UPDATE: Uh oh, looks like Mann will have to sue Investors Business Daily too, because they say that: It’s been the greatest fraud of all time, and Michael Mann has been at the heart of it.
UPDATE2: Climate Depot has an interesting editorial here
The bait. Popcorn futures just exploded.
From Michael E. Mann’s Facebook page:
People have been asking for my reaction to the recent response by the National Review. Here is a statement from my lawyer John B. Williams of Cozen O’Connor:
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The response of the National Review is telling with respect to the issues it did not address. It did not address, or even acknowledge, the fact that Dr. Mann’s research has been extensively reviewed by a number of independent parties, including the National Science Foundation, with never a suggestion of any fraud or research misconduct. It did not address, or even acknowledge, the fact that Dr. Mann’s conclusions have been replicated by no fewer than twelve independent studies. It did not deny the fact that it was aware that Dr. Mann has been repeatedly exonerated of any fraudulent conduct. It did not deny the fact that it knew its allegations of fraud were false. Rather, the National Review’s defense seems to be that it did not really mean what it said last month when it accused Dr. Mann of fraud. Beyond this, the response is little more than an invective filled personal attack on Dr. Mann. And further, this attack is coupled with the transparent threat that the National Review intends to undertake burdensome and abusive litigation tactics should Dr. Mann have the temerity to attempt to defend himself in court.
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We intend to file a lawsuit.
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Read it on Dr. Mann’s Facebook page.
Go for it Mike, we all look forward to the enlightenment of discovery!
Tom Nelson: Do NOT miss this: Look who’s representing Michael Mann
He successfully defended R.J. Reynolds in the commercial speech case filed by the Federal Trade Commission challenging the cartoon character, Joe Camel.
I think Steyn just went to COSTCO with the NRO credit card to get the industrial strength size can of whupass he’ll be opening:
I can only hope that any comments made in these pages brought M. Mann to realize that he had no choice but to bring suit- that, or have his work be known far and wide as indefensible flim- flam.
Bart says: August 23, 2012 at 5:35 pm
We face wily and unscrupulous foes who will stop at nothing to stymie and intimidate their opponents, and obfuscate the facts until lay persons, such as those who compose juries, become overwhelmed.
I strongly recommend that the involved parties anticipate that they will fight dirty, and be prepared to respond in kind to every conceivable tactic.
The one you should direct your comments to is Mann. When things get bad, and it becomes obvious he is going to loose the case, his “friends” are going to drop him like a stone.
Indeed, the final PR will be that “this loan individual was responsible for all that was wrong in climate ‘science’ …. thus proving that the rest (who are ‘undoubtedly’ whiter than white should be trusted … just look at the way none of his (former) colleagues & friends support him”.
The current administration has seen fit to spend nearly $600,000 to discover why chimps throw poop at people – I see no reason they would not fund this Mannian equivalent. 😉
From the pages of WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/25/its-libel-except-when-mike-does-it/
Minutes of Greenspin corp
Item 1. Sceptics are winning
After a presentation by ms tripe of the University of equality & feminine issues on the psychological make up of the deniers of warming, Mr S.hark of Big Oil Corp gave an overview of the success of the present advertising and social media campaign which he summarised as “God damn it, another $100million would be a waste of money”. Mr [redacted] of [redacted] gave a progress report on their attempts to infiltrate the sceptic organisation: “Initial reports were disappointing as we failed to find the organisation, or identify any individuals connected to the organisation or funding sources”. Finally, Mr Albert Einswein of the scientific Council Advising Mankind, warned against more attempts to align the data with scientific knowledge.
After a thorough discussion, a consensus formed: “They are winning, unless we can take the heat off, this whole thing is going down”, said Mr [redacted] “we’ve got to throw this dog a bone to chew on, we need someone who we can blame for everything that has gone wrong … what we need to find is someone so stupid we can persuade them to take the sceptics to court.”
Wouldn’t it absolute justice if Mann’s ego is what topples the whole entire AGW hoax? Does anyone else think that his standing even among the AGW cult due to his abrasiveness is so low that they will chuck him overboard like shark chum?
Just in case Mann does go through with this (and I highly doubt it) I hope everyone is setting aside money for donations for the possible defendants (Steyn and NRO) fund so that every stone may be unturned and every creepy, slivery, slimey vermin connected with this fiasco may be deposed. This really could be the trial of the century, if it happens.
I would like to echo what a previous commenter stated, let’s hope FOIA is soon convinced to release the password to the All.7z archive so that we can get to work examining the 220,246 files, likely including many with attachments. I predict that the day the legal papers are filed we should clear our schedules and start watching WUWT and the rest of the blogosphere for a surprise. Well, that’s what I would do if I were him.
