Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Mark Steyn’s Latest

6 Comments

Go read it. You know you want to:

As for my basing a large part of my career on attacking Mann, I do sometimes marvel at the way people who profess to be saving the planet can be so fantastically parochial. In 2001, I wrote about the then-newish hockey stick in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph and Canada’s National Post, and some five years later in The Australian. But, as far as I recall, until November 2009 I had never ever mentioned Michael E Mann’s name in print. That was the month Climategate broke, of course, and I alluded to him a handful of times in the ensuing weeks. (Mann knows all this because I responded to his discovery requests almost a year-and-a-half ago, since when he’s refused to respond to mine.) And after that handful of times, I never mentioned him again until a 2012 blog post for which he’s suing me.

So now I mention him somewhat more often.

The same is true of me, in fact. If this does go to trial, Professor Mann is going to be very disappointed to discover how little attention I paid him up until I wrote that blog post.

6 thoughts on “Mark Steyn’s Latest”

  1. What stood out for me was this:

    “(Mann knows all this because I responded to his discovery requests almost a year-and-a-half ago, since when he’s refused to respond to mine.) … Mann chose to sue me, and he can’t dodge discovery forever.”

    Mann isn’t the IRS. He can’t stonewall forever. And even if he drops his lawsuit, Steyn won’t drop his countersuit.

  2. I note that Steyn did mention he has representation. He is simply sparingly using the representation, and I think he is reasonably smart about it. Steyn can do some of the paralegal stuff cheaper than his lawyers paralegal and their rates. Shame this country doesn’t have loser pays.

  3. Our host surmises that “[Steyn’s] countersuit will probably be dismissed.”

    Then, I would comparably surmise, appealed. The dismissive authority will be the trial court of first impression, right? But Steyn’s issues as claimed in his complaint ( making claims tracing rights back to Magna Carta, etc) are, by his intent I infer it, at a higher level than normally adjudicated at the first level. So it seems to me that the grounds for an appeal are built in to the countersuit such that a simple dismissal before and withou trial will not end the dispute.

    While we’re talking libel — how come Tim Hunt lost his job, exactly, while Phil Jones and Peter Gleick didn’t? How come Matt Taylor is generally offensive to all women but Rajendra Pachauri is not? What are the rules for criticizing a scientist, again?

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