I know some of you will want to discuss this appeals courts judges ruling in the Mann vs Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg and the Competitive Enterprise Institute case. Sounds like a Christmas present for the plaintiffs. On the other hand, it looks like the whole thing will just continue one. This is also being discussed at The Volokh conspiracy and no doubt elsewhere.
126 thoughts on “Mark Steyn is Crowing!”
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It means that Mann’s ego helped his lawyers waste a lot of time and money of the tax payers funding the Court and nincompoop judge, the defense, and their client’s backers.
The lawsuit is likely still alive, and if the case lands in the court of a more professional partisan hack, can go even worse. But after what is apparently a pretty harsh slap down, the next judge is likely to at least behave more competently, which is not a good thing for Mann & gang.
The statue of Justice is blindfolded, because justice is impartial. The statue holds a sword, because justice is powerful. And the statue holds the scales, because justice ain’t cheap…
Judge was incompetent. The ACLU amicus brief explains in detail how a SLAPP analysis is to be done and the judge simply blew off the analytical requirements of the statute )and could not even keep the specific claims and parties straight). Having to go to trial to prove that the suit should no go forward pursuant to the SLAPP statute kinda defeats the purpose.
Probably does not help matters for Steyn to toss off one of his characteristically acerbic writings summing up the state of the litigation. Or maybe it does supply context in a weird way.
I thought the defendants would have trouble with this judge. Fortunately for them, she was so bad that she’s gone! What a waste of time and money for all concerned.
How do you guys feel about the power of judges to do this?
I mean, ok, their decisions can be overturned if they ignore the law too blatantly. I guess there isn’t a better mechanism to do this? At least I can’t think of one at the moment. But it catches my interest because I can never decide if the power of judges to ignore the law (albeit to a limited extent) is a safety or a flaw in our legal system. I think I could find examples either way.
Re the slapp-down, I would say that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer Mann, but that would be misunderstood, so I could say that it wouldn’t have happened to a nicer Mann.
If there was ever a SLAPP case that needed to be thrown out instantly, it is this one. The length and cost of the case (so far!) has already demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the anti-SLAPP law in DC if a case is handled by an incompetent judge.
I am no lawyer (one son is), but I see two things of substance in the ruling: 1) the court accepts the logic of the ACLU brief; to wit, a refusal of the lower court to grant an anti-SLAPP dismissal can always be immediately appealed, rather than appealed after the libel case has been adjudicated on merit, otherwise the anti-SLAPP legislation may well fail to protect people from SLAPPs, and 2) the court dismisses the specific appeal of Styen et al, as moot because a lower court has received a revised Mann complaint, and is already considering, but has not ruled on, the defendants’ (Steyn et al) second anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss…. so the appeals court has no reason to rule on the first anti-SLAPP appeal.
This ruling seems to me not unexpected; no court would likely rule on the merits of a case if that case is moot, and no court would likely make a ruling which effectively defeats the intent of a law, unless that law is considered by the court to be unconstitutional.
The appeals court has affirmed (by accepting the ACLU brief as its own ruling), that Steyn et al can immediately appeal any future ruling against an anti-SLAP motion, including the pending motion at the lower court for dismissal. Since the lower court understands that any dismissal of Steyn et al’s second anti-SLAPP motion will be immediately reviewed, based exclusively on ‘pre-discovery merits’, this may help to focus the lower courts attention on the pre-discovery merits. A disturbing, and I think unintended, consequence is that the court of appeals seems to have opened an avenue to make SLAPP’s more effective than they should be, at least in some cases, in spite of the affirmed right for immediate appeal: just keep revising the complaint before an appeal is heard, and no appeal on merit of an anti-SLAPP dismissal will ever be heard. If the plaintiff happens to get a friendly judge, then the defendants can be forced to defend themselves forever. This is very, very unwise, I think.
Fortunately for Steyn et al, the nutty lower court judge has retired.
I think this is being portrayed as too much of a victory. It appears Mark Steyn has won only because the judge confused him with CEI. This means that CEI is in not as strong a position.
On the merits that makes sense as Steyn was only quoting a statement made by CEI,”He is the Jerry Sandusky of climate science”.
Huh? How do you conclude this means CEI is not in as strong a position? The fact a judge confused parties in a ruling, and hence the ruling got overturned, says nothing about the strength of any party’s position.
Mann & Company will come out ahead, regardless of what the courts decide.
The basic purpose of the suit is to promote Mann in the public eye as a fearless defender of science and reason against the dark forces of Big Oil and its fellow travelers in the right-wing media.
Even if in some alternate legal universe Mann eventually lost the suit and was forced to pay the defendant’s court costs, his supporters in the environmental industrial complex would pony up the cash in short order.
As it is, for Mann & Company, every dollar they spend on their suit is money well spent in promoting their larger objectives.
SteveF – I suspect that Judge Combs-Greene already had thought through the loop hole of which you speak. That is why her ruling denying the Anti-Slapp dismissal motion came over a week after the amended complaint motion was granted and it was filed.
In fact, it looks like the amended complaint was coached. At a minimum, it was definitely modified based on the the Special Motion for Dismissal (Anti-Slapp and Rule 12) hearing that occurred on June 19th.
Reading her Anti-Slapp ruling, Judge Combs-Greene waves off consideration of the EPA investigation in a rather odd way. We do know from Steyn that the Nobel Laureate claim was removed in the amended complaint. I suspect (have not been able to find the amended complaint to verify) that the EPA investigation has also been removed.
This illustrates why there should always be a mechanism to relieve incompetent judges of their gavel.
Re: jim2 (Dec 28 15:44),
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Or, how do you plan to implement this? Self policing doesn’t work all that well for doctors and lawyers, not to mention the questionable constitutionality. You would need a mechanism that stopped assigning cases to some judges. I think that would pass constitutional muster, as the judge would not be removed from office, and the rules for the assignment of cases is up to the individual circuit courts, I think. But I suspect it would end up as an ideological purge rather than competence.
Mark (#122049)– They don’t have any such power. That is one reason we have appellate courts — to fix mistakes by judges.
The amount of discretion they have depends on circumstances. When a judge rules to admit or exclude evidence, he has discretion, and if there’s an appeal the appellate court will decide whether or not he “abused his discretion.” Which is to say, they will grant him some deference.
On a motion to dismiss, the judge has no discretion, and an appellate court reviewing that decision will review it de novo — that is, they will pretend they are the trial court, review the same documents the trial court had, and decide the issue without giving any deference to the trial judge.
Here, as Steyn and SteveF have correctly pointed out, the court didn’t really review the judge’s denial of Steyn’s motion to dismiss (because the complaint he moved to dismiss has already been amended). But if the new judge denies his motion to dismiss that complaint, then the appellate court will review it immediately instead of saying “wait ’til the end of the case” (which is what they usually say). That is a significant extra protection for the defense.
Jim2 and DeWitt — Per this website, every state, including D.C, has a mechanism for removing incompetent or misbehaving judges. The D.C. Code of Judicial Conduct is here, and note that “competence” is considered an ethical duty for judges (rule 2.5), just as it is for lawyers.
This is understandably difficult and rare, for the reason DeWitt points out — you don’t want committees removing judges just for issuing orders they disagree with. But it can happen — it made nationwide news back in 2003, when the Alabama Committee on Judicial Ethics actually removed the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court for refusing to follow the order of a federal court.
Brandon, perhaps I have the details wrong, but I am seeing
Court refused to dismiss lawsuit against Steyn and NR.
Later it gets dismissed, on the grounds that they confused CEI and Steyn.
Conclusion: lawsuit against CEI would continue.
…only to be rejected at a later date by a proper judge!
Mailman
MikeN, it’s simpler than that – the judge refused to dismiss the complaint against anyone. Steyn, CEI, and NRO appealed that decision, but the judge had already let Mann file an amended complaint. So the question of whether the first complaint (which is now a dead letter) should have been dismissed is moot. That means all the defendants are still in the case. According to the order they have already moved to dismiss that new complaint, and if the judge denies the new motions, they can come back and appeal again.
Read the order here (thanks to Anthony Watts for posting the link).
From the link provided by Lucia (i.e. Steyn’s opinion):
“In a real courthouse – in London, Toronto, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney – Dr Mann would be on the hook for what he has cost all the parties through his fraudulent complaint.”
Sounds like Steyn is fan of Common Law. From another piece of his I read, regarding an unrelated criminal case, his opinion of the American legal system is not very high.
