With each passing day, Dr. Mann’s Q score becomes stranger and stranger. Mark Steyn (whom Dr. Mann is suing for libel) observes an emergent phenomenon – Mann’s accidental emergence into the public stage in a post facto sort of way.
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Steyn writes:
National Review and I have a court date next month for Big Climate honcho Michael Mann’s defamation suit against us for hooting at his hockey stick. I gather that, in America, the crucial point of law is that it’s very difficult to defame a public figure, as Jerry Falwell and many others have discovered. So I was interested to note this recent verbal tic from Dr. Mann. From the May 8th Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia:
“I’ll often characterize myself as a reluctant and accidental public figure,” he said.
He’s right! I had no idea how often he does characterize himself as a reluctant and accidental public figure. Here he is on May 1st at the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association:
Mann called himself “a reluctant and accidental public figure in the debate over climate change.”
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Here’s more context:
The Daily Press reports:
More than a year removed from that controversy and with a book on climate change now under his belt, Mann reflected on the experience in an interview before his speaking engagements.
“I’ll often characterize myself as a reluctant and accidental public figure,” he said. “I found myself at the center of this debate because of the efforts of some to discredit my science, and I had to make a decision. What am I going to do with that?”
You can read the entire Steyn essay here, and note just how many times that phrase is being used by Dr. Mann. Clearly, an emergent phenomenon.
In other news, Junkscience.com is running a series of Dr. Mann’s interviews with the press, to illustrate just what a liar shrinking violet he is about his public persona, trying to manipulate the outcome of his defamation lawsuit by pretending to be something that he is not.
Read the whole series here
UPDATE: Commenter “copner” points out Mann’s Facebook page has already made the decision for Dr. Mann. He can stop backpedaling now:
Janice Moore says:
May 8, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Actually, I read both with delight! (Ok, I’m probably a bit odd…)(Mann, if he read it, probably not so much delight). You might do him a favor, as Donald Trump to Jodi Arias, and Tweet him to make a deal…! On the evidence, he’d be silly not to take your advice!
“I’ll tell thee Watt, McIntyre: a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my hubris. Dost thou think I care for facts or accurate diagrams? No. If a Mann will be beaten with brains, ‘a shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do propose a hockeystick, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against cooling; for Mann is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.”
—Much ado about hockeysticks
(I was tempted to play with Dogberry in Act III Scene V, but I think I’ve committed enough sacrilege for one night. “…but truly, for my own part, if i were as odious as Al Gore, I could find it in my heart to bestow all my hockeysticks of your worship.”)
“Why, Mann, he doth bestride the narrow world (of Warmist Climate “science”) like a colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge hockeysticks, and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable evidence of cooling. Men at some time are masters of other’s fates (as when they collude to exclude scientific papers from publication): the fault, dear Skeptics, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. “Warmists” and “Deniers”, what should be in that “Warmists”? Why should Warmists be sounded more than Skeptics?
Write them together: yours is as fair a theory. Sound them: it doth become the mouth as well. Weigh them: it is as heavy. Conjure with ’em; Skeptic will start a spirit as soon as ‘Warmist’. Now, in the names of all the Climate Computer Models at once, upon what meat doth this our Warmist feed, that he is grown so great (and goatee’d)? Age, thou art sham’d! Science, thou has lost the breed of noble scientists! When went there by an age, since the first IPCC Summary for Policymakers, but it was fam’d with more than with one Mann? When could they say, till now, that talk’d of Climate, that her computer models and hockeystick diagrams encompass’d but one Mann?
Now is it skepticalscience.com indeed, and room enough, when there is in it but one only Mann.
O! you and I have heard our colleagues say there was a Warmist once who would have brook’d th’ eternal devil to keep his hockeystick in the public eye as accidentally as a king.”
–Deepest apologies to The Bard for defacing Much Ado and Julius Caesar, but it was in a good cause…
Bravo! Bravo! O MIghty P at Dolan. Encore! WELL DONE! Personally, I think the Bard was smiling as he peered over your shoulder while you wrote that. Didn’t you hear him chuckle? You thought it was the rustling of the wind in the trees… .
Thanks very much for letting me know that SOMEONE read (and with pleasure, even!) my attempt above.
“Here come de judge”. And that is the problem, facts aside, a judge with a bias or lack of understanding can make judgements none of us can understand from a “factual” basis. It’s often a roll of the dice when you get into court.
