Well, be honest, how would you walk if someone was slowly but steadily inserting a 'hockey stick' up your fundament? Poor Prof. Mann is finding out the hard way because he has committed the great error of attempting to sue various publications including National Review. But that error has been compounded doubly - nay, triply - by including the free-lance writer Mark Steyn. As the Canadian authorities found out the hard way, Mr. Steyn is like the guy dressed in black leaning against the bar in a crowded western saloon - and someone spills his drink! The silence is sudden and shocking and all breath is bated! Actually, the saloon empties rather fast but the spectators gather round the windows to watch.
In Canada it was some Islamic group that took exception to Mr. Steyn's, shall we say, lively style but he took them through the court system to the very top - and won outright! Now Prof. Mann, the, er, inventor of the infamous 'hockey stick' which seeks to show that global temperatures ran smoothly though the millennium until the 20th century when it suddenly ticked up leaving the graph looking like a hockey stick lying on its back. The 'Warmers' went crazy for it, I mean, it just looked so, so, right - and so simple that even the unscientific dimwits who make up, er, you and me, would be convinced that global warming was real and caused by the industrial effluent of 20th century factories.
Prof. Mann bestrode the warming globe like a colossus - up until the moment Mr. Steyn pointed out that not only was Prof. Mann not wearing any trousers, he had also forgotten to put on the red nose he deserved! Even worse, according to Mr. Steyn, not only was the 'hockey stick' an invention but Prof. Mann was guilty of lying through his teeth whilst claiming, amongst other things, that he was a Nobel Prize laureate. Cue: incoming writs from Prof. Mann aimed at the various publications concerned but also directly at Mr. Steyn. Big Mistake!
Steyn has not only stood his ground, he has actually counter-sued Prof. Mann whom he accuses of abusing the legal system in order to drag the case out for so long that Steyn, who has to act on his own behalf, will give up. Ain't gonna happen - go read the redoubtable Mr. Steyn and you will get the flavor of it all. What a terrific film it will all make - except that Hollywood, being full of tree-hugging twats, will never go against a Leftie-Greenie agenda. Incidentally, the only famous supporter Prof. Mann has attracted is, wait for it, Prof. Paul Krugman writing in one of his WaPo columns. Alas, his commentary on the Mann case indicates that he knows no more about it than he knows about economics - for which he did actually win a Nobel Prize - I suspect the Scandinavian schnapps was cheap and therefore plentiful the year they voted for him!