Happy New Year everyone! AJ
Briefly put, the Court of Appeals pointed out that the appeal against the original complaint was moot because there was an amended complaint, sent the whole thing back to the District Court, and told the District Court to allow a marginally allowed friend of the court brief from the ACLU to be considered. There are a couple of good summaries at Volokh, including this from Justin VC
As too who lost what, the general take of the lawyers was that this was correctly decided because of the obvious mootness issue and that Judge Weisberg would have reached the same conclusion, cause he said he would. In effect the Steyn/NRO/CET/Simberg lawyers wasted their client’s money. However the high point was Simberg showing up and shooting his mouth off 61 times (somebunny counted), something that no defendant should do
Eli:
Frivolous appeal? That appeal tossed a horrific ruling. Instead, the defendants now have a new shot at at proper SLAPP outcome and outright dismissal. The original judge who permitted a very late revision of the complaint would have certainly come back to the same stupid decisions as were made regarding the original. The notion that the appeal was about moot issues is simply wrong.
The idea that this outcome is a waste of effort by the defense is is either overt spin or silliness. Was there some memo among the CAGW faithful to rally to poor beleaguered Hockey Stick Mike’s cause? Some official spin on the outcome of the appeal?
The “marginally allowed” (a rather peculiar description- an amicus brief is either accepted or not) amicus by the ACLU was apparently decisively influential. The judge’s approach toward the the defense’s SLAPP claims was indeed legally untenable if not outright dumb.
If the hyperbole that is the basis of this suit were found to be grounds for damages then Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, Bjorn Lomborg and other routine screed targets who presumably deny the Holocaust and seek the deaths of billions because Exxon paid them off are about to get very rich.
Eli
I wouldn’t have called that “the general take”. I would have called that “the take of some”. The take of others is given the rulings in place– and the fact of some bad rulings in place — bad rulings which were btw “obviously wrong”, it was wise to get a different judge to rule on these issues. It may well be true that this judge saw the obviousness of the “wrongness” of stuff lower down, but defendants lawyers cannot be sure that higher court judges will not also make the same mistake as lower court judges nor that these mistakes will not become the “undisputed decided posistions”.
Jonathan Adler– also known as “a lawyer” wrote
I get that you may disagree with this. But characterizing the position of those you agree with you as the “general” one held by lawyers seems to be trying to suggest your preferred view is somehow widely accepted by those with training when, in fact, this is not so.
This to me is extremely important. I don’t know anything about the new trial judge. But there are judges out there who would stamp the new motion to dismiss “denied”…and wait for the case to settle. (If the case settles, there is no appeal, and the trial judge’s actions are not subject to review.)
The appellate court didn’t say “you’re appealing too early; wait for the end of the case,” only “you appealed a complaint that’s no longer live; but you can appeal the new order when it comes out.” That tells the trial judge that, whichever way he rules, there’s going to be an appeal right away afterwards. There’s almost no way the case will settle that fast. That gives the new judge an extra incentive to take it seriously and reason it tightly.
AJ (Comment #122063)-Actually, the US-except Louisiana-*is* a Common Law jurisdiction. And most Civil Law jurisdictions follow the English Rule, too. The US is just this weird stand-out exception among Western Democracies, or most countries period. This is why it is called the “American Rule”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_fees%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_%28attorney%27s_fees%29
Joseph W.
” That gives the new judge an extra incentive to take it seriously and reason it tightly.”
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Yes, and I think the most important part of ruling on an anti-Slapp dismissal is a reasonable determination if Micheal Mann is public figure or a private individual. Based on his long term and strident public policy advocacy (OpEds, book, blog writings, and multiple published articles decrying all manner of “denier$”), combined with his many demonstrably false public claims of ‘behind the scenes funding’ of people like Steve McIntyre by ‘big energy’, it is hard for me to take his claim of being a private individual very seriously. It will be interesting to see how the judge handles the case… a lot would appear to depend on who appointed him to the bench, since political cases are subject to the influence of political inclinations (see Gore V Bush). According to Wikipedia:
“Frederick H. Weisberg is an associate judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He was originally appointed to the court by President Jimmy Carter and reappointed by President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He has served on the court since 1977.”
The Jimmy Carter appointment makes me a little nervous (IMO, Carter had the judgement of a half-blind house cat), but the reappointment by the two Bushes indicates that Weisberg is probably not grossly incompetent like Combs-Greene.
SteveF,
I find Mann claims of “private individual” on climate change absurd. Not only does he write blog posts, I’m under the impression is is either the or a founder of real climate. It can be difficult to gauge precisely what level of effort to get one’s message “out” turns one from a private individual to a public one though they may be a ” limited purpose public figure.” Which I think would be all that that matters in the defamation suit because he is public for the purposes of this defamation claim which does revolve around climate change. (Or at least does so unless he seriously is pushing the claim that someone accused him of molesting children while dropping all claims touching on climate change).
Oddly enough– I consider founding a multi-author blog on a topic to be an even more “public” act than one guy setting up an individual author blog for him to use for his own postings. Also, the fact that someone found a different entity (other than the authors) to pay for the hosting costs and that entity doesn’t just give people free blogs for whatever reason makes Mann even more “public” in my eye. This isn’t just a guy who noticed WordPress permits you to set up a blog, created up an account and posted a few things. This is a person who is taking very strong, active thought about measures to communicating his views with the public. That said, I don’t know if the courts assessment of public is the same as mine.
But anyway, if what Wikipedia says is true
(
It seems to me that Mann would have a difficult time getting himself viewed as not fitting “limited public figure”. The fact is: Owing to his conduct, he is widely discussed by lots and lots of people, not just the defendants.
But we’ll see what happens.
If the law suit were on the other foot and, say, Anthony Watts claimed to be a ‘private individual’ on a defamation suit involving climate change I’d also not consider him a private individual. He founded and heads a multi-author blog with a clear focus: dicussing climate change.
George, it was a waste of the clients money because the issue had effectively been decided by Judge Weisberg. As someone pointed out if Steyn/Simberg’s lawyers wanted belts and suspenders all they had to do was file the appeal and not pursue it (e.g. just get it on the calendar of the Court of Appeals and wait for Weisberg to rule the way he said he was going to. If he did not, they could go to the Court of Appeals.
Eli–
So they could have saved money if they had been psychic.
Lucia — Bingo.
SteveF — I haven’t seen his amended complaint yet, but I think the real issue is whether he can allege enough facts to support a claim of “actual malice” — as we discussed at length a while ago. I wonder if he’s come up with anything more than his previous “Backdoor Sedition Act” allegations. (“The government cleared me, and Green groups like me, so if you disagree with them…you’re malicious!”)
My understanding is that Fenton Communications (a Democrat party front group), around the time they were funding Cindy Sheehan, decided some pro-alarm PR was badly needed to counteract (among other things) Michael Chrichton’s book. So they sought out “scientists” (more accurately, left wing academics with axes to grind) to create a blog promoting alarm and socialist responses to it.
That Mann stepped forward to be one of the first members of their group either speaks to his politics or to his poor choice in bedfellows.
Lucia,
” Also, the fact that someone found a different entity (other than the authors) to pay for the hosting costs and that entity doesn’t just give people free blogs for whatever reason makes Mann even more “public†in my eye.”
.
Yes, and that entity is a ‘progressive’ (AKA leftist) political organization with obviously political goals… and they don’t hide that fact. If Mike Mann is not a ‘public figure’ in the eyes of the DC court judge, at least in the area of climate change, then one could safely conclude that in the eyes of that judge, such a public figure could not ever possibly exist.
.
Joseph W,
‘a claim of “actual malice†‘
If I honestly believe that Mike Mann is a terrible scientist and driven mainly by leftist/green ideology rather than by rational analysis, and I tell everyone who will listen that is what I believe, then short of a Vulcan mind meld, it is hard to see how actual malice could ever be proved… short of someone finding my lost private diary which says that in fact I think he is a great scientist and always does rational analyses, and I am only trying to discredit him via my public pronouncements. Whether Mike Mann is or is not a public figure WRT climate change is, IMO, the most important factor for the anti-SLAPP dismissal. If this case is not dismissed on an anti-SLAPP motion, then I will have a lot less faith in the US justice system. This is the case for which the anti-SLAPP statute was written.
