Yes, but I don't think we've fallen. This is who we are. We were doing the same thing in Vietnam as we're doing in Gaza. Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings... The entire country was built on the genocide of Indigenous people.
Not to minimize Gaza and Zionist terrorism though. This is the most heinous thing I've witnessed in my lifetime.
It took a while to point out all the other stupidity in the contract (this wasn't the only part, just the most blatantly silly) and I ended up taking another one.
This happened to me a couple of times (out of thousands of meetings) and it was because the audio was for some reason being piped to a different audio device.
Planting trees as "carbon offsets" has been a hugely profitable rort
The idea that we can lock up land, forever, planted in trees to offset our consumption is blissfully naive
In New Zealand large swatches of land are being taken out of production, for a onetime big payment
It neglects two things:
1. Trees burn. Forests left untended for years choke with fuel and then catastrophically burn releasing all that carbon
2. We need the land. Future generations, this generation in a few years, will not be sympathetic to the vast swatches of unproductive land (that due to 1. above create costs)
We must stop producing carbon. It will mean many obscenely rich will be downgraded to wealthy. And the prospect of that is enough to burn the world
On the face of it this is establishment forces looking after each other to hold back data they fear could have value when it should be in the (French) public domain
But, we are hearing from one side, one perspective. The museum has not had a fair expression of their side here.
Court proceedings can look unfairly bizarre when unfairly reported. I am not saying this report is definitely unfair, but it is impossible to tell
The museum sets out its position in the letter from the director, linked in the article. The court record also mentioned isn’t public. So it seems that if the museum has a different argument to make than in the letter, they’re not taking the opportunity to do publicly. Draw from that what you will!
This is an absolute par-for-the-course FOIA case anywhere in the world.
There's a saying "You can't beat city hall!" If you sue a public body then it'll be a public prosecutor defending the case. They probably eat lunch with another public employee every day: the judge on your case. Who are you, a dirty prole, to attack the government?
In your first line, in trial courts where you create your record, you face the simplest judges with the least legal knowledge and experience who will quickly dismiss your case on a whim.
Only at the appellate level do you stand any remote chance of turning things in your favor, and only then if your case is absolutely indisputable. Don't expect any of the courts to look logically or fairly at your evidence, or to accept your testimony over that of the government.
Just look at chaps[0] here who made an absolutely concrete case for the release of a database schema under FOIA, and was represented by the smartest and highest respected law firm in the state, and still got smashed.
The way you get governments to actually do anything is via politics and hitting the isolated public servants in their careers. Dollar for dollar and hour for hour it is by far the most effective way than vs. the courts unless there is a proven exception in them being effective this way.
What is not obvious. Not at all.
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