwick Island in Delaware (the day after Thanksgiving) to, in her words, winterize that house. During the work she was visited by her husband, her daughter and son in law and their children (Birx's grandchildren). The entire issue of what is an 'immediate family'.  Birx has a lot of things going on in her life. Her job and her husband's job (he heads a law firm) has resulted in her living in Washington D.C. but her parents as well as her daughter and son in law and their kids live in a house in Potomac, Maryland. She and her husband own this house.

I would give her the benefit of the doubt in this case but I grant it depends on what 'immediate family' means.

The first photo of Dr. Birx and other information is here. The second photo shows some of the other scarves in her collection. 


PS  On 22 December 2020 Dr. Birx announced that she would be leaving government soon. Article and image is here.

Seattle and the Rock Thru the Window Crime Hypocrisy

Seattle City Council member Lisa Herbold has been an advocate for defunding the police for some time.

She also is the sponsor of an ordinance that would, essentially, decriminalize many misdemeanors and some felonies on the basis that the offender was poor, oppressed, mentally unstable, addicted, sexually exploited, etc.

A few days ago a rock was thrown through a window at the Herbold house.  Herbold called 911.

This is pretty obviously not hypocrisy by my definition.

First, not knowing the identity of the rock thrower, you don't know if the misdemeanor would be non prosecuted under the proposed ordinance.

Second, the ordinance is not yet in effect.

Third, even though the Seattle police have been partially defunded, calling them isn't an act that requires the police to come.

An article on this with many links is here.

The image comes from here.

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

The $58 T-shirt to 'Tax the Rich'

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a.k.a AOC, has been selling t-shirts that say, "Tax the Rich" for $58.

The first image is AOC greeting fans.

The second is AOC giving a speech (it is from the the article on the 'employee of the month'). 

The third is of AOC and the t-shirt.



Some have said this is hypocritical. 

I don't see it.  She didn't say "I am against overpricing messaging T-Shirts. She didn't say, "I am against overpaying for messaging T-Shirts.

She did, however, say that the shirts are not produced with slave labor and then say that you can get one for free if you volunteer. This is closer to hypocrisy but not quite as volunteer labor is not the same as slave labor. 

The fact that many things AOC says don't make sense doesn't mean they are hypocritical.

By the way, the Goya Food Company recently made AOC  their employee of the month because her advocacy of boycotting Goya actually increased sales. This despite AOC not being their employee.



Tweet by AOC is here.

Article here on this using the word 'hypocrisy.

Article on Goya making AOC employee of the month is here.

 


Wednesday, December 02, 2020

Hypocrisy from Cabo San Lucas

 Steve Adler is the Mayor of Austin Texas (image).

In early November 2020,  Mayor Adler hosted a party for his daughter's wedding. It was a relatively small party with 20 or so guests.


Then Adler got on a plane and went to Cabo San Lucas for a vacation. He owns a timeshare there (second image is of the Villa La Estancia Beach Resort and Spa; it is near Cabo).

As he was in Cabo, Adler put on his facebook page a video asking Austin residents to stay at home if you can.

Adler did not, apparently, host any parties while in Cabo. 

Nonetheless, he obviously could  have stayed home.  I won't give him extra demerit for the video since he was doing 'work' on his vacation and probably thought it was important.  He could have defended his actions by saying, "I didn't realize the danger of not staying home until I was actually in Cabo" but that would probably be seen as untrue. So I'll call it hypocrisy.

 


Story covered by Houston paper is here.

Story covered by Austin paper is here.

Zelda Gilroy and the Hypocrisy of outdoor dining at a food court


Sheila Kuehl is a supervisor in LA county representing the 3rd District.

She once played the part of the super smart 'girl next door who has a crush on the star' on Dobie Gillis.

The first image is from her acting career, the second from her political career.


 

On November 27,  Supervisor Kuehl dined al fresco (outside) at a food court.  The restaurant providing the food was Il Forno (I haven't been able to find out what she ordered).

A few hours after the meal, Kuehl voted to prohibit outdoor dining in LA county until information from public health officials allows it. She referred to outdoor dining as 'dangerous'.

I don't consider it hypocritical to dine lawfully before it becomes unlawful.

However, saying that the activity is 'dangerous' a few hours after engaging in that activity pushes the issue.  Kuehl might defend herself on this by saying that although she social distanced during the meal, others would not. However, I didn't see her employ this defense so I'll consider it hypocrisy.


 

Information on the dining after voting issue is at this site.