That is very well stated and concisely illustrates one obvious criminal facet of the AGW hoax. Once the Global Warming scam got underway and grew legs from the UN ICC reports with some governments took the bait and passed some ridiculous legislation, an element of greed and graft was spwaned resulting in this crazy pump and dump Carbon Credit criminal enterprise that dwarfs anything yet seen, even from Enron. And they would have gotten away with it except for those pesky kids on the internet. Just remember how big that Carbon Credit scam would now be were it not for FOIA and the hard work of the skeptics and realists around the world.
In my opinion every single person you listed there (plus a lot more) should be waterboarded, tried, convicted and sentenced to hard labor for attempting to and sometimes successfully defrauding the taxpayers. In a perfect world they would be now cooling their heels in the pokey instead of jetting around the world on the taxpayer dime.
Another quite ludicrous case … against Tim Ball as well:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/02/04/Climate.pdf
Please note that they do NOT dispute the majority of the quotes Tim Ball claimed were from Weaver … only small isolated excerpts. And note that most of what Ball expressed was opinion and/or his recollection from first hand experience.
The whole edifice of AGW is without foundations, and relies for it’s support on a sky-hook dangling from a conceptual point in mid air called the “effective altitude of emission”.
The ‘underpinnings’ provided by illusory foundations such as the Hockey Stick and the satellite altimetry of sea level which is calibrated by bootstrapping the trend line off the theory are chimaeras which melt under the sunlight of clear analysis.
Looking at the latest missive from Mann’s attorney, I can see Mann’s own instruction behind the statement. Telling your attorney what to say is a bad idea, and I suspect the attorney knows it.
Looks to me like a Mannian rant sent to the attorney in a reply to the attorney’s advice to drop the matter rather than carefully worded lawyer-speak anyway.
I wonder if Mr Mann will take a leaf out of Lance Armstrong’s book?
Ole micky is like the guy in a field of cows. Even though he knows it is full of merde he still insists on walking through it with his eyes closed.
This suit won’t happen, sadly, because it would be a disaster for him even if he should win.
I really hope he does proceed with this, however there is no way the “machine” will want this to go ahead, the risks are too great that he could win the action, but lose the greater war for the AGW brigade. The information that would get out in court, would likely finally destroy the myth.
That being said do we really think he has the backbone to see this through? If he loses his career is over and the myth exploded. If he wins his career is over and the Myth exploded.
This is lose lose for them and they know it, I agree therefore with those that suggest he will just drag this out indefinitely he does not dare do anything else imho!
Austin says:
What Mann needs to understand is that once he bites, he will become the bait on the hook used to catch some bigger fish.
Austin, I just been going through a lot of stats about the global warming story. The facts are that the press have gone of global warming big-time – which means are fed up with stories pushing global – without realising there is a goldmine of news stories on the sceptic side.
What we needed was something to liven up the debate, something to start the press digging into the scandal, something that would make global warming interesting to the press … but this time interested in the scandal, not just churning out alarmist press releases.
Even if Mann won … which is a very long shot given the nature of the case … but even if he won, it would show the media how many people are interested in the scandal. Interest = more copies = more money and the media will not stop at Mann once they realise that the public have a taste to hear the scandals behind global warming.
Mann will be the trigger to bring in a whole new breed of journalists, real journalists who aren’t sympathetic to Mann who aren’t the pussy footing fluffy-ecos who won’t believe the endemic corruption and scandals behind the public facade of “catastrophic” global warming
… and in the seventh round, Mann, perhaps growing tired of all the sparring, dropped his left hand…
“[…] It did not address, or even acknowledge, the fact that Dr. Mann’s conclusions have been replicated by no fewer than twelve independent studies. […]”
I didn’t know there were twelve other studies that used upsidedown data.
Who is paying Mann’s lawyer’s costs? Must be astronomical.
How could IBD make such an amateurish mistake?
According to IBD
“I’ve just completed Mike’s nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline (in global temperatures),” the email read.
It was the decline in the paleo reconstruction that was hidden by Mann, not a decline in “global temperatures”.
Is there not any adult supervision at IBD?
IBD is not helping the Truth Seekers with this basic error in their understanding of what actually was done by Mann and The Team.
I’ve left the almost the same comment over at the IBD link.
I suggest all Truth Seekers point out to IBD the fundamental mistake that they have made in explaining what the Hockey Stick sham is all about!
Friends:
Michael Mann says he is going to sue NRO.
He won’t do it. He will continue to bluster. And his sycophants will continue to say, “See how brave he is to take on Big Oil”.
But he won’t do it because other members of the Team will ‘put the lever’ on him to stop him doing it. If he did it then they would go down with him.
