NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
A right-of-center pundit is appealing a February ruling that found him liable for defaming a prominent climate scientist, and legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he may have a good chance at a successful appeal.
A Washington, D.C., jury concluded that Mark Steyn — a right-of-center political pundit who referenced a blog post comparing climate scientist Michael Mann to serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky for the former’s purported data manipulation in his signature 1998 “hockey stick” climate model — liable for defaming Mann. Steyn is appealing the court’s decision that he must pay Mann $1 million in punitive damages on top of $1 in compensatory damages, and legal experts told the DCNF that his case may be strong enough to win on appeal.
“Michael Mann’s counsel did something you’re not supposed to do. He invited the jury to send a message that these attacks on scientists have to stop and the jury, being a D.C. jury, decided they were going to send that message. Now, that’s explicitly forbidden, both in the District of Columbia and in the United States at large,” Steyn told the DCNF. “You’re supposed to be trying ‘Fred Smith.’ He’s the guy in the dock. You’re not sending a message to millions of other potential ‘Fred Smiths’ out there. But that’s what they did.” (RELATED: Mark Steyn’s Case Against Climategate Scientist Is Taking So Long A Key Witness Died)
Whole lot of “coping” going on in denialville…https://t.co/ZQMIl76wJZ
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) February 10, 2024
Beyond Steyn’s contention that Mann’s counsel “invited the jury to send a message” to critics of consensus positions on hot-button issues like climate change, legal experts told the DCNF that the ratio of compensatory and punitive damages could open the door for a favorable outcome for Steyn’s appeal.
“It appears to me that Steyn has strong arguments that the punitive damages awarded are excessive under current law, particularly under Supreme Court decisions invalidating exorbitant punitive damage awards that are disproportionate to the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff,” Jonathan Adler, the director of Case Western Reserve University School of Law’s environmental law center, told the DCNF. “By this standard, a one-million-to-one ratio between punitive and compensatory damages would appear to be quite problematic.”
“That said, there are some complicating factors. On the one hand, punitive damages will always appear disproportionate in which compensatory damages are nominal. On the other hand, the arguments against disproportionate punitive damages would seem to be augmented by the First Amendment concerns,” Adler continued. “If, as the jury concluded, Mann suffered no measurable harm from what Steyn wrote, the primary function of the punitive damage award is to discourage potentially inflammatory commentary about matters of public concern, and that raises serious First Amendment problems.”
Anthony Fargo, the director of the Center for International Media Law and Policy Studies at Indiana University, agreed with Adler’s assessment of the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages.
“The appellate court is likely to look at this thing that jumps out at me here is the punitive damage award. I think an appellate court would be reluctant to second guess the jury as far as its findings of fact,” Fargo told the DCNF. “What they will probably raise an eyebrow at is the disproportionate amount of the punitive damage award as compared to the compensatory damage award.” (RELATED: Climate Activists Want Michael Moore’s Doc Panning Green Energy Banned, Say It’s Chock Full Of Misinformation)
Usually one hope to make money from a book. Steyn’s probably cost him a million dollars: https://t.co/ZQMIl774zx
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) February 23, 2024
The “hockey stick” model was the result of combining several climate proxies into one model, purportedly demonstrating that global temperatures have increased drastically in the past several decades compared to the preceding centuries. Critics, including Steyn and Rand Simberg, have gone after the “hockey stick” model for many years, contending that it should not be considered credible because of its purported flaws.
“The fact that a verdict was rendered against [Steyn] when you had a statistics expert like Abraham Wyner of the University of Pennsylvania testifying that Mann engaged in ‘improper manipulation’ of data that made his signature climate model ‘misleading’ demonstrates that the jury ignored the legal principle that the truth is a defense to any defamation claim,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “From a legal standpoint, Steyn should have the ability to appeal on the basis that the jury ignored his defense that his criticisms that Mann had manipulated data were the truth, and therefore the jury committed a grievous legal error when it found against him.”
National Review’s editors wrote Wednesday that the outlet — which Mann also sued before a court order led to the outlet being dropped from the suit — is looking to “recover more than a million of the dollars that we have lost defending [its] unalienable right to free speech” from Mann. Before National Review was dropped from the suit, Mann wrote in emails that the outlet is a “filthy organization” and a “threat to our children,” according to the outlet.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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I suggest that another ground for appeal is that the judge allowed the plaintiff’s lawyer to address the jury again for several minutes after the trial proper had finished.
I emailed my comment to Nick Pope…I hope he corrects the article, it is giving a very WRONG impression of the basis for the case and could erroneously sway public opinion AGAINST Mark and the others. The comparison was how both scandals were whitewashed by the corrupt Penn State President, NOT the actual DETAILS of the two scandals, which were in no way similar.
Wrong!!! Wrong!!! Wrong!!! NOT TRUE!! SLANDEROUS LIE!!!
Someone needs to correct the SLANDER against Mark Steyn and others because they DID NOT compare Mann to Sandusky or infer that he was a pedophile, they compared the TREATMENT and COVER UP of the TWO SCANDALS as the same.
Let’s be fair and honor the full truth. Steyn did both things.
He said that Mann molested the data. The proper defense of that polemic is that when comparing two Penn State scandals he made the substantive case that both internal investigations were shams perpetrated by the same administration AND for rhetorical purposes alluded to the Sandusky case by an analogy. Mann was to the data as Sandusky was to the student athletes.
This was not nice. It was not polite. Sensitive ears might not want to contemplate anal sex and confront the moral implications of misusing the sexual function. The jury obviously lacked the intelligence to grasp the abstraction of ‘misuse’ or abuse connecting sodomy with inappropriate data manipulation. Perhaps ‘woke’ ears were also aghast at the retrograde non-celebration of same-sex attraction.
Steyn’s words were protected speech if what he claimed was not knowingly false or uttered with a reckless disregard for the truth AND intended to harm Mann’s reputation.
An analogy is not a claim of fact. The claim made was that Mann inappropriately manipulated the data in order to mislead. Steyn’s purpose was manifestly intended to harm Mann’s reputation, which was licit since the claim was not false. He gave a reasoned explanation for his opinion which negates any claim of a reckless disregard for the truth. There was no evidence that the claim was false, much less that Steyn knew that it was false.
