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
Well. Shucks. My encouraging words only lasted about ten minutes on there before Mann canned them. Maybe I shouldnt have said “Discovery should be entertaining” or maybe it was the snarky ‘heh’ in closing.
Must control myself.. At any rate Mann notes:
“….just cleaned a half dozen trolls from this thread. got to wonder who is sending them this way 😉 ”
Rats.. the jig is up!
If Mark Steyn gets taken to court by Michael Mann, it’s going to be highly entertaining. During Mr. Steyn’s Canadian ‘hate speech’ case, his regular updates of the goings-on in the case were delightfully snarky. Mr. Mann had better do a little research into Mr. Steyn… he is a brilliant writer and will make Mr. Mann look like a chump on a regular basis. And then there’s the discovery… on second thought, Mr. Mann, please do it!
It appears that someone is unhappy with the content of the Wikipedia: “The Streisand effect” as it is up for “being considered for deletion.” It’s been a few years since I was in Malibu- a lovely place with a year round climate that has almost no need for heating or cooling (HVAC). Those 5 chimneys so prominently featured on Ms Streisand’s home must only be used to provide ambiance for the home vs. making it habitable for living.
I wonder if the designer of the home had the foresight to have the second story rooms tie into the first story fireplaces flues. If recollection severs me this is how the designers of the mansions, ex- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Hywet , designed homes for the the wealthy back in the early 1900’s.
…….hard.
I’m really not sure why this particular article caused Mann to draw his line in the sand.
The National Review article by Mark Steyn points to, and reiterates, but doesn’t particularly add to, an openmarket.org article by Rand Simberg. Simberg, in turn, points to several sources including a climatedepot.com article by Marc Morano. There are lots of people and organizations that Mann should be threatening or actually suing. Again, my question is: Why this particular article?
While I was connecting the dots, it occurred to me to wonder how Mann’s action against Tim Ball was going. John O’Sullivan has an article (link) which covers the same material as the National Review article, but more thoroughly. He speculates that things are going poorly for Mann in his suit against Tim Ball and further speculates that Mann will go to jail as a result. He points to a Wall Street Journal article (link). (That article is behind a paywall so I can’t confirm that O’Sullivan is interpreting it correctly.) The lawsuit will require that Mann file documents, that he would not like to be public, with the court. If only for that, it is important that Tim Ball should have the wherewithall to defend himself. Here’s a link to Tim’s website: link
Earlier today, I was reading an article about the Penn State decision to remove the campus memorial statue of Paterno. Immediately observing the scientific principle on how nature abhors a vacuum, the question of how long it might take for Mann and/or his cronies to lobby for a replacement statue of Mann to commemorate his rainmaker grants for Penn State came to mind in a flash. Nah…they wouldn’t, would they?
REPLY: … “If he didn’t want anyone to bring attention to it, and he truly was libeled by it, he certainly didn’t help his case by digitally zapping his announcement (with a link to the article he’s claiming is libelous) into cyberspace for the world to read. That’s a mistake on his part I think. – Anthony”
You (Anthony) have a valid point. I am not a lawyer, but I can comment as what I would think if I were on a jury in the case. If Mann truly considered the statements Libelous he should have silently taken the case to court. By making his proclamation and advertising the article, Mann has greatly contributed to spreading what he wants to claim is Libel. One could argue, Mann was seeking publicity and used controversy. As such, I would have a very hard time finding in favor of Mann.
Read & PDF’ed. Mann just can’t leave well enough alone.
So long as National Review doesn’t get any cold feet I think that Michael Mann will discover that Mark Steyn is a brilliant lion who is going to have the zebra Mann wailing and flailing in pitiful desperation on the Serengeti.
Mann on Mann offense, see twit on the hour….
There is also the Mecha-Streisand effect. Just watch 10 seconds or so. The resemblance is uncanny. They must be related.
JamesS says:
July 20, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Steyn is no shoot-from-the-hip blogger who types faster than he thinks. He knows that if Mann comes after him, he’ll drag the whole shebang into open court, where Mann won’t get the kid glove treatment he got from Penn State.
I don’t believe Mann thought this one through by half, and he doesn’t do outraged innocence well (outrage, yeah; outraged innocence, noooo). Look for future tweetzenpostings hinting that Steyn is a PR guy for “Canadian Tar Sands” — unless his lawyer has already told him to keep his fingers away from the keyboard…
Indeed, you have to ask where is the legally required mitigation of damages when Mann explodes the incident into the widest possible publicity?
Mann needs to know how to pick his battles. His battle should be with the original author, not Steyn. – Anthony
Mann is fully backed by a duplicitous mainstream media, all governments interested in further taxation, billions of tax dollars dedicated to extend said taxation, their appointed judges and the reputations of every ‘scientist’, ‘scientific organization’ and politician who signed on to this scam in the first place in the interest of pure self preservation, promotion and power.