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Friday, November 27, 2020

Bikini Party Hypocrisy

 

Dr Mikhail Varshavski is a celebrity doctor. 
 
In 2016 People magazine named him America's Sexiest Doctor alive. He appears on CNN sometimes.  
 
 
Like other doctors he comments on the coronavirus epidemic and tells people to be extra careful, social distance and wear masks when you can't social distance.  Recently, he was photographed at a birthday party he organized (for his 31st birthday).  No social distancing, no masks but lots of bikini wearing ladies.  In the picture with the bikini wearers, he has a light blue hat. 
 
Varshavski has not, to my knowledge, denied the party, nor apologized for it, nor defended it since the articles were published a week ago.

The information is from two articles. 

One is best news.

The other is meaww.


Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Thirty Minutes to Hypocrisy

 

The mayor of Denver is Michael Hancock. Mayor Hancock posted a tweet telling people, among other things, to:.

Host virtual gatherings instead of in-person dinners.

Avoid travel, if you can.

Order your holiday meal from a local eatery

 

Thirty minutes after posting the tweet, Hancock boarded a plane from Denver to Houston where he then traveled to Mississippi to have thanksgiving with his wife and daughter. The mayor's defense of this is that it was better than having the two of them travel to Denver, thus avoiding their trips.  

Of course, he could have just done a virtual gathering as in his tweet.

 


The story (and similar ones) are at this article at Reason which also embedded the tweet.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

The French Laundry Hypocrisy Apology


 Governor Gavin Newsom recently went to a 50th birthday party for a friend (a lobbyist - but that has nothing to do with the hypocrisy). It was at the French Laundry Restaurant in Napa Valley. The restaurant (second

image) is pricy with meals typically costing $350 and up ( but that also has nothing to do with the hypocrisy).


The hypocrisy is that, based on reports of people who saw the event (a picture purporting to be of the event is the third image), the social distancing rules Newsom implemented were violated.  These rules are too complicated for me to understand and also the rules change with time, however, Newsom himself sort of admitted that he violated the rules.

 

He then issued an apology.


"I made a bad mistake," said Newsom. "Instead of sitting down I should have stood up and walked back and got in my car and drove to my house."

"We're all human, we all fall short sometimes," 

Newsom did not use the word 'hypocrisy' or anything similar in his apology, but in any case, it was an actual apology and it was for hypocrisy.


Report on the apology is here. 

Another report on this is here. 

update: locals report that the party was 20+ people, the wine bill alone was about $12,000

Friday, November 13, 2020

Portland 'defund the police' official calls 911

 

Jo Ann Hardesty (in the image) is a city commissioner in Portland, Oregon.

She favors defunding the police.

One day she got a Lyft ride. She asked the driver to raise the car windows. The driver said that city ordinance requires the windows to be open (due to the coronavirus). 

Commissioner Hardesty's driver went to a gas station and said she should leave and get another driver. She refused and called 911.

Hardesty does not seem to be a likeable person and being asked to leave a Lyft vehicle does not seem like a 911 event.  However, this is not actual hypocrisy because Hardesty didn't say, "I urge people to not use 911."

It is also somewhat like a person using a tax management provision that they think should be abolished. As long as it exists, people who want to use it should use it.

ps: Hardesty got another driver and reached her destination later.


News article is here.

Friday, October 02, 2020

Laughing about the Hypocrisy

 

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Pennsylvania State Representative Wendy Ullman (in the image) were joking about wearing masks. 

 

A video of this with an open mike audio has been making the rounds.

 

At face value it looks like the Governor and Representative were saying we wear masks just to fool the public.  However, not having the full context (and I'm not likely to get the full context), I'm not going to call 'hypocrisy' on them.




Local Newspaper report here.

Video with open mike audio is here.

Monday, September 28, 2020

SCOTUS Nomination Hypocrisy or Not


In February 2016 after the death of Justice Scalia, then President Obama nominated Justice Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

There was a dispute as to whether the Senate should take up the nomination. 

In September 2020 after the death of Justice Ginsberg, then President Trump nominated Justice Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Again there was a dispute as to whether the Senate should take up the nomination. 

Among those disputing the issues, I have chosen 4 people (I was at one time only going to discuss one person but it makes more sense to discuss a quartet) whose opinions on whether the Senate should vote on confirmation in the 4th or 8th year of a President's term) were as follows:


Senator Lindsey Graham: 2016 Against; 2020 For

Senator Mitch McConnell: 2016 Against; 2020 For

Senator Charles Schumer: 2016 For 2020 Against

former Vice President Biden: 2016 For; 2020 Against (then Senator Biden was against in 1992).

