From Mark Steyn:
Breaking news in the Mann vs Steyn global-warming hockey-stick case! Santa has come early and left a lump of coal in my stocking:
Almost three years ago, my sometime colleagues at National Review and my co-defendants at the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed an interlocutory appeal to determine, inter alia, whether the new anti-SLAPP law was interlocutorily appealable. Fascinating stuff.
I was not a party to the appeal, mainly because I’d concluded – after spending the autumn of 2013 listening to two trial judges issuing competing rulings on the same case – that the DC courts were a proceduralist swamp and we might as well move straight to trial. That view of DC’s dysfunction was subsequently confirmed by the lethargy of the Court of Appeals. A month before the appeal’s third anniversary, the court has now issued a very belated ruling as a Christmas Eve news dump. You can read the full order here.
The takeaway is that Mann’s suit against National Review editor (and my old boss) Rich Lowry has been dismissed, but those against me and Rand Simberg will proceed:
Dr. Mann has supplied sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that statements in the articles written by Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn were false, defamatory, and published by appellants to third parties, and, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants did so with actual malice.
You won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree with their ladyships. The “sufficient evidence” Dr Mann has supplied are a series of mendacious claims to have been “investigated” and “exonerated” by multiple Anglo-American bodies that did, in fact, do neither.
So I was right not to bother with this proceduralist bollocks: except for Rich Lowry, it was a complete three-year time-waster and we’re back to where we were in January 2014 when I was panting to go to trial. For a near-third-of-a-decade in the making, I do think this troika might have worked a little harder on their argument. For my part, I regard the support for the First Amendment from the ACLU, NBC, The Washington Post et al as more relevant to how this thing is likely to come down in the end – although we may be a few years getting there.
The purpose of the whole sclerotic racket of American jurisprudence is to obstruct up-and-down trials with a nice clean guilty/not-guilty final score, and instead bury the thing in proceduralist flimflammery only the experts can follow. Take, for example, this Tweet from Noah McCormack:
DC Circuit shoots down Mark Steyn and National Review’s SLAPP motion, climate scientist’s libel case can go to trial
Er, no. It wasn’t my motion. Nothing to do with me. In fact, I objected to it. As I said above, I thought the appeal was a waste of time, and filed a motion to proceed to trial three years ago. Mann filed a motion objecting to that, a position the judge found “ironic“. Very droll, I’m sure.
In a third of the time it took the DC Court of Appeals to issue their ruling, I managed to write an entire book on the subject (dealing in part with all those faux exonerations): “A Disgrace To The Profession”: The World’s Scientists – In Their Own Words – On Michael E Mann, His Hockey Stick, And Their Damage To Science – Volume One. If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas present, well, I could do with an uptick in royalties – and this tome certainly has its admirers:
The first thing you see when you walk in the office is Mark Steyn’s book about Michael Mann.
More: http://www.steynonline.com/7643/walking-in-a-legal-wonderland
Piltdown Mann won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight.
============
Frolic with the friends of the court and dance in the light of your doom.
=============
+1
Remember during the week before the election, when Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win? But he didn’t ever believe that, so he kept fighting right up to the end… when he won the election.
I guess it’s time to buy another Mark Steyn book. I like a fighter.
Excellent book! Mark really did his research and there are some marvelous quotes from an entire range of people, including some who are Mann colleagues! Great cartoons of the Mann creature by Josh too!
“Excellent book!” I will second that.
The shear number of less than favourable quotations about Mann from other scientists is quite mind-blowing.
I particularly liked the idea that this book was only “Volume 1”. 🙂
graphic;
sheer number
Brian, depends on whether you think Mann is about to get sheared.
good idea – any Steyn book will do the job – headed to Amazon right now
Interesting that you side with both Trump and Steyn, because Trump wants to make it very easy for people to be sued for writing, just like Steyn is suffering through right now..
Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention! Ha ha ha
Frank Zappa is The Mothers of Invention
Ah, but brown shoes don’t make it.
Necessity is a mother!!!
Is truth considered malice by the DC Court?
I know that many consider “truth” to be proof against judgement, but I seem to recall a case in the British courts where a doctor sued someone for libel or slander on the grounds that they had damaged his “good name” and apparently won. Technically. I believe the jury awarded him £1. Keep in mind that the precedents of British Common Law up to 1776 apply in the US, unless directly contravened by legislation.
That sounds like the novel _QB VII_ by Leon Uris. The libel suit was a pyhrric victory, Mann should read the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QB_VII
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dering_v_Uris
The novel QB VII was loosely based on a real-life libel suit against Leon Uris.
The rich and powerful in Britain are in a much better position to shut down free speech.
The U.S. has the Libel Terrorism Protection Act (also known as Rachel’s Law).
It looks like the congress critters still place some value on free speech.
Libel, defamation, and slander laws in America, I believe, have been completely codified in law since 1776, and in any case are subject to the First Amendment. The British and American systems are so different now that American courts will not enforce British judgments without a trial or at least a review by an American court.
The unwillingness of American courts to enforce most British libel judgments is a new thing, created by the SPEECH Act, probably the best thing that President Obama signed into law during his tenure. The law applies to cases from any country that does not have certain free-speech protections that Americans get.
But in my view even US libel law unjustly favors plaintiffs too much. See Carol Burnett v. National Enquirer.
Whistler v Ruskin
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/Landry.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-whistler-monet/who-what-when/ruskin-v-whistler
Whistler won but was awarded a farthing (1/4 penny or 1/960 pound) in damages and no costs which ruined him.
The most memorable exchange;
Sir John Holker barrister for Ruskin to Whistler; “You ask 200 guineas (£210) for the work of two days?
Whistler replied, “No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”
(The cry of every professional man down the ages!)
In the US, the PLAINTIFF suing the defendant for libel (that the defendant has libeled the plaintiff), must show by a preponderance of the evidence that what the defendant published was untrue, incorrect, and damaged the plaintiff’s reputation. If the plaintiff is a public figure, he must also prove that the untruths were published with malice or with such reckless disregard of the truth as to be malice (See the movie “Absence of Malice for an entertaining but pretty accurate depiction of this, Paul Newman, Sally fields) The defendant need only show good faith belief in the truth, or, simple mistake.
In UK, historically, the DEFENDANT sued for libel must prove that what he published was in fact true. And in most cases that can be nearly impossible to do.
Libel laws in Britain and the US are different.
In the US, the truth is an absolute defense against libel. If what you are saying is true, it doesn’t matter that it damages the defendants reputation.
With Obama’s Dept. of Justice, truth is considered to be malice, racist, colluding with the Russians, and the reason snowflakes will have a life of hopelessness.
I can’t wait to shower all those people with mountains of truth.
“Defamation—also calumny, vilification, and traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person.”
