I am in a cold rage, which is never the best temper in which to write. But over the weekend came the news from his wife Marty that Tim Ball had died.
Tim was a Canadian scientist who dissented from the global warm-mongering that has deranged our politics, and put out the lights at the Eiffel Tower, and is on course this winter to freeze and starve Europe's elderly. In the course of his pushback against the madness, Tim reprised an ancient Pennsylvanian jest and applied it to the creator of the famously dodgy global-warming "hockey stick", Michael E Mann: Dr Mann, he remarked, belongs not at Penn State but in the state pen.
Cute. But any joke about Mann is no laughing matter. So the warmatollah determined to destroy a retired University of Winnipeg professor.
Mann filed suit against Ball in British Columbia, and then just sat it out, knowing that (to reprise my old line) the process is the punishment. Three years ago, Mann lost the case for failure to prosecute. As in his suit against me in the District of Columbia, the plaintiff had refused, for years, to do the elementary things necessary to settle a legal matter, such as providing evidence of damage. In the craphole of American justice, at least as evidenced by my own experience, judges let him get away with that. But in Canada the court wearied of the obvious delaying strategy, and ruled against the vengeful climate mullah.
He lost; Ball won.
That is a fact, even though Mann and his doting Mann-boys continue to deny it. For anyone more sentient than the average Mann groupie, you can read the BC Supreme Court judgment for yourself.
As is customary in civilised jurisdictions (ie, not the American courts), the prevailing party's legal bills are paid by the loser - or, as they say in Canada, "costs follow the event". Roger McConchie, Mann's counsel, accepted his client's liability for Dr Ball's expenses. See page six of Mr Justice Giaschi's ruling:
MR MCCONCHIE: Costs follow the event. I have no quarrel with that.
By then, both Tim Ball's retirement savings and his health had been drained and depleted by a decade of Mann's frivolous, dilatory litigation. He was broke in both body and bank account.
Had Mr McConchie's client been an honourable man (I know, I know, we are dealing with unimaginable hypotheticals here), he would have paid Tim a seven-figure sum.
Instead, Tim's family now requires a GoFundMe campaign to cover the costs of his modest burial. His friend Anthony Watts will be posting details of that later today.
I had not thought it possible for me to loathe and despise Michael Mann any more than I did. He chose the jurisdiction in which he sued Tim Ball, as he chose the jurisdiction in which he sued me (the District of Columbia, where justice goes to die). And, when that jurisdiction found him liable, he simply rejected the plain meaning of the judge's decision and holed up beyond the court's reach. The contemptible Mann has had three years to remit what he owes, but he has not paid Dr Ball a penny.
And no doubt this evil man and those who abet his vile schemes are laughing at the penury unto death they forced on a brave man. Michael Mann filed a frivolous suit he had no intention of bringing to trial, but he succeeded in hounding Tim Ball into the grave.
Tim bore all this with great fortitude. The last time I saw him was at a "denialist" gala in Washington where all the Commonwealth wallahs - UK, Canuck, Oz, Kiwi - had been seated together, presumably so the Yanks didn't have to risk being exposed to some unfortunate social faux pas like an accidental Loyal Toast. Despite being visibly ground down by Mann's frivolous litigation, Tim was on grand form that night, full of life and full of laughs. He had all the qualities of a true warrior: courage, integrity, indomitable resilience, and, in his quiet dignified bearing, a rueful acceptance of the costs they impose. The ugly husk of a human being that is Michael Mann could destroy Tim's savings and his health, but he could not destroy Tim's spirit.
There will be a reckoning for the slug Mann. In the meantime, you can gain a sense of Tim Ball and his enviable inner strength from this Heartland Institute awards night not so long ago:
There will be more to say about Tim Ball with Marc Morano later this week on The Mark Steyn Show.
~We had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with another edition of Mark's Clubland Q&A live around the planet, focused yet again on the accelerating degeneration of the west, but with a useful lesson from the Doobie Brothers. Saturday brought our weekly sense of perspective in The Hundred Years Ago Show, and Rick McGinnis' consideration of a favourite film from his boyhood, Lindsay Anderson's If. Our Sunday Song of the Week was ninety years old, but alarmingly relevant.
If you were too busy stumbling around a darkened Paris looking for where the Eiffel Tower used to be, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week commences.
As Mark mentioned above, The Mark Steyn Show returns to the airwaves live on GB News at 8pm British Summer Time - that's 3pm North American Eastern. US and Canadian viewers may find the replay more convenient: that's 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific. You can watch from anywhere on the planet right here.
