Is law an immoral profession? An appetizer for the cultivators of ethics and juridical deontology

Muchas de las recomendaciones de la deontología jurídica conducentes a elaborar, en términos bien abstractos, algún perfil del buen jurista son básicamente ingenuas, pero sobre todo inútiles. Ellas suelen partir de un doble prejuicio, muy arraigado en la actualidad: a) por un lado, de que es posible enseñar moral a cualquier profesional —en este caso, al jurista ya formado— para lo cual se suelen implementar simplemente unos códigos de ética e impartir unos cursos deontológicos (¡de fin de semana!) al respecto; y, b) por otro lado, de que la profesión legal se puede ejercer de conformidad con parámetros estrictamente morales. En este artículo se desarman teoréticamente ambas creencias y se muestra cómo el ejercicio práctico del Derecho requiere —por la misma dinámica implícita en la profesión— una cierta dosis de deshonestidad y con ello de inmoralidad. Cuánta sea esa dosis dependerá de las circunstancias personales de cada profesional considerado in concreto. Finalmente, el trabajo analiza (no a título de un recetario, sino de algunas pistas heurísticas) cómo combatir, hasta donde se puede, esta inmoralidad intrínseca de la actividad jurídica.Many of the advices of legal ethics and deontology leading to elaborate, in a very abstract manner, the profile of a good lawyer are basically naive, but above all useless. These advices are born of a double prejudice which is very common nowadays: a) first, that it is possible to teach morality to any professional person —in this case to the lawyer who has already graduated— for which purpose some codes of ethics meticulously written and some moral courses (taught at weekend time!) will suffice. b) Second, that it is possible to practice the legal profession according to strict moral criteria. In this essay, both beliefs are theoretically demystified to show that the daily practice of law requires, in view of its internal logic and dynamic, a certain magnitude of dishonesty and therefore of immorality. The amount of this will depend on the particular person considered. Finally, the article studies (not as a mere recipe, but as a heuristic suggestion) how to fight, so far as possible, this intrinsic immorality of the legal profession

A comparative study of the nonuniqueness problem of the potential equation

The nonuniqueness problem occurring at transonic speeds with the conservative potential equation is investigated numerically. The study indicates that the problem is not an inviscid phenomenon, but results from approximate treatment of shock waves inherent in the conservative potential model. A new bound on the limit of validity of the conservative potential model is proposed

Breve historia de la ciencia del cambio climático y la respuesta política global: un análisis contextual/Brief history of climate change science and global political response: a context analysis

Los sistemas naturales y humanos de la Tierra soportan presiones dramáticas debido al cambio climático. Una gran cantidad de evidencia científica muestra que el cambio climático es, en parte, causado por actividades antropogénicas. El inicio de la revolución industrial, alrededor de 1750, intensificó la tasa de acumulación de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) en la atmósfera terrestre. Este aumento de la concentración de GEI en la atmósfera, sin duda, ha acelerado los cambios en el clima del planeta, causando a su vez un aumento de las temperaturas globales del suelo, los océanos y el aire. Este aumento de la temperatura global afecta notablemente a los sistemas naturales y humanos por igual. Científicos, sectores interesados, personalidades sociales y políticas han exigido a los gobiernos y otras organizaciones locales, nacionales y supranacionales que acepten su responsabilidad y emprendan acciones decisivas para mitigar el cambio climático y sus impactos. Actualmente, uno de los principales objetivos de la humanidad, para minimizar o evitar desastres catastróficos relacionados con el clima, es mantener el calentamiento global por debajo de los 2∘ C en comparación con los niveles preindustriales. En consecuencia, la comunidad internacional ha respondido de diferentes maneras para mitigar y adaptarse a los impactos del cambio climático. Este artículo presenta un análisis de la literatura sobre la ciencia del cambio climático y la respuesta política global, proporcionando, además, una descripción del establecimiento de diferentes organizaciones científicas y políticas clave destinadas a mitigar el cambio climático. Abstract: Earth’s natural and human systems are enduring dramatic pressures due to climate change. A great body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is, in part, caused by anthropogenic activities. The start of the industrial revolution, around 1750, intensified the rate of growth of GHGs’ concentration in Earth’s atmosphere. The increased atmospheric GHGs’ concentration has, undoubtedly, accelerated changes in Earth’s climate, which in turn, caused an increase of global land, ocean, and air temperatures. This global temperature rise is noticeably impacting natural and human systems alike. Scientists, stakeholders, social and political personalities have demanded governments and other organizations at local, national and supranational levels to accept their responsibility and undertake decisive actions to mitigate climate change and its impacts. At present, one of the main goals of humankind, to minimize or avoid catastrophic climate-related disasters, is to keep earth’s warming below 2∘ C compared to pre-industrial levels. In this context, the international community has responded in different ways to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This paper presents a brief review of the literature of the science of climate change and the global political response. Science and political response must go hand in hand to fight climate change and its impacts. This paper also provides an account of the establishment of different key scientific and political organizations aimed to mitigate climate change. Palabras clave: Cambio Climático, Ciencia Medioambiental, Política Medioambiental. Keywords: Climate Change, Environmental Science, Environmental Policy

Bullydozing with Kevin Henkes [2nd grade]

This is a beginning of the year unit designed to reinforce story elements through an author’s study of Kevin Henkes but also to set up our classroom as a place where every student is safe and respected. We will read seven of his stories and will focus on the story elements of plot and setting. The plot will be defined as the beginning, middle, and end of a story. The setting will be defined as the time and place of the story. It will also discuss character development, and practice identifying inner and outer traits, including their motivations, and feelings. The other major component of this unit will be making sure we are actively treating everyone with respect and keeping our environment as safe as possible. Many books by Kevin Henkes model different problem solving scenarios. We will be recognizing how similarities and differences can be a wonderful thing, learning about each other’s names, learning about boundaries, and learning about and practicing different techniques for peacefully solving conflict. In the culminating task, students will create a story where a Kevin Henkes character is faced with a bullying situation. They will need to address the situation safely. They can choose writing a story, drawing a comic strip, or performing a skit with other students

Shock-fitted Euler solutions to shock-vortex interactions

The interaction of a shock wave with a hot spot, a single vortex and a vortex street is studied within the framework of the two dimensional compressible Euler equations. The numerical results obtained by the pseudospectral method and the finite difference MacCormack method are compared. In both the methods the shock wave is fitted as a boundary of the computational domain

Supercritical super-Brownian motion with a general branching mechanism and travelling waves

We consider the classical problem of existence, uniqueness and asymptotics of monotone solutions to the travelling wave equation associated to the parabolic semi-group equation of a super-Brownian motion with a general branching mechanism. Whilst we are strongly guided by the probabilistic reasoning of Kyprianou (2004) for branching Brownian motion, the current paper offers a number of new insights. Our analysis incorporates the role of Seneta-Heyde norming which, in the current setting, draws on classical work of Grey (1974). We give a pathwise explanation of Evans' immortal particle picture (the spine decomposition) which uses the Dynkin-Kuznetsov N-measure as a key ingredient. Moreover, in the spirit of Neveu's stopping lines we make repeated use of Dynkin's exit measures. Additional complications arise from the general nature of the branching mechanism. As a consequence of the analysis we also offer an exact X(log X)^2 moment dichotomy for the almost sure convergence of the so-called derivative martingale at its critical parameter to a non-trivial limit. This differs to the case of branching Brownian motion and branching random walk where a moment `gap' appears in the necessary and sufficient conditions.Comment: 34 page