TMT hearing a fiasco
The initial hearing in Hawaii for the second permit application of the Thirty Meter Telescope today appears to have been a complete fiasco, designed to extend the proceedings as long as possible, ad infinitum.
Confusion reigned as Thursday’s hearing got underway in a Hilo hotel banquet room. Various telescope opponents complained about the scheduling and location of the hearing. One lawyer wanted to know the process for making objections. More than an hour went by before the first witness, environmental planner Perry White, was called to testify.
All witnesses will be allowed to provide a 10-minute summary of written testimony already submitted. But before White could provide his summary, there were various objections about qualifying him as an expert. Nearly two dozen people— many who are individual telescope opponents who don’t have lawyers representing them — will have a chance to cross-examine each witness.
Cross-examination of White will resume Monday.
It is very clear to me that Hawaii is stalling, designing the hearings so that they will last forever. TMT will never get built in Hawaii. It is time to say bye-bye and go somewhere where knowledge and technology is treasured.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The initial hearing in Hawaii for the second permit application of the Thirty Meter Telescope today appears to have been a complete fiasco, designed to extend the proceedings as long as possible, ad infinitum.
Confusion reigned as Thursday’s hearing got underway in a Hilo hotel banquet room. Various telescope opponents complained about the scheduling and location of the hearing. One lawyer wanted to know the process for making objections. More than an hour went by before the first witness, environmental planner Perry White, was called to testify.
All witnesses will be allowed to provide a 10-minute summary of written testimony already submitted. But before White could provide his summary, there were various objections about qualifying him as an expert. Nearly two dozen people— many who are individual telescope opponents who don’t have lawyers representing them — will have a chance to cross-examine each witness.
Cross-examination of White will resume Monday.
It is very clear to me that Hawaii is stalling, designing the hearings so that they will last forever. TMT will never get built in Hawaii. It is time to say bye-bye and go somewhere where knowledge and technology is treasured.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Amazing how people always seemed surprised when the people of primitive societies act , well , primitive.
“Amazing how people always seemed surprised when the people of primitive societies act , well , primitive.”
These people are not primitives, but reactionaries, attempting to rebuild an imagined past, as a political cause to lever themselves into some degree of power, and the wealth that comes from power, in a progressive political polity, Hawaii.
In this case they are actually acting very well “educated”, in that the groups opposing the TMT are organized around Hawaiian cultural advocates, by progressive political operatives. The progressives have ruled Hawaii for decades, which is long enough for them to run into their standard problem, that there are not enough government-funded jobs to go around. So, those who lose out in that lottery search for a “cause” to ride into prominence on, in search of recognition, ….very much like Alinskyite “community organizers”. Its a competition similar to what we’ve seen in the universities since they were taken over in the mid-1970s, of being “more insurgent than thou”.
The people already in positions of power because of their fealty to progressive causes will naturally feel they cannot afford these “insurgents” to look more progressive than themselves. They thus provide a judicial circus for the “organizers” to act out, while not looking like those in power are anything other than judicial. This, of course, doesn’t let the TMT get built, but *does* occupy the time of those seeking prominence.
Tom Billings–
Nicely expounded.
-especially enjoyed “…there are not enough government-funded jobs to go around.”
tangentially–
“Simple machine to keep employees happy on pay-day.”
https://www.rubegoldberg.com/artwork/post-war-world-no-53/?c=45
Interestingly, Hawaii ranks last in voter participation.
wayne,
That may be the best Rube Goldberg ever!
Robert,
Is this cross-examination of experts by the general public the standard operating procedure for such hearings?
Edward: I do not know if this procedure is standard, but suspect not. It seems to me to be a cave in by the Democratic administration to the protesters.
Edward–
I was very pleased to discover the Goldberg family owns all their fathers artwork & it’s all on-line.
As far as these type of “Public Hearing’s,” they generally fall under Administrative Law procedures which give the adm. judge wide latitude. (State or Federal) ( “show-hearing’s”) You’d have to dig into the record to see who-demanded-what & under what regulation, but a lot of that back-n-forth is not on the record.
I haven’t looked, but there should be a master-file of all public filing’s available from the Court that has jurisdiction.
-have a lawyer friend who does “advocacy law,” (but not against harmless telescopes) I’ll ask him how these things generally roll. (I personally agree with Mr Z. on this one.)