Eli
I looked a bit further and I’m now wondering where and when Weisberg said he was going to rule some way in the future? Because Weisbergs Oct 9 order is linked here:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/12/27/mann-v-steyn-mulligan/mann-oct-9-order/
Weisberg does not reveal how he planned to rule in any later proceeding. Moreover, he actually says that how the appeals court does rule on mootness will affect how a future court deals with the case. In fact, Weisberg write
I think what this is saying is that if the appeals court does rule the case is moot– which Mann’s side argued it was not, this will mean that the finding of mootness affects the case by affecting whether Judge Combs Greens order is “the law of the case”.
So, as far as I can see, the way Weisberg saw this, having the appeals court make this decision would affect later rulings and this particular decision would favor the defendants.
Of course it’s possible that you think it might have been wiser for the defendents to not spend their money or time getting this ruling which Weisberg’s order seems to suggest is in the defendants interest. And you may want to suggest their spending this money in this way was somehow a “waste”. But the defendants seem happy to have this ruling in place. And– as far as I can tell– your notion that somehow Weisberg ‘said’ he would someone make the same ruling but as his level may merely be a mistake in fact. But even if you are correct and he somehow, somewhere informally ‘said’ he planned to rule this way, but had not yet done so, it seems likely that it’s in the interest of the defendants to actually have this ruling be made. And they do seem happy to have gotten this ruling.
It’s their money. The money isn’t coming out of the public purse (i.e. taxes etc.) If these private individuals who are being sued thought it worth spending this meony, and think they got something they wanted, then they don’t think it was wasted. And with respect to wasting money, that ought to be what matters. So, it seems this money was not wasted.
However, it may have had an outcome Mann or his supporters would prefer did not happen. But that doesn’t mean those Mann are suing should consider the money wasted!
Steve —
And it’s a hard thing to do. As it should be. It’s just not impossible. And to avoid dismissal, the complaint has to specify some facts that could lead to that conclusion…the last time, the only facts pointing that way were the “investigations” that “exonerated” Mann (implication: if the government clears me, you simply must believe them), but I do not know what he’s alleging this time.
I am very interested to see what facts Mann is alleging in the amended complaint to say that Steyn and the others have actual malice. If he can’t, then the amended complaint should be dismissed (as I believe the first one should have been).
As Lucia rightly says, there’s no denying that Mann is at least a limited purpose public figure in the area of climate science. Malice is a fuzzier issue precisely because it involves subjective states of mind.
Once you get to a jury, all bets are off. A D.C. jury might not understand any of the technical issues in your case, but might understand very well that Mann is the “good guy” and you are the “bad guy,” and that they have the power to transfer wealth from you to him, even to the point of bankrupting you completely. Thus the importance of these motions to dismiss.
Andrew_FL (Comment #122068)
I stand corrected… Thanks! Don’t know why I thought that.
AJ
Joseph W.
” A D.C. jury might not understand any of the technical issues in your case, but might understand very well that Mann is the “good guy†and you are the “bad guy,†and that they have the power to transfer wealth from you to him, even to the point of bankrupting you completely. ”
.
I think I may vomit.
Joseph W,
My nausea is an indication of the apparent effectiveness of SLAPP suits; if this case is not dismissed based on the anti-SLAPP law, then the anti-SLAPP law is meaningless.
SteveF, it’s worse than that. The actual malice standard is older than the anti-SLAPP law, and comes from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment. If this case is not dismissed (and the appellate courts do not fix any refusal to dismiss it), it means we get less protection from the First Amendment than we used to. And that should make everyone sick.
I mean, he probably *is* a fan of the Common Law, it has much to recommend about it. But that’s not what is different about US law, unless one happens to be in Louisiana.
There are a few places in the US (Alaska, I believe) that follow the English Rule, Texas recently tried to pass a bill on it. It’s really a reform well past due on a national level.
Hell, the same kind of arguments that have been made for generations for the US to socialize medicine could be made in favor of it. “Everybody else does it” that sort of thing. It’s funny because there is essentially a one to one correlation between people who say we should socialize medicine because all the other countries do it, and vicious opponents of tort reform like this. They are literally, the same exact people. ???
‘Hell, the same kind of arguments that have been made for generations for the US to socialize medicine could be made in favor of it. “Everybody else does it†that sort of thing. It’s funny because…’
I refuse to believe that there is anyone so stupid as to support socialized medicine, or tort reform, because “everyone else does it”. That argument should always be together with a presumption that the thing discussed is a good idea. It’s a good idea, and look! it’s not so hard – everyone does it!
So I don’t see why it’s hard to imagine that a person might think that one of these things is a good idea and the other one isn’t.
MikeR (Comment #122083)- You may refuse to believe it if you wish. But the record of the left fingerwagging over the US being the “only advanced country without” socialized medicine is so thoroughly on the record of political discourse of the last several decades, and probably longer, that not believing it is silly.
And no, it isn’t an argument that other countries do it so it isn’t hard, it is pure fingerwagging.
Andrew_FL:
I don’t know whether you consider the German healthcare system socialized medicine or not, but it works pretty well:
– Everybody is covered, one way or another
– Insurance cost is set as a % of salary, up to a maximum; so, sliding scale.
– For nearly all covered treatments, they take down your insurance #, and you never see a bill
– The list of covered maladies & treatments is pre-set for the “regulated” (normal) insurance; but if you have a high-enough income, you can buy “private” (premium) insurance and get anything you want.
– The covered treatments are set by an evaluation of medical necessity, not simply by cost
Some particular examples:
– I had a knee operation that took them a long time to decide about; so I waited 3 weeks in hospital, while they did 2 X-rays and 2 MRI’s; and, eventually, the operation. The total cost of the hospital visit amounted to about 20 EUROs per day, all-inclusive. Well, not quite all-inclusive: I had to use crutches for a few weeks thereafter, and I had a co-payment of about 10 EUROs.
– I know of examples of people receiving a prescription for a drug that is still under patent; the cost in the US is about $5/pill, so 100 pills costs $500. Within the German healthcare system, the prescription entitles you to buy 100 pills for 5 EUROs: about 1.4%.
The health of the German healthcare system?
– As of 2007, healthcare costs in Germany are about 10% of GDP; in the US, the equivalent figure is about 16% and rising.
– There used to be a 10 EURO fee for the first doctor’s visit in a given quarter. In 2013, they dropped it.
“Health spending accounted for 11.3% of GDP in Germany in 2011, two percentage points higher than the
OECD average of 9.3%. Still, health spending as a share of GDP remains much lower in Germany than
in the United States (which spent 17.7% of its GDP on health in 2011). It is also slightly lower than in the
Netherlands (11.9%) and in France (11.6%). ”
http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Briefing-Note-GERMANY-2013.pdf
“But the biggest reason German health costs are so much lower, experts say, is that doctors are paid less. This largely reflects Germany’s concerted efforts to keep costs down over the past two decades.
Dr. Heinz-Harold Abholz, a professor of general practice at the University of Dusseldorf, says he earned a lot more 20 years ago.
“I get a third of the money I earned in the 80s,” Abholz says.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91931036
Cost a a percentage of GDP is one of the single most misleading statistics if you are citing it, it confirms you haven’t got a clue what you are talking about.
Neal King, how well the German healthcare system works is pretty much irrelevant to any discussion of healthcare in America. The system in the US will kill far more people than it helps. That fact is an outgrowth of the nature of today’s US political system. It makes no difference at all _what you think can or should be done_; in America today, this is what you will get instead. A whole lot of people in America are currently coming to recognize this fact. Most of the rest of us anticipated it in 2008 or 9.
Andrew FL:
I am a consumer, reporting on the German system as it is experienced by the user. I don’t have to be an expert on health care economics to observe that:
– the results Germans complain about in their system are issues that many Americans are dying to achieve (in some cases, literally); and
– the system itself seems to be in robust good health.
It constitutes proof that better systems than the US’s can not only be contemplated, but implemented.
Neal J. King
Huh? Could you elaborate because I have no idea what you think you are claiming.
Do you mean the former American system? The system under the affordable care act? Or the German syatem?
I have no doubt that the US system either pre-or-post Obama care is not perfect. But maybe you could elaborate on advantages and so on. Also, maybe you could define what you mean by “better”, as that is a value judgement and people may have different opinions on what is “better”.
FWIW: I’m indifferent to what decisions German’s make. If you are happy with your system, great! That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best possible system– especially given the fact that what is “best” is quite often– and nearly always in the case of health care– a value judgement.
In the original complaint Mann admits to being a public person and is not using non-public status as his reason for the complaint. The Nobel laureate issue was a problem because it was factually incorrect. Something one likes to avoid in court matters.
