Malachy
malachydonovan.com
Malachy
@malachydonovan.com
Reposted by Malachy
LLMs overwhelming choose octopus as their favorite animal. But if asked 2nd-favorite animal first, they *also* choose octopus and say corvids are their top favorite, then mistakenly deny that their answers are affected by question order. Link to full blog post in thread.
December 5, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Malachy
Senator Kelly is correct.

Plus a Public Service Announcement:

KEY section of Department of Defense's Law of War Manual is 18.3.2.1.

The VERY rule on the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders gives as its paradigmatic example of what is "clearly illegal:
"orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."
November 30, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Malachy
In honor of Halloween, my favorite essay in the philosophy of candy:

200proofliberals.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-...
October 31, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Malachy
The Battle of Portland—the conflict over whether a president can subject a basically peaceful, law-abiding community within the U.S. to armed occupation just by making things up—may become one of the most consequential showdowns in our constitutional history.
October 9, 2025 at 12:21 PM
What’s “New York” Pepsi?
July 21, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Malachy
I wrote about the surreal experience of teaching the First Amendment right now on a green card, teaching lofty doctrine while the government is rounding up people like me for things they say

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Can I Teach the First Amendment If I Only Have a Green Card?
Protections on free speech look weaker than they did when I became a permanent resident.
www.theatlantic.com
April 2, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Malachy
The $400 million funding cutoff to Columbia is just the beginning of the Trump administration's unlawful assault on free speech and academic freedom. But don't take just my word from it. This joint statement has support from across the ideological spectrum.
A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia | Eugene Volokh, Michael C. Dorf, David Cole
We write as constitutional scholars—some liberal and some conservative—who seek to defend academic freedom and the First Amendment in the wake of the
www.nybooks.com
March 20, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Malachy
The specific quote from General John DeWitt, justifying Japanese internment: “The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
Just like in WW2 when some argued the lack of subversive activity by Japanese-Americans indicated they were plotting something big.
2/ This does not instill confidence that the Government has accurately or properly identified individuals under the Alien Enemies Act:

Government declaration:

"[T]he lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose."

Full context:
March 18, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Malachy
There is a real, genuine 1st Amendment crisis in the United States right now.

The government is openly retaliating against anyone with a viewpoint it doesn't like: Pro-Palestinian protesters, law schools teaching Black History, pro-immigration public service loan forgiveness seekers.
March 9, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Malachy
Really essential post from my colleague @donmoyn.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...
Real chilling effects
A extraordinary pattern of government censorship and threats to speech
open.substack.com
March 9, 2025 at 6:35 PM
What’s up world?
September 1, 2023 at 5:00 PM
Hello
September 1, 2023 at 5:00 PM