The jury failed in their duty to apply the law by ignoring the fact that truth is an absolute defense against libel. They chose to indulge their disapproval of the content of Steyn’s protected free speech, rather than to apply the law.
Mann is ugly too.
His behaviour is ugly, I’ll make no personal judgements on his appearance.
A lot of people here do that sort of thing. It’s childish and stupid.
I may be fat, but Mann is ugly. And I can diet.
Certainly a bad choice of a verb by Steyn.
I believe this is incorrect. Based on my recollection, it was Sindberg who had mentioned molesting data. Steyn quoted that and went on to say that he wouldn’t have carried the metaphor that far, yet he was assessed more punitive damages.
Hard to imagine a worse miscarriage of justice. They ignored the overwhelming evidence supporting Steyn’s position about the hockey stick. DC judge and jury shows how far off the rails the woke establishment is.
Someone analyzed the results of the Republican Primary in D.C. where Nikki Haley received about 2200 votes and extrapolated that number based on the per cent of registered voters who voted to conclude that there are no more than 20,000 Republicans in D.C. That doesn’t include the reduction in that number to account for the number of Democrats who voted for Haley.
With a total population of about 700k, 20k would be under 3%. Trump got 5.4% of the vote in DC’s 2020 election with 18,586 votes.
So that seems like a very reasonable estimate. 95-98% Democrat partisans.
No cheating necessary.
Not in DC.
The jury foreman after he was seated notified the Judge that he did not know that Mark sometimes filled in for Rush Limbaugh and in his mind that was a significant negative to his attitude to the defendant!
But that hockey stick is their favorite “beat them down” instrument. Why give it up, if you can win court cases with it? Who would have thought?
I keep seeing variations of this statement. Remember, Steyn’s position was not that Mann was wrong or made a mistake. It was that Mann committed fraud. Not only was there no evidence presented that Mann committed fraud, but none of Steyn’s witness would even opine that it had occurred.
It is also worth noting that Steyn’s own witnesses’ reconstructions corroborate MBH98/99. McIntyre and Wyner’s reconstructions are, broadly speaking anyway, consistent with Mann’s. Of course both show it being a bit warmer in the past relative to MBH98/99, but not enough for it to make the past warmer than today. [1][2]
And since MBH98/9 there have been dozens of reconstructions by hundreds of people corroborating the hockey-stick some of which suggest MBH98/98 may have been conservative in the rapid rise in temperature in the modern era relative to the past era. Below is but a small subset of the reconstructions that have been published.
1998 Jones 10.1191/095968398667194956 – High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures
1998 Pollack 10.1126/science.282.5387.279 – Climate change record in subsurface temperatures: A global perspective
2000 Crowley 10.1579/0044-7447-29.1.51 – How Warm was the Medieval Warm Period
2001 Briffa 10.1029/2000JD900617 – Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network
2004 Huang 10.1029/2004GL019781 – Merging information from different resources for new insights into climate change in the past and future
2005 Oerlemans 10.1126/science.1107046 – Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records
2005 Moberg 10.1038/nature03265 – Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
2005 Huybers 10.1029/2004GL021750 – Comment on “Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance”
2006 D’Arrigo 10.1029/2005JD006352 – On the long-term context for late twentieth century warming
2006 NRC 10.17226/11676 – Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years
2007 Wahl 10.1007/s10584-006-9105-7 – Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures
2010 Ljungqvist 10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x – A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra‐tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia
2012 Li 10.1198/jasa.2010.ap09379 – The Value of Multiproxy Reconstruction of Past Climate
2012 Shakun 10.1038/nature10915 – Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation
2013 Marcott 10.1126/science.122802 – A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
2013 Tingley 10.1038/nature11969 – Recent temperature extremes at high northern latitudes unprecedented in the past 600 years
2014 Crowley 10.1002/2013EF000216 – Recent global temperature “plateau” in the context of a new proxy reconstruction
2016 Hakim 10.1002/2016JD024751 – The Last Millennium Climate Reanalysis Project
2016 Wilson 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.005 – Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings
2017 PAGES2K 10.1038/sdata.2017.88 – A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
2018 Esper – Large Scale Millennial-Length Temperature Reconstruction from Tree Rings
2019 Neukom 10.1038/s41586-019-1401-2 – No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era
2019 PAGES2K 10.1038/s41561-019-0400-0 – Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era
2020 Kaufman 10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7 – Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach
2020 Westerhold 10.1126/science.aba6853 – An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years
2021 King 10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0661.1 – A Data Assimilation Approach to Last Millennium Temperature Field Reconstruction
2021 Osman 10.1038/s41586-021-03984-4 – Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum
2021 Bova 10.1038/s41586-020-03155-x – Seasonal origin of the thermal maxima at the Holocene and the last interglacial
2021 Buntgen 10.1038/s41467-021-23627-6 – The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions
2022 Thompson 10.1126/sciadv.abj6535 – Northern Hemisphere Vegetation Change Drives Holocene Thermal Maximum
2022 Erb 10.5194/cp-18-2599-2022 – Reconstructing Holocene temperatures in time and space using paleoclimate data assimilation
2022 Anchukaitis 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107537 – Progress and uncertainties in global and hemispheric temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
Jean Curry’s evidence was thrown out by the judge.
I think you meant Judith Curry. And although Curry has presented evidence questioning the correctness of the MBH98/99 publications she has never presented evidence of fraud.
Not a credible source on evidence from Dr. Curry.
Huh?
Your post appears without meaning.
Mr. letter-salad-for-name: The article references A. Wyner testimony established the elements of fraud, so thanks for letting us know right at the outset that you lie about what “Steyn’s own witnesses” testified. The rest of your gaslighter post is consistent with that lack of credibility. You and your fellow letter salad below simply prove that you know less about free speech than statistics. Not credible sources.
Defending the indefensible is such a good look for you twins!
I’m sorry that my name offends you. It is never my intent to offend people with my name or otherwise. The letters in my name are my initials and wx which is shorthand for weather.