The tact he is using is that because there have been several independent investigations (EPA was cited as one, and is very problematic for him) into whether he “manipulated data” etc and they (by his account) account, said no he did not. They are basing the complaint on the “fact” that the defendants fully knew that their statements were provably false (per the investigations) and as such were defaming Mann.
This is why I have said elsewhere that if Mann wins, this will put a serious chill on science. He, in a nut shell, is saying he is right, because other people with “authority” agree with him. Scientific method be damned.
“It constitutes proof that better systems than the US’s can not only be contemplated, but implemented.”
Even if you consider the German system better is not proof that such a system can be implemented in the US. As I pointed out, it cannot, and Americans are currently in the process of verifying that fact.
The scientific method seems to producing results that agree with him, not people with “Authority”.
“Equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the ultimate change in global mean temperature in response to a change in external forcing. Despite decades of research attempting to narrow uncertainties, equilibrium climate sensitivity estimates from climate models still span roughly 1.5 to 5 degrees Celsius for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, precluding accurate projections of future climate. The spread arises largely from differences in the feedback from low clouds, for reasons not yet understood. Here we show that differences in the simulated strength of convective mixing between the lower and middle tropical troposphere explain about half of the variance in climate sensitivity estimated by 43 climate models. The apparent mechanism is that such mixing dehydrates the low-cloud layer at a rate that increases as the climate warms, and this rate of increase depends on the initial mixing strength, linking the mixing to cloud feedback. The mixing inferred from observations appears to be sufficiently strong to imply a climate sensitivity of more than 3 degrees for a doubling of carbon dioxide. This is significantly higher than the currently accepted lower bound of 1.5 degrees, thereby constraining model projections towards relatively severe future warming.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html
bugs (#122094) –
Perhaps it’s a result of too much celebrating, but I don’t understand what connection you’re suggesting. What does that Nature paper on GCMs and climate sensitivity have to do with Mann or the “Hockey Stick”?
HaroldW,
I celebrated very little, and I see zero support for Mann’s hockey stick in the paper bugs cites. Possibly bugs thinks every single thing that might support the premise “AGW is true” is the same thing as supporting Mann’s hockey stick. If so, bugs is just deluded about what constitutes “support for X”.
So basically, *in models*, this particular effect is very important. We therefore assume it is equally important *in reality*, and furthermore we assume that setting this one parameterization closer to a realistic value necessarily makes what that *causes* in models more realistic. Finally, we assume that, since models agree much better with one another on most other parameterizations, those will not bias estimates of sensitivity, since, agreeing with each other, they must be right.
Wow, and I thought Climate Scienceâ„¢ couldn’t get any more absurd.
Neal J. King (Comment #122085)
December 31st, 2013 at 1:37 pm
“- I had a knee operation that took them a long time to decide about; so I waited 3 weeks in hospital, while they did 2 X-rays and 2 MRI’s; and, eventually, the operation.”
Neal the above comment you made here must have a typo as you surely cannot seriously be lauding a system with your anecdotal account of waiting in hospital for 3 weeks. Knee, hip and shoulder replacement surgery that I am familiar within the US requires a 2 to 3 day hospital stay. Do you mean to say 3 days and not 3 weeks?
It is perhaps comforting for those who do not contemplate the sustainability of government programs or where the revenue originates to pay for these programs or more telling where those resources would have gone in the absent of a commanded government program.
While many EU governments attempt to fund their government run retirement and healthcare programs on a pay as you go basis with higher tax rates, these governments have unfunded liabilities for future generations to face and Germany is no different. Note below that the 8 billion euros is 8 trillion in US terms and would amount to approximately $10.5 trillion .
The problems come when the government has a choice in the future of covering these government programs with (1) ever increasing revenues which has a negative feedback on the country’s economic output which results in a downward spiral of less revenues available from a weakening economy or (2) reducing benefits promised to the voting public, the voting public often prevails by ignoring the consequences of (1). The so-called tweaking that most proponents of these government programs refer as a fix for these programs are totally out of touch with (1) and (2) above and the consequences.
http://www.stiftung-marktwirtschaft.com/wirtschaft/themen/generationenbilanz.html
“The Market Economy Foundation presents an update of the generational balance sheet and analyzes different models for health care reform to test their viability and to estimate the tax increases necessary to fund the system.
The long-term unfunded imbalance between expected revenues and explicit and implicit state expenditures amounts to nearly €8 billion, or roughly 315% of gross domestic product, according to the latest calculation by the Market Economy Foundation and the Intergenerational Contract Research Center )(Forschungszentrum Generationenverträge). The bulk of this is driven by implicit (not yet visible) state spending that constitutes 250% of GDP and hides the costs of state liabilities, particularly the social security system, which cannot be paid for by current levels of taxation. The remaining part comprises those state liabilities that are explicit and already visible.
In order to service this debt load, every German citizen, independent of taxes and contributions to social schemes, would have to hand an additional €355 per month (€279 at 2007 debt levels) over to the state.”
That’s nothing, the US’s unfunded obligations are on the order of 100% of *world* GDP.
Actually a lot more now, I think.
I live in BC Canada. 90% of patients get a new knee within 41 WEEKS of it being scheduled. 46 WEEKS for the part of BC I live in.
Unless it is in an emergency, the waiting list for my Ophthalmologist is 13- 15 months. So I go for an annual physical and I won’t have seen her until well after the next physical. And if you have to cancel, another 13-15 months.
When my wife need emergency cataract surgery years ago, the waiting list at the time was 6 months. But the cataracts were so aggressive she was going blind. We paid to see a private surgeon and just barely made it under the wire before they made it illegal. Six months later they hired the same surgical center to shorten the backlog.The wait list is now back to 6 months.
Socialized medicine. You should fight against Obamacare as if your lives depend on it. Because it does.
The US unfunded liability depends like all of these liabilities on the time horizon that is selected, but the US unfunded liabilities are huge and not really sustainable as some big government economists may want you to believe.
All nations that I am aware that have developed economies have this problem with unfunded liabilities. The pundits will use metrics like what those liabilities mean in terms of GDP and increased taxes required if the liabilities were to be paid down starting now and on an annual basis – or whatever other metric that might appear to minimize the problem will work for them. They never mention that that pay down will be a huge drag on the economy, further that our government representatives are not even serious about starting any pay down, still further these pundits who attempt to minimize the problem by pointing to what they see as an economically neutral pay down are those same people out there that want for the present time more deficit spending and unfunded liabilities in the name of forever jump starting a weak economy. Finally these unfunded liabilities are what is unfunded now and make no accounting of a trend for the government to continue on a reckless path to initiating more programs that will generate more unfunded liabilities and debt. I would bet that the ACA will soon be recognized as such a program.
“I know of examples of people receiving a prescription for a drug that is still under patent; the cost in the US is about $5/pill, so 100 pills costs $500. Within the German healthcare system, the prescription entitles you to buy 100 pills for 5 EUROs: about 1.4%.”
Don’t know if we really want to get into this discussion, but the reason you can buy that drug in Europe at all is because we in the US pay $5/pill. Investments for pharmaceuticals are generally incredibly huge, something around a billion dollars for a cancer drug. An enormous fraction of the money the pharma companies get back is from the US. That is true regardless of where the drug (or piece of medical equipment) is developed; the US is the most important market for any health care innovation. Switch the US to a “sensible” health-care system, and that drug just might not get created. And you’ll never know that it’s missing.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #122102)- I am unsure what the time horizon on it is, but the figure I’ve seen is “total debt and unfunded obligations: $92 trillion” Which, for reference, is about 1.25 years of global production.
Just for Neal
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1172657/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/83639.php
Watch the cancer deaths rise in the USA once healthcare is taken over by the government.
In Australia even if bowel cancer is suspected you wait 3 months for a colonoscopy .I know,I paid to get it done privately.I was lucky.My brother-in-law wasn’t.He paid to get his done privately,he was told after diagnosis and an operation that they had got it before it spread.They didn’t.His treatment was woeful.He had two prescriptions for chemo,his partner had to ring the doctor to find out which tablets he had to take,turned out he had to take both.I couldn’t believe they was so casual about the chemo.He died this week.He was only 60.I believe the treatment killed him.That’s the odds,but I am not even sure they knew what they were doing.
Yet another manifestation of the age old problem. The shorthand for me goes like this: The philosopher’s stone doesn’t actually turn lead into gold, it turns gold into lead. No free lunches.
