So, I have to thank our son, Ebola, for this story. Tied up with military stuff in foreign climes, he hadn't heard about The Trial of the Century: Mann v Steyn. Nor, that after twelve long years of putzing around by notorious former Penn State (now U of PA) climatologist Dr. Michael Mann, the lawsuit he had filed against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg was finally going to an actual courtroom.

It has been riveting, and I only regret that Ed is such a tyrant here that I have no time to listen to the trial live there.

For those of you who aren't up to speed on happenings in the vile underbelly of the climate cult world and the Climate Scientists™ who jealously guard their lucrative reputational domains against all questioning skeptics and determined data divers, let's attempt a primer to get you up to snuff so you can appreciate the beauty of what's occurring in a D.C. courtroom.

Rand Simberg wrote a post for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) over a decade ago. It was critical of Penn State's sham investigation of Mann's climatological "hockey stick" graph and the now truly suspect data behind it. Mark Steyn's subsequent article in the National Review Online (NRO) expanded on Simberg's, both the "hockey stick," the joke of an internal investigation, and Mann's despicable personal character. 

Prickly as a cactus, Dr. Mann took exception to both articles. He filed a defamation lawsuit against both men and the publications which had carried their nasty, ill-informed, climate crisis denying opinions.

... Dr. Mann's complaint claimed that the articles which criticized Dr. Mann's conclusions about global warming and accused him of deception and academic and scientific misconduct contained false statements that injured his reputation and standing in the scientific and academic communities of which he is a part.

The CEI and NRO were dropped from the suit after filing successful First Amendment appeals, but the case against Steyn and Simberg stuck...and dragged on for over a decade without either of them once ever being able to confront their accuser in a courtroom.

While the two authors were hung out in legal limbo land - Steyn would experience near death after two heart attacks in 2022 - Michael Mann (and by extension, his employer, Penn State) would go on to become one of the premier names in the climate cult, even enjoying some Nobel luminescence in addition to being a renowned celebrity Global Warming expert. All this while continuing to claim his life, earnings, and sterling reputation had been irreparably harmed by the duo's articles.

Even Real Men of Science™ can only stall the legal juggernaut they themselves started rolling, and the defamation suit of Science™ v Climate Infidels began three weeks ago.

Right off the bat, there were some discordant notes concerning Dr Mann's credibility. Steyn's opening was rumored to have had the jury gasping because there were a few facts that hadn't been in evidence prior to Steyn laying them out quite so baldly. If you have a chance, read the entire thing, but this is the real stinger:

...I'm Mark Steyn, S-T-E-Y-N, Mr. Simberg's codefendant. I apologize for being foreign, and I apologize for not standing up. I'm a Canadian on his last legs, so I have difficulty standing, but I have no difficulty standing on the truth, the truth of what I wrote, the truth about what happened at a famous American institution, and the truth about this man, the plaintiff.

...Mr. Williams said I wouldn't be willing to defend my words. I do. I stand on the truth of every word I wrote about Michael Mann, his fraudulent Hockey Stick and the corrupt investigative process at Penn State.

...But corruption and climate change meet in this man's Hockey Stick. And we will – and we will talk about that in the days ahead. But to stick with the words I actually wrote, the fraudulent climate change Hockey Stick graph – that's all I said; the graph is fraudulent. But in the eleven and a half years this case has been chugging along in the District of Columbia courts, I have learned something about the graph's creator, too, Mr. Mann here. Eleven and a half years ago, in counselor Williams' statement of claim on behalf of his client, his legal complaint laid in this very courthouse, Messrs. Mann and Williams charged me and Mr. Simberg with "defamation of a Nobel prize recipient," a crime I was not hitherto aware existed in the District of Columbia or, indeed, anywhere else. Defamation of a Nobel prize recipient. Here is Mr. Mann's original complaint as filed over a decade ago, October 22, 2012:

...There is one problem with it. This man is not a Nobel prize recipient, not at all.

...As you will hear in the coming days, Michael E. Mann is the only scientist on the planet for whom the director of the Nobel Institute has had to issue a statement explaining that he has not and never has been a, Nobel prize recipient: "Nobel committee rebukes Michael Mann for falsely claiming he was 'awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.'" Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the trial was off to the races with Dr Mann's wounded vanity up first.

