Zone of Reality: Mann Versus Ball

By Rich Kozlovich

On Sunday I posted "I Will Huff and Puff and Blow Your House Down" discussing these lawsuits by Mann against Ball and Steyn. I was watching this from the beginning but nothing happened for quite a while. It is surely now coming to a head. John O'Sullivan has posted some worthwhile information succinctly outlining the issues and what appears to me to be an eventual outcome that can only be devastating to the hucksters of global warming, the socalled 96% of scientists who concur with their views, the governments of the world who have jumped on this bandwagon and the IPCC....Oh....and Mann too!

For those who have been reading Paradigms and Demographics you will see the “Tiger by the Tail” scenario I described...only its worse than I described. Mann has placed himself in a situation where he must provide evidence that will absolutely clear him of all charges of fraud, or he will provide information that will send him plummeting into the abyss, along with his whole gang.

I wondered why I kept seeing that term “dirty laundry” in quotations when his hidden data was being referred to. Now I know; that was the term he used himself. I do find that interesting. But I guess he would know best.

I also wasn’t aware of Canada’s rules regarding libel. As I said, it’s even worse than I described if you are the bad guy. Ball didn’t choose the ‘fair comment’ defense. Ball has decided his defense will be the truth. In Canada this is called:

“The Truth Defense to Libel”, which “places a higher – more onerous – evidential burden on the parties. This means any and all evidence demanded by either party in the ongoing discovery process must be revealed. So effective can the “truth defense” be that some cynics refer to it as the “scorched earth” defense.”

Please enjoy O'Sullivan's latest commentary. I certainly did!

New SLAAPstick Courtroom Capers as Michael Mann Falls Foul Again
By John O'Sullivan

Media war of words erupts in anticipation of another global warming courtroom battle. We take time to see how latest events connected to Climategate’s controversial scientist Michael Mann stack up alongside Mann’s legal shoot out versus Dr. Tim Ball.

Last week Pennsylvania State University (PSU) popped back up on the notoriety radar thanks to lingering fallout over their jailed child sex felon, football coach Jerry Sandusky. PSU’s other alleged bad boy, climatologist Michael Mann, came out with all legal guns blazing after popular right-wing writer, Mark Steyn and the National Review wrote of the parallels in the “whitewashes” PSU investigations performed separately on Sandusky and Mann. The recent and hard-hitting Freeh Report is damning of PSU’s hierarchy.

With talk of more lawsuits flying, observers are now wondering how an earlier Michael Mann face off with Tim Ball is shaping up one year on. Readers may recall that Ball’s whimsy that Mann belongs in “the State Pen., not Penn. State” triggered the first of what now may become a series of desperate SLAAP lawsuits..... Today – despite being duly served with legal notices – Steyn and the National Review are taking a leaf from Ball’s book and not caving over their “Football and Hockey” article. Steyn has a reputation for being a tough enforcer capable of lighting the lamp in any SLAAP face off. So is Mann skating on thin ice with more time wasting dangles and dekes?