Looking at the costs quoted by Neil, I’m wondering if he’s confusing his costs with what the German government/tax payers are paying.
Also, I think the original point still stands.
Can we have a German-style health care system with a US-style legal system? For example, let’s assume he didn’t mis-speak, and he really did spend 3 weeks in the hospital while the doctors figured out what to do about his knee. If during that time he had contracted an infection, how many lawyers would have gotten involved?
In Germany?
In the US?
“And you’ll never know that it’s missing.”
Actually I think we will know it’s missing, we will just know that nobody will be looking for it anymore.
“And you’ll never know that it’s missing.â€
Because you won’t be there?
The truth is that people mentioning “the exploding cost of health care” makes me awfully nervous. Information technology has also exploded in cost. When I was a kid, most of us spent $0 per year on it. By the time I was in college, that had risen to a few hundred dollars a year, for the new-fangled electronic calculators and the like. Another couple of decades, and it became an important expense for every business. By now it is a major expense for every household in the nation, with every home containing dozens of chips all over the place, stuffed with every manner of software.
It’s horrible! The price of IT is exploding! – But that’s nonsense; we all know that the price is falling. Everything constantly gets cheaper; what you can buy today for a few hundred dollars is far more powerful in every way than a multi-million-dollar computer of my youth, or even of a decade ago. What is exploding is the _demand_ for IT. This fact is evidence of the incredible success of the field.
Health technology hasn’t exploded as fast as IT, but it has exploded. A glucose test today doesn’t cost more than twenty years ago, it costs far less. What has exploded is demand. The richest man in the world in my youth couldn’t buy a hip replacement that worked, couldn’t get a colonoscopy, was doomed if he developed bipolar disorder, would spend weeks in the hospital for the simple outpatient procedure of cataract surgery. We all consume far more health care than we did before, and we want more.
I work at one of the largest research hospitals in the world. A month doesn’t pass when we don’t introduce a new test, a new instrument, a new procedure, or a new drug. All of those cost lots of money – if you’re looking for the rise in costs, we are it. And I can’t speak for the whole hospital, but I can testify to the culture I see around me: we would never introduce a new test, instrument, procedure, or drug, except that we feel that it affords a considerable improvement in our ability to treat patients. Every change is an improvement in health, even if it doesn’t change average longevity.
None of this means that the United States has the best healthcare around, or that it couldn’t be done better and cheaper. It does mean that focus on cost makes me nervous. Squeeze too hard, and you can choke the golden goose that health care has been in my lifetime. And again, you’ll never know it, because you’ll never know what improvements would have happened and didn’t.
Neil is right about the length of hospital stays in Germany. Among the benefits are that they don’t turf new mothers out the next day, but rather give them pretty much a week. You used to be able to get a couple of week at a spa to take the waters, but this has been tightened up on.
However, the German system is quite complex (think Hillary care) with layers, the AOK, more or less a government health insurance scheme open to all, then there are a bunch of other health insurance organizations (Krankenkassen) set up around professions/trades/industries, which are a bit more expensive but provide a higher level of service. Finally there is private insurance. The big differences are that the first two pay directly to the physicians/health care but if you have private insurance you pay and then claim back. Private insurance is a lot cheaper if you are young, but a lot more expensive if you are old. You cannot switch from private back to the others (there are VERY limited exceptions to this), so it is a one way door.
The key for physicians is to have a contract with the Krankenkassen that allows them to bill. This is not automatic.
The French or Canadian models are a lot simpler
One to one correlation between socialists and defenders of climate alarm here, why am I not surprised.
Andrew_FL (Comment #122112)
“One to one correlation between socialists and defenders of climate alarm here, why am I not surprised.”
Politics and money go hand in hand. It was never about the science. I have also noticed the warmers have become a little more irrational lately, just like gamblers do when they have lost everything.
Andrew_FL (Comment #122104)
January 1st, 2014 at 5:04 pm
Unfunded liabilities are worse than that when you throw in all the unfunded liabilities that states and local governments have accumulated. In IL and Chicago we have huge unfunded liabilities that are not insignificant when added to those garnered by the federal government.
The basic principle to be applied here is that politicians as a general class of irresponsible people in practice do not change stripes when going from federal to smaller government units nor when crossing political boundaries.
Andrew_FL (Comment #122112)
January 1st, 2014 at 11:21 pm
“One to one correlation between socialists and defenders of climate alarm here, why am I not surprised.”
I think a lot of these tendencies are tied to some of these people being oblivious to the broken window fallacy and seeing government programs as darn near free lunches and forgetting that these programs take resources from other potential and unseen investments.
These same people are willing to live with the obvious inefficiencies of these programs because when you look no deeper than they apparently do you never understand that that inefficiency takes even more away from the unseen investments.
Applied to an issue like AGW this same ignorance would consider the expenses of mitigation and unintended consequences in the same manner. These people would see government involvement, and involvement in a major way, in this matter as something that government should do regardless of what the science says about the consequences of AGW. Science has more importance to them in the form of marketing the idea and swaying those hesitant voters on the issue.
Eli
Oddly, my reaction to Neil’s three week stay in the hospital which seemed to be motivated by nothing more than inefficiency is “how horrifying for the patient!” On the one hand, I think it would be good for new mothers to be given more time in the hospital– a rest day as it were. It’s true they are not ill but it’s also true they are likely quite tired and there is a new infant who needs fairly close attention — pretty much around the clock. Letting new mothers rest up would see fairer than pressuring exits.
But on the other hand: Was Neils 3 week stay in a hospital motivated by nothing other than the delay in decision making? Wouldn’t it have been better all around for this to be done outpatient?
My sister had knee surgery in highschool (and again later). Of course diagnostics took some time. It was a long time ago, but eems to me over all, it took about a month for a decision to be made about the specific thing to do. After all: some of the time delay has nothing to do with insurance but merely getting tests done and delivered to doctors, doctors speaking with patients about option and so on. But she didn’t sit in the hospital for all the weeks while doctors “decided”.
If the Germans have a system that motivates hospitals to keep relatively healthy people in hospital beds while “decisions” are being made, (which might be what would happen if the hospital is paid by the government to keep him in the hospital while deciding what to do about his knee, I’d hardly call that ideal. While Neil might “like” that system because he had no out of pocket expense for the three weeks of unnecessary time spent in the hospital, I wouldn’t like it. As a patient, I’d rather get to be outpatient while many of these decisions were going on and then come back for the surgery. With the rare exception (and evicting mothers too soon is one of them) I prefer a system that encourages people to recover outside of the hospital if possible. Certainly, a system should minimize the amount of time people spend in a hospital doing little (or apparently nothing) more than waiting for test results.
I get that one system has one set of shortcomings and another system has different short comings, but really, when I read what Neil describes I think, “How horrible for patients who end up languishing in hospitals for no good reason!”
LucÃa: ( #122116): Exactly!!! I had to stay 3 1/2 days in the best hospital in my country. It was like to be in a jail. It is a very good hospital, with good doctors, nurses, etc. but… Plus the danger to get an infection…
Hospitals are very bad places for your health also. Lots of antibiotic resistant bugs. Smart doctors try to keep stays as short as possible.
@David Young. Yeah. As I said, I work in one of the best hospitals in the world. Naturally, we get the people with the most dangerous bugs. You’d have to be crazy to stay longer than you need to.
MikeR (Comment #122110),
I was just doing catchup reading on this thread. That is a great comment, including the nod to longevity.
I don’t work in the health care system but I’ve thought this sort of thing – i.e. who cares how much money we are spending on health care as a measure in itself.
lucia (Comment #122096)
That paper (also the subject of a Roy Spencer blog post) is interesting as a follow on to the discussion of nonlinear climate sensitivity that runs through Paul_K’s posts and some others on here as well as Troy_CA’s blog and others.
I skimmed the paper briefly and don’t see anywhere that it looks at the TCR/ECS ratios or time to equilibrium sensitivity in the models. It would be interesting to look at this. Are the models that match the mixing parameters better in this analysis (and have higher sensitivities as the article notes) also the ones that have more curvature in the flux/temperature relationship? Hmmm.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #122115)- “These people would see government involvement, and involvement in a major way, in this matter as something that government should do regardless of what the science says about the consequences of AGW. Science has more importance to them in the form of marketing the idea and swaying those hesitant voters on the issue.”
There is some of that, but there is another important aspect I think you are missing.
