Programming note: Please join Mark tomorrow, Wednesday, for the return of our midweeek Clubland Q&A, when he'll be taking questions from Mark Steyn Club members live around the planet. The fun starts at 3pm Deep State Standard Time - which is 8pm Greenwich Mean Look Time.
~Last week Mark noted the firebombing of three conservative organizations in Minneapolis. John Hinderaker, head of the Center of the American Experiment, had mentioned the arson to Mark when he flew in to attend the Steyn trial in Washington. But he made it sound as if its impact had been minimal. It isn't. More from John here:
The arson that occurred at around 2 am on January 28 has largely destroyed the building in which my organization, Center of the American Experiment, was located. That building was home to a lot of small businesses; with 22 employees we may have been the largest tenant. It was also home to two other conservative organizations, with which we are closely allied. The arsonists targeted those three groups, and no one else...
The building won't reopen for a long time, probably a year or more. So my organization is looking for new permanent space.
So "a lot of [entirely apolitical] small businesses" will also be looking for new space. How many of them will be eager to share a building with any identifiably "conservative" body ever again? And how many landlords will be eager to rent to such organizations?
~Mark's friend Down Under, Jo Nova, was an important part of the Steyn Show until his health collapsed last year. Jo has written one of the most clear-sighted pieces on last week's verdict:
Mark Steyn ordered to pay $1 million to deter climate deniers from criticizing sacred scientists
Correct. Jo continues:
Twelve long years after the case was launched, the six person jury decided that Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg have defamed Michael Mann, but awarded Mann one whole dollar in damages, because he hadn't been able to prove he suffered any damage at all. Remarkably, though, the jurors felt the skeptics had been so malicious they added punitive damages too. Usually these are limited to a mere four or five times the compensatory damage, but this time it was decided Simberg should pay $1,000 and Mark Steyn $1 million. It sets a new record.
According to Law.com punitive or exemplary damages are saved for truly dreadful acts:
'exemplary damages n. often called punitive damages... are damages requested and/or awarded in a lawsuit when the defendant's willful acts were malicious, violent, oppressive, fraudulent, wanton or grossly reckless. These damages are awarded both as a punishment and to set a public example.'
So the jury agrees that Mark Steyn did no material harm to Mann but criticizing climate scientists is itself an unforgivably evil thing.
The point is to silence you.
~Elsewhere in the news, this headline gave the Steyn team a chuckle:
The Right To Criticize Climate Change Has Cost Mark Steyn Almost Everything
How'd that "almost" creep in there?
~Anthony Watts's Climate Change Roundtable has been covering the Steyn trial since Day One. Here's their take on the verdict:
~You have to be able to talk honestly about climate and Covid all the rest, and increasingly in the west you can't. So we've been enormously touched by how many readers, listeners and viewers wish to support Mark's free-speech lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic - over the warm-mongers in Washington and against the UK state censor Ofcom over Steyn's coverage of the vaccine injuries and deaths. There are several ways to lend a hand, including:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership - it's a great gift, and doesn't require express shipping;b) buying a chum a SteynOnline gift certificate - likewise;
c) ordering a copy of Mark's latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it - ask Kathy Gyngell); or
d) lavishing upon your beloved a once-in-a-lifetime Mark Steyn Cruise.
With the first two methods, one hundred per cent of the proceeds goes to a grand cause - and you or your loved one gets something, too.
~Finally, we thank all the newcomers to our ranks in recent days, from Surrey Hills to Singapore, Welshpool to Wicklow, Minneapolis to Monrovia (seriously). We hope to welcome many more of you in the years ahead. For more information on The Mark Steyn Club, see here.
