“If a distinguished scientist is capable of having his professional reputation damaged by a mere Shirley Temple fan, how much worse must the damage be when the scientist is defamed by a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and so-called Nobel Laureate?”
More at Bishop Hill. (link updated)
DEFENDANT STEYN’S ANSWER AND COUNTERCLAIMS TO
AMENDED COMPLAINT
“Denies the allegations in Paragraph One-Hundred-And-
Eleven of the Amended Complaint, and feels Plaintiff is
going round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a
wheel, like the circles that you find in the tree-rings of
your mind.”
What are “cashed” versions of internet pages?
(last page of document)
Despite all the huffing and puffing of Mann’s lawyers, complete with spelling mistakes (“cashed”), the video lives on. Here it is for a good laugh on your Friday morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqc7PCJ-nc
More relevant legal news here: http://www.principia-scientific.org/michael-mann-faces-bankruptcy-as-his-courtroom-climate-capers-collapse.html
Syncrodox that’s really big news regarding the Tim Ball lawsuit. Smokes!
Thanks for posting that.
Lowering the boom on a truly nasty piece of skanky eco greenie nutbar
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/2/21/steyns-counterblast.html
Good news indeed and implications for Mark Steyn’s counter suit…Mann/Weaver et al are on the run now!
Isn’t exposing one’s research to criticism the normal method of offering proof of one’s theories? When did judges become the arbiters of research? Given that true scientists accept nothing as fact beyond criticism, how can a judge determine that something is a scientific fact? Strange!
Great news syncrodox…the planet is saved we aren’t being gassed by CO2!
The far reaching climate scam is rent asunder…
The Mann/Weaver suits demonstrate the climate scammers can’t stand the scrutiny in the daylight of an examining courtroom. I expect Mann will likely try the same strategy on Steyn and will be found wanting. Grand days for climate sceptics!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
State law school intern.
Woot, woot, Mann over board!!
Agreed and I’ll be hitting Mark’s site after the game to buy some more Steynia and support the routing of the climate frauds!
Pen Pen State failed to disclose errors & omissions of Mann’s research. They have deep pockets
Remember Pen State Vs Sandusky & the firing of Joe Paterno because he had a moral obligation to stop Sandusky..
Sue the bastards; they had an moral obligation to disclose a fraud in thier house…
When I first heard about the lawsuit my heart sank a bit, because I envisioned the sad prospect of seeing Mark Steyn being forced to publish a pre-written legalese-heavy apology in words that aren’t his own, or, worse yet, having to read it aloud in front of an assembled throng of AGW-promoting journo-holes.
The way Steyn’s been handling it, though — not backing off an inch, and continuing to be a bare-knuckle writer instead of retreating into silence until the case is resolved – he’s already emerged as as the clear winner in terms of reputation, whereas Mann will forever be a pathetic girly wimp with a case of the vapours.
Btw, for those who haven’t yet opened the PDFs, the real fun in Steyn’s legal response starts with #128 on page 16, and…keeps going until the end.
Any way you slice it, Michael Mann is more of a loser now than he was before he launched the suit, whereas the Steyn legend continues to grow.
Hmm, I think I need to write a folk song..
Nice to see Steyn going after these mini me pseudo scientist fascists.
At the end of this Mann is gonna figure someone took that hockey stick, & shoved it right up his bum.I figure not a few folks in the real science community are watching this avidly.
On his website, Mark Steyn suggests that free speech laws are growing weaker. I think free speech is growing stronger, because anyone with a soapbox and a website can challenge the world. (E.g., Small Dead Animals.) These myriad frivolous lawsuits are coming from public liars who used to get away with their lying.
If Britain actually enforced her libel laws to the letter, science would become impossible there. In the US and Canada, libel is saying something damaging and untrue. In Britain libel is saying something damaging. Truth can be called libel if it is damaging.
But science is all about truth, and scientists are supposed publish about any scientific errors they discover. In Britain the person who made the error could sue because their reputation was damaged when someone else pointed out their error.
This crazy definition of libel seems to come from the Code of Honor and Chivalry. These are 3 key rules from the Song of Roland, a medieval poem commonly sung by minstrels at court:
1. To live by honor and for glory.
2. To refrain from the wanton giving of offense (because knights were armed and one did not gratuitously anger them.)
3. To guard the honor of fellow knights (because mutual trust and respect among knights was vital to stabilize the state).
In the full code there are about 18 rules. Rule 3 often affects our daily lives. It’s hard to discipline incompetent/dishonorable lawyers, doctors, accountants, politicians, etc., because they pull together and defend their group. They beat us over the head with rule 3.