How many suits is he involved with already? I seriously doubt Mann is concerned about funds or fallout in what amounts to a microscopic proportion of public awareness (20% Americans think the Sun rotates the Earth and 40% of the remainder do not know that it takes a year for the Earth to rotate the Sun but they do have the right to vote).
With that said, I do have tremendous respect for you, Anthony, and so many others in this relatively small circle, just not the funds to support you folks as you should be- and it’s a travesty.
Simberg makes a valid point but his language is way too strong. Steyn admits as much when he says “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into…”
The language uses metaphor. I very much doubt that Mann has a case for defamation.
X is the Y of Z is a common construct.
There is even a blog dedicated to collecting them:
http://rosaparksofblogs.blogspot.co.uk/
Here are some recent examples:
The Winston Churchill of diplomatic sexy time
The King Kong Bundy of electoral politics
The Burt Reynolds of hippies
The Stan Lee of the ancient world
The Marie Antoinette of transit spokespeople
The Vlade Divac of space
The George Costanza of library associations in the…
The Robert Altman movie of comics
The Kal-El of sperm
The Walter White of cookies and cakes
The Shaun White of dark alley neck stabbing
The Batman and Robin of owner’s suite egomania
The Vic Mackey of French child services
The Jenna Maroney of rap music
The LeBron of musical chairs
Inserting “could be said to be” distances the writer even more.
The two words used in relation to data are too vague and no-where near as specific as, for example, “falsifying”.
I don’t usually miss a Steyn article, but I missed that one. Thanks, Dr. Mann!
Mann: “I have retained counsel to pursue my legal rights”
Meaningless. Mann’s attorney could right now be snickering at Mann, while counting $2,000.00 for legal advice that amounted to: “You got nothing”.
And Mann will cover leagal costs by selling these
http://www.mwahproducts.com.au/thumbnaillarge/l_PD8628-00.png
poor Mann. he has no choice but to keep up the charade for the sake of the carbon cowboys –
20 July: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: EU Commission to publish ETS rescue plan next week
(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Coelho in London and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Editing by Luke Baker and David Goodman)
It has decided on a two-step process to reinforce the legality of what is meant to be a relatively quick fix to the market’s weakness…
At a meeting on July 25, the EU’s executive will adopt a proposal clarifying an article of the ETS law on the timing of auctions of permits.
Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said the Commission would also “transmit to member states a draft for a future adaptation of the timing when emissions allowances would be auctioned”.
She added that all interested parties would be able to express their views on the proposal for the delaying of carbon allowance auctions, referred to as backloading.
The Commission would not say how long the process will take, but EU sources said that it hopes the use of a streamlined EU procedure — known as comitology — for the backloading proposal will allow it to be completed within months. Other methods of passing EU legislation can take substantially longer…
Fears about a delay to the Commission’s effort to support the carbon market pushed it down to a low of 6.67 euros per tonne on Thursday. On Friday it rose by about 4 percent to more than 7 euros, but this is still far below the level of 20 to 50 euros that analysts say is necessary to support low-carbon investment…
Most member states are also said to back the idea of a fix, and an Energy Efficiency Directive agreed in June was accompanied by a declaration of intent that there was a need to support the carbon market.
***Poland, however, which is heavily dependent on carbon-intensive coal, has said there is no justification for meddling. It says that the ETS was set up to cut emissions, rather than establish a carbon price, and that a weak market is helpful in difficult economic times.
From the business sector, oil and gas companies including Royal Dutch Shell have called for intervention because carbon prices are too low to drive technologies, such as carbon capture and storage…
Heavy industry is resistant to intervention and some have questioned the legality of the Commission’s proposal; doubts that the legal clarification is designed to quash.
Even if the Commission succeeds with its proposal to delay the auction of some permits, many analysts say that the real need is to remove allowances permanently, which would require a much more detailed EU process.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/20/uk-eu-ets-idUKBRE86J11L20120720
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We schlep, schlep, have formally demanded a [snip] of, and [snip] [snip]of [snippity snip] #yourdaddypennstatefootball #shutupandtakeit
I predict that well before this defamation suit goes to court, EPA will have made plenty of threats to scientists to yank their grants and kill their careers if they testify for the defense.
Let us make as public as possible the names of those who make the threats, and of anybody who knuckles under.
In order to avoid getting snipped – I understand Anthony doesn’t want the legal hassle – I’ll resist the temptation to rewrite some of what Steyn wrote using a common UK/Australian term that is generally used to refer to someone making a hash of something, largely through incompetence, but also has a meaning appropriate to the Sandusky case.
Graham Spanier, disgraced ex-Penn State president, epitomized NCAA hypocrisy
Here’s the article I quoted from above, but failed to link to. It is very interesting.
elftone says: “…To quote the late…Frank Zappa: ‘In a petulant frenzy! (A petulant frenzy, this is a petulant frenzy. I’m petulant, and I’m having a frenzy)'”
Or perhaps a rit of fealous jage.
And here’s the crux of the matter, the raison d’être for the whitewashing of both Mannian academics and Sanduskian jocks:
Actung! Achtung! Mann is predicting there was a Medieval Warming Period.