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james_nicoll here.
Long time readers and old friends will know that I hold the space writer and wannabe political pundit Rand Simberg in a degree of contempt that is normally reserved for flat earthers and anti-vaccine loons. Don't worry, the feeling is, Rand assures me, completely mutual. We've been butting heads, metaphorically speaking since I first got online back in the mid-1990s, and until I got just to busy to respond to his brand of vile 'conservative' rhetoric and quasi-libertarian bullshit a couple of years ago I was marked on his blog as a paid troll for the vast left wing conspiracy, something which anybody who actually knows me would find laughable.
Anyway, as one would expect Rand is a global climate change skeptic, believing it to be part of that vast left wing conspiracy to stop his manifest destiny driven right to own an SUV and an incandescent light bulb. He and well known Canadian internet Troll Mark Steyn posted a piece in the NRO about Michael Mann where they compared him to a well known pedophile football coach... Mann objected and filed suit for defamation and despite attempts to use the 1st Amendment protection to allow them to compare a scientist doing science to a pedophile, they have been told to go to court.
Since then Rand and the NRO have been trying to get the suit dismissed and not go to court as they'll be completely screwed in the settlement. Mark Steyn, love him, is made of sterner stuff and wants to embrace the case, as he has done, apparently in countless suits in his home country. However, he also did try to get the case dismissed as nonsense. To do this he's left the joint legal team and is, it seems, defending himself, thus proving the old adage, a man defending himself has a fool for a client.
Anyway, he failed. And he's upset. Apparently nobody really knows the law as well as he says he does.
james_nicoll here.Long time readers and old friends will know that I hold the space writer and wannabe political pundit Rand Simberg in a degree of contempt that is normally reserved for flat earthers and anti-vaccine loons. Don't worry, the feeling is, Rand assures me, completely mutual. We've been butting heads, metaphorically speaking since I first got online back in the mid-1990s, and until I got just to busy to respond to his brand of vile 'conservative' rhetoric and quasi-libertarian bullshit a couple of years ago I was marked on his blog as a paid troll for the vast left wing conspiracy, something which anybody who actually knows me would find laughable.
Anyway, as one would expect Rand is a global climate change skeptic, believing it to be part of that vast left wing conspiracy to stop his manifest destiny driven right to own an SUV and an incandescent light bulb. He and well known Canadian internet Troll Mark Steyn posted a piece in the NRO about Michael Mann where they compared him to a well known pedophile football coach... Mann objected and filed suit for defamation and despite attempts to use the 1st Amendment protection to allow them to compare a scientist doing science to a pedophile, they have been told to go to court.
Since then Rand and the NRO have been trying to get the suit dismissed and not go to court as they'll be completely screwed in the settlement. Mark Steyn, love him, is made of sterner stuff and wants to embrace the case, as he has done, apparently in countless suits in his home country. However, he also did try to get the case dismissed as nonsense. To do this he's left the joint legal team and is, it seems, defending himself, thus proving the old adage, a man defending himself has a fool for a client.
Anyway, he failed. And he's upset. Apparently nobody really knows the law as well as he says he does.
