2018-04-04

Monckers him even more back

Monckers him back refers. There's an update to the trove of court dox in the Alsup case1. Most of them are unbearably tedious, and one of those is SPECIAL STATEMENT OF AMICI CURIAE IN REPLY TO RESPONSE BY PLAINTIFF TO MOTION TO FILE AMICI CURIAE BRIEF by Monckers et al. Whatever they're paying Alsup, it can't be enough for reading all this stuff. How he must be regretting the failure of The People to oppose the Amicus Curiae briefs (though the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council wazzocks got rejected for being too late).

The plaintiffs poke at Monckton's peerage, his Birtherism, and the HIV stuff, and M can't help himself from poking back. Charmingly, M demonstrates his hi-tech credentials by providing a "Basic" program. Quite what the court, or his fellow Amicae, make of all this is anyone's guess, but I'll skip over it to focus on me, me, me. Or at least, maybe me. Because M also can't resist whining about Wikipedia:
This matter [Legates vs State Climatologist] is incorrectly recorded at the relentlessly unreliable Wikipedia, where climate campaigners tend to rewrite the biographies of those skeptical of the official position on the climate in such a way as to cast them in a maximally unfavorable light. Any attempt to correct such errors is simply deleted, usually within minutes. One such campaigner has rewritten some 2,000 biographies of skeptical researchers, some of them many times, in each instance with intent unfairly to harm their reputations.
Is he referring to moi? Well who else could it possibly be? But "has rewritten some 2,000 biographies of skeptical researchers" appears to be simply made up; the brief provides no source for the claim. It is somewhat reminiscent of A Child's Garden of Wikipedia, but in that case the relevant 2,000 comes from "When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions." Which is nonsense, as the link shows; but at least it contains the number 2,000.

My best guess is that M made up the 2,000 number, possibly from a hasty skim of the linked article. But suppose one were to try to justify it... how could one? There's no edit counter that records edits to Category:Living People, and anyway that has 800k+ people in it, most of them nothing to do with climate. There's the List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming, but that contains nothing like 2k people.

Other stuff


There's a pile of motions to dismiss. Here's ExxonMobil's version; the joint defendants one is possibly more interesting. I've no idea whether they are likely or not; my guess would be that hizzoner wouldn't have bothered go this far if he was intending to drop the shiny so early.

Oh, god, there's more. Alsup pokes at the responsibility defence, at least that's my interpretation:
Identify and describe all state and federal court decisions sustaining a nuisance theory of
liability based on the otherwise lawful sale of a product where the seller financed and/or
sponsored research or advertising intended to cast doubt on studies showing that use of
the product would harm public health or the environment at large. Also, identify and
describe all decisions rejecting such a theory
And that's just part 1. Part 2 is the same, but in the context of GW. Part 3 asks about Noerr-Pennington. Part 4 is:
If plaintiffs’ theory is correct, why wouldn’t everyone involved in supplying carbonbased
fuels (or in otherwise increasing carbon dioxide, e.g., deforestation) be liable upon
a showing that they questioned the science of global warming or sponsored research
intending to question it?
This one will run and run. However, I do very much approve of the judge posing questions like this.

Refs


Federal, State or Dismissal? Here’s the State of Play in the California Nuisance Lawsuits by the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, part of NAM.

Notes


1. I'm somewhat unsure of the status of that link; I don't think it is official; it seems slow to update. As I write [2018/04/11] these words, insideclimatenews.org has a link to statements they've uploaded (you can tell it is them, not official, because the filenames are non-neutral). They parse BP, Shell and Conoco as agreeing, and Exxon as differing, but I don't think that's really true. All of them tried to say as little as possible, and none of them have any substantive points of difference. The implication of all of them - and (re)stated explicitly by Exxon - is that the case won't be about climate science.

17 comments:

Hank Roberts said...