The communication of a *false* statement. Telling the truth about a person’s credit card history is not defamation.
Forrest Gardener and TA,
I don’t know what lawyers call it, but I do know that merchants no longer post bounced checks by their cash registers like they used to. Same principle, I think: the merchant is risking legal action if he tries to show that a particular customer is a deadbeat.
Truth, nor the law, matter in the DC Court. Only the politics of the judges involved matter. They rule as their ideology requires.
Mostly for dbstealey: It is actually worse now. I suffered a layoff when one of the paper machines
at a mill I worked for was shut down. I got one of the most glowing references I had ever heard
of. I ended up being hired back, at least for a few years before the entire mill was shut-down.
They did everything they could to ease our transition, but they did NOT issue any references.
When I asked why, they said that it was out of fear that if a company hired a former worker
and he did not live up to the references the old company gave him, they could be sued.
Apparently some such civil cases were actually filed, leading them to impose this policy.
We had a engineer go bat-crap raging crazy with a shift manager. The following morning, he was
escorted to his office, then off the premises by a security guard. This guy was an MS in mechanical
engineering (At least on paper.) All the book smarts in the world, but he could not engineer his
way out of a 4 pound paper bag. If they are afraid of being sued by a company, imagine how
afraid they would be to give the guy bad references. The Al Bundy wall of shame at the super-
market is bad enough, but if one cannot even give an employee good references, we have become
far too litigious as a society.
Leonard Jones,
Thanks for that, and I agree 100%. Too many lawsuits.
Now employers will usually answer just one question: ‘Would you hire that employee again?’
No reasons are provided, either pro or con. But the message is received either way. Unfortunately, that gives the person answering the question too much power.
This means your countersuit also goes to trial, right?
When in doubt — do nothing.
Anything else can be damaging to your career up the judgeship ladder.
Divergence of opinion is malice? Opinion and “puff”, even if it happens to be untrue, is legally sanctioned in contracts and certainly the First Amendment. The”appellants to third parties” is the key to the legal opinion justifying the trial. Your opinion happens to be correct. This fact nullifies both any malicious interest of the third parties and any claim against you.
Courage, you got this.
“Divergence of opinion is malice?”
Surely when one is $avingThePlanet™ all opposition to one’s agenda must be eradicated because The Very Survival Of Humanity Is At Stake.
“Get out of my way and give me all the money, I’m $avingThePlanet!”
Saving the planet from humanity has nothing to do with The Very Survival Of Humanity.
Yeah, but there’s a lot of conflation (and misdirection, evasion, derailing, misrepresentation, wild exaggeration, fear-mongering, etc.) going on.
Would it be out of order of me to remind readers that they can help Steyn with the costs of this legal process by buying vouchers on his website, which they can use to buy his books, etc – or indeed pay for vouchers and not cash them in?
For the courts, Jaundyce vs Jaundyce is the goal. Bastards.
Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, Shirley?
Jarndyce versus Jarndyce refers to a legal case about a contested inheritance in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The lawyers stretched the case out for so many years that all the money was spent on legal fees.
Probably based on a real case, the dispute over the will of the “Acton Miser” William Jennens. Jennens v Jennens commenced in 1798 and was abandoned in 1915 (117 years later) when the legal fees had exhausted the Jennens estate of funds.
‘It’s nice work if you can get it
And if you get it, won’t you tell me how?’
In English civil law there is no ‘s’ after the ‘v’ and cases are spoken of as “A and B” not “A versus B”, so the case above would have been called Jennens and Jennens in the English courts.
“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it.”
Good one, Noonan!
Good one, Charles Dickens.
Since I was old enough to read a legal argument, I have had total unmitigated contempt for judges, lawyers, and the entire “legal system”.
Now that I am well into my dotage, I can confidently and assuredy say that my opinion of a lifetime is well founded and irrefutable.
The entire Mann saga is little more than an additional steaming pat on top of the already huge pile.
Mark Twain was right when he made his suggestion regarding the disposition of lawyers.
Jonathan Swift on lawyers of his day: “ … my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will …” (Gulliver’s Travels); not a bad description of many nowadays I think.
Judges he thought were “…picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy …”.
William
I checked Mark Twain’s remarks on lawyers and couldn’t find any on their disposition, Perhaps you are referring to Shakespeare’s suggestion in his play “Henry VI”.
Twain was however not complimentary:
http://www.twainquotes.com/Lawyer.html
Yes, Dick the Butcher says in Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene II, Line 73: ”The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Dick was a follower of the rebel Jack Cade, who thought that if he disturbed law and order, he could become king. Not an unreasonable ambition during the chaotic, bloody dynastic Wars of the Roses, in which the onset of the Little Ice Age played a part.
I believe Twain is saying more about publishers than lawyers.
Old :
Thanks for your correction; you are most probably right.
I fear that in my dotage, my index of quotables is blending into porridge.
Sigh………!
Shakespeare…….” KILL ALL THE LAWYERS”.
Remember Mann has a similar suit against Dr. Tim Ball in Victoria next February. Question: which CAGW alarming deep pockets are funding these suits? Mann’s loss would be a dagger in the heart of this scientific hoax.
Let’s hope “hide the decline” Mann goes down in flames.
“Mann’s loss would be a dagger in the heart of this scientific hoax.”
That may be why the DC court is dragging this out.
One would like to think so.
I hate to rain on that parade but I recall the same thing being said about Climategate . . six years ago and counting.
I think they stalled too long. The incoming administration will be circling his rear flank quickly as he battles old enemies at the front.
Most assuredly!
“Question: which CAGW alarming deep pockets are funding these suits?”
It would be an interesting move if, say, the government were to finance Mark on the basis that the truth needed to be discovered and widely disseminated and should not be hindered or distorted by lack of funds.
I suspect Mann’s federal research grant funding my face severe headwinds in the coming years.
At this point, fakers like Mann need to crawl into their holes, hide for the next 4 years, and pray that a Dimocrat is elected President in 2020.
But it won’t happen, unless Trump proves to be a total failure and I doubt it. Look for 8 years of Trump followed by 8 years of Pence.
By then, Mann’s “science” will be completely discredited and unfunded. Thankfully!
16 years in the wilderness for Progtards would be great. But that has not happened in the 100 years since Woodrow Wilson, the US’s first real Progtard.
Well faced with unprecedented climate change a little unprecedented Republican possession of he throne would be apposite.
“But that has not happened in the 100 years since Woodrow Wilson, the US’s first real Progtard.”
They haven’t had real opposition since Wilson. Reagan was the closest, and Bush would have got eight years if he hadn’t been such a Cuck.
The Elder Bush might have eight years but for Perot, who cut a corrupt deal with Clinton to torpedo Bush in return for his software company getting Hillary Care health system contracts.
