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In case people haven't been paying attention, Michael Mann, the guy with the global warming hockey stick end-of-the-world graph has been suing all of his critics in order to try to shut them up. Anyway, there is an interesting and as always funny column by Mark Steyn about the lawsuits.

There is also an interesting column by Robert Tracinski about how global warming is turning into a pseudo science.

I also found it interesting that one of my favorite conservative authors was quoting one of my favorite Objectivist authors. It's probably happened before, but this is the first time I've seen it.

Darrell

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In case people haven't been paying attention, Michael Mann, the guy with the global warming hockey stick end-of-the-world graph has been suing all of his critics in order to try to shut them up. Anyway, there is an interesting and as always funny column by Mark Steyn about the lawsuits.

There is also an interesting column by Robert Tracinski about how global warming is turning into a pseudo science.

I also found it interesting that one of my favorite conservative authors was quoting one of my favorite Objectivist authors. It's probably happened before, but this is the first time I've seen it.

Darrell

Global Climate Science is like the Wonderous Sex Machine. It was concave and convex, it could serve either sex and kept itself clean in between

Ba'a Chatzaf

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I prefer reality...

It got so cold so quickly in this Norwegian bay that it froze a bunch of fish swimming in it
By Will Lerner January 14, 2014 6:25 PM Odd News

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation(NRK) has put up some striking photos of water off the coast of Lovund, a small island off of Norway. although it was “only” -7.8°C (18 °F), a sharp eastern wind was enough to freeze a large quantity of fish in place.

The dog is thinking, I love frozen fish just like my master and that microwave thing, hmmm do we have a really long extension cord?

819904ba-7b70-412e-ae88-b302122b827e_one

(Ingolf Kristiansen via NRK)

The translation tools used to understand NRK’s article don’t exactly remove all language barriers, but it seems that Aril Slotte of Havforskningsinstituttet, a marine research institute, believes that the fish might have been chased by a predator, and that’s why there were so many grouped together that closely.

ba062c6d-e741-4284-84c9-133daf216e27_two

(Hermann Mindrum via NRK)

Ingolf Kristiansen, who happened upon the scene, said that because the ice was still frozen, no birds were enjoying an easy lunch.

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(Hermann Mindrum via NRK)

This is not the first instance of an animal being caught frozen in a Norweigian body of water. Last week, Inger Sjøberg, came across a moose stuck and frozen in Kosmo Lake. Poor guy. The NRK reports that it is the fourth most common cause of death for moose (also known as European elk) after hunting, traffic, and bears.

This last one reminds me of that 50 below New Years on the Delaware - a few weeks later, we spent a weekend as the melt was progressing and there was a deer frozen in the river just like this Moose [European Elk], a Bald Eagle was sitting on its dead shoulders tearing some flesh and eating it's full.

It is sometimes difficult to see nature in action because we have a tendency to humanize animal behavior. However, there is a stark beauty to the natural order.

95b566dd-e8f4-407c-bab3-a751363479de_moo

A...

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Posted: 16 Jan 2014 11:48 AM PST

(John Hinderaker)

"Today EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on climate regulation. The EPA is imposing countless billions of dollars in costs on American industry in reliance on computer models that claim global warming is a serious threat. Problem is, everyone who pays attention knows that the models have been proven wrong.

President Obama, as usual, appeals to those who don’t pay attention. He has asserted repeatedly that “the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.” This is simply false; in fact, there has been no net global warming for the last 17 years. So this morning, Senator Jeff Sessions asked Gina McCarthy a simple question: Is the claim that President Obama has made repeatedly, that the Earth has warmed more than predicted by the models over the last ten years, true? McCarthy hemmed and hawed, but refused to answer the question, because the only possible answer is “No.” Here is the exchange:

These are the exhibits that Sessions used for his questioning of McCarthy:

Obama-climate-is-warming-poster.001.jpg

Chart-for-January-16-climate-hearing.001

Two further points are worth noting. First, this was no surprise attack: Sessions has written to McCarthy on two occasions to provide whatever support the EPA has for President Obama’s assertions. The EPA has failed to do so. He also asked McCarthy whether she could support Obama’s claims during McCarthy’s confirmation hearing on April 11, 2013, at which time McCarthy promised to look into the issue.

