Thomas Cheney

@thomascheney.bsky.social

2845 Followers 2145 Following

Academic, (outer) Space Governance at Northumbria University. Legal geography and environmental humanities of space governance (space resources, planetary protection, astrobiology, settlement etc). Working on project 'Life the Ultimate Frontier'. He/him.

Ridiculous list of block lists created by a single user
Argentine football players hold a sign reading Las Malvinas Son Argentinas
Screenshot of text which reads: The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction by Henry A. Kissinger
Screenshot of text - Title 50 USC: "Chapter 7 - Interference with Homing Pigeons Owned by United States"
Google N-gram Viewer for Thucydides Trap - showing virtually 0 until about 2010 with a stead rise until 2014 before it takes off
Efforts made to date to harness solar energy economically are infinitesimal. It is time for aggressive research in the whole field of solar energy - an effort in which the United States could make an immense contribution to the welfare of the free world.
a screenshot of zotero open within a word document showing the full zotero library
Scene from the West Wing, Sam Seaborn played by Rob Lowe, crumples up a piece of paper and tosses it away in frustration
Findmypolitics: Social Democrat - Centre Left - Economics: 62% left wing; social 69% libertarian; civil liberties 28% pro-liberty; governance 75% globalist; systems trust 44% high trust
Bar chart showing that the Green Party currently have 17 declared seats, Independents 3, Liberal Democrat 16 and Reform 9 of those seats so far declared for Newcastle city council
Mailing list pop up from Whitehouse.gov, declared "Welcome to the Golden Age!" and urges you to sign up "for news and updates from the trump white house." has an image of Trump pointing at the bottom
I write tonight in weary anticipation of whatever the United States President is going to do to the people of Iran as he continues his illegal war of aggression. While I am disappointed that the Prime Minister has not been more decisive in preventing the US from using their bases in this country to wage war on Iran I do understand the complicated nature of the UK's entanglement within the US war machine, but I would urge you and the government to reconsider whether this alliance remains in the long term interests of this country, at what point do our values no longer align sufficiently for us to work to disentangle ourselves? Over the last few months the United States has kidnapped the President of Venezuela, attacked unarmed vessels in international waters, threatened to invade Greenland, and has waged a war of aggression against Iran, now the President of the United States is openly calling for genocide against the people of Iran. I am a lecturer in international law, I can talk to you about the legality of all of this, or rather the illegality, but I shouldn't need to this is simply immoral, it is the action of a rogue state, a pariah state, when Putin make similar comments about Ukraine we rightly reacted with horror, yet the UK government continues to regard the United States as an important ally. It is unconscionable.
A group of Americans at a conference table with war and destruction going on in the background - the caption reads "It's cultural, gentlemen - these other countries can't possibly understand that nothing is ever our fault."
Donald J. Trump: A whole civilization will die to tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOW? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moements in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion corruption, and death will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!
You are not a Tech Bro - 6% agreement with tech bro ideas
photo of the cover of Howard W. French's The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah. Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide. the cover features a political map of Africa on the eve of Ghana's independence.
Poster, background is in various shades of pink in cloud like formations (looks like a sponge painting effect' It has the UCU logo, and in big letters it says National Rally, then provides details: 25 March, 1 Pm at Newcastle Monumen, 1230pm assemble outside Civic Centre, then 1245pm march to monument for rally at one pm. At the bottom of the poster it says that everyone is welcome but specifically lists, Northumbria University staff and students, UCU General Secreatry Jo Grady, UCU President Elect Dyfrig Jones, Robyn Orfitelli from Sheffield UCU, representatives from Newcastle UCU and Dave Pike from the TUC. There is also a raised clenched fist with a pink shirt sleeve and pink nail police.
a photo of the 168 pages of my book manuscript
British Pathe - 3 hours ago "As Keir Starmer performs damage control over Peter Mandelson's Epstein ties, parallels have been drawn to the Profumo Affair that brought down Harold Macmillan's Tory government. They provide a link to the archive footage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ERTzh5u9w
a grey motted cat in front of a bookshelf
Power point slide with a very vaaguely 'techy' background - text reads: LW5118- Regulating Innovation: Law, Technology, and Governance, Dr Thomas Cheney (he/him) with my email address listed.
photo of the cover of George C. Herring's From Colony to SUperpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776, part of the Oxford History of the United States, has two images, one a portrait of some of the American founding fathers and the other a photo of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at one of the wartime conferences
A cartoon man leans out of the window of a big yellow dump truck with the big text reading Tonka Construction at the bottom
blue flag, 10 gold stars in a sort of horseshoe shape with WEU UEO in a cross like configuration in the middle
