The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Mark Steyn vs. a Thin-Skinned Bully

Posted on | January 30, 2014 | 102 Comments

Lawsuits don’t make for interesting journalism. No tort has ever earned “Trial of the Century” status. So it is that even a defamation case involving a famed writer like Mark Steyn and a notorious “scientist” like Michael Mann gets relatively little attention.

Steyn’s recent column about the case doesn’t capture what is so outrageous about Mann’s lawsuit: A tenured academic whose particular hustle is the taxpayer-funded “climate change” racket ought to have the decency to pocket his ill-gotten cash and leave honest men alone, but Mann is evidently the shameless sort who thinks he deserves both government money and a good reputation.

Now a tedious douchebag says Steyn “specializes in whipping right-wing readers into a froth of know-nothing indignation”?

Absurd — that’s my job!

 

Category: Global Warming

Comments

102 Responses to “Mark Steyn vs. a Thin-Skinned Bully”

  1. Art Deco
    January 31st, 2014 @ 7:37 pm

    I cannot wait until he bankrupts the National Review

    Waal, I guess we’re all free to look forward to the implosion of the higher education bubble putting you out on the street.

  2. Art Deco
    January 31st, 2014 @ 7:40 pm

    outside of your shantytown Mann is a respected climatologist

    Evidently all the respect did not provide him with a thick enough hide to withstand insults politicians put up with every day.

    —

    While we’re at it, who do you suppose is paying his legal bills?

  3. Art Deco
    January 31st, 2014 @ 7:41 pm

    Maybe you ought to leave forensics to someone else. Peppering people with random insults is inelegant.

  4. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 7:45 pm

    Actually, now I’m suspecting he’s a parody troll “roleplaying” his moniker the same way Dicky and I do. (Though in my case I don’t do it as often as I used to) I suppose some of us really do change a lot more in the “roleplay afterlife”.

  5. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 7:47 pm

    On second thought…

    Dick, are you punking us? This is another RP persona for parody troll purposes, isn’t it? You magnificent bastard.

  6. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:22 pm

    Not me, I’m tenured!

  7. Quartermaster
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:23 pm

    You really haven’t shown much understanding of what I said. Rigor is clearly something you have no acquaintance with, as you have so amply demonstrated with your poor reading skill.

    Pig farming? We are getting truly desperate. Nothing wrong with pig farming. It certainly far more honest a pursuit than you conning a bunch of students with your lack of knowledge of what science consists of.

  8. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:23 pm

    Very classy, but my degrees are in engineering (undergraduate) and physics (Ph.D.). Remind me, what yours are in?

  9. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:24 pm

    Don’t know but I hope it continues!

  10. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:26 pm

    Nope, I am a real engineering professor. And what to you do?

  11. Quartermaster
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:27 pm

    That’s what I’m thinking. He’s already demonstrated enough to me to conclude he’s a fraud and is lying about his credentials. It’s quite possible that heshe has borrowed a name from someone that has a PhD, but that character hasn’t demonstrated enough rigor here for me to conclude that heshe is anything else but a faker. I’ve spent a good deal of time around Physicists and know how they speak and write. They are as rigorous in that as they are in the way they teach.

    It’s also possible that the person who that name belongs to actually is a Physicist that teaches Engineering, but that is an exceedingly rare occurrence. While Physics and Engineering are two sides of the same coin, the mindset is entirely different and Physicists usually make poor Engineering instructors.

  12. Quartermaster
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:38 pm

    Your a fraud. You have no idea who I am, but your patterns betray you. Science is something I know quite well as I make my living from it. I don’t have to engage in fraud like Mann does as my work stands by itself and I’m not trying to gain honor by cheating. That eventually comes back to haunt you, as it has with Mann.

    Mann is going to find that his entire paper trail is going to opened like a book with some very embarrassing photos. Discovery, if it goes that far, and I have serious doubts it will, is going to be very painful for him. He is being poorly advised, assuming he has not lied, or kept things from his attorneys. If he has, he’s in far more trouble than most people understand.

  13. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:39 pm

    I know what rigor is. I also know a lot about science and mathematics and other subjects you have trouble spelling. But I don’t blame your cognitive weaknesses completely on you. My guess is you are from the South and maybe even “educated” there. If not, well, then I do completely blame you.

  14. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:40 pm

    You got me! No, wait, I actually mean what I am saying here, that you guys are dumber than a bag of rocks!

  15. rmnixondeceased
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:43 pm

    Not me!

  16. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:43 pm

    Very true. To be fair, I suspected it was Dick roleplaying a parody troll, since J. Willard Gibbs is a 19th Century physicist. Might be someone else taking a stab at parody, then.

  17. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:44 pm

    You can listen to the voices in your head all you want but I am a Ph.D. physicist who teaches engineering.

    And how would you know that physicist make poor engineering instructors since you obviously know nothing about either? Why not restrict yourself to things you know, like whether country singers make good hall monitors?

  18. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:46 pm

    At last a true statement! Josiah Willard Gibbs was (and still is) the greatest born and bred American scientist of all time!

  19. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:46 pm

    Whomever it is isn’t too bad at parody. Faking someone faking being something else is pretty tricky to pull off.

  20. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:50 pm

    I have 30 students in my class this semester–and I suspect everyone of them is smarter than all of you (admittedly, that is not saying much).

  21. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:51 pm

    Not bad, you could have done worse for a parody troll account. If you’d picked a more widely-known physicist, it would have been too obvious.

    I do have a small nitpick, though. I haven’t seen you pull the race card yet, and if you’re going to parody a leftist, you absolutely must pull the race card at least once. Don’t worry if it doesn’t even make any sense in context, the lunatics on the left never do. Heck, blame global warming on race. I’ve seen even more ridiculous comparisons.

