IN: Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and economist who was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago from 1981 until 2017, and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a leading figure in the field of law and economics, and was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century. Posner is known for his scholarly range and for writing on topics outside of his primary field, law.

Posner rejects the concept of animal rights. He recognizes the philosophical force of arguments for animal rights, but maintains that human intuition about the paramount value of human life makes it impossible to accommodate an ethic of animal rights.  Posner engaged in a debate with the philosopher Peter Singer in 2001 at Slate magazine, in which Posner argued against restricting the use of animals for food and in scientific experimentation. He agreed that gratuitous cruelty to animals should be avoided, but contends that animal welfare should only be advanced where doing so provides a marginal benefit to society.  Posner argues that animal rights conflict with the moral relevance of humanity and that empathy for pain and suffering of animals does not supersede advancing society. He further argues that he trusts his moral intuition until it is shown to be wrong and that his moral intuition says that "it is wrong to give as much weight to a dog's pain as to an infant's pain." He further states that people whose opinions were changed by consideration of the ethics presented in Singer's book Animal Liberation failed to see the "radicalism of the ethical vision that powers [their] view on animals, an ethical vision that finds greater value in a healthy pig than in a profoundly retarded child, that commands inflicting a lesser pain on a human being to avert a greater pain to a dog, and that, provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees."  In a 2002 Yale Law Journal article, Posner again criticized animal rights. He also dismissed Gandhi's view that animal rights is consonant with a empathetic and moral society. He supported this conclusion by arguing that Hitler was a vegetarian and Nazi Germany had the most stringent animal-rights laws in history.

what does Posner have to do with animal rights?

OUT: Posner rejects the concept of animal rights.


IN: Darrell Lance Abbott (August 20, 1966 - December 8, 2004), also known as Dimebag Darrell and Diamond Darrell, was an American musician and songwriter who was a co-founder of Pantera alongside his brother Vinnie Paul, and founder of Damageplan. He was considered to be one of the driving forces behind groove metal. Abbott was shot and killed by a gunman while on stage during a performance with Damageplan on December 8, 2004, at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. He ranked No. 92 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists and No. 1 in the UK magazine Metal Hammer.

Abbott formed Pantera in 1981 with his brother Vinnie Paul on drums. Originally, he called himself Diamond Darrell Lance. The band was influenced with thrash metal acts such as Slayer, Megadeth, Venom, and Metallica as well as traditional metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and Judas Priest. Shortly after singer Phil Anselmo joined Pantera, Darrell was invited by Dave Mustaine to join Megadeth. Darrell was willing to join, but on the condition that Mustaine also hire his brother Vinnie on drums. As Mustaine already had a drummer, Chuck Behler, Darrell decided to stay with Pantera.  Pantera would go on to become a key formulator of the post-thrash subgenre of "groove" metal. It would not be until nine years after forming that Pantera saw its first piece of commercial success in its 1990 major label debut, Cowboys from Hell. Pantera's "groove" style came to fruition in its breakthrough album Vulgar Display of Power, released on February 25, 1992, which saw the replacement of the power metal falsetto vocals with a hardcore-influenced shouted delivery and heavier guitar sound. On Pantera's 1994 album Far Beyond Driven, Abbott, who'd been listed on all prior albums under the moniker "Diamond Darrell", was listed as "Dimebag Darrell". On the night before Pantera's live appearance at the Monsters of Rock in England's Donington Park, the Abbott brothers got involved in altercations at a local club with journalists from magazines Kerrang! and Raw.  Pantera began to suffer from mounting tensions between band members in the mid-1990s, largely due to vocalist Phil Anselmo's rampant drug abuse.  In 2001, the group went on hiatus, during which time Anselmo worked on side projects, such as Superjoint Ritual and Down. This caused more friction within the band, as the Abbott brothers kept waiting for Anselmo to become available to work with them again. The frustration with Anselmo led to their decision to disband Pantera in 2003.

When was Pantera formed?

OUT: 1981


IN: Chesley Sullenberger was born in Denison, Texas, His father was a descendant of Swiss-German immigrants named Sullenberger. He has one sister, Mary. The street on which he grew up in Denison was named after his mother's family. According to his sister, Sullenberger built model planes and aircraft carriers during his childhood, and says he became interested in flying after seeing military jets from an Air Force base near his house.

Sullenberger was employed by US Airways and its predecessor airlines from 1980 until 2010. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot Certificate rating in gliders, as well as a flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders. In total, he has more than 40 years and 20,000 hours of flying experience. In 2007, he became the founder and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. (SRM), a firm providing strategic and tactical guidance to enhance organizational safety, performance, and reliability.  He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), such as Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 and USAir Flight 1493. He served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association Local Air Safety Chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of airline crew members.  Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He was an air accident investigator for an NTSB inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft". Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis.  Sullenberger was active with his union, serving as chairman of a safety committee within the Air Line Pilots Association.  He was a featured speaker for two panels, one on aviation and one on patient safety in medicine, at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France, from May 29 to 31, 2007.

What year did he serve as an instructor?

OUT: