Liam McHugh-Russell

@xntl

A volatile simian nervous system, ominously new to the planet. Canadian law professor. Transnational law, labour regulation, cooperatives and corporate governance, knowledge politics. Currently obsessed with the uses of legal scholarship. Two time dad.

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Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jun 21

Men's outsized desire for children often gets cast as a desire for someone else--their wife--to have their children, and take on the work. All glory, no burden. But the Globe story at least gestures at a different story, where the barriers are structural rather than cultural.

He doesn’t have kids, but often wishes he did. The economic disruptions have led him to try to find fulfilment in different ways, he said.

Kids, he feels, might give him a greater sense of purpose.

“If you have kids, you’re living for someone else,” he said. “Trying to do the best for them and teach them.

“Whereas, currently, it’s just 30 or 40 more years of punching the clock.”

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jun 17

Classic

Screenshot of webpage from TheOnion, with the headline "This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t"

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jun 17

From a great interview on the business of law with my old classmate share.google/wxYSvUCRXQqW...

Her firm went fully paperless years before the pandemic and is now testing AI tools. She uses Westlaw's research AI and a paid version of ChatGPT to tighten her writing, not to draft. The harder lesson has been that "learning how to use AI is its own skill," she says – one that can be built only through practice. Even strong results leave her wanting more: She finds that "even when the summary is totally correct" and free of hallucinations, "I still ended up wanting to go to the documents," she says, because in litigation, a few words can change a case.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jun 13

What's the deal with these rocks? It feels like it was made by ancient giant rock bees

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· May 20

Serendipitously adjacent? Or synchronicity?

Post showing Washpo story about Trump's arch

Onion headline "let's build a tower to reach God"

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· May 19

For a large institution like Dalhousie, collecting, collating, and aggregating data at that level of granularity has likely cost a few million dollars, as well. I'd estimate the total provincial cost of this exercise in the tens of millions dollars.

From https://higheredstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2025.12.17-APR-Workshop-Program-Costing-Overview.pdf

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· May 19

First, this is an incredibly costly exercise. Usher does not give numbers, but the actual analysis is not being performed or overseen by public servants but by Huron, an American consulting firm. Usher doesn't give numbers but I would guess that it's on the order of $5 million.

Because second, the contract to run this program costing review—which was administered by the Maritimes Provinces Higher Education Council on behalf of the Nova Scotia government (for reasons that are deeply unclear)—is one that we at HESA Towers bid on and lost to a competitor from the United States (Huron Consulting) who bid about four times higher than we did (yes, really) on grounds that they understand Canadian higher education and costing exercises better than we do.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Apr 29

Can't really emphasize how bad it is for your client if the court finds "factual inaccuracies" that "undermine[] the only evidence of 'harm' that [they] had relied upon" for their claim

314. In respect of those five paragraphs the University in its Representations raised a number of factual inaccuracies in respect of what Professor Stock had said. The most relevant of these points was that where Professor Stock had said she had omitted certain work from her teaching because of the Policy Statement, in fact that work had been included in her reading lists for students. This has some relevance because (a) it showed that there were issues of fact which the University appropriately needed to respond to; and (b) those errors undermined the only evidence of "harm" that the Of had relied upon in th
PD.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Apr 28

Just finished State of Grace. A ridiculously stacked cast, haunting understated sound track, believable drama. A gritty, run down New York. A foil to Goodfellas, released the same year, emphasizing how small and pathetic and lonely a life of crime can be, even for professionals. A winner

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Apr 14

Given that this is being announced the day they firmed up their majority, this is a clear signal that this government simply do not care about climate change. It's too bad we don't have a Prime Minister who is motivated by Values.

Guy tapping head meme
top text: Gotta implement all of Polievre's policies
bottom text: So that Polievre does not get elected

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Apr 10

I'm sorry but in any functioning country--let alone a functioning democracy!--these two paragraphs would be enough to not only remove the President but put him in jail for life

Altman continued to meet with the Biden Administration, which had enacted a policy requiring White House approval for the export of sensitive technology. Multiple Administration officials emerged from these meetings nervous about Altman’s ambitions in the Middle East. He often made grandiose claims, according to those officials, including calling A.I. “the new electricity.” In 2018, he said that OpenAI was planning to buy a fully functioning quantum computer from a company called Rigetti Computing. This was news even to other OpenAI executives in the room. Rigetti was not yet close to being able to sell a usable quantum computer. In a meeting, Altman claimed that by 2026 an extensive network of nuclear-fusion reactors across the United States would power the A.I. boom. The senior Administration official said, “We were, like, ‘Well, that’s, you know, news, if they made nuclear fusion work.’ ” The Biden Administration ultimately withheld approval. “We’re not going to be building advanced chips in the U.A.E.,” a leader at the Department of Commerce told Altman.

Four days before Trump’s Inauguration, the Wall Street Journal reported, Tahnoon paid half a billion dollars to the Trump family in exchange for a stake in its cryptocurrency company. The following day, Altman held a twenty-five-minute call with Trump, during which they discussed announcing a version of a ChipCo, timed so that Trump could take credit for it. On Trump’s second day in office, Altman stood in the Roosevelt Room and announced Stargate, a five-hundred-billion-dollar joint venture that aims to build a vast network of A.I. infrastructure across the U.S

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Mar 27

It's that time of year again, the point of my Business Associations course where I have to teach BCE v Debentureholders and once again expose myself to the torments of its reasoning. Here's the court, for example, explaining that the second of three remedies open to stakeholders is...not a remedy

44. A second remedy lies against the directors in a civil action for breach of duty of care. As noted, s. 122(1)(b) of the CBCA requires directors and officers of a corporation to “exercise the care, diligence and skill that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in comparable circumstances”. This duty, unlike the s. 122(1)(a) fiduciary duty, is not owed solely to the corporation, and thus may be the basis for liability to other stakeholders in accordance with principles governing the law of tort and extracontractual liability: Peoples Department Stores. Section 122(1)(b) does not provide an independent foundation for claims. However, applying the principles of The Queen in right of Canada v. Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, [1983] 1 S.C.R. 205, courts may take this statutory provision into account as to the standard of behaviour that should reasonably be expected.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Mar 22

The kind of straight up reporting about our ridiculous historical moment that will have you in stitches

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Feb 21

Siri, show me "saying the quiet part out loud"

The Pathways Alliance, a group of oil sands companies targeting net-zero production by 2025, is changing its name in what it says is a bid to better reflect its actual work of promoting and expanding the oil-sands industry.
It will now be called the Oil Sands Alliance.
Kendall Dilling, its president, said in an interview Friday that although the bulk of the work done by the group has been on the
carbon-capture project, known as Pathways, it has always had a much broader focus.
"From day one, we've been the full-service industry association for oil sands,” Mr. Dilling said. For example, Pathways works in various environmental spaces in the sector, such as air and water protection and preserving biodiversity

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Feb 13

Helen Dewitt. The GOAT.

Gaby said: Giles said he thought it sounded as though you were just making it up as you went along.
I said ruefully: Fuck. We'll it's no reason to get discouraged, Gab. The number of things that happen not to be true is infinite; some of them have got to be plausible as well as interesting. I'll just have to keep trying.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jan 21

"We're going to Greenland!"

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Jan 7

While there is so much that is disturbing about this case study in the destruction of academic freedom, one high point is the refusal of the targeted professor to submit

Dear Dr. Sweet,
I hereby submit my S 2026 syllabus for PHIL 111, Contemporary Moral Issues, for mandatory censorship review.
The syllabus has not changed much since I last taught the course. I have made some minor adjustments to the module on Race and Gender Ideology and to the lecture on Sexual Morality. These topics are commonly covered in this type of course nationwide, and the material is discussed in depth in the assigned textbook (Fiala and MacKinnon, 10th edition). I also ask my students to read a few passages from Plato (Aristophanes' myth of the split humans and Diotima's Ladder of Love).
Please note that my course does not "advocate" any ideology; I teach students how to structure and evaluate arguments commonly raised in discussions of contemporary moral issues.
If you interpret System Rule 08.01 §2.1(b) as prohibiting these topics, I would like to remind you that the U.S. Constitution protects my course content. Texas A&M is a public institution bound by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has noted that academic freedom is "a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom" (Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 603 [1967]).
Another relevant precedent is Sweezy v. New Hampshire. Here is Chief Justice Earl Warren for the majority in 1957:
"The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any straitjacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made. Particularly is that true in the social sciences, where few, if any, principles are accepted as absolutes. Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Teachers and stu

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Nov 27

This worked for me: Time & Language > Typing > Advanced Keyboard Settings; Click "Input language hot keys"; Click "Change Key Sequence" I can now change to US (International) and back using Ctrl-Shift

Screen shot of Windows 11 settings Menu for Time & Language > Typing > Advanced keyboard settings

Screenshot of Windows 11 settings dialog entitled "Text Services and Input Language"

Windows 11 settings dialog entitled Change key sequence

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Nov 13

How it's going / how it's going

A picture of a woman above a news story that reads "Willing states must act to save international legal order, warns top academic"

A news headline below a picture of Anita Anand. Headline reads "Up to the U.S. to decide if it violated international law with Caribbean boat strikes, says Anand
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand broke with tradition as she seemingly asserted that Canada's top diplomat doesn't weigh in on a foreign country's adherence to international law."

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Nov 3

There is much in the data being requested by the committee that I think should be provided *in some form*. What I find most troubling is the demand for disagreggated, i.e. individualized data about both applicants and reviewers. Putting all this data into an excel sheet is a privacy nightmare 2/5

That the three federal granting agencies transmit to it the disaggregated data of all applications submitted, whether funded or unfunded, for all students and professor funding programs from the master’s level for applications made between 2000 and 2025. That this data includes (1) demographic data of applicants and collaborators, including applicants’ responses to the equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) questionnaire, (2) the institutions and departments of applicants, including the institutions of collaboration, (3) the language of the application, (4) all data regarding the type of application and project content (application year, grant program, discipline, title, summary, amount requested by the applicant), as well as (5) the identity of the evaluation committee, comments, opinions, scores assigned to applications for each criterion, and (6) the outcome of the application and the amount awarded.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 31

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 29

Man this game does not pull its punches

"When the dust settled, the liberals were the only ones left to clean up the mess. By virtue of their survival they were handed enormous power to shape the future." She turns her gaze to the delta. "This was all our last generation managed."

