https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/267470906700950
Now that Dr. Mann has drawn attention to it, even more people will want to read the National Review article “Football and Hockey” to find out what he’s so upset about. I didn’t even know about this article until Mann tweeted this demand announcement today. This announcement on Twitter Facebook is probably a bad move on Dr. Mann’s part. Here’s why:
From Wikipedia: The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.
Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters, to suppress numbers, files and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.
Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the term after Streisand, citing privacy violations, unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs. Adelman said that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the government sanctioned and commissioned California Coastal Records Project. Before Streisand filed her lawsuit, “Image 3850” had been downloaded from Adelman’s website only six times; two of those downloads were by Streisand’s attorneys. As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.
You’d think after his botched attempt to get this video removed, Dr. Mann would have learned that lesson. For the record, I don’t agree with the article Steyn cites in the National Review, but I think Dr. Mann’s effort to get it removed will backfire on him.
h/t to Tom Nelson
UPDATE:
Letter from Dr. Mann’s lawyers to the National Review in three parts:
http://s14.postimage.org/7yv69pk9t/599812_401767993212742_781065817_n.jpg
http://s8.postimage.org/m9zsep2ol/531607_401768043212737_603000984_n.jpg
http://s13.postimage.org/n2q0sgihz/205403_401768099879398_275428058_n.jpg
Scanned images posted by Dr. Mann to his public FaceBook site. h/t to reader “Typhoon”.
NOTE TO COMMENTERS AND MODERATORS: I’m going to have a low tolerance for any comments that excerpt parts of the article, as well as other sorts of over the top comments – please be on your best behavior or such comments will be snipped/deleted – Anthony
End the football program at PSU along with the tainted climate research program.
Isn’t the “hockey stick” an actual fraud though? Wasn’t the instrumental record tacked onto the proxy results because they took a big dip at the end of the series while the instruments showed the rise? isn’t that the meaning of “hide the decline”? I write under possibility of correction, of course.
Perhaps in the Ivory Tower such things are just overlooked and not spoken of again; however, if true, it is academic fraud, and should be called out just as Piltdown Man was.
I find it hard to believe that Steyn didn’t think long and deeply about what he was writing in that post, given the inflammable nature of the case and the original article’s insinuation. I’d bet that legal at NR had a long talk with Steyn before that went out onto the blog, and that the ducks are already in a row.
Time will tell.
Another apologist for Mann (AGU):
Climate Expert Dr. Michael Mann Plans Libel Suit Against The National Review
http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2012/07/22/slandering-someone-because-of-their-scientific-findings-can-be-very-costly/
OK S,
Your link to Michael Mann’s apologist shows that they do not understand the issue: Mann’s original hokey stick chart was thoroughly falsified by McIntyre & McKittrick. McIntyre also destroyed Mann08, in which the devious Michael Mann used a known corrupted proxy [Tiljander] to construct yet another fake hockey stick chart. Mann has much ‘splainin’ to do.
JoNova wrote an article covering the basics of Mann’s original deception here.
IMHO, the National Review should give Mann’s lawyers the same reply that was given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram.
ThinkingScientist says:
July 21, 2012 at 9:42 am
“How can an academic like Dr Michael Mann afford to have what would appear to amount to continual legal representation? This is not the first time that he has said his legal people are dealing with it. Who pays for his lawyers?”
Good question. From his attorney’s CV:
He represented G. Gordon Liddy in his 10-year lawsuit against John W. Dean and Ida Maxie Wells arising from Liddy’s endorsement of a revisionist theory of Watergate.
Ten years of billing clients, in one case! Someone has very deep pockets, because Michael Mann would never write an open-ended check over such a weak case. What do lawyers cost these days? $400 an hour and up?
I smell a Grantham or a Soros, protecting their pseudo-science narrative. It takes big bucks to keep the lie going.
So if Jo Nova’s blog called the Hockey Stick “a fraud,” “how brazen a fraud,” and “an audacious fraud,” in 2009, how come Mann is just now so upset as to threaten a lawsuit for what didn’t seem defamatory three years ago?
JamesS
To take a wild guess, it is convenient for this Soros-puppet of RealClimate and Fenton Communications to take on a leading US conservative publication and make it a politicized issue. He and his allies and rouse the troops, raise funds, maybe not even do anything much on the legal front, who knows? But it is very useful to “the cause” whereas going after a blogger in Oz would not be so exciting to him and his minions.
Skiphil: yes, and it also serves to warn other publications that they could face similar proceedings. He’s trying to intimidate everyone who might say such things. Witness Anthony’s nervousness at the beginning of this thread.
