A Curious Little Blog

You know, if I thought anyone actually read my blog, I'd probably be a lot more careful about what I write here.  I guess that's part of the thrill of blogging:  you never know when you might suddenly become a teen pop idol, or get sued for defamation, or something else exciting. My first surprise was that someone responded to my post about the Mann vs. Steyn case to defend Michael Mann.  Since the person remained anonymous, I wonder if it isn't Mann himself; I've heard he spends a lot of time patrolling the internet looking for derogatory statements to defend himself from. Then someone responded to the anonymous poster, saying pretty much exactly what I would have said:  that the case for being compared to a child molester seems pretty weak, and I thought the focus of the case centered on the use of "fraudulent" to describe the hockey stick graph. And then the real surprise:  Mark Steyn himself cited my post over on his blog .  I have to admit, my fi...

I admire Mark Steyn.  Even if you disagree with everything he says -- and I'm sure a lot of people do -- he is a remarkable person.  A few years ago, Michael Mann, climate scientist and creator of Al Gore's famous "hockey stick" graph showing drastic warming in the last century, sued him for libel.  Steyn had called the hockey stick "fraudulent," among other things.  This is not the first time Mann has sued, although I'll be honest I'm having trouble finding other examples because these things don't get covered much in the mainstream media. Steyn's co-defendants, National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, are trying to get the case over with as soon as possible, which is a predictable reaction.  Steyn, on the other hand, views the suit as an aggressive attempt to shut down the debate, so he has no intention of settling.  In fact, he counter-sued Mann under anti-SLAPP legislation, which as I understand it seeks to defend peopl...