But the Bushies looked down on Reagan WH staff and their conservative agenda. It was the same internecine divide in the GOP as in 1964, ie the corporate Eastern Establishment (Rockefeller) vs. the Midwestern and Western populist wing (Goldwater) of the party.
I suggest Stein challenge Mann to a winner takes all Karaoke contest.
Steyn.
By his own admission, this is a skill at which Marc does not excel, unless he’s just being overly self-deprecating.
“Hide the Decline” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqc7PCJ-nc ;
Science vs. law? Both sides are ill equipped to challenge the other nor should they be. One is based on empirical evidence and the other on consensus.
This is climate “science” we’re talking about here. Not to be confused with actual science.
Never a truer word, spoken in jest.
There are reliable disciplines that can assist in judgments: history training in weighing up evidence, logic, and artificial intelligence. Sadly, judges are not skilled in these disciplines. Most are refugees from science and maths at school level. Nor are they in contact with the common sense possessed by communities. Witness the “ho hum” exhibited by most people when the warmists rant on. The AGW believers may be right. They have convinced most politicians, but the science of climate is certainly not settled.
In my country (NZ) the laws of defamation were greatly minimized a few years ago, thus reducing the gravy train of litigation. Politicians used to get rich by suing reporters and publishers. The aim now is “let open and free debate settle the issue”.
The Noah McCormack link is not working. Coincidence?
I have great sympathy for Mark Steyn. The foulest curse is “May you be in the right in a legal case”.
Hi HO! Hi HO! It’s off to court we go! (Whistling)
Can’t wait, to see, the full “discovery”! (Whistling)
When Steyn’s defense, asks Mann for evidence..
(Whistling)
Sorry that the delay was such a waste Mark, but now the fun can begin!
Chin up!
If you need a good laugh, check out the illiterate 1-star reviews of Steyn’s book about Mann on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-editor/product-reviews/0986398330/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_rvwer?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=1
One of the reviewers actually said: “Misleading title. Should’ve said it was about Hockey Stick analysis.” Apparently the person was able to do the review without noticing the picture of a hockey stick on the front cover and the mention of the same in the subtitle. With that kind of demonstrated acuity, perhaps he or she is well-suited for a career in climate science?
It’s actually depressing how many reviews on Amazon are by people who never read the book. Or in this case, apparently never even saw the cover to the book.
I’m going to wait for the movie.
Mark Steyn is not appealling .. but Michael (“Mann-made warming”) Mann is even less appealing.
Stein managed to write a book full of character witnesses during this time.
All he needs to plea now is “substantial truth” and hand the book to the judges.
That would be true if you had an honest judge. Where the heck would you find one?
Yeah OBUMMER appointed 3000.
How about a motion for a change of venue to SW PA, just south of Penn State, where Trump racked up wins among coal miners?
More accurately, SW of Centre County for bituminous coal and east for anthracite.
Hang in there Mark, all those of us that have endured & yet prevailed, at the hands of vexacious and bad faith litigants, will empathise with what you are going through.
Have a wonderful christmas and keep up the good work, SOme entertaining comments from obviously worried Alarmists here http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/
The irony is that Mann had his best chance of winning during the peak of the El Nino at the beginning of this year. And he’s no chance of winning during a la nina with Trump as president.
Really, you think the judge will be looking out the window at the temperature? I for one am really looking forward to how this plays out. Glad it is carrying on.
Well, I hope that Mr. Steyn will be keeping an eagle eye on the thermostats in the trial court. Bad con artists tend to repeat their old games, and CAGWers are bad con artists.
The appeal courts conclusion said, inter alia:
“Dr. Mann has supplied sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that statements in the articles written by Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn were false, defamatory, and published by appellants to third parties, and, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants did so with actual malice.”
They didn’t say anything about the weather.
We don’t need juries. A court determines what a reasonable jury must find.
Curious George said:
“We don’t need juries. A court determines what a reasonable jury must find.”
It isn’t as simple and universal as that, as I’m sure you already know.
Anyway, in this case what the Judge has decided is that there is sufficient evidence for a jury to be able to make a decision on the issue. Not that they have to find him guilty.
Mr. Stokes: Are you sure? Did I see it was 111 pg decision? If it can be reduced to one sentence, what did they go on about? They might have snuck in a page or two on the weather, who would notice? So now Mann gets a discovery deadline, will he be showing the evidence of this falsity? Or will he try to delay that?
Court is court so act accordingly. Be prepared and crush that sniveling weasel for me MY FRIEND.
Can some one tell me if this article duplicates Murray Salby’s work and crushes CAGW for good?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257343053_The_phase_relation_between_atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_and_global_temperature?enrichId=rgreq-9cd45871f5c4b32573881229a9638562-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI1NzM0MzA1MztBUzozMzg4NzQyODM5MDUwMjRAMTQ1NzgwNTMzMzYyOA%3D%3D&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationCoverPdf
It doesn’t matter if science crushes the CAGW meme.
That has happened many times already.
Its got NOTHING to do with science.
No I can’t, but I can tell you it’s off topic.
Aiui, Mann didn’t actually want a trial, but he’s managed to lie himself into one.
I see some commenters seem to be hoping that Donald Trump fixes all problems, large and small.
I hate to be negative this close to Christmas but Trump has a lot of enemies. All socialists are against him as well as the ruling elite of both parties. The Republicans especially are a danger to decent policies. The “never-Trump” people are still there.
But far, far worse is the fact that the bureaucracies of the many, many agencies run the government. The only way to disarm the left is to totally dismantle many federal agencies (many of which would be called unconstitutional by our founders)
I wish Mr. Trump success, and I hope he chooses his battles well.
Note: My first public statement as president would be that the state of California is free to leave the Union anytime its people decided to go. Then I would talk up the advantages to everyone if the moonbats of the left coast formed their own socialist paradise. (which would become a third-world hell-hole within a year)
I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between, “All socialists …” and “… the ruling elite of both parties.”
Memo to self: don’t read anything else from SMC. Thinks neo-conservatives are the same as socialists.
Yeah, loaded with info, that. I have no time for tweets or twits.
Trump has his work cut out for him, that’s for sure. But nothing has stopped him yet. We’ll just have to wait and see if anything will.
Trump will probably have more trouble with the MSM misinterpreting what he says, than he will with foreign governments. They misinterpret everything he says, even Fox reporters.
I heard a couple of really silly interpretations and speculations of Trump’s statement about nuclear weapons this morning from a couple of Fox reporters (Greg and a never-Trumper), repeating an MSNBC interpretation, the never-Trumper even cited MSNBC by name, if you can believe that.
The MSM sets the theme, and Fox follows along giving it legitimacy. This last election has revealed a lot about some Fox reporters. Some of them need to move over to MSNBC or CNN. They would be much more at home there.