Graham and Biden are in the first image.  Schumer and McConnell are in the second image.


I will discuss the Graham opinion change first since it is relatively simple and overtly stated.

Then I will discuss the McConnell opinion which is more complicated.

Regarding Graham:  2016, Senator Graham was specific and said that  he opposed a nomination in that year and would oppose a nomination in 2020 (see the collection of quotes link below).  In 2020 he had changed his mind and sent a letter (see link below) to various Democratic Senators explaining why. His reasoning was that Democratic smearing of Justice Kavanaugh in 2018 required a the change in position.  I don't follow this reasoning as it seems a non sequitur, something like, 'I won't pay you the money I owe you since you insulted me'.  However, it may make sense to Graham and I can't find any response from the addressees objecting to the reasoning.

McConnell's 2016 statements regarding the nomination to the SOTUS that year include conditions or caveats. For example, in one statement (the collection of quotes link below) he referred to an appointed by a lame duck (Obama was term limited in 2016, Trump is not term limited in 2020, although he would be a lame duck if he lost the election in November 2020). In another statement (the collection of quotes link below) McConnell notes that in 2016 the President was a Democrat and the Senate was majority Republican (as of this post the President is a Republican and the Senate is also majority Republican). I don't understand this reasoning entirely although it seems to me it has more substance than Graham's reasoning.

This brings me to the Schumer and Biden opinion change.  I have been looking for them to defend their opinion change and haven't found any. Neither have I found third party defense of their opinion change nor any reporters who even asked them about it. Now, the focus of the news is the confirmation of Justice Barrett and I suppose there will be no defense of the opinion change.

I would rate all but McConnell as hypocrites to some extent but Schumer and Biden more so since they feel no need to even acknowledge the issue. I would rank Graham as slightly less of a hypocrite than Schumer or Biden as he has a defense even if I don't think it makes sense. I'm giving McConnell a break on this since he does make a substantive case that the two situations are different. 

Finally, I acknowledge the Babylon Bee's take on this:

Nation Surprised To Learn All Politicians Are Hypocrites


The 1992 position of then Senator Biden is discussed here.

Senator Graham's Letter re 2020 situation is here.

Collection of quotes from 2016 and 2020 is here.

 Washington Post OP Ed on this calling McConnell an 'apex predator' is here.

A defense of McConnell  is here

Senator Cruz expands on the 'one party holds the Presidency, the other the Senate' reason here.

 

Babylonbee humor on this is here.

Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Pelosi Accused of Social Distancing Hypocrisy - I think not

 

On August 31 Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi had her hair done at a hair salon. I take this as a shampoo, coloring and blow dry.

Normally this is not news. However, during the quarantine months, this may be news.

Apparently, Pelosi contracted with a hairdresser who had a contract with a hair salon. The hairdresser did shampooing and other tasks in the hair salon.  The local, San Francisco, ordinances do not permit this and in fact, only on September 1 did the local ordinance allow hair shampooing in and outside setting. In the image, the hair dresser is wearing a mask but Pelosi is not.

Several columnist call this hypocrisy, some even call it "Queen of Hypocrisy".

There have been many episodes of this kind, for ex  ample, Dr. Fauci in the stands at a baseball game in July not wearing a mask. 

In general there are two problems with calling it hypocrisy. Although both Fauci and Pelosi have made pronouncements like "wear facemasks, be safe, social distance", these statements are not absolute, e.g., you don't have to wear face masks if it is just you and your spouce. Anyway the first problem with calling it hypocrisy is that neither Fauci nor Pelosi has authority over local ordinances. The second is that such ordinances are, as noted, complex and have all kinds of caveats about, for example, requiring mask when social distancing is not possible. 

Pelosi claims not to know what the social distancing ordinances are for hair dressers and that is a believable claim. However, she might have made a more robust apology and noted the suffering of the nail salon and other similarly affected business owners.

In Fauci's case, the woman to his left is his wife and he doesn't need to mask protect himself from her. The person to his right is perhaps endangered by Fauci's non mask wearing but Fauci claims that he was eating and drinking at the time and you can't do this masked. This seems reasonable although given that the stands were essentially empty they could have spread out a bit more and still been able to talk to each other.  Fauci's case is weakened because when he  threw out the ceremonial first ball of the game he wore a mask while being 60 feet from the catcher but then after the pitch he did get closer so it would have been mask-required then.

