**** UPDATE: Yes this is a hoax... go here to follow the story if you haven't seen other references to it yet. ****

Yes, we're such a backward, barefoot, ragged country. We can't keep up with the likes of Germany. The glitz, glamor, sheer presence even of this extremely high minded society... it's truly blinding. Simply turn your attention to this story:

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
By Clare Chapman
(Filed: 30/01/2005)

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Such even handedness in employment is most amazing. Aren't you impressed with the inclusiveness? Doesn't it make you all tingly just thinking of how broad their outlook on life has become? (or maybe you're just excited by all the possible new prostitutes available...) Well, how did this come about you ask?

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

Ladies and Gentlemen, imagine if you will, you are unemployed... Oh I'm sorry, did you think this might only pertain to women? I know all you studly men out there would never object to working as a gigolo - right? Yes, this story is about women and the sex trade - but I see nothing there that excludes men... so let us continue...

Maybe you are married or have a live-together arrangement and your significant other comes to you and says... I have to take this job as a prostitute or they will take away our unemployment income - what do we do? How 'bout it guys - any objection to your girlfriend or wife working the sex trade? It's legal - and according the German law it's not even immoral... I mean, you can't even tell a prostitute from a cocktail waitress. (personally I always thought there was a difference, but then I'm just a provincial little nobody)

The government is telling you that there is nothing wrong with you having sex... as a job. Any guys want their wife hitting the sheets with any number of unknown men? Any women want their husband turning a profit with whichever woman is willing to pay the price? In the future, if you are dating... and your date says, yeah I was unemployed for about a year - will you begin to wonder what job they "had" to take at the end of that year?

What is the lesson in all of this? Mostly that people who make laws are idiots. They never consider the law of unintended consequences. With all the high minded intentions of the all accepting liberal, they work so very hard to save a segment of women from a very bad life. With the consequence... putting an even larger number of men and women in an untenable position.

It is impossible to separate sex from morality - even if the government decrees that it should be so. It will be interesting to see what, if any, fall out there is from this interesting turn in German society. What I'm really waiting to see is if the German people find this demeaning enough to actually do something about it, or if they've become such doormats that they allow this to stand without objection.

My my - America just looks better and better all the time. I think I like being a provincial, backward, pajama wearing red-neck.

Hat Tip : Ann Althouse and Prof. Bainbridge

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Oops - the sky ISN'T falling... What happened? The Iraq election is a rousing success, so much so that the news media aren't exactly sure how to report it. Even the vaunted Fox News web site has this leading story...

Millions Cast Ballots Despite Violence

Huh? Yeah, that Right Wing Bastion, Fox News can't bring themselves to lead with a headline that doesn't include mayhem. So what's the mayhem?

BAGHDAD, Iraq — For the first time in more than 50 years, Iraqis cast ballots in democratic elections Sunday and took the first steps to declaring how they wanted Iraq to be governed.

As estimated 8 million people — 60 percent of eligible voters — braved violence and calls for a boycott to vote in Iraq (search). A string of homicide bombings and mortar volleys killed at least 44 people, including nine attackers.

Well, at least they waited until the second paragraph to bring in the death scene. Let's see 44 out of 8 million (give or take a few hundred thou...) what's the percentage on that? That's what I thought, vanishingly small. Mind you - if you're one of the 44 it really sucks pond water - to say the least. But considering the all out maelstrom that was expected. I figured we were going to see hundreds of thousands of casualties.

What does CNN have to say?

Iraqis vote amid violence

And they don't even wait until the second paragraph to turn on the violence game...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Polls have closed and ballot counting has begun after Iraq's first free election in a half century, with officials reporting a higher than expected turnout of registered voters amid attacks and threats of violence.

Insurgents carried out more than a dozen attacks across the country on Sunday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 71 others.

Let's see, if there were millions of people voting, and "more than a dozen attacks" (let's say less than 15 shall we, since we know they will go for the highest number they can get away with... ) Then it only stands to reason numerically, most people were not in the way of attacks or effected by them while voting. They may have been fearful (especially after all the news hype), but short of a huge bomb entirely destroying each of 12 cities - it looks like many Iraqis were able to vote unmolested.

I'm waiting impatiently to see what the spin meisters come up with tomorrow to make this all look like an outright disaster...

Posted by: Teresa in Current Affairs at 11:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 If one were to believe the media last week, they would know that this report of millions voting was a filthy lie. Low turnout was expected. There is no possible way that the media could be wrong.

Right.

Posted by: That 1 Guy at January 30, 2005 02:23 PM (X8Umy)

2 Ah yes, I've heard predictions that the tinfoil hat crowd will be shouting about how the voting rates have been falsified and that only 10 or 20 percent of the voters actually turned out, making the election illegitimate and Bush a MISERABLE FAILURE!!1!!!

Keep watching the DU for further updates :-)

Posted by: Harvey at January 30, 2005 06:19 PM (ubhj8)

3 I told my hubby last night that the next time I run into someone in the US that says they don't have the time to vote or don't want to spend the time waiting in line I am going to rip them a new one and then explain that they don't have the time or they don't want to wait in line but yet people in Iraq waited with the threat of being killed just so they could vote and that didn't deter them one bit.

I am so embarassed for the US.

Posted by: Machelle at January 31, 2005 03:07 AM (ZAyoW)

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Scrappleface has the very best reporting. Covers it all.

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Apparently Teddy Kennedy has been speaking in public again... The wanderings of his pickled brain were presented to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

I'd be angry, but the man is such a parody I only find him laughable. New England Republican is dining upon all the blog fodder, giving the speech a royal fisking.

