Jay, one final thing re stickmeister Michael Mann’s claim to be have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. You write:
It is stunning that Mann calls himself, or allows himself to be called, in his press releases and so on, a Nobel peace laureate. It almost makes me feel sorry for him. (Maybe I should emphasize “almost” again.) I am no shrink, but — holy Moses, what a claim.
Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve just read the official indictment or whatever you call it against NR, and he makes the claim that he has been “awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in the complaint itself (page 2, paragraph 2).
Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé. If I claim to be the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, can I sue Dr Mann for not calling me Your Highness?
As you say, we’re not shrinks but…
UPDATE: On the one hand, Michael Mann’s own web page:
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors in 2007.
On the other, the Nobel committee:
Only persons named explicitly in the citation may claim to share a Nobel Prize.
So we’re being sued for loss of reputation by a fake Nobel laureate. Hilarious.