Anyway, the distance of Pelosi and Fauci from authority to issue ordinances and the complexity of the ordinances do not allow a simple verdict of hypocrisy.

Post Script: Pelosi now thinks the salon should apologize to her
 
Post Post Script: Now Salon Owner says she is receiving death threats.

So, although not a hypocrite on this point, Pelosi seems to be a bad person.

Powerline calls it "Queen of..." here.
More complete news of this incident is here.

Article on the Fauci incident is here.

Fauci's ceremonial first pitch is here
 
Actress Kristy Swanson did wear a face mask for her shampoo and hair work here

Sunday, August 16, 2020

The Debate Exception

Back during 2019 Senator Kamala Harris criticized former VP Joe Biden on the issue of sexual harassment.  By June 2020 Harris fully supported Biden with no reservation. In an otherwise friendly interview on late night TV earlier this summer, Harris explains the change by saying, "It was a debate" about 7 times while laughing.



The video is available here


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Friday, July 10, 2020

King Alexander Yannai on Hypocrisy

The King Priest Alexander Yannai, aka, Alexander Janneaus, was dying and gave his wife Solome the following advice (per BT Tractate Sota),

"...beware of hypocrites who appear like the Peru-shim [Pharisees] as their actions are like the act of Zimri [public copulation with an idol worshiper in Numbers 25, which is this week's parshah] and they request a reward like Pinchas..."


Interestingly, according to the historian Josephus, Alexander Yannai was actually anti Pharisee, to the point of occasional persecution, but his wife, Solome had a brother who was among the leader of the Pharisees. Solome became Queen, the only Queen of the 2nd commonwealth, after Yannai died and her brother became head of the Sanhedrin (per Josephus explicitly and also implicitly in various parts of the Talmud).



The first image is of a 16th century artist and is from the Wikipedia website of Alexander Janneaus.

The second image, also from Wikipedia, is a 17th century creation showing Yannai feasting while Pharisees are being executed.

Monday, July 06, 2020

Sort of Admitting to Hypocrisy

Dr. Mark Lurie is a professor specializing in epidemiology at Brown University.

Back in March 2020, Lurie said, 

"The virus doesn't care about your party affiliation or you political beliefs....If you don't follow the CDC recommendations, you're increasing (the chance) that you're going to get infected and that you're going to infect other people... "denialism" is something that's been seen at the beginning of other epidemics, but the more coronavirus infiltrates our daily lives, the more people are going to take it more seriously.

But in today's New York Times, Lurie, who apparently joined some of the non socially distanced protests, is quoted,

 “Instinctively, many of us in public health feel a strong desire to act against accumulated generations of racial injustice....But we have to be honest: A few weeks before, we were criticizing protesters for arguing to open up the economy and saying that was dangerous behavior. I am still grappling with that.”



Mark Lurie's comments after social distancing back in March are here.

Mark Lurie's comments post protests are here.

Mark Lurie's page at Brown University is here.

Monday, June 15, 2020

Bill deBlasio Covid 19 Hypocrite

 
From March to late May New York City had covid19 testing guidance that said 'test if you have symptoms'. That guidance was changed in early June to 'everybody should test'. 

It is about two weeks since the guidance was changed and Mayor of NY City, Bill deBlasio hasn't been tested.  Also, he has symptoms. 


His office put out a public announcement that basically says, 'he doesn't feel like it'.  

This is a pretty straightforward case of hypocrisy.  I doubt it has much effect however because deBlasio was widely regarded as a stubborn jerk before this.  The second image shows a protest at the Mayor's official residence on June 2.

I will admit that one of the justifications for 'everybody getting tested' in NYC is to facilitate tracking contacts which in the case of deBlasio is essentially a futile mission given the thousands of anonymous contacts he has had in the past few days. 



First image is deBlasio at a protest on 14 June.

Image and article from The Gothamist  is here.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Police Defunding for you but not for me

Natalie Martinez is the President of the Los Angeles City Council. She recently gave a speech advocating substantially reduced funding for the LA Police.   

For several months, Martinez had requested 24/7 protection at her home. The police provided it, for a while with round the clock stationing and later with some stationing and some frequent patrols.

I would be inclined to give Martinez a break on calling it hypocrisy based on a change in her policy but, as it turned out, she called off the round the clock protection when the situation was brought to her attention and also said that the protection was due to a security threat. The LA PD indicated that they had no information regarding the threat. Thus, I'll have to call hypocrisy and better yet, as a case of self correcting hypocrisy.
First image is from a Martinez press release.
The second image is from the article in Daily Wire.