Anyway, can you post the pertinent testimony in which Wyner indicts Mann of fraud? I’d like to review it if you don’t mind. Again…the keyword here is fraud.
Yeah, we’ve been here before, your name isn’t offensive, it’s just a sign of …. well, it’s a sign. For second time, Mr. Wyner’s testimony is described by the article. Why do you comment without reading the article, are you just Mr. Stoke’s sock puppet? Because he does that, you know.
My handle is meant to be a sign of my name and interest in weather. I’m genuinely sorry it is causing an issue either way whatever way it is being taken.
Yes. I see how it is described. That doesn’t mean Wyner thought it was fraudulent. In fact, he’s even said that he didn’t think was deceptive; only that the result may be misleading due to an underestimation of uncertainty, poor selection criteria, and poor methodological choices none of which are fraudulent.
I should also point out that Wyner’s temperature reconstruction is consistent with MBH99. It does show the temperature being about 0.6 C higher in 1000 AD than MBH99 but given their wider uncertainty bands it does not falsify the MBH99 reconstruction nevermind that it still suggests it is more likely to be warmer today than at any point in his period of analysis with a very rapid rise in temperature in the later period that is anomalous against the backdrop of the broader reconstruction. So it’s hard to see how his work even invalidates MBH99 nevermind suggestive of fraud.
Dr Wyner stated that Mann’s methodology was ‘misleading’ AND ‘manipulative’ that they knew what results they wanted and steered the reconstruction the way they wanted, not the way a reasonable scientist would have done. At every point, Dr Wyner showed that Mann had used the wrong proxies, the wrong methodology and the wrong results because this was the only way he could get the hockey stick he wanted. Whilst he stopped just short of accusing Mann of fraud or malpractice, the implication was crystal clear to all except the biased and prejudiced jury – Mann’s results were only obtained by manipulation, deceit and bad practice that no competent or honest scientist would ever do. I think the sheer fact that Mann lied for over 25 years as to what his proxies were, attempted to deceive the scientific community as to his methods and sources then tried to deceive everyone that he was a legitimate Nobel laureate speaks to the nature of Michael Mann and whether he is honest or completely deceptive and dishonest. Dr Wyner never needed to call Mann a fraud, Mann’s actions declare him a fraud in the eyes of his peers and the whole world.
That’s the problem. Steyn was not accusing Mann of being incorrect. He was accusing Mann of fraud so bad that it could be equated to the Sandusky situation.
Again…manipulation and practice even if bad are not fraud. Deceit is one of the distinguishing traits of fraud and no witness provided any evidence whatsoever even if only weak that he knew his manipulations and/or practices were wrong and chose to publish anyway. It’s not even been convincingly shown that his manipulations and practices were even bad to begin with. This is especially true since many reconstructions have corroborated MBH98/9. Even the MW11 and MM05 reconstructions were not inconsistent with it and they both show that it is warmer today than at any point in the period of analysis.
Then why did no present an action with evidence that proved fraud at the trial? If it were really there you’d think it would have been presented at the trial.
The testimony of Dr Wyner showed that Mann was deceitful in his use of bad proxies that any other scientist would have binned, indeed other scientists warned Mann not to use the proxies as they were not fit for purpose. He went on to show that a very small number of reconstructions (2-3 out of the 50 or more sampled) showed a flat ‘handle’ the others were of very different shapes, that Mann deceitfully used a non-representative outlier as a representative of the whole. How much more do you want? All of this and more was presented at the trial for the jury to come to the obvious conclusion, which would’ve happened in other districts. It’s fair to say that the jury were prejudicial and heavily biased against Steyn, Mann’s lawyers overstepped the bounds of jurisprudence (sending a message) and the judge allowed them to do so, Mann’s lawyers committed perjury (submitting false financial claims) in the courtroom and the judge allowed them to do so. Testimony after testimony showed Mann’s actions that were tantamount to fraud and allowed the jury to come to the obvious conclusion which, in another jurisdiction, they would have, but not in DC. I think it’s highly suggestive that one juror left angrily and the other 5 left as a group, seemingly laughing and joking.
Only a complete fraud would try to claim that tree rings are a temperature proxy.
That would be even worse for Steyn since his “star” witnesses used tree rings as a proxy for temperature.
But there is an even more fundamental problem with your statement. If entity A influences entity B that means entity B can act as a proxy for entity A. For example, temperature influences the density of mercury. Therefore the expansion and contraction of mercury can act as a proxy for temperature. In a physically different but conceptually similar way temperature influences the growth rate of trees. Therefore tree rings can act as a proxy for temperature. By insinuating that tree rings are not proxies for temperature you are effectively saying that temperature has no influence on tree rings which is obviously falsified by experiment nevermind that it is so widely accepted that it is common knowledge even among some elementary aged children.
I’m yet to hear of an instance where mercury levels fell for forty years while temperature increased, so the Hide the Decline incident furnishes you with an obvious difference between the proxiness of tree rings and thermometers.
If by ‘Steyn’s “star” witness’ you mean Dr Wyner, he assumed for the sake of argument that tree ring growth data was relevant to the paleoclimate question.
PATRICK COYNE, CROSS EXAMINING: Professor Mann’s data is not wrong, correct?
DR. WYNER: Well, I’ll just be clear. I didn’t research the quality of the data. That was never my endeavor. That was my assumption that it was — that it was for the purposes — I think we call it, in legal words, a stipulation. I just took the data and accept it to be the data. I did not try to invalidate it or discuss it. That’s for climate scientists.
So the fact that Steyn’s witnesses “used” tree ring data as a proxy is obviously not an endorsement of doing so. It merely allowed them to move on to showing that even if it were proper to use them, Mann used them improperly.
How that’s “even worse for Steyn” boggles the mind.
Deflection and diversion. I wasn’t addressing the nuances of using tree rings as a proxy for temperature. I was addressing that statement by MarkW that it is fraudulent to do so. Besides, just because temperature isn’t the only thing that influences tree ring growth rates does not mean that temperature isn’t an influencing factor and that tree rings can still act as a proxy for temperature. It’s the same for mercury. Temperature isn’t the only thing influencing its density. That doesn’t mean that mercury cannot act as proxy for temperature.