If you want to get the truth about Trump, you better listen to the man himself, rather than listening to a reporter’s interpretation of what he said. Get your news straight from the horse’s mouth. Anything else should be suspect in our current environment.
The problem with the mouth of the horse is that it’s restricted to 140 characters per utterance.
“If you want to get the truth about Trump, you better listen to the man himself”
I would, but one can only listen to sentences filled with “unbelievable”, “amazing”, “believe me”, and countless other superfluous superlatives for a very short time before lapsing into a coma.
+1 Trust only yourself.
The posting above had my name as the author, but I did NOT submit it.
Perhaps it came from someone from the global warming community demonstrating his commitment to the highest ethical standards? And/or someone who wrote one of the “illiterate 1-star reviews of Steyn’s book about Mann on Amazon” I referenced in my comment?
TA: “If you want to get the truth about Trump, you better listen to the man himself”
Jeff: “I would, but one can only listen to sentences filled with “unbelievable”, “amazing”, “believe me”, and countless other superfluous superlatives for a very short time before lapsing into a coma.”
Well, that’s too bad, Jeff. You probably missed this one Trump tweeted today:
Trump: “As for the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20.”
Mark, Love that “third world hell hole” line.
I believe independence will be a great thing for California for the same reason it was a great thing for the Slovak Republic. Once their biggest source of Other People’s Money was cut off, the Slovaks very quickly saw the need to dump their socialism, and today they are one of the dynamos of Europe.
We should always be hopeful at this time of year. I would love to see California get that chance to follow the Slovak Republic.
Those of us from blue states would love that. Then we can stop supporting the federal welfare sucking red states – the ones that are lagging in job creation.
Chris, I don[‘t think you understand the vast amounts of incentives, crony regulations, welfare, and other payments from the Federal Government to the blue states, but that is alright. Ignorance is an American right.
However, even if you were correct — I for one would love to see you take your blue state and create an independent nation-state out of it. You will copy the Venezuela model no doubt.
You can read a how to here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/12/thomas-dilorenzo/santa-claus-economics/
Sadly, the litigation continuing will give Mike Mann a legal loop hole allowing him to
withstand subpoenas for original data, mathematical fulminations, e-mails, and relevant
under-oath testimony from Congressional Committee (Sen. J. Inhofe) hearings looking
into Mann’s “Hockey Stick”.
It also provides a handy escape hatch for the holders of such information under the
“exceptions” listed in many state FOI laws… since it’s part of an active litigation package.
However, Mann will continue to try to avoid “discovery” for the underpinnings of his
research to keep it out of the court record. Such material would be open to the public
unless the judge seals the record.
You can’t get there form here.
Same as it ever was.
Gosh
You mean there are consequences for claiming folks have committed fraud. When they have not….
I’m guessing people might clean up their comments at blogs..
No, there really are rarely consequences for anything. Claiming fraud when it’s occurring is perfectly valid and vital to the scientific field. As for blog comments, going to court over a blog comment is unlikley. Generally only high-profile people making comments get sued.
So now we will find out if it Steyn’s comments were valid. I’m picking they weren’t. Don’t bother arguing with me though…. seems we are going to find out.
I do not know how common it is but there are certainly people being sued for blog comments. See Kimberlin vs Hoge in MD state and federal courtts. Kimberlin, famous for claiming to have sold VP Quayle pot, has sued many people for pointing out his criminal past and other problems in blogs and on Twitter. So far only a few hundred dollars have come out of any of suits, but lots of money wasted on legal fees, and a lot of clogging of the courts.
A lot of our commenters may be ‘judgement proof.’
“As for blog comments, going to court over a blog comment is unlikley. Generally only high-profile people making comments get sued.”
Well, who knows that might change.
See I dont know who you are behind the veil of your moniker, maybe you are high profile?
So the first thing would be a request to wordpress for identity of folks making comments.
doxing.
Then comes the decision whether to make an example of someone.
Since they have their legal defense fund, it’s hard to say what they will do.
But folks are welcome to take the risk and find themselves in expensive lawsuits.
Personally I have always like Steve McIntrye’s style. He avoids the F word.
Let’s test it. Reveal your name. Call mann a fraud.
Put another way, one concern we all have is that suits like this chill free speech.
That’s basically my point.
“Put another way, one concern we all have is that suits like this chill free speech.
That’s basically my point.”
Free speech has it’s limits.
That would be my point.
??
claiming folks have committed fraud
==========
as I recall the quote, it was the hockey stick that was claimed to be fraudulent, not Mann, As I recall the quote said Mann was famous as a result. I don’t recall seeing where it was written that Mann himself was fraudulent.
As I recall Mann’s court documents claimed he was not the author of the hockey stick in question. I believe the climate gate emails showed it was Jones working with the IPCC that “adjusted” the data series, using “Mike’s Nature trick”.
So, as such, Mann would be famous because he is mentioned in the climate gate emails with regard to the “fraudulent hockey stick”, but the actual fraud if it did indeed occur, would appear to be a product of Jones and the IPCC.
As such, I don’t see the problem with Steyn’s writing. It appears to be completely truthful based on what little I know about the case. The problem appears to be one of confused perception as a result of the literary device of hyperbole and close word association.
I need to read the case more closely, ferdberple, … exact quotes and all.
The question, then, seems to be, “Was Mann himself accused of fraud ?, … was Mann himself accused of perpetuating a representation that he later came to know amounted to fraud and failed to retract ?, … did Mann become reasonably knowledgeable that his representation was now amounting to fraud, and he was negligent in allowing it to stand without correction?” … and a host of other nuanced questions that I don’t know enough to frame.
… off to read the case now.
You’re conflating different things. Jones’ statement about the Nature trick was having to do with a time series by Keith Briffa, which was not “the Hockey Stick” in MBH98.
And for Mosher, it’s pretty clear, based on Mc and Mc’s analyses, that some underhanded stuff did occur in MBH98 in order to obtain said stick. Surely you’re not a de*ier.
“…it was Jones working with the IPCC that “adjusted” the data series…” The way I understand it, Mann was given a reference and he was quite aware of the way Jones and the IPCC were using his graph, so this is a distinction without a difference. If he permitted his work to be used “fraudulently,” he can’t reasonably claim to be harmed by that inference.
What are you talking about Mosher? Nothing has been decided in Steyn’s original case, which can now go forward with this decision. You are celebrating way too early here, but nice try anyway at claiming an early unearned victory.