Many want him to do it. Some, including me, would provide money towards his legal costs if that would encourage him to do it.
And, in this thread there is much rejoicing at the thought of his doing it. But, sadly, the rejoicing is merely wishful thinking.
Richard
When is Lord Monckton going to carry out his planned litigation against the warmists?
One litigates based on what is charged. Until then all that’s on the table are dueling public letters from lawyers presenting their best shined up statements.
Since it’s entertaining to speculate, suppose Mann files suit and in a US court and suppose further the issue of fraud becomes central to the case. Not only would Mann’s records, et al, be subject to discovery, but all those “reviewers” and publications and even PSU would be asked to explain their analysis, reviews, etc. I don’t think they’ll go for what is implied in Mann’s lawyer letter since it would bring in the very issue of conspiracy and incompetents and all that. Rather, they may try to limit the case to sex offender-coverup extended to Mann. Meaning the narrower they can craft the plaintiff’s complaint, the better chance they have. Then it’s just a few folks, called judge(s), that set the limits. Limiting “abusive” discovery is a herring but predicated on a vast narrowing of the scope of the case. Plus, they’ll try to muzzle the defendents under a gag order.
Regardless, it will be very expensive.
Just for the causual reader: Black’s Law Dictionary, “Fraud consists of some deceitful practice or willful device, resorted to with intent to deprive another of his right, or in some manner to do him an injury.” The study that showed whatever you put in, you get a stick could be a “device” while the careful “nature trick” could be a “practice”. But, again, it’ll be a fight to pursue this viz the complaint.
While one is speculating, Mann has called lots and lots of folks various names, etc. It WOULD be fun to see all of them petition to join a counter suit, or even an original suit, against him for the same reasons. Folks with big pockets such as all the energy companies, starving third world nations eating dirt instead of corn that’s a result of the practice and device, etc. Why, just think of your electric bill. My power company has been increasing prices based on the rules promulgated as a result of the CO2 climategate folks. How about a class action suit on behalf of all consumers to recover damages from these folks? Include Mann, Hanson, Gore, all those NGOs, the UN, et al.
Since, as some pointed out, they would simply have filed at this point, there’s a strong indication the purpose of all this is to just “chill” all the others in the “deniers” tribe with litigation. A useful tactic. It’s rare for frivilous suits to be anything other than costly to the parties meaning few plaintiffs are sanctioned by the courts and forced to pay. So, a couple hundred dollars to file a suit then withdraw is not a bad PR strategery.
One caution. A lot of the “fraud” was in the way it was pushed and whooped up beyond what even Mann claimed for it. We tend to think of that over-reaching as a major part of “Mann’s fraud,” but I think Mann could disassociate himself with it in court. He’s already said recently that too much was made of it. (It would have been better if he’d said so earlier!)
Costs are mounting up as we speak, like a hockey schtick even ?
looks like Mann will have to sue Investors Business Daily
Hmmmm. They say The [Hockey Stick] graph relied on data from trees on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Here too the data were carefully selected. Data from just 12 trees from the 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set were used.
Which would be quite a feat as the Yamal chronology was not published until 3 years after the hockey stick. In fact no Yamal chronology appears anywhere in the MBH studies.
So the Investor’s Business Daily is levelling the serious and defamatory allegation of fraud while getting basic, fundamental, easily-checked details of their ‘evidence’ 100% wrong!
I don’t suppose Mann will bother with this, as the source clearly has no integrity or credibility, but it would have been interesting to see IBD defend this level of ‘journalism’. I wonder if the NRO are better prepared?
Mr. Mann may not realize it, but some of his past (and current) statements on his whitewash may come back to haunt him. Specifically the fact that he was not given complete exoneration. The committee reviewing his work ignored the most egregarious charges against him. Considering the problems Penn State is having now, that can’t help him at all if it is shown that the president of the college interfered in the review process.
Also, I believe that he made at least one arguably false statement (and keeps making it) about giving data in Excel format.
Considering how hard he is fighting the Virginia FOIA case, I’m thinking that there probably is fire where I’m smelling smoke.
Also, I suspect that discovery will cover ALL of his work (including VA.), not just Penn state.
Sweet.
Richard
So in effect, in order to properly air this matter it would be useful if WUWT could set up a Michael Mann defence fund. What delicious irony that would be.
tonyb
jayhd says:
August 23, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Mann’s lawyer will have fun when it comes to interrogating the numerous people who have found Mann’s work wanting. And the NRO/Steyn lawyers will have a field day with the emails of Mann’s cronies. This will be theater worth watching. And a question for all you better versed in the law than I am, what happens to Mann’s lawsuit if he stalls turning over requested documents?
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As I believe he is doing in his case against Tim Ball.
Loving this 🙂