And by MarkW’s reasoning he committed fraud in doing so. That’s what I’m disagreeing with.
It merely allowed them to move on to showing that even if it were proper to use them, Mann used them improperly.
That’s an odd statement since MBH99 is not inconsistent with MW11.
It shouldn’t. If using tree rings as a proxy for temperature is inherently fraudulent then using a witness who used tree rings as a proxy for temperature in an attempt to prove that someone else who happened to use tree rings as proxy for temperature committed fraud is like the pot calling the kettle black.
BTW…using tree rings as a proxy for temperature isn’t fraud. In fact, it common knowledge even to the extent that some elementary age children know that temperature affects the rings in trees. So it defies credulity to think that someone is indicting the whole field of dendrochronology of fraud.
Validity of tree rings depends on selection of trees to rule out other factors, competency in analysis, ….
Stephen McIntyre covers those in dept at http://www.climateaudit.org.
>> He was accusing Mann of fraud
That is not correct, he was saying the data in the publication was fraudulent (expressing his opinion as he is entitled to). And Wyner testified to that extend, here is was he and McShane wrote in their publication on that topic: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23024822
“””
[..]Consequently, the application of ad hoc methods to screen and exclude data increases model uncertainty in ways that are ummeasurable and uncorrectable.[..]
“””
In his testimony Wyner called it p-hackng and the common language term for that is fraud, so yes Steyn showed in a believable manner that there facts supporting his opinion.!
Why is WX shorthand for “weather”? Doesn’t make sense.
It is the morse code shorthand for the word weather. It’s still officially recognized today via ITU-R M.1172.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_abbreviations
A professional statistician testified that Mann’s methods were invalid and unjustified.
And yet more said they were valid and justified while indicting McShane and Wyner’s criticism as invalid and unjustified. But let’s assume Mann’s methods were invalid and unjustified and ignore the fact that MM11’s reconstruction was not inconsistent with MBH99 for the sake of argument. That doesn’t mean Mann committed fraud.
What are you talking about? There was only one professional statistician in the witness stand, ever, in the course of the trial. How zero is “more” than one in your imagination is another mystery for the ages.
I was talking about criticism of MW11 beyond the courtroom. That wasn’t really the main point of my post though. The main point of my post was that even under the presumption that MW11 was flawless (even though it wasn’t) it doesn’t mean Mann committed fraud.
I am not aware of any published criticism of McShane and Wyner´s rejoinder,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23024822
where they discuss various criticism and show that they can uphold their findings. Or all various comments on their original article, Mann´s work clearly sticks out as scientifically very weak and flawed!
>> more said they were valid and justified while indicting McShane and Wyner’s criticism as invalid and unjustified.
What do you mean by that? I get that with outside the courtroom, you seem to refer to the scientific community, right?
Could you elaborate how one of their key statement
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/23024822
“””
[..]Consequently, the application of ad hoc methods to screen and exclude data increases model uncertainty in ways that are ummeasurable and uncorrectable.[..]
“””
was contradicted, I am not aware of ANY valid argument against that, it also seems VERY intuitive.
Here is one time slice from MBH98´s data series (produces by McIntyre):
It seems very clear that using only part of these points or different proxies can produce very different results (and that has been shown among other people, but also by Mann in his CENSROED directory, indicating he knew about this problem at the time he published his work).
Are you conceding that different studies exist, which produce partially non-overlapping global temperature reconstruction using similar methods?
To me this would give clear evidence, that Wyner´s findings are not only very true and relevant, but also still ignored in current research!
One obvious recent proxy (also discussed extensively by McIntyre) proxy is the more than 2000 year long Cape Ghir series used in various reconstructions including figure 1a of the IPCC6 summary for policy makers.
I yet have to see any discussion why this proxy is valid to use “as is” when other proxies as well as nearby historical data clearly indicate there was a Roman and medieval warm period missing in that particular proxy!
And I believe that is fraud, it was back then in Mann et al´s data, it is in current reconstructions.
BTW…something that I’ve never seen addressed. Why accuse Mann and only Mann of fraud here? There have been other scientists who have replicated his work not the least of which are Bradley and Hughes who are literally coauthors of MBH98 and MBH99.
Replication, perhaps, but there has been no independent replication.
See above.
The issue was the ridiculous whitewashing of charges against Mann by Penn State State and specifically by the President.
Again, this is grasping at straws. Mann won because Steyn had publicly alleged fraud. There was obviously no fraud. This is then defamation.
Mann LOST to Tim Ball , and was too much of a slimebag to pay up.
The Mann/Stein did not examine if any fraud had been committed. (good thing for Mickey!)
You obviously are as clueless and gormless about what the court case was actually about…
…. as you are of everything else.
Actually, he did not. It was not lost, the case was closed on procedural grounds that had no merit to the validity of his claims.
I think it is AlanJ who always points out that this claim has no basis whatsoever.
To the contrary, this was essentially the only point.
If he knew he could win, why did Mann refuse to go to trial?
He didn’t refuse.
Now you are just LYING again as the Judge accepted the hard facts that Dr. Mann was dragging the lawsuit out for years doing little to NOTHING in the interval.
Surely you have read the Decision Made by the Judge……., nope I don’t think you did because you are LYING your ass off!!!
“There was obviously no fraud”
Ask the lonesome bristlecone pine….
Steyn couldn’t dredge up a single witness to go on record and accuse Mann of fraud under oath. The “truth” defense is dead in the water.
Yet we wrote a book including all their quotes on Mann et al.
Have you read it, perchance?
Mann’s ears must be constantly burning.
I’ve read it. Pity Steyn couldn’t get anyone to repeat any allegation of fraud on the witness stand under oath. Maybe he wouldn’t have lost his case so badly.
Mann chose to have the case tried in DC for a reason. Steyn could have had Christ himself on the stand testifying as to Mann’s dubious data manipulations and the jury would still choose to “send a message” to deniers and MAGA supporters. The case was never about truth. Loosing the case “so badly” with almost no actual damages but egregiously astronomical punitive damages at least makes it obvious that the trial was a travesty.