Daily Wire story is here.


Could the Grim Reeper a Hypocrit

 
 In Florida there is a lawyer named, Daniel Uhlfeder who is the principle of the eponymous law firm of DWUhlfederLaw.  


In early May, Daniel dressed as the Grim Reeper at a Florida beach to warn or possibly predict deaths from congregated in groups.


In June, the same fellow attended a George Floyd protest, where he was masked but most people were not.



This information comes from his tweet stream.



Since he wore his mask at the second event, he could say he was doing his social distancing and not responsible for others. Or he could say that the necessity of the second event outweighed the need to keep social distancing. Or he could say he changed his mind about social distancing.



In any case, I don't think this makes him a hypocrite. It just makes him look silly (but maybe he got clients in the second event).


Grim Reeper tweet is here


Tweet from protest is here.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

former Sport Reporter defends his apparent hypocrisy



On 29 May 2020, a former sport (mostly NBA related) journalist, Chris Martin Palmer, tweeted an image of an affordable housing building burning in downtown Minneapolis, MN apparently approving the burning of even more buildings.

Then on 31 May 2020, the same person tweeted (without an image) that a Starbucks near his gated community was burned and wanted the 'animals' out of his neighborhood.

He was challenged on this as other tweeters told him it was hypocritical.

I read through some later tweets of his. It seems he justifies it by saying that the people doing the former were protesting and the people in his neighborhood were threatening.  He even thinks this distinction is obvious.  I'm lost as to how he understands motivations of crowds of people just by casual observation.


The image capturing both tweets is by someone named daniel4liberty. 

The reason Mr. Palmer is no longer a reporter, apparently has to do with a dispute between Palmer and Kevin Durand at least per this article.

Palmer has more recently been in dispute with LeBron James.

The Sporting News covered this issue here.

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Lawyer admits Hypocrisy in Letter to NY Times

The May 4 New York Times had a number of letters to the editor commenting on a New York Times editorial.  The editorial was about the allegations against Joe Biden and recommended an investigation.

One of the letters to the editor was by a woman named Karen Wilson of Dallas, Texas who describes herself as a 66 year old lawyer and a survivor of violent rape.

She disagreed with the editorial. I am quoting the end of her letter, 

.
"...We cannot survive as a democratic society with Mr. Trump in office for four more years. The need to get him out of office overrules every scruple we may have. I will live with my hypocrisy and believe that tens of millions of Americans will feel the same."

So there you have an admission (or claim) of hypocrisy on this issue (although I don't have her previous statements so I couldn't tell if she were being a hypocrite or not).

The source of all the NYTimes published letters to the editor on that subject, that day is here.

An Interesting Bit of Plague Sex and possible Hypocrisy

The first image is  Neil Ferguson who is a mathematical biology professor at Imperial College in London.

He has advised British leaders for two decades on medical issues, e.g., the mad cow disease many years ago.  Basically, his recommendations have been implemented.

In the UK, his mathematical model predicted 250,000 deaths in the UK unless the country basically shut down. The country did shut down and per his advice, social visits were banned.

However, Professor Ferguson had a friend, Antonia Staats (she is 38, he is 51) who has visited him a number of times while the country was shut down.  She visited him for sex, notwithstanding that both she and Ferguson are married to other people. Staats has defended her action by saying that, first, she is in an open marriage and second, that because of this, the visit is actually being part of the Ferguson family or that the Fergusons and the Staats are one family.  

Notwithstanding this defense, Ferguson is being removed from an official advisory position (I'm not sure if this was a paid position).  

I'm pretty sure, based on the reporting of this that many, maybe most, people in the UK are angry about this, maybe for hypocrisy.  However, I've not found the specific advice that Ferguson provided the Government regarding what is social visiting and what is family. Thus, I'm not able to judge whether it is hypocrisy.

anyway, some reporting:

The Spectator's report is here.
The Daily Mail's report (I used their pictures) is here
The BBC report is here.  
The Telegraph's report is here.
The Guardian's report is here.

Sunday, May 03, 2020

Donna Brazile says it is not Hypocrisy

Donna Brazile, former chair of the DNC, addressed the Tara Reade allegations against former VP Joe Biden. This was a few days ago (actually May 1).

She sort of addressed the hypocrisy issue.


Here is a piece of the interview (on the Fox News where Brazile is a salaried commentator).