So, if Kennedy's antics amuse you and you think your blood pressure can stand it, head on over and read with delight.

And while we're at it.... Day by Day is Priceless

Posted by: Teresa in Current Affairs at 10:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 That bulbous red nose is a dead giveaway; he's a clown!

Posted by: pam at January 29, 2005 03:58 AM (l6NIn)

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Want to know what's really going on? Head on over to Friends of Democracy. This is a blog devoted to the Iraq election by Iraqis who are on the spot. Take a moment to visit them, find out how they are viewing the election.

And I see that Blackfive is now posting the following:

And word is that C-SPAN will be airing Friends of Democracy sessions in DC on Sunday between 1-3PM EST.

This is wonderful news! Congratulations to Friends of Democracy - looks like people are taking notice.

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**** There has been a change in the story as noted in my update below ****

Someone please explain this reasoning to me...

Apparently Maggie Gallagher (an op-ed columnist) was paid by the Department of Health and Human Services to push Bush's marriage initiative. Her response as this becomes public knowledge...

Gallagher explains to Kurtz: "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.

First of all "violate journalistic ethics"? No, seems to me like you're right in line with those ethics displayed by all the other journalists out there. (in other words you have none because you don't know what ethics are - someone get this woman a dictionary!)

Second "been happy to tell anyone who called me"? Well, don't worry Maggie, from now on, anytime you want to write something - EVERYONE will be calling to find out how much of a cut you get on the deal for writing something good...

begin ethics class

It's too late to help Maggie, but if there are any young people still thinking of a career in journalism (and blogging hasn't turned you totally sour on the profession), then listen up!

Always Always Always be forthcoming about who is paying you money. Be right up front about it. If you only get paid by the people publishing your work - all well and good. It gives you more credibility (although less cash in the bank). But, if someone offers you money to plug their agenda, and you really want to take it, then you MUST disclose this anytime you write about that agenda. People may discount what you say because you are getting paid to say it, that's their option. It's called full disclosure - making sure the buying public knows what it is buying by giving them all the information they need to make a decision.

Then if you write an opinion on something that you are not receiving money for, you can state that upfront too and people will tend to believe you... because you disclosed paid gigs.

By failing to mention who was paying her, Maggie took away information her readers need to make an informed decision based on her opinion. This may be her true opinion, but we don't know that. Until we found out she was being paid, we would very likely assume that her editorials expressed her heartfelt opinion - now we can't be sure, so any opinion she writes loses the ability to convince - why should we listen to her?

Note: this is important! If you don't disclose a payment for an opinion, you are lying by omission. Once caught, all trust is lost and will be difficult, if not impossible to regain.

If you haven't figured it out yet, lying is a bad thing. And if you didn't even realize that small fact then appealing to your moral sense will have no effect. So how about thinking about your own skin... Yes, many people get away with it, maybe even for years, but just look at the ones who are caught. It is not a pretty picture. An even worse picture is when they are caught and try to pretend it's nothing... then it's really ugly.

We now conclude our ethics class for the day.

UPDATE: Well, I really should have waited to write this post. Although the ethics of things haven't changed, apparently Ms. Gallagher was being paid for producing materials regarding marriage for the above Department, not for promoting the marriage agenda. It's very likely wiser to wait a day or two when one journalist accuses another of an ethics lapse... sheesh! See the Instapundit link below for plenty of updates about this story.

Hat Tip Instapundit

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1 Well, it was a good ethics lesson, anyway.

Posted by: pam at January 27, 2005 10:45 AM (l6NIn)

2 More interesting is the fact that the Clinton administration hired her first.... No disclosure then or now about the past.

Posted by: chas at February 03, 2005 03:38 AM (2Ydt1)

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I don't know how he does it, but Roger Simon manages to listen to NPR without gagging... I am not that strong, but his listening has brought him an interesting insight:

For nearly ten minutes the only Bush supporters they interviewed sounded like they just stepped out of a Holy Roller tent and couldn't think of anything else to say about the occasion than "Thank you, Jesus!" It was almost comical. That's one helluva revival meeting. That real, live agnostics or even normal garden variety deists could have voted for Bush seemed outside the realm of possibility to the woman doing NPR's commentary.

Yep - that about covers it. The comical part is that they call themselves "Public Radio". The only thing public about it is that the public at large can listen to it... oh yeah and pay for it too... whether or not you want to. Quite a joke.

Posted by: Teresa in Current Affairs at 07:50 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Y'all have cultivated quite a reputation...

Ouch!

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Is the sound of blogs covering the release of the Rathergate Report...

Instapundit - as usual - has a plethora of links. Currently the last comment on his post is Dan Rather's

Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because “the facts are right on the money,” and that no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic.

Apparently Dan isn't going to let a little thing like proof get in the way of his facts... Maybe they should rename "60 Minutes" ... "Dan Rather's Facts"...

One of the Instalinks is to Jeff Jarvis who brings us even more idiocies uttered by Rather.

And I know it's only because Glenn hasn't had enough time to post all the great links... he missed Sissy's take on Dan's ineptitude.

Last of all (no link yet) I heard Rush talking about this for a few minutes when I was out and about. He is pointing out that the report is simply restating everything we know but not explaining "why" it happened. I'm not sure the report is supposed to explain "why" but it certainly leaves the door open for endless speculation.

CBS - might, just might have salvaged a tiny bit of their credibility if they had fired Rather today along with the others. The quote about Dan that I have posted shows he is certainly not a person who should be reporting any news. He could do political opinion commentary... but not news. The fact that CBS doesn't seem to notice the difference between news and opinion is the most astounding thing about this whole business.

Happy Reading...

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