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!
It is indicative of the pathology of the times that Linker has any outlets at all and is spoken of by persons such as Rod Dreher as if here were anything but what he is. It is indicative of the lack of even a visceral sense of honor among those who make their living in journalism.
And you do that voodoo so well, RSM
“He is also a consulting editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press…”
Un-huh. Glad to have this disinterested and trenchant analysis from this, dare I posit, “man of modest polemical talent?”
Does anyone doubt that the tedious douchebag has a manifesto in his future?
He seems to think that Mann will prevail, because of discovery. I’m afraid Damon Linker may be disappointed.
Seems NR has decided this is not the hill.
Saw a comment at ace that said, in other context, better picks hill to fight on, or they will pick a ditch for you to die in.
Yes, but Steyn does it with a posh limey accent and you sound like Ned Ruffin on his second beer. The snob factor don’t you know…
The DC GOP (and NR) have given up more hills than the French at Dien Bien Phu… and look how that turned out.
Sounds like someone is seriously buttraged that he can’t articulate a coherent response to Steyn.
Hey, when someone is obviously educated, from the New Class and yet rejects all their pseudo-intellectual pretensions there’s only one thing left: ad hominem! Its a LWNJ art form.
Michael Mann qualifies as a public figure and he is suing in reaction to an off-hand insult. Working politicians put up with this sort of thing multiple times a day. I tend to doubt it will be discovery that is decisive.
I think Steyn left school at 16 or 18, as was the norm ca. 1975 (I believe it remains so).
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What is notable about Steyn is that he is an engaging writer, which Linker is not. Linker actually has a PhD from some institution somewhere on the literary side of political science, yet he was quite ably taken apart by Joseph Knippenberg in online discussions of the thesis of his own book. Dr. Knippenberg is a rank-and-file academic, not some brilliant practitioner of forensics.
LWNJ… Chrissie Matthews watching SOTU?
Discovery may expose Mann to much more than he bargained for. And it may result in ultimate dismissal of the suit.
Then again, this kangaroo process so far has already benefited him – the process is the punishment after all.
[…] Mark Steyn vs. a Thin-Skinned Bully : The Other McCain. […]
Heard tale that Steyn is representing himself, pro se. That is usually a recipe for failure, even among lawyers.
Mann may well win if Steyn represents himself.
I doubt it will stay that way. Steyn knows better, and working around bloviating judges normally requires an attorney to do the navigating. Mann may win on the trial level, but the appellate level will rip Mann a new one. The trial level is the only place he can hope for a miracle.
I’m sure academia will reward Mann for his aggressiveness in defending the fraud of AGW. It’s the only reward he can hope for. His status as a scientist has pretty much been utterly demolished.
So, who is doing the DDOS on the site today? Kimberlings? The pro-pedophile gang? Global warmists?
Linker must think that Mark Steyn is Amanda Knox, Mann is Giuliano Mignini, and this trial is taking place in Italy.
It gives Steyn and NRO the chance to discredit Mann by going through Mann’s records.
Any or all of the above?
For the time being. He is looking for a new attorney.
I am chortling, chortling I tell you! Such high comedy at the expense of a prickly, self-entitled fraud. I wait with anticipation for the discovery phase.
Now that “Global Warming” has been on a nearly-two-decade vacation, I receive no end of pleasure beating AGW idiots about the head and neck – figuratively and rhetorically – for them being “science deniers”. Strangely enough, they are seldom amused at being on the receiving end.
Which gives me even more pleasure, of course.
Ouch, btw, how to you say “ouch” in cheese eating surrender monkey?
“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.”
McCain, remind us again: From which correspondence school did you get your science degree?
Chortle all you want. Just no Callooh! Callay!
“No tort has ever earned ‘Trial of the Century’ status.”
Tell that to my distant relative, Joe Jamail. He litigated that “tiny” little Pennzoil lawsuit.
Which have been protected by the Universities that Mann has been doing the work in. First UVA, now Penn State – hence the Sandusky comparison. Not that Mann is a pedophile, but that his known transgressions were protected by the University, like Sandusky, in order to protect the “greater good” – in this case, instead of football – Global Warming fame and money.
Reaching into my posterior for my made-up words dictionary, I’m going to say “ouche” pronounced “oosh”.
CAZART!
Yes, in Virginia the U fought to gain “privacy rights” for Mann’s use of the publicly-funded email system, so his behind-the-scenes manipulations were kept out of public view.
He’ll have representation by the time anything moves in the case. Since there are multiple parties and the case is so weak, he is safe to coast on the float of the other attorneys while between his own.
Discovery is potentially more threatening to Mann than to Steyn or NRO. All he can really demand on discovery is their papers and emails on him and/or global warming, which will likely provide mainly an exchange of links to information damaging to the alarmists.
But they should be able to demand all his hidden emails while working on the various projects including IPCC. He successfully hid those from FOIA requests from the public, but reciprocal discovery in a suit he initiated is a whole ‘nother kettle o’ fish.
Newsweek article “A Change in the Legal Climate” reports that Mann says the following:
[START] The “hide the decline” phrase, while inartful, was referring to not
displaying tree ring data over years when it was known to be misleading. [END]
Tree ring trends and temperature trends correspond well except when they don’t.
We pick the data we like and ignore the data we don’t like. We ABUSE the data.
If tree rings were not a reliable proxy for temperatures after the 1960s–when, I’m guessing, we have the most regular and precise measurements of temperature–then perhaps they were not a reliable proxy for temperature before the 1960s, either. What am I missing?
