Guest-hosting for Rush a few days ago, I said if your kid is graduating from high school this week there has been no global warming his entire life. And immediately the usual drama queens emailed that I was a know-nothing denialist. But, just to nail it down, there has been no global warming for 17 years and nine months. That's since September 1996. The High School Class of 2014 has been blessed to have lived its entire life in a warming-free world.
We're supposed to ignore this nigh-on-two-decade warming "pause" because the "97 per cent scientific consensus" tell us to. But, as Richard Tol's new paper argues, that 97 per cent consensus is no more real than the rampant global warming. In fact, there's so little consensus that the only consensus the Geological Society of Australia can agree on is a press release saying there's no consensus:
AUSTRALIA'S peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue.
After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve.
Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, the attempt by Michael E Mann, self-conferred Nobel Laureate and a Distinguished Fellow of the Scanty, Sloppy and Sh*tty Society, to sue his discredited "hockey stick" into respectability chugs on. For the story so far, see here. The parties are currently waiting for a ruling from the DC Court of Appeals on whether the lower court's ruling is appealable to the Court of Appeals and, if it is, they'll then move to another section of the waiting room, and start waiting for the Court of Appeals to hear the appeal to the Court of Appeals itself. If you feel an urge to put a pneumatic drill through your ear rather than sit through another sentence like that, you'd be surprised at how many apparently sane people find this bollocks endlessly fascinating.
The legal laddies over at Popehat, for example, can barely contain their excitement over another decision by the DC Court of Appeals that they suspect will prove highly relevant to my own case. The Popehat wallahs are fond of pointing out what a chump I am, but they make a few basic errors here themselves:
Steyn, Simberg, and their co-defendants are appealing the denial of their Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss against Mann...
Actually, no. I'm not part of this appeal. By choice. I want to get to court as soon as possible, and put Michael E Mann, PhD (Doctor of Phraudology) on the stand under oath. I haven't wasted two years on this guy to be denied my moment in court. That's one reason I've countersued Mann. He thinks the DC Superior Court is competent to litigate his fraudulent "hockey stick". Fine, let's get it to a jury - before the sclerotic DC "justice" system's procedural delays go on as long as the global-warming "pause".
So this recent decision was of interest to me not because of the brief reference to my own case in Footnote #6, but for a more basic reason. The case in question is called John Doe No 1 vs Susan L Burke. In essence, Ms Burke sued various anonymous "editors" of her Wikipedia entry - hence, John Doe No 1, John Doe No 2, John Does Nos 3-10. Who is John Doe No 1? Well, John Doe No 1 was hoping to keep that to himself, but the DC Superior Court denied his motion to quash a subpoena aimed at outing him. So (yes, yes, I know, put down the brain driller) John Doe No 1 filed an appeal of the denial of the motion to quash the subpoena. And, as in my own case, where the DC Court has to decide whether an Anti-SLAPP order is appealable, here they had to decide whether it's quashable.
That's what gets the Popehatters panting. But I'd never heard of this case, so I was interested to find out more about it. You'll recall my own case began in the fall of 2012, staggered along under the inept aegis of a slapdash and incompetent judge, Natalia Combs Greene, before being incrementally and messily transferred to Judge Weisberg, and eventually stalling in the Appeals Court because the DC Anti-SLAPP law is so vaguely written no one knows what it means. Judge Weisberg acknowledges the case's "convoluted procedural history", which is terribly gracious of him, I'm sure.
So what about this other free-speech case? It turns out Ms Burke brought her libel suit against John Does Nos 1-10 on September 19th 2012, just a few weeks before Dr Mann brought his suit against me and my co-defendants. Halfway through, the case was reassigned from one judge to another judge - just like mine. Then it got bogged down in the Appeals Court over what precisely the DC Anti-SLAPP law actually means - just like mine. "The District of Columbia" (ie, that benighted sod's government) filed an amicus brief in the case - just like in mine. Actually, not "just like": They filed the same brief they filed in the Mann case in the Burke case.