1. The term ‘fraud’ is often used loosely, not in a narrow, technical, legal sense. It is kind of like the term “trick” in that way. If you say I have “tricked” you, a lot of context needs to be examined to determine whether that might be defamatory. If you say that someone replicated “Mike’s Nature trick,” it could be an accusation tantamount to fraud, or it could be a compliment on one’s technique. Now, ‘fraud’ might not allow quite that scope of interpretation – it might always have negative connotations – but there are no necessary and sufficient conditions that would allow one to settle in every case whether a practice was “fraudulent” or not.
2. Because of the above indeterminacy of language, the colloquial use of the term ‘fraud’ is more in the realm of opinion than fact. It is a characterization, an inference, an assessment based on judgment. The facts about “Mike’s Nature trick” are well enough known that one should be able to make a negative judgment about them with the colloquial expression “fraudulent” without fear of being sued. Even if the “trick” was not fraudulent in any technical legal sense – even if it was not “scientifically” blameworthy – as long as the merits of the trick are debatable within the scientific community, it is fair game to judge it harshly. Harsh criticism is the mechanism by which positive change is advanced.
This is all dealt with in the court documents. See pages 70 and 71 for example.
From the ACLU’s amicus brief:
I guess all of us are *very* interested in the outcome of this lawsuit.
I do see one pattern here: The temperature adjustments Mann and others made seem to always cool the past. One would think that adjustments would naturally go both ways, up and down, but with the surface temperature record, this doesn’t hold true. Why? Maybe we will get this answer after this matter is publicly aired. I am very interested in hearing about this one-way method of adjustment that Mann, et al, use.
Got to do something about that 1940’s blip. And they did.
Drive by Mosh and his ill-informed lies. Just be glad there isn’t consequences for that.
(1) Mosh occasionally expands on his opinions, and they’re often right.
(2) “Isn’t consequences” is a solecism.
(3) “Ill-informed lies” is an oxymoron. Statements based on lack of good information are not (except under peculiar circumstances) lies.
(4) Mosh can be annoying, but he’s basically okay.
(1) moshes non-expanded drive-bys, on the other hand are most often wrong and/or way off base
(2) grammer-policing merely shows the lack of cogent rebuttal to the issues at hand.
(3) One doesn’t need to be informed to tell lies.
(4) Defend his drive-by nonsense all you want, doesn’t stop his drive-by nonsense from being just that.
You mean when you put an algorithm in a model that puts in a hockey stick curve no matter the random data? And then hide your data for a couple decades. And suggest someone defamed you when what was actually said was that an administrator that let a pedophile operate might easily let data manipulation go (which is defamation in and of itself). And then claim he was ‘exonerated’ when he was, in fact, white-washed?
Methinks, you are, yourself, under pressure, and I think your honesty has been supplanted by your need to cover your ass, Mr. Mosher.
I also wonder if there should be consequences for predicting the end of the world and then changing your story when it doesn’t happen?
Seems every media outlet in the world is currently guilty of that one.
Steven – Freedom of speech is a serious issue. Like many, I am concerned that Trump is threatening folks who are engaging in free speech. I am also concerned that Michael Mann’s suit is threatening folks who are engaging in free speech.
I respect your right to free speech. As a matter of fact, I believe that your comments strengthen the WUWT community/debate. I do not frequently agree with your comments, but I find those who call you names on this site deplorable.
On the other hand, Michael Mann’s efforts to deprive Mark Steyn and others of their free speech rights are also deplorable. I sincerely hope that Steyn crushes Mann in court as Mann is attacking free speech. That is deplorable.
You appear to appreciate participating in debate on climate related issues. Good for you. We need more of that. In the rough and tumble of debate, people say debatable things. That is free speech. When we believe statements are wrong, we should disagree with them. Not silence them. Mann’s suit is an attempt to silence Mark Steyn and others.
Steyn views this case as a freedom of speech case and he is right. Regardless of whether or not Mann is correct about the science, he should lose this suit due to freedom of speech protections.
“You appear to appreciate participating in debate on climate related issues.”
I don’t think I’ve seen Mosher engage in debate. I’ve seen him belittle and make proclamations. That’s about all.
The contents of Mann’s “back to 1400 CENSORED” directory are direct factual proof that the MBH98 hockey stick was a fraudulent construction. Steve McIntyre has a copy of that directory.
Mosher, blinded by the light of his own supposed truth. How unusual.
As far as the Hockey Stick goes, there are only two choices.
Manifest Fraud… (with possible collusion of intent)
or gross incompetence.
Either way, Mann MUST hide the truth of the fabrication of the Hockey Stick.
Andyg55
Except Mann’s work has been checked and verified many times since by other qualified groups. It may not be perfect, but it is certainly not fraudulent.
You haven’t done your research. Or are willfully ignorant.
No it hasn’t , they committed the same statistical maleficence as Mann did.
If it was done as INTENT to deceive… which it almost certainly was…. then it is the “Fr…” word.
Other wise it is gross incompetence.
The kicker, as I see it, is to prove intent to commit fraud. If a scientist really believes what he is talking about, then how do we possibly prove intent? Well, you might argue that a reasonable scientist SHOULD have known that his methods were flawed, but when “reasonable” is defined by everybody else around you agreeing with you, then, sadly, he WAS a “reasonable” scientist.
The case here, then, is NOT against questionable science. Rather, as I see it, the case is about one person’s accusing another person of willfully, knowingly committing deceptive acts.
History judges the science. Courts judge the men of science in how they deal with one another, as the science develops.
When he hides adverse data, then yeah, it’s the F word.
Was it the SCOTUS that allowed EPA to control CO2 as a pollutant? Jurists and Lawyers are utterly out of their element when regarding information of fact. In their world, the law is whatever they say it is; thus the pernicious ruling of the incompetent and venal DC court. I was once in a deposition for a utility company against 3 plaintiff lawyers(3 guys siding a house put an aluminum ladder into a 7200v line and died) and one of the lawyers kept insisting that I should admit that the electricity jumped 4 feet from the line to the ladder. He got angry when I responded that his contention was complete hogwash. Lawyers only care about one thing and it ain’t justice.
Judges typically defer to the “experts” and to the public agencies when they are “out of their element.”
Now the suit can move to Discovery, which is essential for the future conduct of the suit. All of the research done for the book will bear fruit in that endeavor.
Global warming is the law according to a 7 republican, 2 democrats decision by the Supreme Court (We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident – 2).
It is not good, as the defendants will find out, to libel someone who upholds the law.
Mann didn’t make the best of starts by claiming to be a Nobel Laureate, he has since been forced into a humiliating retraction of that. More to come if there is any sense ‘in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.’
[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]
Unfortunately, the DC court is one swamp Trump can’t drain.