Another statement that is absolutely baffling.
‘reluctant’ You mean Mann has said ‘no to participating in public events and some poor sucker had to convince Manniacal to be public? Odd, I don’t remember any examples of Manny baby’s reluctance start public brouhahas in the climategate stuff.
The only place I can think that the Mann prat is reluctant is when he is asked to debate a qualified expert in public. Of course his reluctance is more a duck and cover evasion.
‘accidental’ is a real puzzler, just how did the climate debate accidentally run him over? Somehow his accidental reference is akin to things like ‘accidentally pregnant’, ‘accidental suicide’, ‘accidentally drunk’ or when egoMann ‘accidentally used Tiljander upside down’ and then ignored calls for him to retract and correct.
Sure, regressed Mann can make all of the public announcements he wants about how reluctant and accidental he is. Trouble is, not only has oxymoron Mann been loudly hogging the spotlight every chance he got; but he has been referred to as the ‘Prima donna’ of climate faithologists for a decade. A ‘nom de climate’ that I don’t believe he ever tried to discourage.
Of course, there is always the chance that Lewpy will help fecal Mann prove via pseudo psychology that Mann reluctantly and accidentally sued Steyn and NRO for libel; not to forget suing several others previously.
The IPCC made Michael Mann a public figure when they promoted his hockey stick at all their press conferences as the icon of global warming – proof positive the world was going to end because of CO2. Mann was basically a recent grad when the IPCC turned him into a climate science rock star. Success that comes too early in life can go to one’s head.
especially when it’s undeserved success.
In Europe Mann’s PR machine is also busily at work. Major newspapers have recently feautured him as the innocent victim of an “oil industry / Koch Bros.) campaign, spearheaded by Marc Morano and industry-funded skeptic blogs.
Using the same old tactic: When it warms, it’s CO2. But when it cools, it’s some unknown natural factors.
When he’s praised, he’s a public figure. But when he’s harshly criticised, he’s suddenly just a private individual being unfairly attacked.
He wants to eat his cake and have it too.
Private person Mann has the PR machinery running in Europe as well, prominently featured in various news magazines and dailies – all claiming he is the innocent victim of a big industry funded campaign led by CFact, Heritage, Climate Depot and skeptic blogs.
“Manniacal” — A Theo K — LOL (loved the witty post at 2214)
And, good points, Rob Cram, Paper Tiger, and P. Gosselin —
Thus, per Gertz v. Welch, the Mann Child is a “public figure,” having “… attained an ability to counter defamatory falsehoods published about [him].. .”
How many twitter “followers” does he have? Do they follow him because they are all personal friends interested to know what he is doing in his personal life, or are they following him because of his reputation and standard bearer (and Nobel prize winner) for the theory of global warming? Why does he twitter to all these followers if he reluctant to be a public figure? Or does he want to be their leader?
Janice Moore says:
May 8, 2013 at 9:45 pm
7;->
My ‘umble thanks, Milady. Someone else inspired me by quoting from Hamlet…and Shakespeare is such a rich source for THE Quote (and I am a devotee of The Bard)… I’ve long been an admirer of Mark Steyn’s wit and sagacity; of Mann’s grit and tenacity, well, not so much. If he spent as much effort to be faithful to the Scientific Method of enquiry as he does defending every personal utterance of “His” science—I din’t even know a guy COULD own a science! Dozzat mean we owe him royalties for using it? And are they for sale, somewhere? (I can just see it now, a few years hence, when even Mann’s admirers and supporters are forced to admit he’s wrong… “Used science for Sale. Slightly dented, comes complete with hockeystick. Very useful for hiding warming…”) Anyway, did he spend as much effort on actual science as he does on self-promotion and basking in the adulation of his coterie of sycophants we might well all be hailing him as the next Issac Newton…ok, probably not, Mann being Mann—I’m just trying to be fair…
Instead, I think he’ll be a MUCH bigger footnote in history of what NOT to do than even the folks that discovered “Cold Fusion”.