The only message being sent is that baseless and defamatory attacks against scientists will not stand unchallenged. I’m not sure why you’d be against that message unless, y’know, you personally want to see scientists being constantly attacked with false allegations.
You’re absolutely right AJ. Mann never even hinted at wanting to ‘hide the decline’
I wonder what possessed these people to think otherwise?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9O0zKMlFl8k
Mann indeed never did hint at wanting to “hide the decline.” The people who wrote the parody song you link knew this, they did not think otherwise, their goal was to slander Mann’s reputation based on falsehoods, in a similar fashion to Steyn.
This “if you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger” strategy has been a very purposeful pivot by the denialist set over the past decade or two, and is the reason that Mann decided to take a stand in defense of scientists.
Sarc tag, use the sarc Luke!
That’s right. He didn’t. I don’t know why people have to make things especially when there are plenty of inflammatory comments that could have been used against him which he actually is responsible for.
Mr. J: The fact that you don’t know it’s improper tells me you won’t understand why it’s improper, and just how grossly improper it was. Won’t waste anymore keystrokes on you.
I think beating a hasty retreat is definitely the wise option for you.
Why should he retreat when he is beating you like a drum?
There is an old legal precedent, that truth is the ultimate defense against libel. In his case, Steyn proved that Mann is a fraud. The jury wanted to send a message that opposition to the left will be punished.
The jury wanted to send a message that calling someone a fraud without enough evidence is a dangerous and risky thing to do. Steyn is no fool but on this one he crossed the line and now has to pay the cost.
Unless those scientists are skeptics, then it’s ok to call them every name in the book.
The judge refused to allow the book as evidence and wouldn’t allow witnesses to repeat what had been said in the book – it’s all in the pretrial information. To say that the entire trial was a miscarriage of justice would be a fair summation – Mann and his legal team even committed perjury in the courtroom and the judge allowed it for heavens sake, how corrupt can you get?
Mr. J: Putting aside that he did put on such witnesses, do you know if the judge prohibited any witness Steyn wanted to call?
I do not know if the judge blocked any of Steyn’s witnesses, but it seems pointless to speculate about whether any hypothetical witnesses might have alleged under oath that Mann committed fraud, since none took the stand.
Mr. J says he does not know, which means he didn’t bother to look it up. That was like shooting fish in a barrel, I thought it would have to be extracted. What you think is pointless is probably the very first thing to review. Best example of “pointless” is trying to demonstrate a fact to willfully-blind gaslighters like you and the letter salad guys.
So name the witnesses Steyn had lined up who were going to accuse Mann of fraud under oath.
Mr. J: See “pointless” defined, above.
For other readers, A. Wyner DID testify, as referenced in the article. Mr. J would like to walk down a primrose path about witnesses the Judge prohibited (judicial error #39), which he pretended not to know about (ha!) but he’ll walk alone.
Back to Mr. J: See “pointless” defined, above.
I think this is more or less the “bad science” angle, not the “fraudulent” one, ie. he alleged that Mann’s work was bad. This would be irrelevant here even if it was true. Scientific error and fraud are different. Ironically, his reconstruction is almost identical to that of Mann’s, so even if Mann had errors in his methods ie. if we took Wyner at face value, those errors would be minor.
Mr. other letter salad: Don’t know where this distinction between “bad science” and “fraud” came from, Wyner at face value is his testimony, which you and your mates refuse to get, demonstrated above. Bad science (specifically, manipulated statistics, precisely the true claim made by Steyn) led to a misleading hockey stick (to be precise), the two are not distinct here. In the former America, misleading could be “fraud” in the vernacular even if not under a legal definition.
I understand you must move on to your next smokescreen string of comments, don’t waste your time on me.
I think it is important here to precisely define terms. For example, manipulation is not necessarily fraudulent. For example, if I’m working on a hypothesis regarding mechanical forces, but I only have mass and acceleration measurements it is completely legitimate for me to manipulate what I have to get what I need by invoking F=ma.
Manipulation is only fraudulent if 1) it is wrong and 2) the knowledge of wrongness is withheld. Manipulation can be bad without being fraudulent. For example, if my hypothesis regarding mechanic forces had an element of a relativistic effect (like would be the case with atomic structures) then my manipulation using F=ma would be bad. But if I, like the early pioneers of atomic structure theory, were simply unaware of relatively then my use of bad manipulation would not rise to fraud.
Both Newton and Einstein are victims of bad science in some sense. That doesn’t mean either are guilty of fraud.
Again…the issue wasn’t that Steyn was accusing Mann of bad science. The issue was that he was accusing Mann of fraud to the extent that it was being equated to the situation with Sandusky.
Thinking about this more it might be necessary to add 3) it has a material impact on the result.
Think about civil projects. Engineers publish reports on the soundness of structures all of the time. They do this based on stress models derived from F=d/dt(mv). Except most engineers know (or should know) that F=d/dt(mv) isn’t technically correct. The actual formula is F=d/dt(mv*sqrt(1/v^2/c^2)). They certainly don’t acknowledge this wrongness in their publications. Just because they know what they are doing is technically wrong and that they don’t formally acknowledge it doesn’t mean they are committing fraud though. It’s because the wrongness here does not make a material difference upon their results.
Please cite specific extracts from Wyner’s testimony where he accuses Mann of committing fraud.
AJ doesn’t do facts, his job is to support the narrative.
You are getting more and more similar to bnice. But even he or she coughs up stuff that looks like evidence if viewed from afar, under bad lighting conditions. You just slander right away. What has happened to you? This is pathetic even by your own standards.
Actually, he had two. One died of old age before the case could go to trial, and the other testified during the trial.
The alternative is huge stupidity combined to massive ignorance. Some people refuse to believe that Mann is THAT stupid.
I don’t see why Mann is stupid. His work is solid and he won this case. Steyn, in turn, demonstrated stupidity on every level.
Mann’s work is so solid that his own lawyers denied it was accurate in court. 3 September 2013.
Even if it was true it would be irrelevant (help: lawyers are not qualified for this…). Anyway, it’s not true. I don’t understand why you always have to bluff your way out of this.
There was no defamation as he never lost anything since, he filed in 2012 as he has since then been promoted, published books, fawning interviews, given financial awards and more.