> otherwise increasing carbon dioxide

Ogod. now the soda pop manufacturers and consumers have been implicated ... BURP!

Hank Roberts said...

Meanwhile, this comes down to a revision of Big Congrol Knob theory, eh?

"... Lord Monckton found a single paragraph – which, ironically, Dr Soon had suggested should perhaps not be included on the ground that amici’s research in that area was not yet complete – indicating that there appeared to be an irregularity in the feedback mathematics, though at that time amici had not identified the cause of the irregularity. Lord Monckton hereupon studied the equations and the related literature with some care, and the error described in the amicus brief came to light...."

Millicent said...

Monckton forgets that the Tribe of Alternative Facts have their own version of Wikipedia in the form of Conservapedia. The only problem is that the overwhelming majority of us prefer facts to have some connection to reality and therefore stick with Wikipedia.

Anonymous said...

Off-topic but related to an earlier thread: Prof Swingland edited his own Wikipedia entry again today. He changed some spellings (though not 'Philantropy'), deleted the bit about his retiring early because of ill health (so why did he retire?) and expanded some puffery. Nothing, alas, about the trial. Its outcome remains mysteriously unknowable more than a year after the jury did its thing.

(Not even slightly on-topic: Today I chanced upon a very-low-notability individual who has not one but two Wikipedia entries. Margaret Gallagher, an independent researcher into gender bias in the media. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Gallagher and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Gallagher_bibliography. Is Wiki getting short of people with the time and inclination to stamp out such abuses?)

Anonymous said...

The above was by Vinny Burgoo. Sorry. Must. Dig. Out. Ancient. Passwords.

dave said...

Just to say I yam shoked to here that in Wikipedia "climate campaigners tend to rewrite the biographies of those skeptical of the official position on the climate".

Always thot Wikipedjans tended to rewrite everything, including the biographies of all those climate scientists who are duly sceptical about all research, and so do their own research – but what's this about "the official position"? The consensus is hardly a single position, it's a growing thing with a snapshot every half dozen years in the IPCC reports. Just as Wikipedia is an emerging 'pedia reflecting the contributions of those who can be bothered, so thanks in advance to Vinny for the proposed action. All helps.

William M. Connolley said...

Swingland: I looked, but its all a bit meh; nothing too exciting. MG: tempting, but I tend to be personally forgiving on these things; she may well not really be notable, but there's no great harm.

The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse said...


Third link be broke. (A "-1" has been added to the former URL.)

Monkers claim that he was tutored in mathematical logic as part of his studies in classics was pretty good.
Supplying the court with a definition of "argumentum ad hominem" was even better. But Exhibit A - the BASIC program - should win some sort of prize.

William M. Connolley said...

Thanks; fixed. Though I suspect it was right at the time and it is them that have changed.

M: yes, what does go through his mind one must wonder. Classic lack of red-teaming your arguments.

William M. Connolley said...

Ha yes I was right: http://archive.is/kA9zW

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

I've boiled off most of the moonshine in the Amicus Reply, and hoisted it on some of the many petards kindly provided by the non-law Lord, the non-Harvard non-astrophysicist and the fefrocked State Climatologist of Delaware.

https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2018/04/moncktons-condensed-legal-soup-just-add.html

Hank Roberts said...

Thank you Russell.

Harry said...

I see that some of the Amicii (??) were funded by ExxonMobil.

William M. Connolley said...

I don't think any were specifically funded to make their statements. Indeed, it would be odd if they were, since they are embarrassing goo and dribble that contradict Exxon's position.

Unknown said...

Willie Soon ... is known to have accepted more than $1.2 million from the fossil-fuel industry, including Exxon and the American Petroleum
Institute (an organization supported by all Defendants directly or through their predecessors and/or operating subsidiaries. As the New York Times has reported,
Soon’s correspondence with his corporate funders “described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money.

Tom said...

Unknown, why do you say things that are no true?

Harry said...

Just quoting Russels link.