Trump will not be able to drain the Washington, DC swamp, unfortunately. I’ll be happy if he is able to lower the water table a foot or two. He is not a panacea for all that ails DC. I think Trump’s biggest fight, on the domestic front, is going to be against impeachment. The elite of both parties detest Trump, he will receive little or no support from Republicans. I’m sure we’ll see some new and fascinating interpretations of the meaning of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ The MSM will ensure there is plenty of fodder for controversies. It won’t matter if the controversies are real, meaningful or imaginary.
We may mark this day as the moment when the rise of the waters of the swamp began to slow.
============
SMC December 23, 2016 at 8:44 am
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that because the current predictions for Trump are disgracefully partisan against him, they’re actually setting the bar of expectations VERY low indeed. In short…Trump will be a MUCH better president than people are setting him up to be. I suspect his business acumen and no-nonsense style will allow him to
1. cut deals and
2. scythe through the political long grass that Obama was unable to do.
Watch and be amazed as the man with the (highly) dubious haircut delivers the sort of policies that ordinary Americans have spent the past 20 years screaming out for. If he starts with rejigging the EPA and destroying the entirely false ‘climate change’ BS he’ll be off to a flyer.
CheshireRed, I hope you’re right. Maybe I’m too pessimistic.
“I think Trump’s biggest fight, on the domestic front, is going to be against impeachment.”
Republican Cucks couldn’t impeach Clinton or Obama, but they’re going to impeach the most popular Republican President since Reagan?
Yeah, right.
At a minimum, it would be the end of the Republican party. At worst, it would lead to civil war.
Even with every Democrat member of the House voting for impeachment, they’d still be 24 votes short of the needed majority. There might be that many GOP representatives from districts which voted for Clinton, but I doubt it.
It would be career suicide for most GOP representatives for vote for impeachment. Even if somehow that happened, conviction in the Senate would be highly unlikely, as it requires a 2/3 majority.
Not a lawyer, but I wonder if there is a way to “tweak” the laws governing things like this. We have, for example, statutes of limitation, whereby, after a certain period of time, a case is considered “cold”, and no action can be brought against a person who might otherwise be accused. The reason is that evidence might go stale, witnesses to events either die, or move away, or become infirm, etc.
So in a case like this, when a party alleges libel or other defamatory conduct, if the case does not go to trial or other disposition within a certain amount of time, and the “victim” continues to procrastinate (for any reason at all), then the case is dismissed with prejudice and the “victim” must pay the “perp” all their legal fees.
Just a thought. I know, it makes too much sense to do something like that.
Vlad
The delay is certainly not due to Mann procrastinating.
Well, Phil, there’s been delay while at the same time Mann procrastinated (shutting down discovery-maybe good legal move, but procrastination just the same; and makes you wonder why he’d delay showing Steyn and the world Mann’s proof). Clear correlation, so you’re saying correlation not equal to cause? Wonder if that concept applies to…other fields.
The delay has been caused by Steyn’s co-defendants appealing.
Judge Weisberg ruled: “Nonetheless, it would be costly, inefficient, and duplicative to have two rounds of discovery: one round between Plaintiff and Defendant Steyn, and a second round between Plaintiff and the other Defendants. The court is unwilling to sever Mr. Steyn’s case from the other Defendants to accommodate his desire to go it alone. If it is not dismissed, there is no compelling reason to try this case more than once. The parties’ interests are diverse and irreconcilable, in part because of the way they have chosen to exercise their legitimate procedural rights. A stay of discovery preserves the status quo long enough for the Court of Appeals to rule on the jurisdictional issue.”
Mr. Steyn, the best thing to remember about Mann is that he’s a coward and a bully (interchangeable terms). Bullies can’t take getting hit, and they are afraid to bleed. That’s an axiom, in all paradigms.
Once Mann no longer has the support of the current President and his marching brooms, I think you will see him for the jellyfish he is.
Joel, please keep in mind that both the current and the incoming president have no say in the actions of the court(s) in the matters that come before them. Furthermore, since Mann is not a government employee, the current and incoming president can’t do much with regard to his livelihood. Not much will change past January 20th.
I did not write the above comment either. This time the forger omitted the final L in my last name, which may be why the moderator spotted it.
Actually there’s no need to remove either it or the other comment forged under my name. Let them both remain as sterling examples of the superior virtue that the global warmists love to signal.
[Noted. Thank you. .mod]
I about half think that Mann’s wealthy backing will throw in the towel over NYT/Sullivan and the First Amendment rather than expose the Crook’t Hockey Stick to public criticism. Paying his costs is chump change compared to the propaganda value of that false icon.
Now Steyn’s countersuit….Katie bar the door.
==================
Personally, I’m thrilled (and at my age that takes some doing). Mark Steyn has a chance to do some real damage to that creep. Trump’s in the White House, Mann and Steyn are going to battle it out in court, and Steve Mosher is worried the truth might just come out after all..
Happy New Year to us all!
Others have said this, but one more time- Steyn will need our support to carry this ball. He wisely elected not to set up the “legal defense fund,” fearing the IRS might leak a donor list or other mischief. Please join me and buy his stuff! Steyn has the chance to expose this manndacious “nobel winner”.
Reading only the first twenty pages of the case, here is what I notice:
(1) On July 13, 2012, Simberg authored the article entitled “The Other Scandal in Unhappy Valley,” published on OpenMarket.org, an online blog of Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), in which he wrote:
The tone of the writing seems to accuse. The word, “deceptions” seems linked to an implication of intentional deceptions. Furthermore, likening Mann’s scientific treatment of data to the actions of child molester seems to arise from an underlying intent to defame Mann, using knowledge of the fact that child molestation evokes images of the worst sort of criminal in our society. The criminal comparison, thus, is excessively harsh and not in proportion to Mann’s actions, even if such actions might later be subject to further investigation. Manipulating data does NOT compare, by any stretch of most people’s imagination, to molesting a child, and to paint it as such is itself a deceptive journalistic act. I see this as a situation where creative writing has gone too far, to the point of cruelly misrepresenting a scientist, however wrong he might be in his methods.
(2) On July 15, 2012, Steyn authored an article titled “Football and Hockey,” which appeared on National Review’s online blog “The Corner,” in which he wrote:
Even though Lowry explains that … in common polemical usage, ‘fraudulent’ doesn’t mean honest-to-goodness criminal fraud. It means intellectually bogus and wrong, …
I do not believe this claim. I believe that the intent of the writer exceeded “polemical”, in that by being so scathing with this choice of word, the writer was being intentionally defaming, knowing that there is a fine line between literal and polemical — a line so fine as to be invisible to first impressions on reading the word. Most people do not know what “honest-to-goodness criminal fraud” is anyway — they could not list the very specific requirements of a court to prove it, and so the polemical use to laymen takes on the literal use of the court, which has the social effect of condemning somebody publicly before he has been formally tried.
Just as there is intelligent science, there is intelligent journalism, and I am not sure whether the above highlighted quotes qualify — sorry to be a party pooper.
