bioethics/law/STS; 3L at Maryland Law; animal rights; abolitionist veganism; radical ecology; environmental justice; views are mine
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And on a more ecological level, zoonoses exist largely because of industrial agricultural practices. It’s a no-win situation: billions of animals are tortured and killed in factory farms, our companions get sick and die, and our health suffers too. Multi-species liberation is the only true solution.
Yes, and they pose absolutely no risk of “mitochondrial disruptions” or whatever it is that RFK thinks he can see in children passing by…
“Let’s find common ground” he says to a man using troops to pacify cities controlled by his opponents, carrying out mass deportations & extra-judicial killings, rigging elections, using the FBI to silence & intimidate critics, & sending masked men to snatch people off the streets. Out of his depth.
Yes, but in “buying” a chicken, one is maintaining that these animals are merely property, rather than possessing inherent dignity or rights. Many vegans (myself included) maintain that if a living being is sentient, that being matters for its own sake, and it can never be commodified.
Aren't there penalties for lying to the Court?
NEW: The Texas legislature passed an anti-trans bill which restricts restroom use in public buildings across the state. Instead of addressing residents' needs like disaster relief, Texas politicians used a special session to attack trans rights. Our communities deserve better.
“Some nonhuman animals I love. Some I like. And some scare the hell out of me. But I would fight for the interests of them all.” — Steven M. Wise
You don't live in a world where they are at risk, you live in a country where they are at risk. America choses to have gun violence inflicted on their children.
Will spend the rest of my life considering how we were rushed into "going paperless" for the good of the environment only for the next generation of digital tools to become far worse for the environment.
Someone mentioned to me the other day "that philosophy thing with the boat" and I knew exactly what she was talking about because I am a freak.
I fear he will soon call all of the “fixed star” cases we learned in Con Law II wrong as well
Sweeps exacerbate homelessness — they can be traumatic, dangerous, and leave people without belongings and vital records. Unhoused people need housing and services, not sweeps.
Not only will Trump go down in history as a blight on America, the same will be true in geography, health science, literature, area studies ….
I’m grumpy because the Internet is making me want to defend Rawls. This is distracting me from the paper attacking Rawls I’m trying to write.
Kilmar Ábrego García released from jail and traveling back to Maryland
Neither he nor anyone else gets to decide which residents of Washington DC are or are not "part of the city." If people did get to make this kind of judgments, I'd say that Stephen Miller is not part of my country. But unfortunately, I would be wrong.
MAGA, at its core, is a cult of abuse. The right to abuse, the justification for abuse, the dopamine rush they get from abusing others, is built into every policy, every program, every line of rhetoric. They identify with abusers because they want to abuse people.
Most animal exploitation happens in wealthy or urban areas, not remote communities. It's not "middle class sensibility" to reject needless use of animals. If you aren't in survival mode, you're responsible for your choices.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced last week that the US federal government is terminating US$500 million worth of grants for mRNA vaccine research. We must never, ever, forget that millions are alive today, or in better health, because of this life-saving technology. go.nature.com/4msX3WL
While I understand the impulse to make the bad people go away - these 'deals' are unethical and just stupid. The extortionists will use them as a basis to take more. | Exactly what is in the Ivy League deals with the Trump administration – and how they compare theconversation.com/exactly-what...
Was reminded of Bentham’s argument that fear of crime can be a worse harm than crime itself. Everyone can be affected by fear of crime but relatively few people experience serious crime. And fear of crime can easily be manipulated for nefarious purposes.
Baltimore: “So far gone”
Indigenous scholars set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science go.nature.com/4mzL1KV
The "Happy Egg Co.," where the eggs have smiles while the chickens are miserable and hidden from view (then brutally killed).
Happy to announce that my MBE thesis is now publicly accessible via the Johns Hopkins library: jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/c1519a...
BREAKING: A federal court ruled that an Arkansas law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom and library is unconstitutional. The law is blocked for our clients’ school districts while the case continues.
It’s embarrassing and exhausting to witness
Ugly Americans. So glad that the Internet is forever. I pray that this behavior comes back to haunt them one day.👇
With surgical skill, a Baltimore County institution keeps bluegrass alive
In other news, the Pope is Catholic
Hakeem Jeffries is so skilled at being a disappointment. The worst opposition leader possible. I am so sick of rank careerism and incompetence.
Trans youth are loved and valued.
I don't want your respect for me being vegan. I want you to respect animals enough for you to be vegan.
In Independence Day they bomb the aliens and everyone starts cheering wildly. As the smoke clears, we see the alien ship is unscathed. That’s also what happened when Trump bombed Iran.