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 28

As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns. The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M—C—M, becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations, that he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 24

Meme of drowing hand given a high five then sinking beneath the waves

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 20

Good time to read Fanon, and Césaire for that matter

And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific
boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind-it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms;
that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that
before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps and trickles from every crack.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 17

A not-very-happy Friday thought for all my legal academic peeps

No one writes a law review article where the end line reads: "Well, in conclusion, it seems like we're all pretty much screwed." That simply doesn't happen. Which means-and this is important-that if ever we were screwed, you wouldn't hear about it in a law review article. Ever. In fact,
the more thoroughly and intensely screwed we are, the less likely you would be to hear about it in a law review article.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 13

I agree that this is one important thing novels and other forms of writing do, but I've come around to Ursula Le Guin's view that long form writing *does things to readers,* that the point of the book is what it does, and what a good book does can't be expressed in terms of what it says

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

A metaphor for what?

If I could have said it non-metaphorically, I would not have written all these words, this novel; and Genly Ai would never have sat down at my desk and used up my ink and typewriter ribbon in informing me, and you, rather solemnly, that the truth is a matter of the imagination.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 9

Man Adorno really knew what was up with fascists, huh "According to their own constitution, the he-men would thus be what they are usually presented as in film scripts, masochists."

Tough baby [in English in original] – A certain gesture of manliness, be it one’s own, be it that of another, deserves mistrust. It expresses independence, surety of the power of command, the silent conspiracy of all men with each other. Earlier one anxiously called it, awe-struck, the whims of lords, today it is democratized and is played by film heroes for the benefit of the lowliest bank employee. The archetype for this is the good looking man in a smoking jacket, who enters his bachelor’s pad alone one late evening, turns on the indirect lighting, and pours a whisky-soda: the carefully recorded fizzing of the mineral water says what the arrogant mouth does not; that he despises whatever does not smell of smoke, leather and shaving cream – above all, women, and for that very reason they swarm all over him. For him, the pinnacle of human relations is the club, the site of a respect founded on a considerate inconsiderateness. The joys of such men, or on the contrary of their models, which hardly anyone alive really matches, for human beings are always better than their culture, have altogether something of the latent act of violence. By all appearances, this is threatened to others, though he has long since had no need to do so, sprawled on his easy chair. In truth it is past violence against himself. If all pleasure sublates earlier displeasure [Unlust], then here displeasure is raised – as pride in bearing it – unmediated, untransformed

here displeasure is raised – as pride in bearing it – unmediated, untransformed, stereotypically into pleasure: unlike wine, every glass of whiskey, every puff on the cigar still recalls the reluctance, which it must have cost the organism, to accustom itself to such powerful stimuli. According to their own constitution, the he-men would thus be what they are usually presented as in film scripts, masochists. The lie is concealed in their sadism, and it is as liars that they truly become sadists, agents of repression. That lie is nothing other than repressed homosexuality, which emerges as the only approved form of what is heterosexual. In Oxford one can differentiate between two kinds of students: the “tough guys” [in English in original] and the intellectuals; the latter are equated almost without further ado to those who are effeminate. There is a great deal of evidence that the ruling class polarizes itself according to these extremes on the road to dictatorship. Such disintegration is the secret of integration, of happiness of unity in the absence of happiness. In the end the “tough guys” [in English in original] are the ones who are really effeminate, who require the weaklings as their victims, in order not to admit that they are like them. Totality and homosexuality belong together. While the subject falls apart, it negates everything which is not of its own kind. The opposites of the strong man and the compliant youth fuse into a social order,

opposites of the strong man and the compliant youth fuse into a social order, which unreservedly asserts the masculine principle of domination. By making everyone, without exception – even presumed subjects – into its objects, it recoils into total passivity, virtually into what is feminine.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 8

Yeah, amid all the buffoonery and over the top violence, this is the real heart of One Battle After Another

Here, we see ordinary working people just trying to live in peace in a country where armed forces of the state intend violence upon them. Resistance, for them, is not an aesthetic posture or a thrill ride or a rejection of stifling social norms, but a matter of basic survival, and it relies on coordination, trust, and secret procedures designed to keep everyone safe. Most people, after all, aren’t looking to kill or be killed; most people just want to know how to build communities that can defend themselves.

Liam McHugh-Russell@xntl· Oct 4

On some level 28 Years Later may be dumb. But my god 10 minutes in and the profound care that has been taken with tone, angle, editing it's... well it's not like anything else. Honestly there is a poetry to it that channels Malick.