…an ongoing series:
Most people who haven’t taken the time to learn about the issue (which is to say, most people) believe that conservatism is either a largely Christian fundamentalist movement or principally informed by Ayn Rand or, if you listen to the geniuses at places like Salon or MSNBC, both.
I’m always amused by morons who think that, because I’m skeptical about climate models that are not only failing to predict the future but can’t even predict the past, that I must be a creationist.
As I point out in the book, one of the reasons space policy is such a mess is because we don’t have a national consensus on that question.
Heh. I hadn’t noticed this post when Stacy McCain hit my tip jar the other day.
Why you should stop.
I generally agree, though I think the global-warming reason is dumb.
As I noted on Twitter yesterday, you’d have to have a heart of stone to not laugh out loud at this.
Also:
They should demand a solar-powered chopper, or martyr selves. MT @ClimateDepot: Alarmists in Antarctica'll probably be saved by helicopter.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) December 30, 2013
As a commenter there notes, irony, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. Very cold.
Actually consists of just a few dozen people.
ICYMI, Mark Steyn explains it:
1. Dr Michael Mann’s lawyer, John Williams, filed a fraudulent complaint falsely representing his client as a Nobel Laureate, and accusing us of the hitherto unknown crime of defaming a Nobel Laureate.
2. After Charles C W Cooke and others exposed Dr Mann’s serial misrepresentation of himself as a Nobel Prize winner, Mann’s counsel decided to file an amended complaint with the Nobel falsehood removed.
3. Among her many staggering incompetences, DC Superior Court judge Natalia Combs-Greene then denied NR’s motion to dismiss the fraudulent complaint while simultaneously permitting Mann’s lawyers to file an amended complaint.
4. The appellate judges have now tossed out anything relating to Mann’s original fraudulent complaint, including Judge Combs-Greene’s unbelievably careless ruling in which the obtuse jurist managed to confuse the defendants, and her subsequent ruling in which she chose to double-down on her own stupidity. Anything with Combs-Greene’s name on it has now been flushed down the toilet of history.
5. So everyone is starting afresh with a new judge, a new complaint from the plaintiff, and new motions to dismiss from the defendants. That’s the good news.
6. The bad news is that Mann’s misrepresentation of himself as a Nobel Laureate and Combs-Greene’s inept management of her case means that all parties have racked up significant six-figure sums just to get back to square one. In a real courthouse – in London, Toronto, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney – Dr Mann would be on the hook for what he has cost all the parties through his fraudulent complaint. But, this being quite the most insane “justice system” I have ever found myself in, instead the costs of the plaintiff’s vanity, his lawyer’s laziness and the judge’s incompetence must apparently be borne by everyone.
But at least, as a commenter noted in a related post, Professor Mann got a huge planet-destroying lump of coal in his stocking.
[Update in the evening]
I want to express my deep appreciation to everyone who has hit the tip jar today. I’ll try to deploy the resources to good use.
[Another update, a couple of minutes later]
Per that previous update, despite rumors/lies from Climate-gate deniers, I haven’t received check one from the fossil-fuel industry. The stingy bastards.
[Friday-morning update]
(Law professor) Jonathan Adler reports on the story over at the Volokh Conspiracy. He implies no disagreement with Steyn’s take.
Some thoughts from Judy Curry on the pretense of knowledge, which is akin to the fatal conceit.
I think he pretty much gets it right.
Happy holidays to us. The appellate court basically mooted the flawed rulings against us from last summer, and the new judge (who actually seems to understands the law and the respective cases) will rehear them. Thanks to ACLU, the media organizations and others for their amicus briefs which, while they didn’t address the merits of the case, were helpful in getting this decision. I suspect that it won’t be a happy holiday for Professor Mann.
[Update a while later]
What’s amusing about this is that Mann sort of screwed himself by amending his complaint against us after we’d filed our appeal. That gave the appellate court an excuse to just pass it back to the Superior Court, with the new judge who will likely be much less sympathetic to him.