Thomas jeffersons monticello

Peter Singer, influential Australian-born Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, wrote a book, Animal Liberation , followed by many articles, on the rights of animals. He coined the term speciesism for the belief that human beings have special rights.  Speciesism, like racism and sexism, is based on prejudice .  It denies rights to animals because of prejudice in favor of our own species.  Citing Thomas Jefferson and Sojourner Truth, Singer writes “If possessing higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human being to use another for his own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same purpose?”  So, differences in intelligence are not sufficient to give humans pride of place. Source: Jeremy_Bentham_Auto-Icon_Michael Reeve_WikimediaCommons What about consciousness?  Are animals conscious and is consciousness necessary for the sort of personhood implied by rights?  This is trickier, because some people assume there cannot be … [Read more...] about Consciousness, Suffering and the Rights of Animals

Will Apple’s iCloud be free as in water? Can OS X hope to combat the malware menace? Is Apple’s secret data center merely a front for its nefarious plot to drill into the Earth’s core? We raise all of these questions and, frankly, answer none of them in the remainders for Wednesday, June 1, 2011. Apple may offer free iCloud services with aggressively priced Mac OS X Lion (AppleInsider) With only a few days to go before Apple spills the beans on iCloud , expect the rumors to come fast and furious (minus Vin Diesel and Paul Walker). AppleInsider reports that all Lion users may get some iCloud services for free, though probably not the rumored music streaming . We have it on good authority, however, that AppleInsider’s sources are slightly mistaken—instead, all Mac users will get a free cloud shaped like a lion. New MacDefender Variant Evades Apple’s Malware Detection System (Intego) Those malware creators certainly are industrious; if only they’d turn to the … [Read more...] about Remains of the Day: iCloud, uCloud, we all cloud for iCloud

For eight minutes and 46 seconds, police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year old Black man, on a street in Minneapolis on May 25 last year. Another officer, Alexander Kueng, had his knees on Floyd's upper legs whille their colleague J. Thomas Lane gripped Floyd's handcuffed arms. "Please, please, please, I can't breathe," Floyd gasped, pleading about 20 times. His final words reminded many of those of Eric Garner, who died during a police chokehold in 2014 . When Floyd fell unconscious, the officers didn't move. Chauvin and the other officers released their grip only when an ambulance arrived — nearly two minutes after Keung first reported he could not find a pulse, according to prosecutors . Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. George Floyd was unarmed. At the time, according to a statement by the Minneapolis Police Department, he appeared to be intoxicated and "suffering medical distress." The police said they were responding … [Read more...] about How George Floyd’s death reignited a worldwide movement