I remain in agreement with people who consider Mann’s conclusions bunk, but I do not agree that this sort of writing is the way to champion an opposing position.
So to call people “deni*rs” and liken them to someone who refutes the holocaust isn’t just as bad? How many time can we count Mann using that term? So we should be suing Mann using your logic? I’m not trying to white wash either term.
So to call people “deni*rs” and liken them to someone who refutes the holocaust isn’t just as bad? How many time can we count Mann using that term? So we should be suing Mann using your logic? I’m not trying to white wash either term.
markl, … Referring to a GROUP of people (not localized in any specific place) as “deni*ers” is NOT the same as targeting a specific individual, likening the named individual to a child molester, and calling him or his work a fraud. Mann was NAMED as an individual, and that’s the big difference.
To call climate scientists in general “frauds” is also not in the same category of deeds, because we are not targeting an individual person, naming the individual person publicly, and intentionally trying to defame him. You say, “we should be suing Mann”, but who specifically is “we”? See the difference? — it’s very targeted to name an individual as opposed to naming a group vaguely.
Once you call somebody’s name, you get into risky legal territory. How formally defined an entity is being criticized is the key. Also, the degree of venom in the accusation makes a difference too. Child molesters are generally perceived as far more sinister criminals than people who might refute the holocaust.
Robert: “Intelligent journalism” is the standard? Wonder why the authors of 1st Amendment chose a different formulation, known as “free speech” and “free press”? To me, your analysis requires you to dig into the lexicon of fraud, then impute other meanings to Steyn. If such digging is necessary, it’s a bad sign for Plaintiff. And what does cruel misrepresentation of a “scientist” mean? Is it different from cruel misrepresentation of a preacher? When you finish reading this decision, read about Falwell/Hustler. I don’t see how the Plaintiff’s profession matters in the early analysis of “false statement/opinion” issues. That this Court injected Mann’s so-called “scientist” status into this tells me the Court knew what the decision was before the briefs were filed.
The whole exaggerated global warming scam is imploding because people can only hide behind failed climate models for so long . Scientists who believe in the scientific method and have been bullied and silenced will reclaim the lost credibility of the study of climate . Mann will be a long lost blip in the infancy of that new emerging field . Natural variability is running the show just like always .
Anyone know why this article and image are suddenly no longer available on the internet in their previous form?
“The rise and fall of the Hockey Stick”
http://tinyurl.com/gqoqnmu
The domain has expired.
Thanks Sleepalot
The graph is of Climate Change over the past 1,000 years as shown by the IPCC in its 1990 report, then the change in it’s 2001 report that wiped out the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
Well, I hope Mark has deep pockets. You can be sure Mann will have a large legal team funded by the likes of George Soros and the other billionaires who supported the Clinton campaign.
I believe Mark realized early on that their plan was to bleed him dry of funds so he switched to defending himself. I’m sure he’ll get plenty of advice and coaching. I also think his strategy will be viewed upon favorably by the jury.
Besides, at the rate this thing is crawling through the swamp of US ‘Justice’, Mann will be dead before it actually gets to court.
Maybe EXRON could buy a bunch of Mark’s books.
Make that Exon-Mobile
“A Disgrace to the Profession”,..I’ll buy that.
I want to be clear that I am NOT defending Mann’s conclusions, by any means. Rather, I am defending the right of anyone to protect his/her name, and I mean this very specifically and very technically.
It is important that we honor the legality of protecting a person’s name. The law cannot choose whose name to protect, and so all I am saying is that Mann has a right, like anybody, to protect his name. The VALUE placed on that name, now, is a whole ‘nother issue.
I think Mann should win the case in order to establish his right to protect his name like anybody else. Once he wins, a VALUE has to be assessed on that protected name. At this point, conceivably, a wise/informed judge and a wise/informed jury could assign a value of $ 1 to this protected name. Case ended. Win/win for everybody. Poetic justice.
Courts defame people all the time, by declaring them guilty of crimes.
You think he should win? You have not spent enough time at this site, or at Climate Audit. If you had, you’d know Steyn’s fraudulent hockey stick line is true. Moreover, it was made in the context of a political debate (calling it a scientific debate is changing the subject, and immaterial to boot). In US law, protecting free speech is more important than using the courts to “protect a good name”, you may be overseas and don’t understand this well-established priority. In US law, this priority is so respected, cases of this type are thrown out at pleadings. Mann happened to file in a court with an inordinate number of progs on the bench who, like yourself, don’t know the full measure of 1st Amendment protection, or don’t see the wisdom of it or both. This has become a very important case, I’m glad you’re not deciding it.
Paul Courtney
“Mann happened to file in a court with an inordinate number of progs on the bench who, like yourself, don’t know the full measure of 1st Amendment protection, or don’t see the wisdom of it or both. This has become a very important case, I’m glad you’re not deciding it.”
Well the way I see it the big difference here is Steyn didn’t offer the fraud thing as his opinion, he offered it as fact… and the judge didn’t like that one bit. So now we get to see whether it is ok to publicly say someones work is fraud, and more importantly whether the court thinks the evidence supports Steyn’s statement? I can’t wait to see how this goes. Seems to me if the judge finds in Mann’s favour then Steyn will be up for an awful lot of money. I personally think he crossed a line that should not have been crossed and no 1st amendment should protect that sort of behaviour (unless of course Mann’s work is fraud…. but that is looking less and less likely). So bring it on I say.
Legal argument is not my field but, to me, Robert Kernodle’s comments make sense. If someone makes a public ass of himself, publishing the truth is what shows him to be in error. Mann’s ‘science’ is the everlasting monument to his near criminal negligence. If the facts speak, nothing more is needed.
Below is an e-mail I sent him. Please note the appendix, added for this current forum.
“Prof. Mann, I have no time for personal attacks and neither does science. Nevertheless one can only feel empathy towards anyone trying to do a job and earn a living, such as your are doing.
You have been given an impossible task.
You have been asked to give a technical appraisal of things only someone in the category of God himself understands.
When Alfonso 10th, 13th Century king of Castille, gathered together learned astronomers to assist in navigation, he was disappointed by their inability to clarify the confusion of endless circles necessitated by the geocentric solar system. “If the Deity”, said he, “had asked my advice, these things would have been better arranged.” The science was lagging Alfonso’s thinking.
Right now, science is lagging your thinking. It requires a quantum computer, plus, to clarify the climate question. That’s standard textbook fact, no controversy. Google “WIKIPEDIA chaos theory”, and simply read down to the place where it says that climate is ‘chaos’ mathematics. Unpredictable in the long term. Even in the short term. Global temperature is one of the legion of variables involved, and although it may not be entirely ‘chaos’ mathematics, it is in that category.