Wikipedia, s.v. “Dendroclimatology,” says the following in the “Divergence problem” subsection:
[START] While the thermometer records indicate a substantial warming trend, tree
rings from these particular sites do not display a corresponding change
in their maximum latewood density or, in some cases, their width. This
does not apply to all such studies.
Where this applies, a temperature trend extracted from tree rings alone WOULD NOT SHOW ANY SUBSTANTIAL WARMING. The temperature graphs
calculated from instrumental temperatures and from these tree ring
proxies thus “diverge” from one another since the 1950s, which is the
origin of the term. THIS DIVERGENCE RAISES OBVIOUS QUESTIONS OF WHETHER OTHER, UNRECOGNIZED DIVERGENCES HAVE OCCURRED IN THE PAST, PRIOR TO THE ERA OF THERMOMETERS. There is evidence suggesting that the divergence is caused by human activities, and so confined to the recent past… [END]
Newsweek article “A Change in the Legal Climate” reports that Mann says the following:
[START] The “hide the decline” phrase, while inartful, was referring to not
displaying tree ring data over years when it was known to be misleading. [END]
Tree ring trends and temperature trends correspond well except when they don’t.
We pick the data we like and ignore the data we don’t like. We ABUSE the data.
If
tree rings were not a reliable proxy for temperatures after the
1960s–when, I’m guessing, we have more reliable and precise
measurements of temperature–then perhaps they were not a reliable proxy
for temperature before the 1960s, either. What am I missing?
Wikipedia, s.v. “Dendroclimatology,” says the following in the “Divergence problem” subsection (emphasis mine):
[START] While the thermometer records indicate a substantial warming trend, tree
rings from these particular sites do not display a corresponding change
in their maximum latewood density or, in some cases, their width. This
does not apply to all such studies.
Where this applies, a temperature trend extracted from tree rings alone
WOULD NOT SHOW ANY SUBSTANTIAL WARMING. The temperature graphs
calculated from instrumental temperatures and from these tree ring
proxies thus “diverge” from one another since the 1950s, which is the
origin of the term. THIS DIVERGENCE RAISES OBVIOUS QUESTIONS OF WHETHER
OTHER, UNRECOGNIZED DIVERGENCES HAVE OCCURRED IN THE PAST, PRIOR TO THE
ERA OF THERMOMETERS. There is evidence suggesting that the divergence is
caused by human activities, and so confined to the recent past… [END]
Perhaps the same place you got your journalism degree.
One does not need to have a degree in science to be able to judge if someone is a fraud. Mann is a fraud, and I do have a science degree. Many others with science degrees have looked at Mann’s work and arrived at the same conclusion. If you were to get out of your basement, you might actually be able to find a few of the 100s that have said exactly that.
Anyone with a quorum of neurons that connect can figure out how Mann conducted his fraudulent attack on science.
Keep trying. Eventually your neurons might manage enough connections.
In fairness, Mann originally did some interesting research.
But when people questioned him (Which is the _SCIENTIFIC METHOD_), he got defensive, refused to share data or methodology, and proved his thin-skin.
There are many people doing a lot of good work – or trying to – in the Climate fields. Mann’s a particular embarrassment, and nobody wishes he’d go away more than the people really trying to do good work.
(They’re handicapped by a lot of things already.)
I have a Ph.D in physics and teach engineering at a university. What you say may sound compelling in your trailer park, but outside of your shantytown Mann is a respected climatologist who is far from being a fraud. I cannot wait until he bankrupts the National Review.
As noted above, I have a Ph.D. in physics and teach engineering. What correspondence school did you drop out of?
Gibbs, I really couldn’t care less what you claim your credentials are. Physicists have ripped Mann a new one, as have Engineers, and other who know what science is. You can dream that he will bankrupt NR, but you will be waiting a very long time. He wouldn’t be so shy about his “data” if he really had what he claims.
Mann is a respected “climatologist” perhaps in your pseudo-scientific ghetto perhaps, but where real science is practiced, Mann is a fraud. Your PhD, in this case, simply means “piled higher and deeper.”
His good work is far in the past and has now been buried in fraud. Some want to say he “just made a mistake.” A man can make an honest mistake and own up to it, but he’s run home to mommy and is trying to let others defend his work instead of standing up and doing it himself, like a man.
He’s been caught out, however, and he is an embarrassment to others in the fields who are doing honest work.
Another preening idiot trolls the site. I pity your students if you are rigorous with them as you are with judging science.
First of all, that Ph.D. joke is brilliant! You must have graduated at the top of your reform school. But just repeating something of which you no less than nothing about may be compelling to your fellow hayseeds but at the university I teach at, you wouldb
And I’m the Queen of England. No, really. I totally believe you, kiddo.
First of all, that Ph.D. joke is absolutely brilliant! You must have graduated near the top of your reform school. However, just repeating things about which you now less than nothing about (e.g., science) may be considered compelling conservation during breaks at work with your fellow ditchdiggers, but at the university I teach at we know a lot about science and mathematics and other stuff of which you only have a vague understanding. Look, if you refrain from beraying the internet with comments about science I promise not to post anything about, say, country music. Deal?
Actually, I am not surprised you think you are the Queen of England–I suspect you are constantly called “Your Highness” by the voices in your head.
Eh, I wouldn’t waste pity on imaginary students.
You pity my students if I am rigorous with them? Clearly you should stick to pig farming or whatever your parole officer was able to line up for you and leave teaching at the academy up to smart and accomplished people like me.
Regretting your Genderqueer Studies major at Mail Order Certificates already, dear boy? I could have told you it was a waste of Mommy and Daddy’s money. Ah well, their loss, I suppose. At least I hope you’re enjoying the weed.