I think we all understand that it’s very difficult for someone to put a great deal of effort into research, and then put their reputation at risk to publish a theory (because even among skeptics who profess to follow the Scientific Method, we know there are the immature who will ridicule others who make mistakes—honest or otherwise), and after all that personal investment, have to admit, “I was wrong” (possibly to even louder catcalls). But no one I respect has (or ever will) ridiculed someone who failed in an attempt to discover something new. Moreover, I think ALL decent people respect someone who, having followed a dead end, says, “Back to the drawing board,” sharpens his pencil, and goes back to work (“If at first, you don’t succeed…”). I would expect Michael Mann (or anyone) to defend against the first few reviews—anyone so lacking confidence in their own conviction wouldn’t be researching. And assuming I got caught in the wrong as he was—and I have been caught in the wrong, more than once, so I can speak from experience—I would admit to my sins, atone as well as I’m able, and try to move on from it. No more or less than I expected from the sailors that worked for me for 20 years. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong—get over it and move on. Anything else is an exercise in stupidity, futility or both. But there again, the Bard had this to say, “Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive!” Is that why Mann is so tenacious about “His” science? I suspect so.
What the heck—no one, even an idiot-man(n)que, is completely useless: he can always serve as a bad example… Oh, but I started a quote earlier. It’s actually W.C. Fields, and Mann should probably have followed it: “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn’ fool about it!”
Nice essay, Captain Pat Dolan! Enjoyed it.
WC Fields: “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn’ fool about it!”
Mann: I — don’t — NEED to try again! The science is SETTLED. We all voted on it.
Thomas Edison: Do you know how many times I had to try again, pee wee?
Mann: What -EVER. That was then, this is now. The way to get ahead in science NOW, THOMAS, is to create MODELS. Bet you couldn’t even make one decent climate model. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa.
Edison: No, probably not. I made things that actually worked.
Mann: Ooooh, you are SO FUNNY, Tom. What MATTERS is how well one’s work translates into $$$$$. And I am making a TON. Ha, ha, haaaw.
Solomon: “Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools.” [Ecc. 7:6]
Mann: Get that religious CRAP out of here, Sol. Who reads you? How many twitting buddies do YOU have? LOL
Capt. Dolan: In all my years on the sea, I never once gave up on any sailor who wanted to try. Mann, no one is COMPLETELY useless. Spend a week with me, Michael. I’ll make you a new Mann, one with integrity, one who can walk into any symposium with his head high.
Mann: LOL, Dolan. Who are you? I am FAMOUS (er, but not intentionally so)! What kind of a fool would I be to give up all the free publicity and MOOOONNNNEEEEEEY I’m making off my schtick?
Dolan: An honest one.
Solomon: Your heart’s in the right place Dolan, but, “Though you grind a fool in a mortar, … you will not remove his folly from him;” [Prov. 27:22] for, “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.” [Prov. 18:2].
WCF: Hey! What’s with only giving me ONE line in this play!?
Narrator: And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s W. C. Fields with the last word on Mann:
WCF: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” =|(;o\)#|–{
Janice Moore, brilliant comments.
Just brilliant! If I have any expertise to help the anti greenie movement it is in understanding the political arena. You, obviously have great knowledge in the legal realm. May we both prosper.
Oh, Mr. Stendera, you say that to ALL the girls. #[;)]
Glad to see you posting — I noticed you were gone for awhile (Richard Courtney, too — hope all is well). I hope that you and your lovely lady are enjoying May.
Thanks, so much, for your kind comment. It is just gratifying to hear that someone READ what I wrote. That someone I respect liked it is TERRIFIC.
Will his next book be titled ‘Mein Widerstrebender Und Versehentlicher Kampf’ ?
Zefal,
I have NO idea. Ich shprechen keine Deutsch. Does it mean: My Little Strawbender and True Hen Light Struggle? Something, apparently, about difficulty with a bend in a line on a graph and the illumination provided by fowl?
I’m sorry that I am unable to understand your joke. I hope someone who does speak Deutsche reads your post.
“Kampf” brings a certain nasty Austrian to mind, so, I’m CERTAIN your joke fits Mann with all his egomania.
@ur momisugly Janice Moore May 10, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Think of the title. It means “My reluctant and accidental fight”. Pretty good Zefal!
Thanks, Phil Jourdan. LOL. I couldn’t “think” of the title because I had no idea what it meant, except for “my” and “and” in German and “kampf,” — I didn’t even know what the full title of that nasty little Austrian’s book was! THANK YOU for helping me out. Heh, heh, didn’t even get “2 out of 3”! — just 3 out of 5!
NOW, I agree. Nice one, Zefal, amazingly on point. I won’t speculate here as to why that might be…..