What a great Christmas present for Mike. It is back to square one for him with his lawsuit over what he views as libel by Mark Steyn and CEI.
For background, see this WUWT story:
Mann has filed suit against NRO (now the laughing begins)
Since the previous ruling this summer that said the lawsuit could go ahead was nothing less than a bad legal joke:
Mann-Steyn lawsuit judge inverts the defendants actions, botches ruling
…that ruling has now been nullified by a higher appeals court ruling, Mann’s case will now have to start over.
This new ruling seems pretty blunt. They basically accepted the ACLU amicus brief as fact, saying:
ORDERED, sua sponte, that the Clerk shall file the ACLU’s lodged amicus curiae response as its response.
The appeal was granted with no caveats or exceptions, suggesting that the appeals court views the decision by that wacky judge Natalia M. Combs Greene (now retired) this summer as being very badly flawed, much like the hockey stick itself.
FURTHER ORDERED, these dismissals are without prejudice to appellants filing new notices of appeals from orders denying a special motion to dismiss. Signed by Per Curiam
Here is the ruling:
Order_20131223144647 (PDF)
The order is a matter of public record as seen on the DC Courts website:
In related news, popcorn futures continue their unprecedented climb:
Mann has an uncanny ability to look like a serial idiot. I like that about him. He’s the git that keeps on giving.
Peter Crawford…I’m laughing so hard I’m weeping~! You might have just made my entire Christmas! 🙂 And a VERY Merry to Anthony and everyone else!
A small but precious Christmas gift.
In a society where almost every plain honest word is gagged or persecuted (unless it is utterly inane or perfectly fits the party line), Mann’s failure to deceive again is a rare breath of fresh air.
I will shake Mark Steyn’s hand if I’d meet him — despite our tastes in music being quite incompatible. Alas, this world is not perfectly tailored for me.
Even my favorite writer, Jack Vance, didn’t like dogs and listened to early Frisco jazz. I can’t imagine living without dogs, while jazz reminds me of rooms full of smoke and drunk good-for-nothings wasting their money and minds on empty talk without any consequence. Jazz is music for tin ears.
I think you graph does not work; where is the medieval popcorn period?
Please forward by twitter the report on Mann vs CEI &Steyn to @Dale Rainwater Clifford C. Hodge
thank you Mick G
Out of mild interest, I decided to take a look at what Wikipedia thinks of Micheal Mann and came to the conclusion he either must have written the entry himself, or it was done by some sycophant. Warning: You may find some of the adulation to be nauseous.
“Michael E. Mann (born 1965) is an American physicist and climatologist,[3] currently director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, who has made significant contributions to the understanding of climate change over the last two thousand years. He has introduced techniques to find patterns in past climate change, and to isolate climate signals from noisy data. He has had an outstanding publication record, including very influential papers, and has pointed out publicly the implications of dangerous climate change, in the face of political and personal attacks.[4]
Mann is well known as lead author of a paper produced in 1999 which introduced new statistical techniques for hemispherical climate reconstructions and produced what was dubbed the “hockey stick graph” because of its shape. He was one of 8 lead authors of the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report published in 2001, and the graph was highlighted in several parts of the report. The IPCC acknowledged that his work, along with that of many others who contributed substantially to the reports including lead authors and review editors, contributed to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC, jointly with Al Gore.”
dp says at 10:50 pm in regards to Mann
he’s the git that keeps on giving
hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
Mann can’t let this thing go. If he does he will essentially admit to the world he doesn’t have a hockey stick to lean on. He does seem to be about as successful in the court room as in the laboratory. All very convoluted. Wait… is that what the ‘C’ in CAGW stands for? Convoluted Anthropogenic Global Warming.? Or maybe ‘Contrived?’
Lets hope Mann gets his day in court soon , for can anyone see it go any other way but bad for him ?
Frankly I expect a back-down with Mann selling himself as ‘victim ‘ of some oil funded conspiracy. But one day his massive ego will overcome his limited common sense and that will be a good day.
I thought this would be inappropriate:
http://youtu.be/rDVDJaNli5Y
I wonder if James Cameron has the movie rights? “Terminator 4. The End of Mann” “Into the Abyss 2” “Mannbo,” “True Lies 2” ?
Perhaps the most important information lacking in this discussion is the size of Dr. Mann’s legal bill and his progress toward full payment of the same. That would be interesting.
John Law asks, ref the popcord chart: “where is the medieval popcorn period?”
Well, I believe it got lost in a maize of stats….the same as happened to the Little Rice Age.
Happy Christmas Anthony and the Mods!!
popcord = popcorn D’oh!
Grumpy Old Man says: @ur momisugly December 23, 2013 at 10:23 pm
….. I do deeply appreciate this blog which has given me a real education although I have to say that some of the finer points must have gone by me – my science education ended when I left high school. I can only appeal, Anthony, for it to be kept in mind that some of your readers are none too smart at science and know even less about the US judicial system so a little more explanation from time to time might be in order….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One of the great things about this blog is normally all you have to do is ask and your questions will be answered. Doing a search on a term also helps although you may sometimes get the wrong info.