You are being utterly foolish here.
Defamation per se is not concerned with material losses. Defamation is concerned with the reputation of an individual. Material losses may result secondarily but they are not needed for ascertaining it. Why should I have to explain these self explanatory things?
Why do you think anyone considers your gaslighting posts? You don’t have to do it. Listen to your psychiatrist, you don’t have to do it.
Oops, see how quickly “gaslighting” and “psychiatrist” have come out when you’re out of arguments… I think this is settled (ie. there’s consensus) that you have demonstrated “impotent rage”.
It’s an obvious response to your posts – I thought you were probably seeing a psychiatrist from your posts as well. Actually, I half considered you were posting from inside a mental institution but as I didn’t know any that would allow it, I discounted that notion.
Well, now you know you’re wrong. And this is something you’ve very likely experienced very often in you life.
“Why should I have to explain these self explanatory things.” Because it’s good seeing someone tie themselves up like a pretzel trying to defend the indefensible.
Mann lost nothing after the remarks were published – nothing materially, financially or reputationally. He appeared with Bill Clinton and Leonardo diCaprio shortly after the remarks were published, an increase in reputation, not a loss. And no, nyogi, for a legal definition, you absolutely have to establish that you suffered some material harm as a result – loss of work, opportunities or something else that can be quantified materially for the courts. Mann gained considerably after that time which was why he got the grand total of $1 from each defendant.
Now apart from the fact that Mann’s work has been validated and he doesn’t need our defense in scientific matters, you should’ve noticed already that we said numerous times that he would’ve won even if his work had been bad. In other words we didn’t even defend his work here. This was about fraud, a quite different thing. If Steyn had said “Mann is wrong” Mann wouldn’t have sued. A lot of people say that all the time. Steyn said Mann had committed fraud. This is defamation even if Mann was wrong.
Again, this is a simple point, and you here are unable to understand it.
Dr. Mann paper was specifically exposed as garbage many times yet only one example is enough, but YOU and other stupid warmist/alarmists can’t stop making utter fools of yourselves in ignoring easily exposed flaws of that paper that in reality covers only a small area of Northern Hemisphere with ZERO coverage of the rest of the world are you really that stupid?
Flaws does not mean fraud.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Gosh you come up with this stupid bullshit because he was promoted into a higher paying job, able to publish books and sell them on major retailers, wins science awards and financial awards and gets fawning interviews and more where he is having a comfortable life.
Stop sucking up for the slimeball who has recently been sued by National Review to recover their court cost for their 2019 win and that he refuses to pay the court costs for the lawsuit he lost with Dr. Ball.
Why are you supporting this jerk?
As I showed you in the other thread the jury was asked no less than 5 times if Steyn had defamed Mann. They answered yes each time.
Which, as I remarked above, says a great deal about the jury that they completely ignored the balance of evidence and obeyed the instructions illegally given to them by Mann’s lawyer.
In your reading everyone except Steyn is wrong. And in each and every other related question the vast majority of scientists is in the wrong and a fringe is right. Persistently. You know in modern times this is extremely unlikely.
Yet posted that hilarious $1 damage for a man who never showed actual damage in court as he was twice promoted, sold books, fawning interviews, published papers win awards and financial money with no visible setbacks to his situation.
You hurt your credibility every time you ignore the evidence that he was NEVER defamed.
Heck it was Simkins who wrote the actual words Steyn quoted but he gets a small penalty of just $1,000 and the same $1 damage.
Truly are you drinking a lot lately?
The jury posted a total of $1,001,002 in damages. It’s in the court documents. I think you’re confusing Steyn’s portion of the compensatory damages with total damages.
It’s technically called punitive damages. But yeah Simberg’s portion of the punitive damages was much lower than Steyn’s. I wonder if the difference is because Steyn doubled down on his assertion of fraud and equating it to the Sandusky situation in the trial itself.
After considerable effort I was able to locate records of the jury’s deliberations
And once again, the acolyte has to completely ignore all the presented evidence in order to support his idols.
I think Michael Mann will be remembered as the greatest climate bogeyman of all time . .
Boogeyman is too kind
CO2 is a leftist boogeyman
Mann is a Horse’s Ass who hates all conservatives with a passion and sues some of them. Does not pay when he loses. He’s ugly too, both physically and verbally. He should wear a mask at all times and only go out at night.
Tony Heller had examples of Mann’s mean Tweets at Real Climate Science late last year but I could not find the with his search engine
The mean Mann Tweet at the link below about Tony Heller was found and is typical of Mann’s constant attacks on all conservatives.
Michael Mann Weighs In On Science | Real Climate Science
You didn’t have to mention that Mann is ugly.
You could have posted a picture.
Dear Nick,
While it was billed as un-losable in the first place, and certainly received front-row billing on WUWT, I believe that by deciding to represent himself and not hire competent counsel, lost Mark Steyn, the case in the end.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Reads like I’ve just completed a Kamala upside-down word-salad making course, but you get the drift!
Bill
He had competent counsel with him at all times but he believed his oratory skills would help his case. Frankly Perry Mason would have had a hard time against such a prejudicial and biased DC jury.
I would never have believed that things had gotten so bad in America before this trial – it’s really opened my eyes to the damage and division inflicted by the Democrats.
Mr. Page: I think Steyn also knows that he’ll win at the Supreme Court. Should win on appeal, but that group’s serial botching is what brought on the trial in a case that should have been dismissed several different ways. Anyway, he had the chance to face-to-face with Mann, might be worth a million (dollar reversal).
Dr. Johnston: Then how did Simberg lose? If you believe that Steyn’s bombasity explains the higher award, ok, but that only confirms how badly the jury lost it’s way. Steyn also knows this will not survive a US Supreme Court appeal, so he could take this chance at trial. Anyway, if Mann did this to you, and you were as sharp as Steyn, you would not turn down the chance to face him in court. I believe he made the right call, free-speech wise.
The US Supreme Court already considered the case back in 2019. They declined to take jurisdiction of it. See here. It’s doubtful that they would reconsider now.
They declined to take the case out of the hands of the lower court. That says nothing about whether they would hear an appeal. Especially given the blatant misbehavior of the lower court.