Second, the question goes to the heart of the Obama administration’s effort to hamstring industry and subsidize its solar cronies. No empirical observation supports global warming hysteria. On the contrary, the entire edifice of “climate regulation”–an absurd concept in itself–is built on the climate models, which are designed by scientists who receive billions of dollars from the world’s governments to produce the results that those governments want. But here is the thing about a scientific model: if it generates predictions that are empirically wrong, then the model is no good. Period. End of conversation.

So the question Sessions posed to McCarthy was absolutely vital. The fact that she can’t answer it speaks volumes about the bankruptcy of the global warming movement."

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  • 2 weeks later...

As Michael has pointed out propaganda has to have good to great storytelling..,

When Did Global Warming Begin?

That excellent question is posed at Watts Up With That. The significance of any story depends largely on when you decide to begin it. Warmists like to talk about the last 100 years or less, but the Earth’s climate has–needless to say–a much longer history than that.

This chart, based on ice cores, shows temperatures over the last 450,000 years. It reminds us that we are lucky to be living during an inter-glacial period. Just the blink of an eye ago, in geologic time–say, 15,000 years–the place where I am now typing was buried under ice a half-mile deep:

For some reason, that "image extention" pop up will not allow me to use, I guess the charts?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/01/when-did-global-warming-begin.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+powerlineblog%2Flivefeed+%28Power+Line%29

A...

Still a degree of technological challenges...

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As Michael has pointed out propaganda has to have good to great storytelling..,

Adam,

I think global warming thing started to lose the propaganda war when the polar bears refused to die off.

If you're going to make an alleged endangered species the focus of your victimization story, you better damn well kill the suckers off if they don't go on their own.

Otherwise, you're story backfires.

:)

Michael

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  • 1 year later...

Agreed.

Then to find out that the damn "iconic" photo of the vicious predator sadly large on a small "icecubeberg" was a photo shop lie is hilariously sick. Since it is still used in fundraising, it becomes evil in my mind.

Here is the complaint filed by Michael Mann for defamation in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

The Introduction is hilarious.

Who said reading legal papers was boring.

More than three years ago, Penn State University climatologist Michael Mann filed a defamation suit against Mark Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg and the Competitive Enterprise Institute over a few blog posts that criticized Mann in extremely colorful terms. The posts accused Mann of “molesting” data and compared PSU’s investigation of his alleged improprieties with its investigation of Jerry Sandusky. The posts at issues were not nice, to say the least. The key question for the courts was whether they were defamatory. Also at issue, however, are procedural issues that have dragged out the litigation.

http://volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/michael-mann-complaint.pdf

Now this 2012 case has been tried right?

Nope...

The last time we checked in on the case, three of the defendants (all save Steyn) were seeking to appeal the trial court’s denial of their anti-SLAPP (anti-strategic lawsuit against public participation) suit motion. Oral argument on this question before the D.C. Court of Appeals took place more than a year ago, and there’s still no word. Most other cases heard around that time have been decided, suggesting the court may be having some difficulty — perhaps because some of the judges are conflicted or the panel is split. This would be unfortunate because, in my view, the primary issues should be clear. Even folks who share Mann’s view of climate science (and his dim view of climate skeptics) recognize the danger of his suit (see, e.g., Dan Farber’s post at Legal Planet). In addition, a wealth of amici not particularly sympathetic to CEI or National Review ideologically nonetheless support their legal position.

It is also worth noting that this is not the only case implicating D.C.’s anti-SLAPP law that has been sitting around, suggesting that the judges may be having a difficult time on this aspect of the case. In any event, one would think it would not take over a year to sort out these questions. Indeed, the extent to which this litigation has been drawn out makes a mockery of the D.C. anti-SLAPP law, which was intended to accelerate the resolution of speech-related suits so as to reduce their potential effect of chilling protected expression.

For those wanting more background, I’ve blogged a fair amount about the case, and Ken White at Popehat has a series of informative posts as well. For a more colorful round-up, see Mark Steyn’s last post on the subject. (I don’t know what Michael Mann has said about the suit of late; he blocked me on Twitter.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/02/whatever-happened-to-michael-manns-defamation-suit/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_volokh

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