To my mind, the single most dangerous political notion in human history is the notion of *technocracy*, or “rule by the experts.” It’s very easy, especially for the intellectual, to see the appeal of the idea: One notices that people are stupider than you are, in general, and concludes, not unnaturally, that the proper course to follow would be for such people to have their decisions guided by the more intelligent, the more intellectual people. The Kathedersozialisten, as it were. It’s a completely sincere reaction, understandable on some level, but also a *deadly dangerous one*.
This naturally attracts the intellectual to illiberal ideas and political systems. This is even more true if one believes oneself to be an expert in a particular area of concern and sees pushback from the public on the issue. The evidence, from the point of view of any intellectual convinced that AGW is a serious issue, points to the people being almost suicidally unintelligent, it is almost an act of beneficence for him to rob them of the liberty to make their own decisions on the matter. And, going backward, their political point of view that may make them even more likely to react this way, makes them even more likely to embrace the idea of technocracy in other areas, too.
To push back against the rise of technocracy unfortunately carries with it the accusation being “anti-intellectual” and “anti-science” and a public enamored with the achievements of science and pacified to the notion of slavishly following the advice given to them by “experts” already, well this resonates with them.
Of course, there are “State Science Institute” elements to this as well.
Re: Andrew_FL (Jan 2 14:37),
I blame Socrates and particularly his student, Plato. Philosopher Kings indeed! It is simply not possible for a centralized government consisting of a limited number of humans, no matter how smart and well educated, to know enough about what’s going on soon enough. You would need an AI the size of the Minds in Iain Banks Culture Universe to even begin to have a chance as well as a complete and total lack of privacy.
Andrew_FL –
The technocratic ideal goes back at least to Plato’s philosopher-kings.
While it may be a stretch, I think the idea is unfortunately fostered by various civilization-creating computer games, in which the player acts as a benevolent — or otherwise — dictator to direct the resources of a region. The idea that a country develops ideally by adoption of an optimum resource utilization profile, which the player gets to decide in his omniscience, is an alluring but misguided notion. It tends to lend credence to politicians who claim that their policies are responsible for creating prosperity.
[Edit: DeWitt beat me to it.]
DeWitt Payne (Comment #122123)-Yes, I, and Karl Popper before either of us, has traced this idea back to Plato. I do not believe one can blame Socrates, mostly because I am pretty sure Plato made up out of whole cloth most of the things he attributed to him.
And of course, the issue you specifically refer to was expounded upon best by Popper’s good friend and colleague, Friedrich Hayek, who called it the “knowledge problem.”
That being said, one must be cautious. Implying *any* computer, no matter how fictitiously advanced, could hypothetically solve the problem of economic calculation, is to commit the error of Cockshott and Cottrell. To suggest such betrays the superficiality of one’s understanding of the problem with economic calculation.
While I have no use for Plato’s Philosopher Kings, I think the problem with modern day politicians and political pundits is not so much that they use technocrats and their supposed superior knowledge but that they will use that technical information only as it supports their political predispositions and ignore that information opposed to their position. But even beyond the question of technology is my proposition that many supporters of government “solutions” and even those supposedly knowledgeable technocrats proposing solutions are simply ignorant of the economics of Frédéric Bastiat’s “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen” and the affect these solutions have on economic activity in ways that are not seen or are ignored.
Lucia, the German system is just not set up for ambulatory care, and most of the expensive diagnostic stuff is at the hospitals. FWIW Eli himself spent almost a month in a German hospital for a small secondary wound infection after his appendix was removed. They were shocked, shocked when he checked himself out and worried how he would get care (this was in the 1970s)
Point is that the hospital system and the physicians are disjoint, not like in the US where you average quack has admitting privileges. It’s just the way it is. The English NHS is much better integrated wrt primary care, specialists and hospitals. Don;t know about the French.
Eli-
Sure. But Neil seemed to be suggesting that their system was better. The feature of people being stuck in the hospital for no good reason is not– in my opinion — better. That feature is worse. Feel free to tell me their system is just “different” again or that it’s “just the way it is” again. I get that. Systems in different countries are different. But it seems to me that particular feature of the German system is worse.
Seems to me that this feature of the US system is a good one even if you call board certified MD’s “quacks”. It’s not clear to me why someone licensed to practice medicine should be blocked from admitting people to hospitals.
“FWIW Eli himself spent almost a month in a German hospital for a small secondary wound infection after his appendix was removed.”
So they couldn’t even perform a simple appendectomy without causing a secondary infection. Lucia, know how to simply tell what system is better. 1. Look at the patents for new drugs and medical devices (US is overwhelming leader) 2. Count the number of US Citizens that choose to travel to countries with socialized medicine for specialized procedures (almost none). I am sorry to say our medical superiority will be a fond memory with the implementation of Obamacare, Truly sad.
@HaroldW (Comment #122095)
January 1st, 2014 at 6:33 am
The Hockey Stick is all about the blade, that is, climate sensitivity. The blade is not all about MM, global warming is not all about MM, scientists around the world are publishing papers consistent with his claims, that have nothing to do with him. This focus on MM as being some kind of evil scientist debasing science is just a cheap conspiracy theory. It’s cheap, it’s simplistic, it’s opportunistic, it’s wrong, it achieves nothing, but it causes him harm.
Re: Andrew_FL (Jan 2 16:08),
I suspect you didn’t read the link. The Minds are not computers, they are incredibly advanced self-aware artificial intelligences that have been directing their own evolution for thousands of years. They are so vast that they can run a simulation of an entire planetary population so detailed that they worry about the morality of ending the simulation because the individuals in the simulated population have human level intelligence and are self aware, just not aware they are in a simulation rather than the real world. The implication being that even the Minds may be in a simulation of an even vaster intelligence.
And I didn’t say that a Mind could solve the problem. I said that you would need a Mind level intelligence to even begin to think about solving the problem.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #122131)-Mea culpa, I did not read the link, however I still fear that it is an error to think the inability to deal with the economic calculation problem is merely a problem of insufficiently advanced intelligence or technology, it’s that the problem can’t be solved in that way *in principle*. Never mind *thinking* about the problem.
But, fair enough.
bugs (Comment #122130)-“The Hockey Stick is all about the blade, that is, climate sensitivity.”
Okay, this gibberish “sentence” is all the confirmation that I need that bugs is actually a bot, not an actual human being. It is stringing words together that show up frequently in climate discussions and passing them off as actual thoughts.
Reading of the stories of a 1st world country (Germany) healthcare system, I do not want to know what happens in 2nd world countries.
Or am I wrong, and there are really 4 divisions in healthcare and the German system is second tier?
Kan (Comment #122133)-“2nd world countries”
In America, you fight the cancer. In Soviet Russia, cancer fights you!
bugs (#122130)
“The Hockey Stick is all about the blade, that is, climate sensitivity.”
I disagree with every part of that statement. The importance of the hockey stick was its shaft — the claim that historical temperatures varied very little until modern times. The blade is determined by the instrumental record. And as such, it has virtually nothing to do with climate sensitivity. There’s not much variation in estimates of how much temperatures have risen in the last century or so. But there’s a wide range in estimates of climate sensitivity — among GCMs, about a 2:1 ratio. Perhaps you can explain why you seem to identify the blade with climate sensitivity.
.
As for your comments about Mann: “The blade is not all about MM” — perhaps not, but he has been the most prominent blade generator since Gillette. “global warming is not all about MM” — I agree with you there. But somehow the TAR seemed to think that the hockey stick was the conclusive evidence for anthropogenic global warming. “This focus on MM as being some kind of evil scientist debasing science is just a cheap conspiracy theory. It’s cheap, it’s simplistic, it’s opportunistic, it’s wrong, it achieves nothing, but it causes him harm.” — (a)from my perspective, I don’t think he’s an evil scientist, just a mediocre one. (b) as for causing him harm, aside from his hurt feelings — which seem to be very delicate indeed — just what harm can you point to?
Andrew_FL – I know about Russia. I have a cousin who was in Russia around 2003-3. She had appendicitis, ending in an appendectomy. The scar is 12 in. long.
I also personally know of a person who was cycling in France. Had a bad accident and really messed up his hips. The doctors there said there was nothing they could do, and he would heal, albeit not to 100%. He spent $64,000 to have a private jet fly him back to the U.S. for treatment immediately. He is at 100%
For those who might be sight impaired reading this, money was not an object, so do not get into the French, private doctors off the books stuff.