@Janice Moore says:
December 23, 2013 at 7:14 pm
“Please forgive my calling a “Denial” a “Dismissal”….
On the contrary, We can only applaud your aversion to any variation of the word denier…
re; the courts ruling – and I was so looking forward to Stein calling Peter Gleick as an expert on the current state of climate ethics.
Dash away all alarmists and to all a good night!
This case is about freedom of speech – the first amendment.
Skeptics here at WUWT and over at CA have done an admirable job in refuting Mann on the science. His Hockey Stick is dead, dead, dead.
On the other hand what’s at stake in winning is preventing Mann and his ilk from silencing skeptics through expensive litigation, or coercion by threats of litigation.
NRO, CEI and Mark Steyn are better prepared and inclined to deal with this sort of bullying than the independent bloggers we skeptics frequent. So NRO is doing all of us a service and fighting our fight, too.
They could use our financial support.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365372/help-us-kick-some-jack-fowler
If Mann’s got the funding (dark money), he’ll re-file. It’s about the intimidation, not the decision. And he can do that without ever complying with discovery if they ever get that far. As noted recently by Steyn and other staff supporters at NRO, his side (the free speech issues against the Commissars of Canada) always win in court, but lose the culture and intimidation battle anyway. It isn’t over and the truth is still being stifled, (see Prof Brulle).
Judges can begin to get Alheimer’s, just like the rest of us. I’m certainly not saying that this is what happened in this case, I’m not a lawyer or familiar with the workings of the court inhabited by Judge Greene and colleagues.
But I wonder if the oh-so-clear failings of Judge Greene might have in some way accelerated her retirement as a full time judge? The worst thing to happen for a judge, and for a judicial system, is to have a judge be a poster child for arbitrary and capricous decisions.
“This new ruling seems pretty blunt. They basically accepted the ACLU amicus brief as fact,”
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
There’s a bigger issue. Someone or something with deep pockets finances Mann’s baseless suit. Steyn has to raise $ to defend himself. Mann loses, but Steyn has accrued an obligation to repay financial supporters, which could impoverish someone without his generous fans. Mann and co. walk away.
Why doesn’t Steyn get to sue Mann and his lawyers for the entire cost of the defense, plus damages resulting from unfounded charges? As long as this gangster-style protection racket continues, all the laws and government on the books are meaningless.
Keep your head down and don’t offend the rich guy or he will destroy you. Death by lawyer.
I’m confused, is the increase in popcorn causing CO2 to rise or the other way round? Will we be buried under ever-rising levels of popcorn before the decade is out or will we have to buy popcorn credits to save the world – Lew, Cookie, where are you when Gaia needs you?
A very happy Christmas to Anthony and all those helping to make WUWT No 1 and to all you fellow deniers, thanks for all your comments which have helped me understand the issues.
Does anyone have a link to Mann’s amended filing? I wonder what’s changed in his complaint.
Chris Arfaa,
I am no lawyer (one son is), but I see two things of substance in the ruling: 1) the court accepts the logic of the ACLU brief; to wit, a refusal of the lower court to grant an anti-SLAPP dismissal can always be immediately appealed, rather than appealed after the libel case has been adjudicated on merit, otherwise the anti-SLAPP legislation may well fail to protect people from SLAPPs, and 2) the court dismisses the specific appeal of Styen et al, based on merit, as moot because a lower court has received a revised Mann complaint, and is already considering, but has not ruled on, the defendants’ (Steyn et al) second anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss…. so the appeals court has no reason to rule on the first anti-SLAPP appeal.
This ruling seems to me not unexpected; no court would likely rule on the merits of a case if that case is moot, and no court would likely make a ruling which effectively defeats the intent of a law, unless that law is considered by the court to be unconstitutional.
The appeals court has affirmed (by accepting the ACLU brief as its own ruling), that Steyn et al can immediately appeal any future ruling against an anti-SLAP motion, including the pending motion at the lower court for dismissal. Since the lower court understands that any dismissal of the existing anti-SLAPP motion will almost certainly be immediately reviewed based exclusively on ‘pre-discovery merits’, this may help to focus the lower courts attention. A disturbing, and I think unintended, consequence is that the court of appeals seems to have opened an avenue to make SLAPP’s more effect, at least in some cases, in spite of the affirmed right for immediate appeal: just keep revising the complaint before an appeal is heard, and no appeal on merit of an anti-SLAPP dismissal will ever be heard. If the plaintiff happens to get a friendly judge, then the defendants can be forced to defend themselves forever. This is very, very unwise, I think.
Fortunately for Steyn et al, the nutty lower court judge has retired.
Once there was a Womann named Sue . . .