I’m not arguing a case and I am not a lawyer. I’m just pointing out that it is role of skilled counsel to steer the debate and prevent as far as possible the “jury losing its way”.
Like most, I thought Steyne’s opening remark was a winner, but the case was not about “the science”, it was about defamation. Arguing a ‘belief’ or a “fact” is different to: having not come to a consensus, resorting to namecalling and accusing the other party of fraud, lying and so on,
I thought it was a fraught case to start with, and therefore having competent counsel may have made a difference to the outcome.
I’ve taken legal advice in relation to the work I publish at http://www.bomwatch.com.au. Clearly we need to be mindful about how we frame the various debates we engage in, and avoid words like fraud, liar, or racist or other personal forms of abuse that fall outside the definition of ‘freedom of speech’,
As they are potentially defamatory, I think the use of such terms in open debate, should be “trapped” and sent to moderation before being published.
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
As I said, as I keep saying – he had competent legal counsel with him. He represented himself in court but had legal counsel in there with him at all times. I fail to see how you might have misread that.
Styne has no chance of winning
He has no chance of winning a science argument.
The IPCC published Mann’s chart in 2003 and used a revised version in 2022. No judge will overrule the IPCC.
Another problem is reconstructions are not precise measurements.
No one knows the actual global average temperature in any of the Little Ice Age centuries.
The claims are for slightly cooler and warmer global average temperatures for some centuries in the past 5000 years. The variations are too small to be proven correct with averages of local proxies.
Mann’s chart can not be proven wrong or proven right. He did cherry pick inappropriate proxies but the IPCC overlooked that.
All other scientists showing larger temperature variations have the same problem. If they show a warming period +0.5 degrees C. warmer than average, that’s too small to verify with an average of local proxies covering that period.
Conservative Styne had no chance with the DC jury
He does have a chance to get punitive damages significantly lowered. He could also stay out of the US and never pay the damages.
The punitive damages fine violates the 8th amendment by being an excessive fine
It’s particularly excessive because The Mann Hockey Stink Tree Ring Circus Chart was criticized by all conservatives from Spring 1998 through Fall 2012 before Mann decided to sue Styne. If Mann’s reputation was damaged by chart criticism, most of the damage was done by other people before Styne became Mann’s target
It is my opinion that Styne was the target because he began working as a substitute host on the Rush Limbaugh radio show in early 2012 so became known, and hated, by radical leftists like Mann. Styne became a visible target in 2012, and even worse for leftists, Styne happened to be a great communicator.
“No one knows the actual global average temperature in any of the Little Ice Age centuries.”
No one knows the global average temperature today never mind past centuries. The whole of climate science is a pile of excrement.
If you say no chance of overturning the finding on the facts, I agree that practically speaking it won’t happen despite that being the just outcome. On the other hand, on the question of excessive punitive damages, there’s a solid chance that Steyn will prevail and perhaps reduce the award to $1 plus $10.
“Mann’s chart can not be proven wrong or proven right.”
You don’t need to ‘prove wrong’ the values, you just need to prove wrong the methodology that fabricated them.
Which was done in the courtroom and completely ignored by the jury.
One curiosity was recently resolved.
Mann never released his FORTRAN program or his data for independent verification and validation.
A recent report that UVa allowed a researcher access to the software and data reported that when the data was run through the software, the results were strikingly different that what Mann published. Note: UVa was the archive for Mann’s data and software.
It is available here.
Thank you.
Now I remember:
a) how bad a language FORTRAN is.
b) why a scientist should never be allowed within arm’s reach of a keyboard.
Oh its terrible. I think the bigger problem is b). Look at GISTEMP’s source code which is in Python all nice and modern…still sloppy code.
At least Backus partially redeemed himself with BNF and his involvement in ALGOL.
The problem seems to be that they have 1-semester programming courses, but without the grounding in theory or any exposure to good code or data structures, or any idea at all about software engineering.
Even worse, they are clever enough to make a real mess of things*
[*] one could say the same of Larry or Guido, I suppose 🙂
Do you know if the code is available? It should be interesting reading.
From the Wegman Report:” Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.’
– Excerpt from Wegman report”
Wegman’s committee also plagiarized a significant portion of their work including from one of the authors their report was critical of. It’s not clear that Wegman understood that Bradley was one of the authors of MBH98/99. It is also believed Wegman relied up the MM05 method and even source code (including its bugs) as the basis for their conclusion. We don’t know for sure since 20 years later Wegman still has not released the materials he used as part of his analysis. One thing we do know is that the claim that hockey-sticks would appear 99% due to red noise was misleading at best since the denominator was based on 100 preselected simulations with the highest hockey-stick index. There were actually 10000 simulations run so the actual probability was not 99/100 = 99% but 99/10000 = 0.99%.
The most curious of curiosities is how perfectly the temperature proxies connect to the satellite measurements.
The second most curious of curiosities is that the temperature proxies ended when satellite data was available. AKA, there was no date presented for calibration of one system versus the other.
I had a graphic of the proxy data from a long time ago. Maybe I will find it again some day, but what was remarkable was the magnitude of the error bars. The signal to error ratio was huge.
Correct. No one knows the temperatures. Even today, satellite measurements come with an error band that is generally tossed aside.
The proxy record didn’t end at the satellite record though – it was intentionally removed. Basically climate alarmists call it ‘the divergence problem’ – proxies take a nosedive and go down at the same time as instrument temperature goes up, which is a bit of a problem if you want them to go in the opposite direction. Climate alarmists want you to believe that tree rings are a great proxy for temperature throughout the last 2000 years, except for 1960-98. What it goes to show is that tree rings are a very poor proxy for temperature and are likely to be reacting to a number of stimuli or lack of rather than temperature.
Michael E Mann looks and behaves just like a weeble.
Trump was hit by $350 million of fines, to screw/cripple Trump and send a message, even though Deutsche Bank testified loans were paid on time, i.e., no one had any damages.
Folks come out of the woodwork, scream rape, sue in friendly court, and get $80 million, no proof required.