FLEISCHER: -- Do you believe Tara Reade?
BRAZILE: She's given interviews, we've heard from her, but we respect women. That's -- the bottom line is respect women --
DANA PERINO: Donna, Ari is trying to ask you, Donna, do you believe Tara Reade? 
BRAZILE: There's no hypocrisy here. You respect women, you believe women. They have a right to tell their story.

So Brazile is cognizant of the issue of hypocrisy.

Of course, neither she nor her interviewers actually state what the hypocrisy is, which I find annoying. To do so one would have to research previous interviews with Brazile and find out exactly what she said about, for example, the case of Christine Ford or going further back in time, Juanita Broderick. 

FWIW, I worked with Brazile briefly in 1993 in coordinating a report on the Federal response to the great Mississippi Flood of that year. She was an undersecretary in the Dept of Agriculture or special advisor to the President as I recall (although her bio doesn't show this).  I found Brazile to be easy to work with, friendly, responsive, and smart (of course that was then).

The transcript of the interview is here.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Ruth Allyn Marcus Mentions Hypocrisy About Herself

Ruth Marcus (first image) is a columnist for the Washington Post. She also authored a book "Supreme Ambition" which argues that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth in her testimony regarding, then nominee, now Supreme Court Justice, Judge Brett Kavanaugh (he was a Judge at the point of nomination).

She wrote a column in the Washington Post on the issue of whether Tara Reade was telling the truth about Joe Biden (Reade alleges sexual assault). 

Marcus actually acknowledges the problem of hypocrisy in her column.

"...Outrage over misbehavior only by those with whom we have ideological differences is not righteous — it is hypocritical. Skepticism about accusations only when they are made against someone with whom we are ideologically aligned is not high-minded — it is intellectually dishonest...."

I would give her more credit for this if her analysis of Reade's accusations were more objective e.g., Marcus says that too much time has passed for an investigation of Reade's accusations (about an event that allegedly took place in 1993) but also contends that Blasey Ford's accusations (about an event that allegedly took place in about 1982) were not investigated enough. 

Notwithstanding that, at least Marcus does admit there is a potential issue which is more than many.

The column by Marcus is here.

Rose McGowen, one of the founders of the "MeToo", had some nasty words for the Washington Post in this tweet. I don't think it was about the Marcus opinion but about a news article that downplayed the Reade accusation.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

The return to disposable bags and hypocrisy


Among other jurisdictions, Boston has modified their anti-one-time-use bag policy during the corona virus 2020 pandemic. The policy was two years old and was one of the most strict in the nation as it required all grocery bags to be recycled or to be for multi uses. An op ed in the Boston Herald stated that this, i.e., the change in policy, was hypocrisy.

I'm unable to even analyze this as I can't figure out what the hypocrisy is. Changing policy during a crisis is not hypocrisy, it is changing policy. For what it is worth I think the anti one use bag policies around the country, including where I live, are frequently poorly thought out and dishonestly justified but that is a different issue.

The op ed is here.

The policy being changed is here.

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Is AOC a Flaming Hypocrite Regarding School Choice

That is the accusation (as noted below I disagree).

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has no children of her own but is godmother to a girl.  Per an article in the NY Post which in turn referred various primary sources, AOC has denounced charter schools. AOC also bragged about helping her cousin's daughter (AOC's god daughter) into a charter school.

Several people have called AOC a hypocrite for this.


I don't.

If AOC had said, "nobody should send their children to a charter school" that would be different. However, AOC is in favor of (I think) abolishing charter schools nor advocating boycotting them. So as long as charter schools exist I don't consider it hypocritical to use them. 

The situation is analogous to someone who supports,say, a higher capital gain tax than currently exists, but does their taxes using existing rules.


Opinion Piece here.

That's also where the image is from.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Prince Charles burns 162 tons of carbon to meet Greta





I've done climate change hypocrisy before. 

However, this time I have a nice graphic to go along with it and also some quantification.

The first image shows Prince Charles meeting Greta at Davos a few days ago. Subsequent to this, Prince Charles spoke at Davos about Climate Change and how important it was, how we must address it with urgency, etc.

The Daily Mail put together a nice itinerary of the private flights Charles took in the days before and after the Davos meeting with Greta (second image - click to enlarge). 

They (the Daily Mail) summed up the carbon footprint as similar to 18 times the per capita yearly carbon footprint in Britain.

The image of Charles and Greta is from the BBC 

The chart and narrative explanation is from here.