So what Judge Weisberg seemed to suggest was an unusually "convoluted procedural history" looks a lot more like business-as-usual in the fetid, clogged toilet of DC justice. Two free speech cases launched within weeks of each other, both losing judges along the way, both requiring appeals to the Appeals Court to find out what the garbage legislation actually means, both requiring intervention from the executive branch...
If the Appeals Court now agrees to hear an appeal on the appealability of whether or not the appeal is appealable, the decision (on the basis of this most recent opinion) would come shortly after the midterm elections. Which would suit Michael Mann just fine. Following the success of Mann's campaigning for the Democrats in Virginia last year, billionaire climate alarmist Tom Steyer plans to spend $100 million doing the same in seven states (including my own) for this November's elections. Mann is using libel chill to silence opposition on an important area of public policy.
He doesn't want to go to court: His science is all but indefensible, and he can't debate his way out of a pile of old toffee wrappers. But he does want to teach the lesson, as with Lennart Bengtsson, that the price of crossing Big Climate is too high. A narrow proceduralist defeat for him at the Appeals Court would, in effect, accomplish that goal.
Which is why I want no part of it. As I said, that's why I refused to join the appeal, and why I countersued, and why I responded to his discovery requests four months ago. He is a slippery and devious man who has dodged testimony under oath too long. But I intend to get my day in court.
I promise you it will be worth it, and I thank you for your ongoing support of my campaign to end the climate of fear that Mann and his fellow Warmanos have imposed. Skip Engle in California, one of very many readers who's purchased a SteynOnline gift certificate, emailed me the other day:
Mark,
I received my liberty stick today and was both proud and embarrassed.
Proud to be a (micro)contributor in your epic battle against the forces of American jurisprudence. Whupping M. Mann's butt is a breeze. Paying for the expensive deep-penetrator charges to get to him behind a hundred feet of steel-reinforced legal concrete is the challenge.
Proud to have the obviously hand-stuffed and signed card, with my little-boy name spelled correctly.
Proud that the best damn writer in the best damn writer's language on earth is the regular kinda guy I thought he was; a brilliant, happy-go-lucky fellow who loves our country as much as I do.
Embarrassed because you are forced to scratch out autographs by the billions in order to help purchase the armaments required by law to do battle with the law. Folks think we have a military-industrial complex in bed with itself. Our legal system makes that look like a convent. You should be attending the season's 61st 3rd grade graduation ceremony with your family, not getting carpal tunnel syndrome.
Embarrassed that, though our sweet lil' daughter has the courage to face the enemy on his ground; kick his ass; in both theaters; for two years of her life; your enemy can hide forever behind barricades and ramparts that were supposed to protect you, and I pay for it.
I will treasure my Steyn liberty stick, as I treasure pretty much all you write. Since you had to miss the 70th of Invasion Europa in order to sign autographs and checks to law firms, please consider attending the 70th of Vindico Europa with the last of the men who did it. The 10th Mountain Division, many of whom were from and are still in NH (there's a big road named after them, you can't miss it) will be returning to Italy, where they chased the last of Hitler's armies across the Po Valley. These are the guys who wined and dined at Il Duce's Villa on Lake Garda.
Thanks again for the mementos, and for doing battle with my enemy.
Sempre avanti!
Skip Engle
Cloverdale, California
I'm grateful for Skip's letter and others like it. We don't print them all because, while his characterization of the attorney-litigant industrial complex is entirely accurate, his praise for me is just a wee bit excessive. But on days like this, plowing through the latest proceduralist roadblock on the twisted-pretzel path to "justice", I particularly appreciate them. So I hope you'll forgive me for sharing Skip's note. If you'd like to join him as the proud owner of a SteynOnline gift certificate, I hope you'll consider it.
The warming pause has now gone on for 17 years and 9 months. It will not be quite that long before Mann is on the witness stand, and feeling the heat. But I think you'll find the wait will have been worth it.
