Today I’m launching a fund and I wonder whether anyone would like to contribute. Please, I implore you all, PLEASE chip in to help finance Professor Michael Mann’s suit for defamation against sinister, right-wing Canadian climate-change denier Mark Steyn and the fascist-denialist organ for which Steyn writes, National Review Online!
I don’t think Mann is going to win his case, not for one fraction of a millisecond. That’s why I think it’s so important that we give him all the financial encouragement we can at this sensitive early stage. There’s a danger that Mann may yet take advice from his lawyers, realise that there’s about as much chance of his defending the integrity of his ludicrous, comedy “Hockey Stick” curve as there is of George Galloway winning the Random Stranger I’d Feel Most Safe Sharing A Bed With While Completely Fast Asleep award (as annually voted by the readers of Mumsnet) – and pull out.
This must not be allowed to happen.
From obscure beginnings and with little discernible talent, Michael Mann has risen to become arguably the best loved comedy figure in the entire field of climate science, like Fatty Arbuckle, Pee Wee Herman and Coco the Clown rolled into one.
He singlehandedly invented Mann-made global warming using his amazing Hockey Stick curve – the one programmed using the ingenious algorithm whereby, whatever information you fed into it – fudged paleoclimatological reconstructions, the latest football scores, tofu futures – it always came out in the same, scary-looking This Is The End Of The World And We’ve Got To Act Now By Pumping Gazillions More Money Into Climate Research shape.
He gave us the phrase “Hide The Decline” – and starred in the hilarious song and video written in homage by a fan club called Minnesotans For Global Warming.
He described the battle between (apparently) well-funded “sceptics” like myself and “scientists” – ahem – like Michael Mann as “literally like a marine in battle against a cub scout.”
But of all the comedic pleasure this veritable Mickey Mouse among “climatologists” has given us so far, none comes even close to matching the joy and entertainment he will surely give us if he goes ahead with his court action against NRO and Steyn.
Aw come on, this has got to be worth at least the price of a rasslin’ pay-per-view. And Mikey’s is the only fix that’s in!
The trick is to not assert a defense that Mann has not been harmed by Steyn’s post too soon. It’s a slam dunk defense in pointing out all the other criticism and public flogging that took place in advance of the Steyn post that Mann ignored. Asserting the best defense too soon, they win too easily without addressing the degree of misleading information underlying the use of the phrases “fraudulent hockey stick” and “master of the tree ring circus.”
But let’s face it, there probably won’t be much more than non-substantive bluster to come out of this. They (Mann, UVA and Pen State) just aren’t ever going to let go of the stuff that should be the subject of discovery, but they can do a lot of motion and counter motions before slinking off in a cloud of dust leaving everyone to argue about what happened and why. The best most likely outcome would be for Mann to be exposed as having to drop his action while exhibiting that he is a gaseous body of Jupiter-sized ego.
Great post ! But go ahead, don’t sit on the fence post, tell us how you really feel….