Quote of the week
It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.
Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.
The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.
On SLAPP suits
A common feature of SLAPP suits is that the primary aim of the litigation is not to enforce a legitimate right. The objective is to silence or fluster the opponent, tie them up with paperwork or bankrupt them with legal costs. Therefore, the hallmark of a SLAPP suit is that it often (but not necessarily always) lacks merit, and that it is brought with the goals of obtaining an economic or other advantage over a party by increasing the cost of litigation to the point that the party’s case will be weakened or abandoned. They are primarily legal proceedings that are intended to silence critics by burdening them with the cost of litigation in the hope that their criticism or opposition will be abandoned or weakened. In a typical SLAPP suit, the plaintiff does not necessarily expect to win its case, but will have accomplished its objective if the defendant yields to the intimidation, mounting legal costs or exhaustion and abandons its defence and also, importantly, its criticism of and opposition to the project or development. It appears from this initial analysis that both merit and motive play a role in the test for a SLAPP suit and the one may inform the other.
