They’ll just lie.
It’s actually how they deal with most issues. They don’t have much other choice if they want to win.
Category Archives: Business
The Other Shoe Drops
A press release from CEI:
Penn State Climate Scientist Michael Mann Demands Apology From CEI CEI Refuses to Retract Commentary Washington, D.C., August 24, 2012 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute received a letter on August 21 from an attorney representing Penn State University Professor Michael E. Mann that demands that CEI retract and apologize for a post on CEI’s blog, Openmarket.org, written by CEI adjunct scholar Rand Simberg. The letter also threatens that they “intend to pursue all appropriate legal remedies on behalf of Dr. Mann.”
“The Other Scandal in Unhappy Valley,” the July 13, 2012 blog post at issue, criticized Professor Mann, a climate scientist who is recent years has become a leading advocate in the public debate for global warming alarmism. Mann was the lead author of research that fabricated the infamous hockey stick temperature graph. The hockey stick was featured in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report (2001), but was dropped in its Fourth Assessment Report (2007). E-mails from and to Professor Mann featured prominently in what became known as the Climategate scandal.
In response to the letter from Mann’s attorney, CEI offered the following statements.
Statement by CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman:
This week CEI received a letter from Michael Mann’s attorney, John B. Williams of Cozen O’Connor, demanding that CEI fully retract and apologize for a July 13th OpenMarket blog post concerning Mann’s work. Shortly after that post was published in mid-July, CEI removed two sentences that it regarded as inappropriate. However, we view the post as a valid commentary on Michael Mann’s research. We reject the claim that this research was closely examined, let alone exonerated, by any of the proceedings listed in Mr. Williams’s letter.
National Review, which earlier got a similar letter from Mann’s attorney, has expertly summed up the matter in a response by the editor and the publication’s attorney.
And regardless of how one views Mann’s work, his threatened lawsuit is directly contrary to First Amendment law regarding public debate over controversial issues. Michael Mann may believe we face a global warming threat, but his actions represent an unfounded attempt to freeze discussion of his views.
In short, we’re not retracting the piece, and we’re not apologizing for it.
Statement by Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment:
Penn State Professor Michael Mann’s lawyer claims that nine investigations of academic fraud have all exonerated Professor Mann. Most of these investigations did not examine Professor Mann’s conduct or even mention him, and Penn State University’s investigation was typical of that institution’s unfortunate tendencies.
The fact that Professor Mann’s hockey stick research is still taken seriously in the public debate is an indication that people haven’t read the Wegman Report to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the National Research Council’s report, or the analysis of Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick.
Professor Mann’s political advocacy is no more reliable than his scientific research. His recent book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, repeats numerous factual errors, some of them about CEI.
> View the Michael Mann attorney letter.pdf
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org. Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.
As this is now a legal matter directly involving me, I will have no further comment.
A Novel Approach To Spam
Lately, I’ve been getting emails with no subject, no “from” and no content. Nothing but a return path, which I wouldn’t see if I didn’t display full headers. It’s just an empty email. I just got about half a dozen of them at once, each from a different return path.
Any theories about this?
Climate Bait
We intend to file a lawsuit.
[Fist pump] Yesssss.
Anthony Watts has also dug up a couple useful older posts with which he had been previously unaware, including one of mine.
[Update a couple minutes later]
It strikes me that Mann is using his hockey stick for an own goal.
The EPA
…recognizes no legal limits. In that, it has a lot in common with much of this administration. I’m glad to see the courts slapping this kind of thing down.
The New Deal
Time to finally bring it to an end. The notion of positive rights is intrinsically Marxist.
What Produces More CO2 Than Gas?
Wind.
Methanol
Bob Zubrin says it’s time to legalize it.
Given the EPA’s track record, I’m not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The “New Normal”
Jimmie Pethokoukis isn’t buying it:
…the president’s a recent convert to this religion of low expectations. He certainly didn’t buy it when he took office. Back then, he predicted a quick and powerful economic rebound — if only lawmakers implemented his policies, such as the $800 billion stimulus. Which Congress, then with strong Democratic majorities, quickly did.
In 2009, for instance, the White House said the economy would be growing at a brisk 4.3 percent annual clip this year, with unemployment down to 5.6 percent. Indeed, Obama’s top economists predicted we’d be smack in the middle of a fat streak of high-growth years: 4.3 percent in 2011, followed by 4.3 percent growth in 2012 and 2013, too. And 2014? 4 percent growth.
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton would have nothing on Obama, these predictions suggested. Back then, Team Obama scoffed at the dismal New Normal faith.
Yet we’re still waiting on the boom that they promised. Now they’re evangelizing for “the New Normal” — and hoping enough voters buy the excuse.
It’s almost as though they don’t know WTF they’re doing.
What Didn’t Happen In Iowa
Remember, this guy is a brilliant politician. He must be. The media keeps telling us so.