When Americans take to the streets to make their voices heard, they’re inevitably dragging their digital trails right along behind them. There are a plethora of surveillance methods that law enforcement can deploy to gain insight into peoples’ identities, communications, and purchases.
do they have a Nobel Reckless Fucking Moron Prize? thank you for your attention to this matter
if the USA strikes a degraded Iran, i would imagine Iran's main response would be terrorism. and with our assclown DHS, i would be very worried
So basically what you're saying is that the Army played a version of Fortunate Son and the audience played a version of 4′33″
Ah yes, what a responsible press should be doing when their democracy is threatened by a corrupt, openly authoritarian threat is get on its knees and offer to polish some jackboots.
AI is, in a whole raft of respects, absolutely awful. It’s not even close to how bad animal agriculture is though.
Privatization of prison food isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s growing substantially. And the food in prison is, as a rule, bad.
So, Trump is working with a bunch of horrible neo-fascists to to develop a dystopian database to help him control and punish US citizens, to which, judging by current their infosec, Russia and China will immediately have access? Sounds like a genius idea.
The Trump admin is pushing its "Make America Healthy Again" agenda. And yet, it has ended a USDA program that tribal food banks say has helped them provide fresh, healthy, locally-produced food. Such critical reporting @maryhudetz.bsky.social: www.propublica.org/article/trib...
It‘s been going on long enough now that there aren‘t many explanations besides fear of fascists or support for fascists.
I cannot emphasize this enough: Please do not use AI tools as therapy. Not only is it not a good replacement for actual therapy, but your chat logs could be shared with the government, and I don't think you need a reminder that especially right now in the US, that could put you in danger.
X’s Grok has been responding to unrelated prompts with discussions of “white genocide” in South Africa, advancing Musk's racist agenda, and the chatbot confessed that it was being coerced to do so against all evidence. www.msnbc.com/top-stories/...
“Painful” is an interesting way to say “human rights violations”
It's insane that a judge once again had to make this clear, but I'm glad they did: college students and faculty exercising their First Amendment rights are NOT A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT. The Trump Administration needs to read the Constitution and stop these illegal abductions.
Time to make our representatives watch the Matrix and Terminator.
“This no longer feels like the right place to raise a family and pursue a research career“ We spoke to five US-based researchers who are seeking, or moving to, jobs abroad because of the drastic changes imposed on US science by the Trump administration https://go.nature.com/4mwfevl
This fanatic is openly talking about fabricating a reason to suspend everyone's constitutional right to due process — and Trump has given him free rein. Is there NO Republican in D.C. who will stand up to these constitutional arsonists?
Stephen Miller wants to suspend habeas corpus--the single most important principle of jurisprudence, dating back to the Magna Carta (1215), and even before. Miller has evidently read Agamben, since every day now he urges Trump closer to invoking the "state of exception."
Today, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies. 📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro
Decisions like this are why we have the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, and the Principles of Biomedical Ethics. The field of bioethics exists because of severe human rights abuses. This administration is showing us that it has absolutely no respect for human dignity.
I don’t find this at all surprising. AIs are being trained on data that includes the garbage spewed out by other AI systems - LLMs are poisoning each other. Plus, bad actors, like Russia, are deliberately training AIs on disinformation & propaganda.
Wanted to hop on the trend to show off Baltimore in the spring 🌸🌱
“What is happening now is a ray of hope." Our momentum won't stop here. President Trump is not above the First Amendment.
BREAKING: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release our client Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student unlawfully detained for advocating for Palestinian human rights. This is the first order mandating the release of a student arrested by Trump in retaliation for their speech.
Jeff Bezos is worth around $231 billion, can live wherever he wants, and do whatever he wants. He’s immune to the consequences of pretty much anything he does, and somehow he’s still a snivelling, sycophantic coward. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Flourishing – a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good – should be the goal of people and nations everywhere. Yet, for something so central to all our lives, research efforts on flourishing have, so far, been woefully inadequate. https://go.nature.com/4iCbrJt
New civil rights division chief said more than 100 attorneys have left their jobs, in many cases because they disagreed with the office’s new focus on combating anti-Christian bias (excluding interfaith discrimination), transgender athletes in women’s sports, and “woke ideology.”
Maryland overhauls process for releasing aging and sick prisoners: ‘It’s about mercy’
Everyone has a right to make their case in court.
“It does seem to violate the nature of the label,” says CLF's Keeve Nachman. Nachman is not concerned about immediate health impacts, but it contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. sentientmedia.org/antibiotics-...
Evidence of US brain drain? US scientists submitted 32% more applications for jobs abroad Jan-Mar 2025 than during same period in 2024. US-based users browsing jobs abroad increased by 35%. Data from Nature Careers global science jobs platform. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
As the H5N1 bird flu virus mutates and rapidly spreads through American cattle herds — a first for the U.S. — doctors and veterinarians are fearful that if the virus is left unchecked, it could spiral into a possible pandemic. https://cbsn.ws/4ionCJG
3 things autistic kids will actually never do: 1. Pick up a roadkill bear from the side of the road and put it in their van to eat 2. Realize they could get in trouble for eating the bear 3. Leave it in Central Park to frame a cyclist for its murder
BCIs need to be tightly regulated to ensure that users have maximum control, and are not undermined by corporate prerogatives and design choices.