Side note – when we all start paying for the healthcare of others in a forced, one-size fits all manner, you can bet we will all start paying attention to what others are doing for fun. Me? I will start lobbying for motorcycles go the way of the Dodo bird. And bicycling.
“This focus on MM as being some kind of evil scientist debasing science is just a cheap conspiracy theory.”
Nope – in the case of the lawsuit – it really is about free speech. To make sure you are clear – it is Mann who is the plaintiff (look that up as well).
What makes it extremely dangerous for science is that science is fundamentally built independent of opinion (look up the meaning of this word). Mann is trying to use mere opinion (current knowledge about past climate and whether his methods are correct), as his defense.
Furthermore, the investigative bodies he is quoting as having rendered him justified, only have authority for such within those respective bodies. The act and engagement of science is not limited to membership in, nor governed, by those bodies. If, however, their authority, by virtue of the U.S courts and its authority is extended (via precedent), then science will have a very big problem.
There is a reason appeal to authority is well understood to be a logical fallacy. Even the noted scientific authority Albert Einstein was wrong on some things for which he rendered his judgement.
The rabbet points to one JustinVC at Volohk.com as being in the know.
Let me quote from JustinVC in that same thread, which I found most interesting, in response to Mr. Steyn’s comments about the case:
“You would think Steyn would have learned his lesson about “hyperbole” and accusations of criminal conduct.”
What lesson does JustinVC think Mr. Steyn should have learned? That saying something with hyperbole, and accusations of scientific fraud about someone will get get you sued (note – JustinVC conflates the concepts of scientific fraud with the legally defined one, a very big difference).
I do not think Mr. Steyn is unaware of the desire for that to be the lesson.
Kan, the term “Second World” referred to the communist countries aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Hence the Yakov Smirnof joke.
I just kinda got a kick out of you using what is generally considered an obsolete word.
Obsolete? There has to be something between Developed and 3rd world. Like, oh say, Mexico?
Oh yeah, it’s “developing” isn’t it? I knew something was amiss when I 2nd world.
3rd world just means the unaligned countries from the Cold War, people have come to use it to mean “poor country.”
First World, similarly, basically refers to NATO, er, pre-Soviet collapse.
When you understand the terms this way, they are historical and describe a country in perpetuity, but they have no relevance outside of a historic context.
The Second World mostly doesn’t exist anymore, Cuba is the main hold out, but economically it’s more like the unaligned states.
HaroldW (Comment #122135)
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:02 pm
No, if you look at the hockey stick graph, the error margins are quite significant. I never read it as indicating ‘very little’ change. Plenty of room for temporary change, which did indeed happen. This blade is going up, and staying up, and probably higher than previous temperatures in the time period analysed.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/mbh98.pdf
HaroldW (Comment #122135)
How about Gillett?
that’s funny to me
Bugs, it’s the handle that tells you whether the blade is interesting or not though. If past (entirely naturally driven) climate change were of the same magnitude as observed changes over the same time scales, then the “blade” wouldn’t be very interesting.
The problem for MBH98 isn’t the error bars, but the lack of any low-frequency content in his handle. This earlier reconstruction is clearly inconsistent with more recent reconstructions. The newer ones lack a true “hockey stick handle”, so largely, the MBH98 hockey stick has been falsified by more recent reconstructions, including Mann 2008 EIV.
bill_c (#122144) –
Gillett is one of the authors of the 2013 commentary “Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years”:
Edit: I should add that Lucia discussed that comment in this post.
HaroldW (Comment #122167)
yup. strangely most of the low sensitivity estimates come from places that stand to benefit from GW. i smell a constipracy.
I don’t think there is any evidence of that whatsoever.
Lucia, specifically your physician (aka quack) in Germany can get you admitted to a hospital, but does not practice in the hospital. In the US a significant portion of a physicians income comes from in hospital visits and direction of care. Those who have this right for admission and practice in the hospital are called “referring physicians”. In Germany that is not the case, hospitals have physicians who only practice there and others who only practice in the community.
As to outcomes, the US pays by far the most, and outcomes are at best middle of the pack (w. the exception of 5 year cancer survival). Single payer (Canada) and national health (UK, France) do better. IEHO the ACA will improve this, mostly because of the array of preventative care measures with no co-pays beyond the base cost of the insurance
As to the original subject, who benefits from the Court of Appeals ruling, depends on two things. The first is whether Mann’s amended complaint is stronger than the original one. Clearly Mann’s lawyers think so. The second point is that this always was going to depend on Mann showing actual malice on the part of Steyn, Simberg, NRO and CEI. The posting/comments by Simberg, Steyn et al. following the ruling certainly have not helped their protestations of innocence.
Eli
Possibly true. But if so…uhmmm… so? Why would this be bad?
Uhmmm… yeah. Because those physicians refer people. Would you prefer they not refer people? Or that we call them quacks? Or what? plz. explain your issue here.
Uhhmmm…. ok. And so?
Seriously, I’m not sure what your point is. I said as far as I can see, Neil spent 3 totally unnecessary weeks in a hospital in Germany owing to their system. You want to explain the system. okie. dokie. But no matter what the system, do you think there was any need or benefit to Neil languishing in the hospital merely to “wait” for people to “decide” on treatment? Seems like a utter total waste to me. And that’s true even if the term we use to describe physicians who refer people to hospitals “referring physicians”. As far as I can tell: we use that term because it’s descriptive, which is just fine. Meanwhile, whatever the heck is happening in Germany: a mostly healthy person with some issue with his knee spending 3 weeks in a hospital merely to get a decision on treatment is just nuts. Your calling American physicians “quacks” (because — as far as I can tell– you just feel like calling them quacks) doesn’t change the observation that this aspect of the German system is nuts.
“outcomes are at best middle of the pack”
Flat out false statement.
Re: Eli Rabett (Jan 3 20:56),
Preventative care, you mean like increased visits to the ER by newly signed up Medicaid patients? With the narrower networks required to keep costs from rising to astronomical levels, how much time do you think a doctor will actually have to supervise preventative care for an individual patient? What you’ll likely get is fast food style medicine. If it’s not on the menu, you won’t get it.
Eli
How in the world would Mann’s amended complaint being stronger or weaker than the original one have anything to do with who benefits from the Court of Appeals ruling? If Mann’s amended complaint is stronger than his original one (which appears to have sufferred sufficient flaws for them to withdraw it) that benefits Mann. But that has nothing to do with the Court of Appeals ruling. It’s not as if the ruling was over whether or not he was allowed to withdraw the original one. He was going to get to do that anyway!
Seems to me: the defendents benefit from this because the range of interpretations that can result in positive outcomes for Mann are narrowed. This doesn’t mean Mann will lose, but the range of interpretations permitting that are narrowed. In terms of strategy, that benefits the defendants. Mann’s lawyers will now have a slightly more difficult time.
That said: if Mann’s case was strong this narrowing wouldn’t matter because a narrow but clear path to proving defamation is sufficient. (Of course, as his case was weak and based on trying to get people to interpret the law while crossing their eyes, patting their stomachs and rubbing their heads, the narrowing of options for his side will likely matter.)
Everyone thinks the Mann amended filing is better than the original filing — which wasutter crap. That’s why Mann’s laywers amended the filing. I mean: duh.
But recognizing that the amended filing is less bad than the original one tells us nothing about who benefitted from the appeals court ruling on on a point that had nothing to do with whether the new filing is ‘better’ ‘worse’ or ‘permitted’ relative to the original one.
I have no idea why you think the who benefited from the ruling depends on whether the new filing is “better” than the old one. But… whatever.
Oh? Was that what Mann’s lawyers were arguing? Were they conceding Mann is a public figure and that the others had to display actual malice for Mann to prevail in the slander suit? Are they currently conceding this point?
Because my impression was Mann’s lawyers were arguing otherwise. They are trying to avoid the requirement to prove actual malice. If I’m mistaken, please link to brief that show they concede that Mann is either a public figure or a limited public figure.
Oh? How so? Seems to me you are flat out wrong on this.
As far as I can see, the defendants posting comments tend to indicate they believe what they write. You may not like what they write. You may think it’s somehow snotty or shows they don’t “like” Mann. But as a legal term of art ‘actual malice’ means “(knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of whether a statement is true or false)”. Disliking Mann, thinking he’s a jerk and so on are irrelevant. In contrast, Simberg, Steyn et al believing what they write would cut against any Mann claim their statements represent “actual malice” as defined in slander and defamation. So, it seems to me what they write suggests the absence of “actual malice”.