Some may argue that the Devil has a hand in our weather but, avoiding such minutae, climate is the province of God alone. So says WIKIPEDIA and mathematics.
You were given mission impossible.
Do observations match theory?
Given the technical facts that beavers were playing on Ellesmere IS.,, several hundreds of miles from the Pole, approx. 2mill. yrs ago (CO2 only a whisker higher than now, if you believe boron/ocean acidity proxies) ; Waves from a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean were throwing up obviously wave-formed deposits (‘beach ridges’) north coast Greenland approx. 6,000 yrs ago (CO2 by ice-core substantially LOWER than now); fertile North Africa suddenly turned saharan desert while non-coal burning humans lived there in numbers (CO2 by ice core lower than today) —–What should an honest man say on the topic? Note, however — ice cores and ocean acidity (which boron isotopy is assumed to indicate) may not be fully reliable. So we can imagine the palaeocarbon if we wish!
By the 18th Century, after putting away of the order of 12, repeat, 12, atmospheres of pure CO2 or its equivalent into the ground and the waters, our one atmosphere contained perhaps 0.0003atm. CO2. A global emergency, a global disaster about to unfold. Carbon is a non-renewable resource. CO2 starvation, famine, ocean poisoning through alkalinity, perhaps (perhaps) global freezing .. awaited Mankind. Standard geochemistry textbooks, not imaginary.
You know, if God went to sleep, you and I would have a problem. And he gave us science. Even if it can not tell us everything, it tells us something.”
APPENDIX. I cover the scientific method and biblical implications in depth at CREATIONTHEORY dot com., Climate, especially, in the monograph, “Climate Moderation Magnetic Interaction Sun — Earth”. Note — if investigating climate: unless we get right down to basics and rely on full authority, we place ourselves on the same ground as people such as Mann. Who may have started out on solid ground, himself — if more science people were on solid ground, themselves! Climate can not be investigated without: 1) Thorough information foundation from Geology/Geophysics. 2) Likewise, from Solar Physics, and especially the magnetism angle. Solar Phenomena of course involve quantum energy transfer, etc.. 3) The Bible. The same book that tells us, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangs the Earth upon nothing”, also advises us about climate. With re-assurance. The geologic record, the facts of modern (post-blackbody) physics, and the written word of the Creator. Three witnesses, speaking one and the same message. An argument which will carry in any reasonable court of law.
Legal argument is not my field but, to me, Robert Kernodle’s comments make sense. If someone makes a public ass of himself, publishing the truth is what shows him to be in error. Mann’s ‘science’ is the everlasting monument to his near criminal negligence. If the facts speak, nothing more is needed.
Below is an e-mail I sent him. Please note the appendix, added for this current forum.
“Prof. Mann, I have no time for personal attacks and neither does science. Nevertheless one can only feel empathy towards anyone trying to do a job and earn a living, such as your are doing.
You have been given an impossible task.
You have been asked to give a technical appraisal of things only someone in the category of God himself understands.
When Alfonso 10th, 13th Century king of Castille, gathered together learned astronomers to assist in navigation, he was disappointed by their inability to clarify the confusion of endless circles necessitated by the geocentric solar system. “If the Deity”, said he, “had asked my advice, these things would have been better arranged.” The science was lagging Alfonso’s thinking.
Right now, science is lagging your thinking. It requires a quantum computer, plus, to clarify the climate question. That’s standard textbook fact, no controversy. Google “WIKIPEDIA chaos theory”, and simply read down to the place where it says that climate is ‘chaos’ mathematics. Unpredictable in the long term. Even in the short term. Global temperature is one of the legion of variables involved, and although it may not be entirely ‘chaos’ mathematics, it is in that category.
Some may argue that the Devil has a hand in our weather but, avoiding such minutae, climate is the province of God alone. So says WIKIPEDIA and mathematics.
You were given mission impossible.
Do observations match theory?
Given the technical facts that beavers were playing on Ellesmere IS.,, several hundreds of miles from the Pole, approx. 2mill. yrs ago (CO2 only a whisker higher than now, if you believe boron/ocean acidity proxies) ; Waves from a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean were throwing up obviously wave-formed deposits (‘beach ridges’) north coast Greenland approx. 6,000 yrs ago (CO2 by ice-core substantially LOWER than now); fertile North Africa suddenly turned saharan desert while non-coal burning humans lived there in numbers (CO2 by ice core lower than today) —–What should an honest man say on the topic? Note, however — ice cores and ocean acidity (which boron isotopy is assumed to indicate) may not be fully reliable. So we can imagine the palaeocarbon if we wish!
By the 18th Century, after putting away of the order of 12, repeat, 12, atmospheres of pure CO2 or its equivalent into the ground and the waters, our one atmosphere contained perhaps 0.0003atm. CO2. A global emergency, a global disaster about to unfold. Carbon is a non-renewable resource. CO2 starvation, famine, ocean poisoning through alkalinity, perhaps (perhaps) global freezing .. awaited Mankind. Standard geochemistry textbooks, not imaginary.
You know, if God went to sleep, you and I would have a problem. And he gave us science. Even if it can not tell us everything, it tells us something.”
APPENDIX. I cover the scientific method and biblical implications in depth at CREATIONTHEORY dot com., Climate, especially, in the monograph, “Climate Moderation Magnetic Interaction Sun — Earth”. Note — if investigating climate: unless we get right down to basics and rely on full authority, we place ourselves on the same ground as people such as Mann. Who may have started out on solid ground, himself — if more science people were on solid ground, themselves! Climate can not be investigated without: 1) Thorough information foundation from Geology/Geophysics. 2) Likewise, from Solar Physics, and especially the magnetism angle. Solar Phenomena of course involve quantum energy transfer, etc.. 3) The Bible. The same book that tells us, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangs the Earth upon nothing”, also advises us about climate. With re-assurance. The geologic record, the facts of modern (post-blackbody) physics, and the written word of the Creator. Three witnesses, speaking one and the same message. An argument which will carry in any reasonable court of law.
Simberg wrote
“To review, when the emails and computer models were leaked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia two and a half years ago, many of the luminaries of the “climate science” community were shown to have been behaving in a most unscientific manner. Among them were Michael Mann, Professor of Meteorology at Penn State, whom the emails revealed had been engaging in data manipulation to keep the blade on his famous hockey-stick graph, which had become an icon for those determined to reduce human carbon emissions by any means necessary.”
1. this appears to be factually wrong.
read the mails. the mails dont show that Mann manipulated data. That is ‘shown” in other places
very fine and detailed point.
I could be wrong. I will have to read the mails again… But the first 3 times reading them… you’ll not see Mann showing any data manipulation IN THE MAILS..
Also.. no computer models in the mails