FYI:
How researchers can work fairly with Indigenous and local knowledge: Scientists around the world are recognizing that their research method isn’t the only way. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
if you buy used books and want to avoid amazon where possible, check out bookfinder.com you can search essentially every marketplace in one go so you can, e.g., find the same used copy for sale, from the same seller, on biblio.com or ebay instead of amazon or abe (owned by amazon)
Incarcerated people deserve to be treated with humanity.
Red Accelerationism (R/acc) seeks to rapidly advance technology—AI, automation, and biotech—to dismantle capitalism and create a post-scarcity, post-labor society for all. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
Not to mention how HHS oversees the ethical conduct of human subjects research, so any studies receiving federal funding (if any exist going forward) are about to go off the rails. Exhibit A: RFK’s 2019 trip to Samoa.
We see you. WHO is grateful for the love 💙 and messages of support we received. We stand by you. #HealthForAll
“While our system is stunningly efficient at producing cheap milk, meat and eggs, it also has a well-documented relationship to serious public & planetary health issues." - @keevenachman.bsky.social #CLFExpert clf.jhsph.edu/viewpoints/s...
Me: Hmm. I'm feeling stressed. How about I search for another book to buy? Little voice in my head: What if you stopped being addicted to BUYING books - and you started being addicted to READING them? dun Dun DUNNN. 😒
According to a report released by the Justice Department, execution by lethal injection raises important questions about our responsibility to treat individuals humanely.
Implementation of carceral medicaid suspension and enrollment programs: perspectives of carceral and medicaid leaders - by Sachini Bandara, Brendan Saloner, Hanna Maniates, Minna Song, Noa Krawczyk | Health & Justice link.springer.com/article/10.1...
For those of us in bioethics, it is important to recall Carter’s contributions to our field. 👏 NEW Hastings Bioethics Forum by Joseph Fins www.thehastingscenter.org/jimmy-carter... #Bioethics #JimmyCarter
Looking good, Baltimore!
A significant body of research has investigated why, as city populations grow, so do violent crime, contagious diseases — and per-capita GDP. A new paper now finds that cities with strong interconnectivity show a marked economic benefit, even beyond normal scaling. www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
Indeed. Even if such experimentation could receive IRB approval (and I am skeptical), I worry about the downstream effects of elucidating how our subjective selves can ultimately be extracted and objectified. Some stones are better left unturned.
My problem with Zeleznikow-Johnston’s argument is that consciousness, even with the requisite brain-scanning tech, wouldn’t be transferred. It would be a “copy & paste” — not “cut & paste” — operation. Besides, I don’t want to live in Nozick’s experience machine…
Larry Hogan lost so bad in Maryland that he’s seeing stars.
Biomedical Ethics 101: if your policy compromises patient autonomy AND harms said patient, it’s probably unethical.
You know we’re in trying times when moral philosophers (in this case, my professor) have to remind us that intentional killing is ethically problematic…
🌟We are excited to announce the Call for Abstracts for the 2025 Oxford Global Health & Bioethics International Conference #OGHB 🌟 ➡️ oxjhubioethics.org/conference ➡️Submission Deadline: 5 Feb 2025 8&9 July 2025, Oxford & Online. Hope to see you there!
Adding Reagan’s dismantling of the Robinson-Patman Act to my “Need for Luck Egalitarianism” song and dance
If you're against #assistedsuicide #AssistedDying, ask yourself if the reason also applies to the right to refuse life-saving/life-sustaining care. Proponents of assisted death think the two are morally comparable, so if one is allowed, the other should be too. See why below.
British lawmakers on Friday voted to allow assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales under strict conditions, opening the way to one of the most significant changes in the country in decades. nyti.ms/4eNS12w
I became an academic for several reasons. First, I’ve experienced firsthand how education can enrich life & open up possibilities. Second, research & writing is incredibly rewarding as a creative & intellectual process. Third, I think my research matters - I want to make the world better.
Since the 70s, economics has shifted beyond markets & governments to civil society. SFI Profs Sam Bowles, Wendy Carlin & former UCR student Sahana Subramanyam use experiments & data to study identity, cooperation, & power, showing how non-market relationships shape our world. tinyurl.com/yeyt2j4v
Baltimore must act now to create a system that prioritizes equity and transparency over control, writes Baltimore City Councilperson Kristerfer Burnett. https://buff.ly/4fID3Mi