The Code of Honor/Chivalry is ensconced in many British, American and Canadian laws. But for libel, the US and Canada decided that truth-telling shall not be punished, even if it damages someone. If the ‘knights’ don’t like it, too bad.
Free science! Free Mark Steyn!
Syncrodox: It would be great if your information were accurate, but to my eyes it looks utterly unreliable. It seems to me that if the author’s claims were authentic, he would be providing some references and sources for his story.
Don’t trust me…cross reference that with Steyn’s court filings…
Syncrodox: I had already read Steyn’s filings before going to your link; cross-referencing doesn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. What I’m questioning is your link’s claim that the Mann vs Ball case has collapsed — completely unsourced. Am I missing something?
Watch for it…want to bet a case of beer?
The more this green fraud falls apart, the happier I am.
Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter practice polemics, but they also deal
in humor. Good luck throwing libel or slander suits at either
of them. Mann on the other hand has more to lose as this lawsuit
will probably have him being forced to open his books and his
methods to the jury during discovery.
He has a lot more to lose. When Steyn called Mann the Jerry
Sandusky of climate science, and Mann filed the SLAPP Suit,
it is now incumbent on him to prove otherwise. From fraudulent
claims that he has a Nobel Prize to falsely claiming that
none of his peers criticized his work, he is burying himself.
The entire government of Canada threw everything they had against
Steyn and not only crapped out, the anti-free speech statute
that he was charged under, ended up in the wastebasket. If
he holds tough and counter sues for legal fees, this will be the
last time Mann files a SLAPP suit against anyone!
https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/esearch/civil/partySearch.do
If you do a civil title search for either Andrew Weaver, Michael Mann or Timothy Ball you will come up empty handed so the file has ‘gone dead’ on the civil court docket.
The court looks pretty dimly on those who fail to respond to filing timelines unless you have some good excuses ie circumstances beyond your control
Thus if you lose by default for lack of response, we will see who has to get out their checkbook to write a very big one…
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Syncrodox, Hans, over at BH is a link to Lucia’s where McIntyre says the lawsuit against Ball has *not* been dismissed:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/comments-on-mann-continued/#comment-124923
I wish to heck our side could get the facts right. We can hardly say that Mann and his band of henchmen are liars (which they are) if we mess up our own facts.
Is John O’Sullivan trustworthy, in other words is the Ball lawsuit dismissed or not? I think that is the definitive question for today.
I suspect that it has got to be feeling like Chinese Water torture to Mann and company. Drip, drip, drip. I’m sure this is not how they expected things to play out.
It’s good to hear that Tim Ball is finally free of his court case.
Syncrodox: If you mean, a case of beer over whether Mann’s case against Ball has collapsed, sure. Read the article that you linked to. It just doesn’t sound credible. I searched the net for corroboration but couldn’t find any.
12 for the Steyn vs Mann case: I’d put my money behind Steyn, since libel and defamation cases set a high bar. But whether Steyn wins or not isn’t the issue. It has the potential to ruin him, and that’s the whole point. I hope people realize that those are the real stakes.
BC: If you read O’Sullivan’s article you’ll see that a lot of it is incoherent. He doesn’t inspire confidence in me — seems like a nut. We need hard facts, not nuts.
I put out an email seeking verification of the link provided to Dr Tim Ball.
We shall see…
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
As I understand it on the first count it’s a chronological deal..timing is everything. On the second point..agreed.
Syncrodox, Hans, thank you for your additional comments. I hope my post at 8:04 PM didn’t come across as rude. If it did my sincere apologies. I am so keen to see these lying, crooked, scumbags caught that I cannot contain my energy.
As I understand Steve Macintyre’s comments on the site referenced above by BC, which are pretty unequivocal (and he’s been in touch with Ball), there’s no issue of a “chronological deal.” It’s simple: the case hasn’t been dismissed, withdrawn, anything. We can only speculate why O’Sullivan wrote what he did. My bet is that he’s simply a fool or deluded, or both.
Those of us who support what Mark Steyn is trying to do, and who support the cause of free speech, don’t do ourselves any good at all by clinging to fringe characters like O’Sullivan who don’t give us iron-clad reasons for trusting them. We need to deal in evidence, not blind faith.
In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the following article:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/02/21/SKEPTICAL-CLIMATOLOGIST-CALLS-OUT-GLOBAL-WARMING-NAZIS
Skeptical Climatologist Calls Out ‘Global Warming Nazis’
A leading skeptic climatologist has declared himself so sick of being called a “denier” by climate alarmists that he is now going to call them out as “Nazis” in return.