screen shot of an article from the Guardian - text reads White House says using US military is 'always an option' for acquiring Greenland. European Leaders push back forcefully against US president's desire to seek takeover of Arctic territory. Includes a photo of President trump in front of American flags pointing.
photo of a pink envelope from UCU containing a ballot on industrial action
But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
Typewritten text of a document: "Outer Space: Liability Convention. I see from paragraph 4 of Paris telegram No. 41 Saving of 20 May that Monsieur de Lipkowski, the junior Minister at the Quai d'Orsay, has recently said that France is the third space power. 2. Particularly in the light of this, I think that the brief for the forthcoming meeting of the Legal Sub-Committee should assemble the arguments which we can use to establish that the U.K., and not France, should be nominated as the third depositary for an eventual Liability Convention. You will remember that the question whether we should resist any attempt byt he French to secure their inclusion as the third depositary was considered earlier and our conclusion was that we should. I do not, however, believe that there was then any marshalling of arguments which could be advanced for that purpose."
Screenshot of text which reads: "Why it matters: Several chief executives have voiced their fears about the impact on recruitment if the minimum wage reaches pay levels for graduate positions in traditional white-collar jobs. 'Why would young people take on £45,000 of student debt if they can earn the same stacking shelves?' asked one."
Two men white men, one, a balding man wearing black rimmed glasses stands in front of a podium, he is wearing a long sleeve blue shirt, with another man stood behind him in a short sleeve white shirt. They are stood in front of a NASA logo as this is meant to be a NASA press conference (it is a scene from a comedy show) and on the screen the text reads, as a quote from the show "America can, should, must, and will blow up the Moon."
Webinar - Civil War 2.0: Xi's Plan for Finishing Off the USA? Hosted by the Committee on the Present Danger: China
Federal Government Shutdown - Due to the Democrat led shutdown, website updates will be limited until full operations resume
Screenshot of text, first line, in bold: ERC Starting Grant 2026; second line, also in bold: Part B1; third line, not in bold: May Legal Worlds: The Legal Geography of Life Beyond Earth and the Constructions of Nature/Natures [there is just one Nature in the text but with an s in a paracentesis to indicate the dual and different use of the words]; the fourth is the acronym which is LIFE squared meaning Legal Implications of Extraterrestrial Life.
Screenshot of text that reads Space Expansionism and the American Empire
four panel cartoon from phdcomics, the main character a white woman with black hair is depicted as doing normal day to day things, sleeping, eating, and riding her bike in the final panel she is at a computer - in the first three panels she has a though bubble saying "I should be writing" the last panel had the title "you should be writing" to which our main character responds in exasperation "I know", the tag line for the comic is "this message brought to you by that manuscript you're supposed to be writing"
the back of Donald Trump and Mike Pence looking at the launch of a SpaceX rocket (I think it was Crew Dragon 1) with the text Destiny: Salute to America
Powerpoint slide - the background is a a computer rendering of a scene from the movie Silent Running, the background image is Saturn in the darkness of space with three space ships in the foreground, these are large long structures which look like girders, they have clusters of domes with much greenery in them as they are essentially greenhouses in space. The text of the slide reads "Outer Space as 'Nature? An Environmental Humanities/Legal Geography Approach to Space Governance or How Mining, Terraforming and Extraterrestrials Fit Together" with my details listed in the bottom left corner - Dr Thomas Cheney, Vice Chancellors Research Fellow, Space Law, Northumbria University, thomas.e.l.cheney@northumbria.ac.uk and my bluesky handle "thomascheney.bsky.social' the Northumbria University Law School Logo is in the bottom corner it is the university shield which has two castles a gear and a book on it with the worlds Northumbria University Newcastle Law School next to it.
Text reads: A digital pounds would be like a digital form of cash - a banknote for the digital era. Like banknotes, it would be issued directly by the Bank of England. You could hold your digital pounds in a digital wallet and spend them in shops or online. A digital pound would be denominated in sterling and its value would be stable, just like banknotes. £10 in digital pounds would always have the same value as a £10 banknote.
A stack of secondhand books, on the top is Mary Midgley's Animals and why they matter, then Philosophy, Technology, and the Environment edited by David Kaplan, then Oelschlaeger's The Idea of Wilderness, Carolyn Merchant's Reinventing Eden and Worster's Nature's Economy (Second Edition)
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photo of the title page of a book chapter, reads "Chapter 18. Non-use of Space: Reconsidering Article I of the Outer Space Treaty and the Useability of Space Resources" by Thomas Cheney
2. M. Couve de Murville explained that the delay in French signature of the Treaty was due solely to the fact that he had not himself got round to dealing with the matter.
Screenshot of the Financial Times, taken today 15 May 2025, article from 12 Jan 2025, headline reads More UK mines needed to secure critical minerals warns watchdog
Photo of a page of the Financial Times from 19 July 1979, headline reads UK Mineral Supplies: the threats and the remedies