“Health care quality in the U.S. varies and is not notably superior to the far less expensive systems in the other study countries.”
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2012/May/1595_Squires_explaining_high_hlt_care_spending_intl_brief.pdf
As to the relative merits of various systems on a country’s financial health, everyone would do well to look at Exhibit 1 on page 2.
Wow, a detour into the world of failing healthcare reform. Yet the topic is how a terribly written complaint falsely claiming torts is withdrawn, and a lunatic ruling by an incompetent judge gets tossed out.
Eli’s reasoning on health care sheds a great deal of light as to why he might be prey to CO2 obsessive disorder.
Here was me thinking Obamacare was about healthcare funding, and not about healthcare itself.
The odd thing is that having taken a woad of cash from Medicare/Medicaid a large number of hospitals will no longer take Medicare/Medicaid patients, as the reimbursement levels are so low. This includes the best cancer treatment centers. So people who previously would have been able to have cutting edge cancer treatment will not have this option.
Moreover, I bet that there will be more Americans uninsured in 2014 than in 2012.
Lucia, Mann’s reply brief in the motion to dismiss is here. I paged through it for the word “public” but didn’t see a word about Mann as a “public figure.” There’s a discussion about actual malice on pages 53-54, but none about Mann’s status as a public figure. They didn’t explicitly admit “he’s a public figure” but as far as I can tell (without rereading the whole thing word for word) they stayed silent on that point.
It’s easy to think otherwise because Mann himself has tried to characterize himself as a “reluctant and accidental” public figure, as if he hoped he could talk his way down to the “negligence” standard, but from what I’ve seen that has never been part of his lawyers’ argument on the motions to dismiss. Nor should it have been. Instead it was about how “UEA and UPenn and a Parliamentary committee and the Department of Commerce, and the EPA all cleared me, and if you don’t trust them, then you’re malicious.” Trust the government — or else!
(In the section before he tries to argue that it’s so obvious that even NRO’s own readers — i.e., hostile commenters on NRO’s articles — saw it. If they had room for an argument that weak, that implies they already made all the strongest they could come up with. And “Michael Mann – private figure on climate change” didn’t make the cut.)
err, my last paragraph should begin —
“In the section before that one he tries to argue that the malicious, defamatory nature of Steyn’s comments is so obvious…”
…I was vague with my “it” there.
Joseph W.,
I agree that the lawyers don’t seem to be disputing the need to prove actual malice. They think they can prove malice. By the same token, the lawyers aren’t actually conceding he’s a public figure– possibly because they want flexibility to fall back to that if at possible.
I think they can’t prove actual malice — and more over actual malice did not exist as the term is defined at law. They seem to believe that everyone who reads the “investigations” must agree with their conclusions. In fact, lots and lots and lots of people have read those “investigations” believe they are “white washes” and that they do not touch the issue. These people are pretty vocal. Mann knows they exist. It’s hard to believe his lawyer don’t know they exist. It’s difficult to believe a fair judge won’t recognize that they exist.
I think Steyn, Simberg, CEI are in the bunch who don’t think those investigations prove anything relevant to allegations about what Mann did because the investigations all sidestep nearly everything. ( BTW: The notion that people will not believe results of trials or investigations will not be unfamiliar to judges. It’s not uncommon for people to not consider someone who ‘cleared’ to not be innocent of the crime under investigations. I don’t think the not guilty verdict in the OJ trial proved OJ did not kill Nicole– and in that trial the actual accusation was at least addressed. Lots of people probably think Zimmerman killed Trayvon with malice aforethought. And so on. Judges are going to be familiar with this. )
Given that the lawyers have not actually conceded Mann is a public figure, we’ll have to see what happens if this does go forward. Will the try to pull private individual out out? Or realize that’s hopeless? We’ll see!
We will indeed. My guess is that they won’t try it — the existence of Mann’s book alone makes hash of that argument — but they might try to bolster the actual malice argument in other ways.
The question right now isn’t whether they can prove malice, but whether they can even allege enough facts to give them a chance to try to prove it. I doubt they can do even that, but as you say, we’ll see.
Joseph W.
Yes. They seem to be trying to elevate opinions and interpretations and hyperbole to the level of facts. The “molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science”. Even if Mann things his “Nature Trick” is a fine and dandy thing to do, others have a perfect right to consider it “molesting and torturing data”. Whether that “trick” is legit or amounts to “torturing data” is an opinion– and remains one even if a zillion boards were to decree it’s not any sort of actionable academic irregularity. There is no “fact” there. (And really, there is no dispute that Mike had a “Nature Trick”.)
Joseph W.
I see this in Mann’s filing
I have no idea how the court will rule on this nor any idea why the DC statute chose to use “likely” instead of probability. But when I speak to people, I interpret “likely to X” to generally mean “X is more likely than not”. Or at least pretty likely. On the other hand, “a probability that X” would be “X is neither certain nor impossible.” So, for example: if something has a 1 in 100 chance of happening, there is “a probability” it will happen. But I wouldn’t say it’s likely to happen.
I’m not sure how others generally use these terms– and I have to admit that if I needed to be certain what they meant, I might as “How high a probability? ” or “How likely?” But in terms of nuance, I don’t see the different phrases as identical; I see them as somewhat different. OTOH: I can see where people can argue this.
Lucia –
I am not a lawyer, but I would think that to include a 1 in 100 chance, the statute would use a term such as “possibility”. I’d take “there is a probability that X” to be interpreted as “it is probable that X”, which in turn seems fairly consistent with “it is likely that X”. Obviously, this is more about common usage than legal usage, though.
HaroldW,
The problem with word order matters. It’s not just the word. For example, to me:
1) There is a probability that X might occur and
2) X is probable
Imply different levels of probability. The first suggests X is possible, but not probable. The second, X is more probable than not. We can do similar things with “likely/likelihood” and so on.
Lucia,
From the D.C. Slapp Law blog —
(And this is confirmed by page 37-38 of Mann’s brief.) Without looking up the California case law myself: A “summary judgment like” procedure does not mean you have to show you are more than 50% likely, or even more that 5% likely, to succeed on the merits. It means that you have to have a little bit of evidence to establish each element of your claim…to show that there’s an “issue of material fact” for the jury to decide. It doesn’t really involve weighing probabilities.
It may be that the California courts didn’t do a good job of interpreting their statute, but that is how they read it. It may be the D.C. statute used a different word so as to avoid that interpretation, and let “likely” mean what you and I understand the word to mean, so that the judge has to weigh probabilities and require stronger evidence. This interpretation certainly puts more teeth in the statute, and makes it a stronger protection.
btw, note that under Supreme Court case law “actual malice” has to be proved by clear and convincing evidence..which is a “well above 50% likely” standard…I don’t think Mann’s conjecture about how Steyn has to believe UEA, Penn State, the U.S. Department of Commerce, etc. should get him to trial under any of these standards, California SLAPP, higher-than-California SLAPP, or straight-up New York Times v. Sullivan 12(b)(6) dismissal.
I wonder if his amended complaint includes new reasons.
Joseph W.
Thanks for both bits of info. No, I certainly don’t think Mann’s conjecture on what a person who read the various rulings “must” believe is clear and convincing evidence of what they believe. I don’t even believe its evidence! Moreover, there is plenty of counter evidence that toms of people who are aware of and read all of those think they are “whitewashes”. And moreover, some of the people Mann is suing call them “whitewashes”. (In fact: that’s where the whole “Jerry Sandusky” issue comes in. It represents evidence that ‘investigations’ can be whitewashes and more particularly some at
U PennPenn State are whitewashes.)Claiming that somehow people who say they think those rulings are “whitewashes” somehow must think they are in fact “not whitewashes” is pretty idiotic. OTOH: maybe there is wile buried there. They are hoping to get someone else to think the claim is not idiotic. And it seems some judges might somehow believe it’s not idiotic. But..well…. we’ll see.
DeWitt, you looked at the initial rush, the experience in MA has been that after an initial surge following the introduction of Romneycare as people straighten out their medical problems, there is a decline
Lucia,
Penn State not U Penn. I suspect nobody at U Penn wants any association with the name Sandusky.
SteveF,
Thanks. I edited.
Steyn and Steyn’s lawyer just had a parting of the ways. Steptoe and Johnson LLP are not chopped liver and bringing in new council in the middle of a case is expensive.
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.ca/2014/01/speaking-of-losing-your-lawyer-mark.html
Eli–
That’s interesting.