Dr Roy Spencer, Principal Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, writes on his blog:
“Yeah, somebody pushed my button.
“When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it.
“They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.
“Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.
“I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.”
Well that should fill the law courts with all kinds of defamation suits…!
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
We need to understand Alinsky..get it..?
“We need to understand Alinsky..get it..?” Yes, but O’Sullivan? Really?
I just read this comment from Anthony Watts, in a reply this afternoon to a comment on WUWT: “Yep, once again “Principia-Scientific International”, and specifically John O’Sullivan, is full of crap. I must have had 25 links today from PSI telling me “Ball has defeated Mann, and Mann is near bankruptcy” all comments of which I deleted because I knew just like Steve did that it was nothing but hype. – Anthony.”
Not yet eh..?..
Mann’s hokey stick has been discredited by Steve McIntyre. Thus, to continue to push it constitutes fraud and con artists generally find themselves in the state pen in PA. Also, Mann is a public figure and the bar for libel is set far higher than if he was a private individual. Whether the hokey stick was the result of Mann’s stupidity or deliberate fraud is a subject for future investigators, but I have no worries about calling Mann a criminal for his previous actions. One doesn’t get away with breaking laws because one is too stupid to understand the consequences. Thus, totally agree with Tim Ball that Mann belongs in the state pen and not at Penn State.
Tried the link at the courts again with the following result:
Last Name, First Name
Style of Cause Classification
of File Court Location File Number Date File Opened Date Last
Updated View
BALL, Timothy (“Tim”)
MANN, Michael v THE FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY INC. Supreme
Supreme Civil (General) Vancouver Law Courts 111913 25Mar2011 12Feb2013 View File Details
BALL, Timothy (“tim”)
WEAVER, Andrew v BALL, Timothy Supreme
Supreme Civil (General) Vancouver Law Courts 110682 02Feb2011 09Mar2011 View File Details
So the last update to Ball v Mann according to the court links was
Feb 12, 2013
and Weaver v Ball last update March 9, 2011
IE the dockets still exists…so it looks like Sullivan is wishfully hoping.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Good Lord, how can so many people fall for such blatantly mendacious blather? The make-believe lawyer John O’Sullivan was exposed two years ago as a complete fraud, who bought himself an online “law degree” from “Hill University” (which promises delivery of any degree to anyone “within 14 days!”).
The humbug also falsely claims to have published major articles in the National Review and Forbes magazines. In reality, he’s a former high school art teacher, whose career came to am abrupt end when he was arrested and tried for assaulting a 16 y-o girl and sending her dozens of obscene messages.
The flimflammer has variously claimed to be Tim Ball’s legal counselor, a “legal consultant” at the Victoria, BC law firm defending Tim Ball against Michael Mann’s libel suit and, just 2 days ago, even claimed to be “an actual party” in the law suit, which he clearly is not:
http://www.dailypaul.com/313141/climate-change-global-warming-sham-is-collapsing-rebuttal-to-wattsup-article
O’Sullivan has the chutzpah to spew such easily exposed lies because he knows his readers rarely if ever bother to check out claims they want to believe are true.
It would have been easy for ANYONE to check and see how utterly mendacious O’Sullivan’s latest screed is: Here’s a statement released by Dr. Mann’s attorney Roger McConchie easily found with Google:
“The review of Tim Ball’s new book by Hans Schreuder and John O’Sullivan makes preposterous statements concerning Dr. Michael Mann’s lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court against Tim Ball and other defendants. The Mann lawsuit is currently in the discovery phase, with further examinations for discovery (depositions) of the defendants to be scheduled shortly, following which I will either set the action for trial by jury in the usual manner, or bring a summary trial application on behalf of Dr. Mann for damages and injunctive relief.
“Dr. Ball has not set the matter for trial and there is no motion by Ball currently before the Court. The allegation by Schreuder and O’Sullivan that Dr. Mann has refused to show his metadata and calculations in open court is not true.
“Their assertion that Dr. Mann faces possible bankruptcy is nonsense. Dr. Mann’s lawsuit against Dr. Ball and other defendants is proceeding through the normal stages prescribed by the BC Supreme Court Civil Rules and Dr. Mann looks forward to judicial vindication at the conclusion of this process.
“February 22, 2014
Roger D. McConchie
Barrister and Solicitor
Legal Counsel to Dr. Michael Mann”
You can read here the statement here: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/662080770514795
I’d be happy to provide additional links to public records which document O’Sullivan’s fraudulent misconduct if requested.