Nice One, National Review. Nice One!

Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann took a great deal of ribbing, not all of it good-natured, for his recent display of ego: he claimed that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, when in fact no such thing had occurred.  What did happen is that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore for their work on global warming climate change – and Mann was one of several thousand people that contributed to the IPCC report who got a certificate from the IPCC lauding them for their work.

Now, personally, I have no desire to be recognized by the committee that selects the Nobel Peace Prize winner.  It's hard to imagine a group of people I'd be less interested in being associated with – Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, etc., etc.  But Mann apparently has other feelings about that association, and his efforts at self-promotion have rightly earned him scorn from just about every direction.

The National Review outdid all his critics, though.  They took out a full page ad on Halloween in the Penn State (where Mann works) student newspaper.  It's reproduced below.  Via Watts Up With That:

Awesome, National Review. Just awesome!

It's Popcorn Time!

I don't actually like popcorn, but I just might take up the habit as I watch this one unfold.  Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann has gone where nobody thought he was actually stupid enough to go: he's filed a slander and defamation lawsuit against CEI and Mark Steyn.  Anthony Watts, we can be sure, will follow this diligently, with his own (very large) bag of popcorn.  Megan McArdle and Jonathan Adler have some thoughts as well.

Just like everyone else, I can scarcely wait until the discovery begins...

Steyn on Mann...

Mark Steyn takes Michael Mann to the woodshed, both for Mann's ludicrous lawsuit and for his absolutely absurd claim to have “won” the Nobel Peace Prize (as though that was desirable!)...

Popcorn Time!

James Delingpole on Michael Mann vs. Mark Steyn.  What a combination!  How could this get any better?  Here's a little taste, but you really, really need to go read the whole thing:

From obscure beginnings and with little discernible talent, Michael Mann has risen to become arguably the best loved comedy figure in the entire field of climate science, like Fatty Arbuckle, Pee Wee Herman and Coco the Clown rolled into one.

He singlehandedly invented Mann-made global warming using his amazing Hockey Stick curve – the one programmed using the ingenious algorithm whereby, whatever information you fed into it – fudged paleoclimatological reconstructions, the latest football scores, tofu futures – it always came out in the same, scary-looking This Is The End Of The World And We've Got To Act Now By Pumping Gazillions More Money Into Climate Research shape.

Get Lost!

Not long ago, the inimitable Mark Steyn published a piece in National Review Online (NRO) in which he ripped apart Michael Mann (the originator of the infamous “hockey stick” graph that effectively started the global warming wackiness).  Dr. Mann didn't like being ripped apart, so he's now threatened to sue NRO and Mr. Steyn.  Rich Lowry (editor of NRO) responded publicly today.  The best part of his response?  The headline: Get Lost.  The whole piece is great, though.  An excerpt:

So why threaten to sue us? I rather suspect it is because the Steyn post was savagely witty and stung poor Michael.

Possessing not an ounce of Steyn’s wit or eloquence, poor Michael didn’t try to engage him in a debate. He sent a laughably threatening letter and proceeded to write pathetically lame chest-thumping posts on his Facebook page. (Is it too much to ask that world-renowned climate scientists spend less time on Facebook?)

Mr. Lowry goes on to say that this lawsuit (should it actually materialize) isn't the nuisance such lawsuits normally are.  In fact, because of one little word this lawsuit is a golden opportunity.  That word: “discovery”.

Read the whole thing!

Mann to be Investigated...

Professor Michael Mann (of “hockey stick” temperature graph fame) is being investigated by his employer, Pennsylvania State University. 

We shouldn't read too much into this.  Launching an investigation is pretty much a reflexive action of bureaucracies; they're a time-honored way of deflecting blame from those in charge.  Once we see the results of the investigation, we'll know whether this was an exercise in obfuscation or a genuine inquiry...