  22. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:51 pm

    I have more talents than you could ever dream of having.

  23. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:55 pm

    “I’ve seen even more ridiculous comparisons.”

    I can believe that–you write many ridiculous posts! I assume you read your comments before posting them. No, wait…

  24. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 8:56 pm

    I forgot to congratulate you on pulling off “true believer freshman in a Grievance Studies major with an inferiority complex pretending to be a Real!Professor! of Science! and teaches! online”. You can usually get one nuance or the other, but it’s hard to keep them straight and usually takes an experienced roleplayer.

  25. rmnixondeceased
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:00 pm

    Quite difficult in fact as I know (to my disgrace). I have been very ill this week and not online as much as usual …

  26. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:00 pm

    Now you’re just getting lazy. Come on, dig deep and find the more esoteric stereotypes! I haven’t seen the “you’re all closeted gays” one in a while.

  27. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:03 pm

    I hope you feel better soon. I had a nasty bout myself the previous weeks (hence my absence) so I can empathize.

  28. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:06 pm

    I admire how you reject the crippling conventions of clarity and good grammar in your posts. By the way, how come you refuse to give the name of the community college you dropped out of?

  29. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:10 pm

    Can you find the moronic grammar mistake in YOUR first sentence? If not, YOU’RE even dumber than I thought.

  30. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:11 pm

    That reminds me; I also forgot to commend you for not mentioning which universities your persona attended and teaches at. I see a lot of would-be satirists slip up here, and it’s good you didn’t get hemmed into that. You’ll get asked about that, but don’t forget to deflect, since it is far too easy to debunk those claims.

    For example, I spotted one who had claimed to have been in the Chemistry department of the university I graduated from, but it was easy to debunk just showing a register without his name on it at the time he supposedly attended.

  31. Quartermaster
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:12 pm

    Done intentionally. I let you have one thing you could actually be right about this evening. Thanks for taking the bait.

  32. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:18 pm

    You slipped a little here, just to let you know. You’ll only want to use the “country singer” bit once, because overusing it make it look like you’re trying too hard. Remember: leftist true believers think logical fallacies are debating tactics, so you’ll want a lot of diversity with your ad hominems. Get creative, mix them up a little.

  33. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:22 pm

    Since the number of things you have any knowledge of is extremely limited, I am forced to repeat myself.

  34. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:24 pm

    Well, one of them was MIT. Now tell me one of the colleges you attended.

  35. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:28 pm

    Another slip up. Yes, leftists put a lot of weight on the Big Names, but it’s a little too obvious and much easier to disprove. Actually, I’d recommend a foreign university, such as Oxford. That also helps with that whole “worldly” veneer that sends thrills up leftist legs.

  36. WillardGibbs
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:34 pm

    Sorry, but I did go to and graduate from MIT. Not Ivy League, but pretty good. Why are you too ashamed to say where you attended?

  37. rmnixondeceased
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:38 pm

    I am afraid it’s al downhill from here …

  38. Wombat_socho
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:38 pm

    And I am easily bored. So long, troll.

  39. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:41 pm

    Aw shoot. I was having so much fun messing with him, too. But it was getting a little messy in here.

    À votre bon cœur.

  40. La Pucelle
    January 31st, 2014 @ 9:50 pm

    Oh, and thank you for reminding me about this! Time for my nerd announcement.

    Hey folks, the ever amazing Walter Lewin’s Classical Mechanics is available on edX. The last class was back in September, but it’ll probably be offered again because, well, everyone loves Lewin.

    Oh, and my ever-nutty alma mater (ok, so the STEM part is the actual serious university) offers a course on Artificial Intelligence, so you can have the nice science-y type things without dealing with the lunatic “Diversity College”.

  41. DaveO
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

    So you didn’t read Mann’s emails instructing his British counterparts in how to use his hockey-stick chart to defraud the Crown and he was doing with the American government? Soooo Mr. Professor-man, are you disappointed that the earth isn’t as flat as you’ve been told to believe?
    A physicist teaching engineering. Next we’ll be seeing Civil Engineers quoting Poe as they teach Baking.

  42. DaveO
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

    It’s a hard life in academia these days, what with crushing free thought, and destroying free will in the name of solidarity. “Willard” is a professional troll, always coming back to answer, but never giving anything concrete. A real professor understands that once the emails came to light, Mann’s credibility is shot, and the lawsuit is meant to tie down Steyn and NR during an election campaign.

  43. DaveO
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:35 pm

    Probably the same one as before. They get assignments and have to put in some time before collecting a paycheck.
    Unless it is True Believer, but “Willard” so far hasn’t shown it believes anything.

  44. K-Bob
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:35 pm

    One that requires a basic understanding of statistics, for one. Are you sure your Ph.D. isn’t in gullibility?

  45. K-Bob
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:43 pm

    But it “has talents” we can only dream of.

    Something tells me that dreaming is of inordinate importance in its world.

  46. K-Bob
    January 31st, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

    Common trait with bent leftists.

    Krugman was the same way. Came up with one decent idea, and has been patching and grifting ever since.

  47. K-Bob
    January 31st, 2014 @ 11:37 pm

    But… Ph.D., man!

    He’s probably seen books and other strange things we can only dream of.

  48. rmnixondeceased
    February 1st, 2014 @ 7:35 am

    Mon cher, vous êtes toujours la dame, je craindrais de rencontrer dans une ruelle sombre.

  49. La Pucelle
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:22 pm

    Heh. Mille fois merci. *curtsey and grin*

  50. rmnixondeceased
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:44 pm

    Un millier félicite mon cher.