A totally screwed up justice system, that has gotten a lot worse in the lawless, Wild West of the past 3 years
“”Folks come out of the woodwork,””
So true; #metoo etc
It’s impossible for an opponent of the left to get a fair trial in NY or DC. That said, Trump has the resources to fight, and there is hope that he prevails on appeal in both cases.
When the court system starts to serve a politicized purpose instead of serving the cause of justice, it takes on the character of what we might find in an oppressive police state. Russia, China and North Korea immediately come to mind. Donald Trump is finding this out now. When the justice system is manipulated to defend junk science and the scientists behind it, then things get all the worse.
It is disgusting to watch in a country that is supposed to be free, democratic and respectful of human rights.
Actually, unlike in the west, where every violation can be settled in monetary terms, in the Orient if you do crime you serve the time. See former South Korean President Park Geun-hye released from prison nearly five years after being convicted of corruption and originally sentenced to 24 years. Same thing happens in the Communist utopia of mainland China. Carlos Ghosun’s wife knew he was doomed if he entered a Japanese court room so she helped engineer his escape to Lebanon.
The only time errant Yankees go to the Big House is when there isn’t any money left from what they stole to repay the rich victims. That would be Theranos wunderfrau Elizabeth Holmes or the Ponzi schemer that preyed on the wealthy hoping to painlessly multiply their assets, Bernie Madoff. Crypto-currency genius Sam Bankman-Fried will find out on March 28 where he gets to spend the next couple of decades since the money he embezzled is gone. Steal from the poor and the consequences aren’t very serious. Stealing from the rich can be painful.
Criminals always resent being convicted. Too bad.
The trial seemed more of a witch burning than a proper legal proceeding. Hopefully appeal will lead to justice and possibly the impoverishment of those who spend their lives lying and cheating.
Isn’t a trial by “a jury of one’s peers” a cornerstone of American freedom? Isn’t the requirement that the media describe the arrested as “alleged” also a part of the deal? What could possibly go wrong with the judicial process in the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Ah, words.
What is the present moment definition of “peer?” Oops in the time it took me to post that, the definition most certainly transitioned to something else.
Steyn should go to another court and sue Mann. Maybe sue the Judge or DC court?
No need. The National Review is considering taking Mann on next for his remarks about them. It’ll be interesting to see which district they choose for their case.
This trial was never about defamation. This was about impoverishing and punishing Mark Steyn through 12+years of legal trauma.
Mann proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the whole climate circus is political. How?
His lawyers in their closing remarks equated Climate Denialists with Election Denialists and both needed to be silenced.
So climate science equates to politics.
(Remember this was held in a D.C. court and D.C. is >90% blue and quite hateful of red.)
I wish Mark Steyn all the best and hope for his total success.
“His lawyers in their closing remarks equated Climate Denialists with Election Denialists and both needed to be silenced.”. Hurrah!
The two arguments suggested for Steyn’s appeal – excessive punative damage and 1st Amendment violation – should also apply to Trump’s NY real estate fraud judgement.
Several other academics link or directly describe sealioning as a technique employed by internet trolls.
Mann is going to need the $1M to fight back National Review’s lawsuit. Mann might have bitten off more than he bargained for.
Mann admitted in court he doesn’t pay a red cent of his own legal fees.
But he would still be liable for a judgement that could be as high a $1M + punitive damage.
Agreed.
But does he pay taxes on the millions contributed to his legal expenses over the last 12 years?
Someone I know has always said that judges make deliberate mistakes on points of law to give the appeal courts something to do – a kind of lawyer’s job creation scheme. On a more serious (but equally cynical) note, it has often been noted that in civil actions, the winner is usually the one with the deepest pockets. I note that Mann is being funded by secret sponsor, this is presumably perfectly legal but it seems to me quite inproper. Elected politicians are obliged to declare sources of income to expose any possible inproper influence but also to expose the vested interests of the donors. It seems to me that this ought to apply to court cases also.
Interesting first point but this judge made enough mistakes in one case to keep an appeals court going for a year!
The weaponization of the country’s judicial system has ensured that there probably isn’t a good chance this appeal will succeed.
Judges are openly partisan and the First Amendment is constantly being eroded. Even in states where judges have to run for office and they aren’t allowed to declare as partisan Democrat or Republican, a flurry of mailers quickly informs the voters who to support.
The Red/Blue divide is controlled by extremists and they ensure that only the stupidest toadies have access to these jobs. These days, I have more respect for the people who pick up our garbage than I do a local or federal judge.
All this pro and anti Mann argument above. Just read Andrew Montford’ The Hockey Stick Illusion for the facts. A horrid story of unpleasant anti ethical behaviour by a bunch of ‘scientists’. Fraud? Certainly. And nearly all of it was written BEFORE the Climategate scandal broke!! Montford ‘was not surprised’ when he read the emails and produced his final devastating chapter. Do read it.
Seems to me that judges rejection of Judith Curry’s testimony is also grounds – my impression is he wanted a long dissertation with references to research.
I found this tweet quoted in the article particularly galling:
Usually one hope to make money from a book. Steyn’s probably cost him a million dollars: https://t.co/ZQMIl774zx
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) February 23, 2024
To what book was Mann referring – the piece at issue was an article on a website? If he was talking about Steyn’s book A Disgrace to the Profession, that wasn’t even allowed as evidence in the trial. This one short tweet displays Mann’s egotism in extending a jury decision about one article to also invalidating an entire book quoting his colleagues about his professional and personal behavior. Maybe he conflated them in his head, or maybe he still doesn’t actually know what the trial was about. After all, in the trial itself, he kept harping about being compared to a pedophile, not about the scientific fraud accusations.
This article is again misstating the basis of this suit, that the blog post Steyn referenced compared Piltdown Mann to a pedophile.
It compared the TREATMENT of Mann by the president of Penn state to the treatment of the pedo coach by that president.
I also note that Roger Pielkie recently pointed out that the Penn Stare board of inquiry was going to reprimand Piltdown for his actions before the uni pres shut it down, the uni pres that later went to jail for his actions protecting the pedo.
just the facts
Once again, justice triumphs; witness the whining and gnashing of teeth among those who rightly lost. Criminals and stooges always complain that the justice system is so unfair. That’s because they always LOSE.