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Following our dangerously unstable experiments of recent weeks, today, Wednesday, I'll be conducting another combined Clubland Q&A and Mark Steyn Show. It's the audio equivalent of one of those exciting double-mutation Covid variants that only the most lavishly US-funded Chinese gain-of-function labs can pull off. We're varying the times a little to see what works best for whom, so today the fun starts live across the globe at 1pm Eastern in North America - that's 5pm GMT/6pm British Summer Time. We'll try to pin down the rest of the time zones below, but do, as they say, check local listings.
On today's hybrid show, we'll kick off with questions from Mark Steyn Club members, throw in a couple of Steyn Show regular features, come back to your questions, and generally mix things up a little. If you've any follow-ups on the various subjects we've been chewing over at SteynOnline and on Tucker Carlson Tonight these last few days, do shoot them along. I'm happy to address any topic that tickles your fancy, with the usual stipulation that certain areas bore me to death.
~As many of you know, we're now in the tenth year of climate mullah Michael E Mann's defamation suit against me for mocking his "hockey stick". When he lost to Professor Tim Ball in the British Columbia Supreme Court, we headlined our report:
Michael E Mann, Loser
When he lost to National Review in the District of Columbia Superior Court, we headlined it:
Michael E Mann, Loser (Again)
When he lost to the Competitive Enterprise Institute just last week, we sub-headed it:
Michael E Mann, Loser (Again) (and Again)
But this joke may be coming too thick and too fast to merit twice-weekly reprise. So today I'll just stick to the Reason headline:
Judge Strikes All of Michael Mann's Expert Witnesses from Libel Suit
I may have underestimated this Judge Irving. The 55-page order has some very choice moments - for example, his rejection of the near-parodically self-regarding warm-monger Naomi Oreskes' "expertise" (page 25):
When asked about the methodologies that she used in this case, Dr. Oreskes responded: 'If you want me to tell you what my method is, it's reading and thinking. We read. We read documents. And we think about them.'
That is the problem, here. Reading and thinking about documents are not the types of 'reliable methodologies' typical of an expert witness, which leaves the Court unable to distinguish why Dr. Oreskes is more capable than the average juror, who can also read and think about documents.
Naomi Oreskes' answer would have sufficed on NPR or CNN: Appeal to authority is the critical distinction in today's world, so dear Naomi or Tony Fauci "reading" and "thinking" is different from Gladys Scroggins of 27b Elm Street "reading" and "thinking". Unfortunately, in court - even this court - you need a little more than that.
Personally, I'm indifferent on "expert witnesses", which like so many elements of American litigation has become a racket of mediocrities. Cary Katz paid fifty to a hundred grand per expert, and in two separate trials they were the crappest witnesses in the world. Both judges palpably despised them, and it was the work of moments to take apart their testimony.
~Thank you to everyone who tuned in for my hour in the anchor's chair on Monday's Tucker. Thanks to the best team in telly, we were the Number One cable show in the advertiser-critical "demo", part of a Top Seven sweep for Fox:
1) Mark Steyn
2) The Five
3) Sean Hannity
4) Laura Ingraham
5) Greg Gutfeld
6) Brett Baier
7) Tammy Bruce
I also had the Number One share in primetime in total audience, with 57 per cent over CNN and MSNBC's combined 43 per cent. It is amazing to me that Anderson Cooper (18 per cent), Chris Cuomo (17 per cent) and Don Lemon (16 per cent) remain in gainful employment. Once again it was a Fox News primetime sweep:
1) Mark Steyn 57 per cent
2) Laura Ingraham 52 per cent
3) Sean Hannity 49 per cent
As always, I thank Fox's tremendous team. I'll be back with Tucker tomorrow evening.
~Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our Mark Steyn Show/Clubland Q&A live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, so if you've joined this week do fire off a question on any topic that appeals. Indeed, if you've been toying with signing up, either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter, there's still time to do so and shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show. But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free, so we hope you'll want to tune in.
As soon as we go live, members should log-in and submit their queries via our comment form below - and I'll answer them as-it-happens on the audio livestream that should magically appear above (or possibly below - I forget which). And, if you disagree with my response, then let rip in the comments, and I'll endeavor to address a couple of the objections as we go along.
The Mark Steyn Show Clubland Q&A is a special production for The Mark Steyn Club. We're not paywalling off SteynOnline or any of that nonsense - and in fact this site now offers more free content than ever before in our eighteen-year history. But Club membership does confer a few benefits, including not only participation in our Q&As but also access to Tales for Our Time, our Sunday Poems and much more - including tonight's episode of Jack London's Burning Daylight.
So see you back here live this morning at 1pm North American Eastern Time. That's 2pm in the Canadian Maritimes, 2.30pm in Newfoundland - and, beyond the Americas, 6pm in London and Dublin; 7pm in Paris and Berlin; 8pm in Istanbul and Jerusalem; 9pm in the Trucial States, as I still think of them; 9.30pm in Tehran, for all you Newfoundlanders who move to Iran for the half-hour time zone; 10.45pm in Kathmandu, for all you Iranians who move to Nepal to check out the quarter-hour time zone; 1am in Singapore, Honkers and Western Australia (sorry about that); 3am in Sydney and Melbourne (even sorrier), and a grim dawn for Auckland and beyond - which is pretty tough on our Pacific listeners but we hope a few of you will want to stay up (or rise early).
But, whatever hour it is where you are, we do hope you'll be able to join us. To listen to the livestream, simply click the "play" icon on the audio player (in certain browsers, the audio will start auto-playing). And to pose a question simply use the comment form below.
