Mann has filed suit against NRO (now the laughing begins)

brooksie, don’t insult autistic people. Autistic people are geniuses compared to you, And your buddy mann.

Unknownknowns, this is the part I found more interesting:
Eventually, the Chairman of the IPCC sent an e-mail to all of us who had worked on the reports, explaining that we really couldn’t claim that we had won the Nobel Prize, only that we had contributed to the IPCC’s winning the prize. And, by the way, the prize money was going to an education fund for climate change researchers in developing countries. We weren’t going to get any of it.

Alison Frankel weighs in on the SLAPP issue:
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Famed scientist sues National Review for libel. Brace for SLAPP
The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals is right now receiving briefs on an interesting question: Does Washington’s 2010 law against so-called SLAPP suits (otherwise known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) apply to libel and defamation claims in federal court or only to cases brought in Superior Court for the District of Columbia? Two U.S. district judges in Washington have denied defendants’ motions to assert the anti-SLAPP statute, which holds that in cases arising out of speech on matters of public interest, alleged victims must be able to show that they’re likely to succeed on the merits of their claim. The law, in effect, shifts the way courts decide motions to dismiss, doing away with the assumption that the plaintiffs’ allegations are true. It also restricts discovery, so plaintiffs usually have to show they’re likely to prevail without the benefit of depositions and documents from the other side.
Washington’s law is similar to those in more than two dozen other states, and the combined impact of the anti-SLAPP statutes, according to media lawyer Laura Handman of Davis Wright Tremaine, has been to reduce the burden of libel defense enormously.
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Full article here: http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/New_York/News/2012/10_-_October/Famed_scientist_sues_National_Review_for_libel__Brace_for_SLAPP/

Verity Jones on October 28, 2012 at 3:53 am
TBear,
are you by chance a relative of Eli Rabbet, who also insists in referring to himself in the third person?

– – – – – –
Verity Jones,
There is a name in the study of grammar for people like TBear and Josh Halpern (Eli Rabbet) who habitually refer to themselves in live dialog and prose in the 3rd person.

illeism
By Richard Nordquist, About.com Guide
Definition [of illeism]:
The act of referring to oneself (often habitually) in the third person.
Someone who practices illeism is (among other things) an illeist. Adjective: illeistic.

There quite a literature on why a person would habitually refer to themselves in the 3rd person when engaged in live dialog; most of it is negatively critical of the practice in direct live dialog (like blogs).
In the case of TBear and Josh Halpern (Eli Rabbet), it appears to me that they do it because it is just their self-styled cutesy device; them seeking that extra attention to themselves seems to me to make them feel more ‘special’ than others in a dialog. I have run across it in raising small children.
It is also of note that most fiction is written in the 3rd person.
Also of note is that using 3rd person comes across in adult live dialog as condescending/ insulting to the others participating in the dialog. Surely, TBear and Josh Halpern won’t practice 3rd person here for that petty reason? Right you two guys and/or girls?
It might be a humorous best practice going forward to call them ‘illeistic Eli’ and ‘TBear the illeist’
: )
John

boston12gs said: “TBear may well be an experienced trial lawyer in Australia, who knows. Based on my 20+ years as a practi[s]ing lawyer in the United States, however, TBear’s comments regarding the anticipated legal process and outcomes of the Mann case are nothing short of total nonsense.”
Just to add my own ha’penny’s worth from the UK: if TBear were a trial lawyer from Oz (though they don’t describe themselves as such – they are all solicitors there) he would know that discovery is simply automatic in civil suits in jurisdictions derived directly from UK law. For example, in the UK itself once pleadings are closed the parties must give “standard disclosure” of all non-privileged documents relevant to the issues in the case, now under Civil Procedure Rule 31.6 as at the link below:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules3/civil/rules/part31#IDAZLSBB
The UK test is just (a) is the document material to any issue in the case and (b) has the party had the document in his/her/its possession or power. If so it must be disclosed, save only where it subject to *litigation* privilege – effectively legal professional privilege under the case itself, or communications with witnesses or potential witnesses in the case (there is no such thing as “academic privilege”).

I wonder what Penn State professor Dr. Donald Brown (he of anthropogenic global warming ethics fame) has to say about Dr. Mann’s “Nobel Peace Prize recipient” ethics. Has anyone read anything written by Dr. Brown on this subject?
As I see it, Penn State has been handed a golden opportunity to distance itself from the burgeoning fiasco that is Dr. Michael Mann. They now have the opportunity to in essence say:
In the spirit of our new openness and our desire to identify and eradicate internal unethical behavior, and in light of the fact that Dr. Michael Mann, a member of our staff, has allegedly misrepresented his credentials, we are employing an independent investigator to look into (a) claims that Dr. Mann has misrepresented his credentials (if true, an offense we take seriously at Penn State) and (b) both Dr. Mann’s behavior in the Climategate affair and our internal investigation of that affair that exonerated Dr. Mann of serious wrongdoing.
If Penn State can’t see and take advantage of this opportunity, then I foresee a dark future for Penn State.

boston12gs says: October 28, 2012 at 9:40 am
Furthermore, contrary to what some others have posted, the fact that Mann managed to find a law firm willing to file the suit says absolutely nothing about its prospects for success. Much of the American legal profession is built around bringing suits that have little prospect of winning (and quite profitably so). Finally, all the nonsense about the prospects of the trial judge “denying discovery” is just that–nonsense. Discovery is a central tenet of civil litigation in the US, and proceeding to trial without discovery would be all but unimaginable to an American court.
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Thank you. I have been assuming Mann’s lawyers are not stupid and I have been concerned that this trial is really about restricting access to Mann & Co’s underlying “science”. I now see an alternate plausible explanation: That Mann’s lawyers are not stupid, but that Mann is, and they are willing to take his money. On the other hand, he will win if it gets too expensive for the defendants.

Next stage: claims of death threats.

I’ve never been an actual party to a lawsuit, but have been assigned to help answer discovery by my employers. It is no fun, believe me. The demands are written in legalese that are both general so as to encompass pretty much every type of documentation and specific so that you can’t exclude things and claim ignorance. Claims that discovery won’t be allowed or will be extremely limited seem pretty laughable to me.
Presumably, things are designed to prevent specious lawsuits that rely on a fishing expedition for evidence of anything that might substantiate a claim. I would guess that happens when a judge decides whether or not to let a case move forward. Once the discovery stage is reached, however, the only argument you can make for not producing what is asked for (in my limited experience) are those things that don’t actually exist or that would be too burdensome to produce. Either of those circumstances must be documented and “attested to”, meaning you’d better be telling the truth.
My non-lawyer view is that Dr. Mann will have a much more difficult time finding evidence of maliciousness that rises to the level of libel than the defendants will in finding evidence that CAGW isn’t the slam-dunk that the warmists have claimed in their public utterances. That really is all that their article is claiming through all the journalistic hyperbole.
Tim C. earlier said “…. the UK test is just (a) is the document material to any issue in the case and (b) has the party had the document in his/her/its possession or power. If so it must be disclosed, save only where it subject to *litigation* privilege – effectively legal professional privilege under the case itself, or communications with witnesses or potential witnesses in the case (there is no such thing as “academic privilege”).” I’d have to say the exact same is true here in the states.
Dan in Nevada says grrr from Nevada…. no, that didn’t feel good.