He keeps making the same mistake. His threatening to sue over the ‘Hide The Decline’ video, totally backfired.
The last time Mark Steyn was sued, it led to the destruction of the entire Canadian Human Rights Council charade.
No such luck:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-23/penn-state-is-fined-60-million-avoids-football-death-penalty-.html
klem says:
July 22, 2012 at 11:34 am
But I think he overdid it with this short article in the National Review.
Nah, he didn’t even break a sweat writing it — and he took the proper tone, stating that he disagreed with Simberg’s metaphor while agreeing with his point.
theduke</b? says:
July 22, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Skiphil: yes, and it also serves to warn other publications that they could face similar proceedings.
One good counter to that would be keeping a spotlight on the less-than-stellar results — for him — of Mann’s litigations thus far.
He’s trying to intimidate everyone who might say such things. Witness Anthony’s nervousness at the beginning of this thread.
Indeed. I am fearful that a fit of trembling may o’erwhelm him as he’s schlepping those panels up the ladder!
For some reason it seems Canucks have often gotten under Mikey’s skin ?
hmmm Steve McIntyre, Tim Ball, Mark Steyn….. maybe Mikie Mann feels like he’s at war with Canada … ?? Hope he doesn’t try to get the US govt involved….
Smokey says: @ur momisugly July 22, 2012 at 6:21 pm
….Ten years of billing clients, in one case! Someone has very deep pockets, because Michael Mann would never write an open-ended check over such a weak case. What do lawyers cost these days? $400 an hour and up?
_____________________________
The $300 to $400/hour is for a run of the mill lawyer and they charge by ten minute increments, so yes some one has VERY DEEP pockets.
Most lawyers would look at this and tell you not to waste your money.
elmer says:
July 23, 2012 at 7:18 am
He keeps making the same mistake. His threatening to sue over the ‘Hide The Decline’ video, totally backfired.
___________________________
Yes it did and I love that video. Thank you elmer.
Nearly 270 comments is a statement in and of itself.
The most disheartening (for me) of the actions of Michael Mann and is closely associated colleagues is that everything they do seems to be done for their own recognition and not for the benefit of the entire population of the earth.
Regardless of whatever the degree of AGW may be scientists with integrity would have sought out the expertise of the likes of Steve McIntyre. Their actions to me make them seem small and child like. I have seen people of very small acclaim in life whose character would stand tall above ‘the team’.
One sad outcome is that the general public may eventually be much less willing to believe the scientific community.
Bishop Hill tweets a link to one of Michael Mann’s more vicious and dishonest Climategate emails, where he is nastily attacking Steve McIntyre for exposing his ineptitude (don’t miss the email at link):
Bishop Hill @aDissentient
@robinince Mind you, Mann does a pretty mean ad-hom attack himself. http://www.di2.nu/foia/1104855751.txt …
The question of who pays for Michael Mann’s lawyers is a good one and makes me wonder if there is something else going on….like maybe Mann is actually hurting for cash. The lawyer’s letter is obviously a bluff and is not going anywhere. However, taking this step might get Mann a bunch of airtime and facetime and the publicity might actually be beneficial to him i.e. What I’m saying is that all this is a perverted scheme to sells some books. National Review will call the bluff, Mann has no intention to actually pursue any of this further anyway and so the legal part of this dies. In the meantime, for a few thousand dollars, he might have accomplished a goal of convincing some people to wander into a bookstore.
Thisisnotgoodtogo: Mann pursues actions against Canadians because plaintiffs have it easier there than in the US. Discovery here would kill him.
Mark
V Martin
I seriously doubt that Mann pays anything toward legal fees. The Real Climate website was founded by Soros-backed Fenton Communications, lurking in the background while climate scientists act as the public face. It is highly likely that some Soros entity or affiliate simply writes checks for anything Mann wants/needs in the legal dept, so long as they still consider him useful.
Data being Mannipulated? No don’t say it isn’t so.
V.Martin: Who pays? Let me surmise: The Nature Conservancy. Some Sierra Club agency. Moore, Hewlett, Packard, Pugh, Tides etc. Pity we can’t FOI his personal tax returns.
1. This article is not “about me” as Mann says, the topic is the endemic coverups at Penn State. This is a serious problem that needs exposure. By complaining about how he is being represented, Mann is in a round about way trying to protect himself.
2. There is nothing at all incorrect in the National Review article: note, no lines quoted anywhere. They are all accurate and humorous too. Show me a bad line.
3. The Corner is a how-to on writing a brief, humorous anecdote.
4. So please, quote me something from this very brief humorous brief: Where is there any false statement? No false statement means no defamation. Period.