Climate scientist’s lawsuit could wipe out conservative National Review magazine

[babsbunny]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/30/climate-scientists-lawsuit-could-wipe-out-conservative-national-review-magazine/

By David Ferguson
Thursday, January 30, 2014 14:31 EST

The National Review magazine, longstanding house news organ of the establishment right, is facing a lawsuit that could shutter the publication permanently. According to The Week, a suit by a climate scientist threatens to bankrupt the already financially shaky publication and its website, the National Review Online (NRO).

Scientist Michael Mann is suing the Review over statements made by Canadian right-wing polemicist and occasional radio stand-in for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn. Steyn was writing on the topic of climate change when he accused Mann of falsifying data and perpetuating intellectual fraud through his research.

[Alamuti Lotus]

1. hey, finally some good news today!

Not too terribly fond of the principle of legislating the enforcement of some viewpoint or another--whether I agree with said viewpoint or not--, but this is quite a different matter. If it goes down as theorized, it couldn't happen to a more deserving pack of jackals and scoundrels than NRO.

[Egnever]

2. Good!

[warrior1]

3. Be still my heart

That would be wonderful.

[Laelth]

4. I will not be sad to see it go. n/t

-Laelth

[lpbk2713]

5. Bill Buckley is turning like a wood lathe.

This should be interesting.

[dembotoz]

6. hook him up to a generator--green power-finally something useful from him

[JHB]

14. Just in time. The Kochs need more drill bits.

[Gothmog]

7. This case survived the motion to dismiss

In most of these cases, there is a settlement after the plaintiff's case survives the normal motions to dismiss. Last week the judge in this case dismissed the National Review's motion to dismiss http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024397611 I had not heard about the law firm dumping one of the defendants. It takes a great deal for an attorney to withdraw in the middle of a case.

I have been following this case for a while now. Prof. Mann is not going to settle and the National Review did defame Mann. I am hoping that there will be a major verdict for Prof. Mann in this case

[G_j]

10. yes, it's fantastic that he isn't backing down

Defamation without a doubt. They are trying to claim it was "opinion". That's laughable.

[Gothmog]

8. The law firm defending Steyn and the National Review is a good firm that is not cheap

This is from the article cited in OP

Then, at Christmastime, Steyn abruptly fired the legal team representing him and the magazine, white shoe firm Steptoe and Johnson, after an argument over a highly inflammatory — and appallingly typed — NRO post about Judge Combs Greene. Steyn accused her of “staggering incompetence,” called her stupid, and accused her of deliberate obtuseness regarding the Mann suit.

Now, Steyn is representing himself against Mann and he and the Review have parted ways.

Steyn wrote to Mother Jones, saying that he was simply no longer able to contain his sense of disdain for the federal judge and her decision not to dismiss Mann’s suit.

Firing your counsel in the middle of case is not a good idea. The fact that Steyn is representing himself is bad news for the National Review. Steyn is out of control and is probably judgement proof, i.e., he has nothing to lose if Prof. Mann wins the lawsuit.

[magical thyme]

11. Steyn claims he fired S&J, but I've read elsewhere that they dumped him

And he didn't just have a hard time containing "his sense of disdain." He wrote that she was "stupid" and a few other choice adjectives. He's representing himself because nobody will touch him with a 10 foot pole now.

He's going to learn that free speech does not mean speech without consequences...

[Gothmog]

13. I can see why they dumped him

The blog entry he wrote about the judge was really stupid http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/367069/mumbo-jumbo-beginners-mark-steyn I would also fired a client who posted something like this in the middle of a case

[AlinPA]

9. If it's money, the Kochs will take care of it.

[hatrack]

12. Good!

And it wasn't just recently that NR went bullshitty. Before she died, Bill Buckley's wife went nuclear on some friend regarding climate:

At a lunch that Deeda and William McCormick Blair Jr. gave in 2006, the host, who had served as an ambassador under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, had the temerity to say that he admired Al Gore. Pat reared up and snorted, “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/buckleys200901

As for the dazzling intellect that was her husband, well, let's see . .

The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.

It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.

To speak in very general terms, the United States is easily the principal offender, given the size of our country and the intensity of our use of fossil-fuel energy. But even accepting the high per-capita rate of consumption in the United States, we face the terrible inadequacy of ameliorative resources. If the United States were (we are dealing in hypotheses) to eliminate the use of oil or gas for power, would that forfeiture be decisive? Well, no. It would produce about 23 percent global relief, and at a devastating cost to our economy.


EDIT

Meanwhile, the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg said something outside the hearing of the outraged columnist. He noted solemnly that any increase in heat-related deaths should be balanced against the corresponding decrease in cold-related deaths. ... We need hope, and self-confidence.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/business_of_global_warming_fee.html

Fuck me, Bill, yessiree, the only thing that will ever, ever, ever matter in the end of time is money. Considering that, I hope NR loses every dime they have and some they don't.

[Gothmog]

15. Here is another article on this lawsuit

I have bookmarked and read a couple of different climate science sites. I love going to the links and reading some of the scientific papers to see if I can still follow the math.

Here is an article that I saw on one of these sites (yes it is from Newsweek but it is still good) http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/01/31/change-legal-climate.html

That is, until maybe now, with the spinning potentially coming to a stop in the most unlikely of places - a Federal district court in Washington, D.C. There, a little-noticed lawsuit filed by one of the world's preeminent climatologists against a premiere conservative publication and a conservative think tank is moving forward, and both sides - absent dismissal or settlement - will have to put up or shut up.

The suit filed by Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, claims that the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) libeled him in a pair of articles in which they stated he had manipulated climate data and that the fraud had been covered up by his employer, which said its investigation concluded he had done nothing wrong. To make the point, the CEI writer, Rand Simberg, drew a comparison between Penn State's handling of abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky - the university's longtime assistant football coach convicted as a child molester - and its review of Mann's work....

For months before those articles, Mann and other climatologists had been speaking among themselves about the need to start fighting back against the attacks on their work and their character. The science is on their side, they argue, and by not responding aggressively against the skeptics, they have allowed the discussion to become derailed. And if critics have slandered or libeled them, they shouldn't stand for it.

"If we don't step up to the plate, we leave a vacuum [for] those with an ax to grind," Mann says, while cautioning that he would not specifically address the lawsuit. Mann has no doubt some critics are advancing their positions honestly, but he believes that responding to bad-faith attacks on climatologists and their work is "a call to arms to our fellow scientists. We should not apologize for trying to inform that discussion."

It appears that the scientific community has decided not to take crap from the climate deniers and flat earthers any longer. I am happy about this development.

[RainDog]

16. hope the scientist sees this thru n/t