Friday, December 31, 2010

Graduate Students and $$$


This is what a friend sent me in response to my earlier post on these students who pledged to give 10% of their incomes (here). You will like this better.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Character Matters: From Fordham to the NFL


Today I found this article in the Wall Street Journal ("You Can Get There From Fordham" - link here) talking about 2010 Fordham graduate John Skelton, who has completed his first professional season in the National Football League with the Arizona Cardinals. The article emphasizes how hard he worked to be where he is now.
As hard as he worked in our ethics class. John took our Ethics in Business class in the Spring of 2009. His comments at the end of the semester say something about his character (and you know how important character is for ethics):
"Professor: I just wanted to thank you for helping me and giving me the opportunity to do well in your class. I had a lot of fun in your class and it forced me to think about many issues i wouldn't consider before. I have definitely learned a lot."
As I said; he worked hard, he made very good contributions and was really engaged in the discussion. It was really in one of our last meetings that I found he was a professional player (and certainly I did not treat him as a professional player!). Ethics is about character, attitude, personality. John Skelton is a great QB, a nice person and a good student...

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Is there privacy in marriage?


Leon Walker of Rochester Hills, Michigan, is facing five years in prison for accessing Clara Walker's email account, his
then-wife. Leon, a computer technician, went into Clara's Gmail account and found out she was having an affair with her ex-husband, who was previously arrested for domestic violence. Leon filed for emergency custody of his wife's young son.
Clara said the laptop was a private one and only she knew the password. But Leon said it was a family computer and she kept her passwords in a book next to the computer. Walker is now facing charges under a Michigan state law intended to prevent identity fraud. Is Leon Walker a hacker given his expertise to break into email accounts? Should the state prosecute parents monitoring their kids' Facebook accounts as well? (click here for details).

Whistleblower Exposes Airport Security Lapses


Chris Liu is a pilot who said had been flying with American Airlines for 12 years. He recorded several videos of airport external security with his cell phone. One of the videos, which has gotten more than half a million hits on YouTube, purportedly shows how ground crews can enter secured areas at a San Francisco airport by swiping a security card, which, Liu said, is a far cry from the scrutiny travelers and pilots undergo through normal security. Liu said: "People don't understand that when they walk through the TSA checkpoints, well, they are getting ... a groping, but they don't understand that all those people you see outside, the ground personal, all the caterers, all the airline cleaners, they get virtually nothing," he said in a previous interview with ABC News." Liu made the videos to make his point. "I wanted to give you an idea of what type of security the ground crews go through. Their screening is sliding a card and going through a door. Not screened at all".
Now American Airlines refuses to acknowledge Liu was an employee. And Liu could face charges for sharing security secrets...

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Justice for Hedgehogs


Ronald Dworkin's new book "Justice for Hedgehogs" is now available. It will be widely discussed soon. Here you can find a link here to a conference at Boston University School of Law discussing this book.
http://www.bu.edu/law/events/audio-video/hedgehogs.shtml
And the paper are available here.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Josh Cohen & Glenn Loury on Bloggingheads.tv



Pay attention to their discussion of the wiki-affair and Julian Assange (06:05)

Friday, December 17, 2010

PlanetHospital and the the Business of Surrogacy


Fascinating story on the WSJ today, about the business of surrogate motherhood. This California-based company, PlanetHospital.com, let prospective parents produce babies of their own often using an egg donor from one country, a sperm donor from another, and a surrogate who will deliver the baby in a third country. Apparently, PlanetHospital is doing well: its services run from $32,000 to around $68,000, versus up to $200,000 for a U.S. surrogate. Plus, the advantage of no legal troubles because in some poorer countries surrogates have little or no legal right to the baby. For example, in Greece, a surrogate can be prosecuted for trying to keep a child. This kind of companies can do a lot of good for families suffering from infertility, gay male couples, old couples who may have trouble adopting, etc. Yet, some people find the whole idea of renting poor women's wombs execrable. What do you think?
Link to the article here.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Misbranding Drugs


Elan Corp. of Dublin, Ireland and its American subsidiary Eisai Co. have to pay $214 million to resolve allegations that they illegally promoted the epilepsy drug Zonegran. Elan Pharmaceuticals Inc., agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge of misbranding the drug. Elan promoted Zonegran for a wide variety of uses not approved by the FDA, including mood stabilization, migraine and chronic headaches, weight loss and seizures. Elan's efforts targeted non-epilepsy prescribers and the company paid illegal kickbacks to physicians in an effort to persuade them to prescribe the drug for so-called off-label uses.
Elan's general counsel, John Moriarty Jr., said "Elan is committed to adhering to the highest ethical and legal standards and has developed a strong compliance program based upon best industry practices". Link here