When asked to show damages, about the best Mann has been able to come up with that hasn't been successfully refuted by the defense teams is...a mean look at a supermarket?

Life altering...except, unfortunately for Mann,  Steyn skewered him with it when he had the nerve to repeat the woeful anecdote as testimony in court.

But Mann, who can come across as an attention-seeking and vicious science nerd, is up against a skilled showman. This was evidenced by the following opening exchange when Mann complained that Steyn’s writings had led to him receiving a “mean look” in a supermarket. Having elicited precise details of where Mann received his mean look, Steyn observed:

Excellent. Excellent. Truly excellent answer there… I thought that was a good answer. Let’s say for the sake of argument you were in the pet food aisle and you were standing there. How do you know the mean look was not because you were blocking the guy because you were dithering between the Fancy Feast Gourmet Tuna and the Fancy Feast Salmon Delight?

FYI: There are plenty of folks covering it, from SteynOnline themselves to a terrific couple who, because there are no cameras allowed, actually reenact the day's proceedings.

To untrained observers and free speech advocates, it's going so badly for Mann, with his own words and documented past behavior painting such a miserable picture of a truly vindictive, vainglorious, manipulative, hubris-stuffed meat sack that the bought and sold MSM must be starting to worry. How else to explain - particularly if one has kept up with any of the past three weeks of testimony - this ardent defense of Mann and Science™ appearing on National Public Radio's (NPR) site today? And thank you to my kiddo for the unintentionally hilarious link.

They have the smelling salts out from the start. How dare the unwashed masses question the Great Wizard of Hockey Stick?!

In a D.C. courtroom, a trial is wrapping up this week with big stakes for climate science. One of the world's most prominent climate scientists is suing a right wing author and a policy analyst for defamation.

The case comes at a time when attacks on scientists are proliferating, says Peter Hotez, professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology at Baylor College of Medicine. Even as misinformation about scientists and their work keeps growing, Hotez says scientists haven't yet found a good way to respond.

"The reason we're sort of fumbling at this is it's unprecedented. And there is no roadmap," he says.

A famous graph becomes a target

The climate scientist at the center of this trial is Michael Mann. The Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at University of Pennsylvania gained prominence for helping make one of the most accessible, consequential graphs in the history of climate science.

Right wing! Misinformation! Poor Scientists™ haven't found a good way to respond (read: can't lie like they used to and get away with it)! The graph's a useful tool!

Lord. It was a tool alright.

...The so-called "hockey stick graph" was successful in helping the public understand the urgency of global warming, and that made it a target, says Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, a climate accountability nonprofit. "Because it became such a powerful image, it was under attack from the beginning," he says.

The "Climate Integrity" man says if it's "powerful," don't you dare question whether it's fake or not. That's an "attack."

"Integrity" doesn't quite mean what it used to, no? This is how they roll. And roll right over any legitimate inquiry.

And NPR was stupid enough to include a Steyn quote when they gloss over the trial as if this in some way impugns Steyn.

...In court, Mann has argued he lost funding and research opportunities. Steyn said in court that if Penn State's president, Graham Spanier, covered up child sexual assault why wouldn't he cover up for Mann's science. The science in question used ice cores and tree rings to estimate Earth's past temperatures.

"If Graham Spanier is prepared to cover up child rape, week in, week out, year in, year out, why would he be the least bit squeamish about covering up a bit of hanky panky with the tree rings and the ice cores?" Steyn asked the court.

The entire piece is so sodden with projected alligator tears that one practically has to wring it out to finish reading it. 

That's if you haven't already made it difficult enough by repeatedly spitting your coffee out on your monitor at what you just read, knowing what they've left out.

the lying , despicable @PeterHotez are exhibit A for defunding the propaganda network @NPR

— popeye d sailor (@sailvagabond17) February 6, 2024

Judging by the angst dripping off NPR's hostage note, I'd have to say Real Mann of Science™ is in a spot, and everyone knows it.

Should things turn out that way, I'd love to see the real men of reason he's been tormenting these past twelve years have their day.