Sticks and Stone
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/10/16/mark-steyn-sticks-and-stones/
AGW scam artist Dr. Michael Mann claims to have won a Nobel Prize - just another fabricated claim. He also continuously defames other leading scientists publicly, but just compare his abuse to data to fellow Penn Stater Sandusky - well that's a suing. (Extract from the article below)
'But the urge to litigate disagreement is never far from the surface in contemporary discourse. So both Ezra Levant and I find ourselves back in court yet again. In my case, Iâm currently being sued in the District of Columbia by Dr. Michael Mann, the eminent global warm-monger, for mocking (in Americaâs National Review) his increasingly discredited climate-change âhockey stick.â So Dr. Mann has sued for what his complaint to the court called âdefamation of a Nobel prize recipient.â
In fact, Dr. Mann is not a âNobel prize recipient.â But, as Donna LaFramboise recently pointed out in these pages, he has spent many years passing himself off as one. The nearest he got to a Nobel was as one of several thousand contributors to one of various reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 shared a Nobel Peace Prize. So Dr. Mann is a Nobel laureate in the same sense that my mother is: Sheâs Belgian, and Belgium is in the European Union, and the European Union was collectively awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. My mum does not claim to be a Nobel prize winner, but Dr. Mann did, on an industrial scale, including in his publicistâs bio, his book jackets and his website â until, in the wake of his false complaint, the Nobel Institute in Oslo declared that he was not a Nobel laureate at all. In that sense, Dr. Mann is, indeed, a fraud. It is a fascinating legal question whether a man guilty of serial misrepresentation can, in fact, be defamed. But itâs not that fascinating, and certainly not worth the courtâs time and seven-figure legal bills.
Other than that, itâs a pretty basic free speech case. Dr. Mann, whatever his other gifts, is an inveterate name-caller. Consider his recent Guardian column defending his âhockey stickâ from the bad case of brewerâs droop itâs acquired over the last 15 years of non-warming: Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish professor named (unlike Mann) by Foreign Policy as one of the âTop 100 Global Thinkers,â is dismissed as âcareer fossil fuel industry apologist Bjorn Lomborgâ; Judith Curry, a member of the National Research Councilâs climate research committee, winner of awards from the American Meteorological Society, and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences, is billed by Dr. Mann as âserial climate disinformer Judith Curryâ; and anyone else who has the impertinence to disagree with him is lumped under the catch-all category of âclimate change deniers.â
As masters of devastating put-downs go, Dr. Mann isnât exactly Oscar Wilde. Nevertheless, plonking and leaden and witless as his insults are, he has a perfect right to make them. Unfortunately, heâs one of those pathologically insecure types who feels he should be able to dish it out but that he shouldnât have to take it. So he is suing because he didnât like being described by Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as, metaphorically, âthe Jerry Sandusky of climate changeâ (a line I quoted). Jerry Sandusky is the Penn State football coach currently serving 30-60 years in the slammer for sexual abuse of children. In court, our notably unimpressive judge Natalia Combs-Greene declared, even before we got anywhere near the trial, that she was with Dr. Mann: âThe court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiffs. To place Plaintiffâs name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.â
So what? Itâs equally outrageous to call anyone who disagrees with you a âdenier,â a slur with a very particular pedigree, and one which would be distressing to any critic of Mann with family who died in the Holocaust. And in the case of Dr. Mann, he was in fact (which is what courts used to concern themselves with) a colleague of the pedophile Sandusky at Penn State University for six years. So itâs not in the least bit âoutrageousâ to put Mann and Sandusky in the same sentence, even if only when compiling the Penn State faculty list, or drawing up guest invitations for its now indicted presidentâs Christmas cocktail party. If Dr. Mann doesnât like being linked to Penn Stateâs scandals, he should get a new job.'
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/10/16/mark-steyn-sticks-and-stones/
AGW scam artist Dr. Michael Mann claims to have won a Nobel Prize - just another fabricated claim. He also continuously defames other leading scientists publicly, but just compare his abuse to data to fellow Penn Stater Sandusky - well that's a suing. (Extract from the article below)
'But the urge to litigate disagreement is never far from the surface in contemporary discourse. So both Ezra Levant and I find ourselves back in court yet again. In my case, Iâm currently being sued in the District of Columbia by Dr. Michael Mann, the eminent global warm-monger, for mocking (in Americaâs National Review) his increasingly discredited climate-change âhockey stick.â So Dr. Mann has sued for what his complaint to the court called âdefamation of a Nobel prize recipient.â
In fact, Dr. Mann is not a âNobel prize recipient.â But, as Donna LaFramboise recently pointed out in these pages, he has spent many years passing himself off as one. The nearest he got to a Nobel was as one of several thousand contributors to one of various reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 shared a Nobel Peace Prize. So Dr. Mann is a Nobel laureate in the same sense that my mother is: Sheâs Belgian, and Belgium is in the European Union, and the European Union was collectively awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. My mum does not claim to be a Nobel prize winner, but Dr. Mann did, on an industrial scale, including in his publicistâs bio, his book jackets and his website â until, in the wake of his false complaint, the Nobel Institute in Oslo declared that he was not a Nobel laureate at all. In that sense, Dr. Mann is, indeed, a fraud. It is a fascinating legal question whether a man guilty of serial misrepresentation can, in fact, be defamed. But itâs not that fascinating, and certainly not worth the courtâs time and seven-figure legal bills.
Other than that, itâs a pretty basic free speech case. Dr. Mann, whatever his other gifts, is an inveterate name-caller. Consider his recent Guardian column defending his âhockey stickâ from the bad case of brewerâs droop itâs acquired over the last 15 years of non-warming: Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish professor named (unlike Mann) by Foreign Policy as one of the âTop 100 Global Thinkers,â is dismissed as âcareer fossil fuel industry apologist Bjorn Lomborgâ; Judith Curry, a member of the National Research Councilâs climate research committee, winner of awards from the American Meteorological Society, and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences, is billed by Dr. Mann as âserial climate disinformer Judith Curryâ; and anyone else who has the impertinence to disagree with him is lumped under the catch-all category of âclimate change deniers.â
As masters of devastating put-downs go, Dr. Mann isnât exactly Oscar Wilde. Nevertheless, plonking and leaden and witless as his insults are, he has a perfect right to make them. Unfortunately, heâs one of those pathologically insecure types who feels he should be able to dish it out but that he shouldnât have to take it. So he is suing because he didnât like being described by Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as, metaphorically, âthe Jerry Sandusky of climate changeâ (a line I quoted). Jerry Sandusky is the Penn State football coach currently serving 30-60 years in the slammer for sexual abuse of children. In court, our notably unimpressive judge Natalia Combs-Greene declared, even before we got anywhere near the trial, that she was with Dr. Mann: âThe court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiffs. To place Plaintiffâs name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.â
So what? Itâs equally outrageous to call anyone who disagrees with you a âdenier,â a slur with a very particular pedigree, and one which would be distressing to any critic of Mann with family who died in the Holocaust. And in the case of Dr. Mann, he was in fact (which is what courts used to concern themselves with) a colleague of the pedophile Sandusky at Penn State University for six years. So itâs not in the least bit âoutrageousâ to put Mann and Sandusky in the same sentence, even if only when compiling the Penn State faculty list, or drawing up guest invitations for its now indicted presidentâs Christmas cocktail party. If Dr. Mann doesnât like being linked to Penn Stateâs scandals, he should get a new job.'
