Help asked for Dr. Tim Ball in legal battle with Dr. Mann. I’ve started dipping back into the putrid dung heap that is the archives of Anthony Watts’ blog and came across this recent plea by Sky Dragon Co-Slayer John O’Sullivan. Anthony Watts naturally professes to “have no dog in this fight.” Neither do all the other denialist blogs singing along in beautiful harmony.
Dr. Michael Mann has sued Dr. Tim Ball, “a 72-year-old pensioner”, for libel. He’s also suing the right-wing think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which is probably also a 72-year-old pensioner. That’s not just mean, that’s double-mean!
After all, isn’t poor victimized Dr. Ball “widely recognized as one of Canada’s first qualified climate scientists”? [Not a chance. He’s a geography professor who left the University of Manitoba in 1996. Here’s his rap sheet.] Maybe he’s just a caught-out liar who readily turns to puffed up legal threats against his critics.
Judge for yourself of course but this is how the nut-jobs at the graphic arts crime scene called the Canada Free Press blog (who are curiously fixated on how much longer Barack Hussein Obama will be the President of the United States) recently defended him on a similar matter:
Retraction
Apology to Dr. Andrew Weaver
By Canada Free Press Thursday, January 20, 2011On January 10, 2011, Canada Free Press began publishing on this website an article by Dr. Tim Ball entitled “Corruption of Climate Change Has Created 30 Lost Years” which contained untrue and disparaging statements about Dr. Andrew Weaver, who is a professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Contrary to what was stated in Dr. Ball’s article, Dr. Weaver: (1) never announced he will not participate in the next IPCC; (2) never said that the IPCC chairman should resign; (3) never called for the IPCC’s approach to science to be overhauled; and (4) did not begin withdrawing from the IPCC in January 2010.
As a result of a nomination process that began in January, 2010, Dr. Weaver became a Lead Author for Chapter 12: “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility” of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC.” That work began in May, 2010. Dr. Ball’s article failed to mention these facts although they are publicly-available.
Dr. Tim Ball also wrongly suggested that Dr. Weaver tried to interfere with his presentation at the University of Victoria by having his students deter people from attending and heckling him during the talk. CFP accepts without reservation there is no basis for such allegations.
CFP also wishes to dissociate itself from any suggestion that Dr. Weaver “knows very little about climate science.” We entirely accept that he has a well-deserved international reputation as a climate scientist and that Dr. Ball’s attack on his credentials is unjustified.
CFP sincerely apologizes to Dr. Weaver and expresses regret for the embarrassment and distress caused by the unfounded allegations in the article by Dr. Ball.
But reading John O’Sullivan’s spoon-fed “interview” one can’t help but conclude that a vicious liberal-environmentalist climate conspiracy is unquestionably trying to punish Dr. Ball, honorable truth-speaker, through the courts. Any money he received from oil companies was “accidental“. The only real error that he made, charmingly central to his accusations, was an “honest” one. And by gosh he’s terribly worried about “the credibility of science in general”.
I urge Dr. Ball’s courageous supporters to keep those donations rolling in. I sense that there’s so much more on-the-record entertainment ahead.
Wott's Up With That? 
[Sorry, this is quite incomprehensible… – Ben]
i know what it like being step on to keep slient and therten
bio.-MATRIX OF QUANTUM ATOM NOT THEORY YOU DO IT EVERY DAY EN-PASTID in memory of brothers eulogy of BOBBY KENNEDYIT,S GOOD TO SEE YOUR WORKING FOR PEACE if this helps you be abligee .WITH INDIRECT LIGHTING WITH TWO FUEL GENA TORS SELF CONTAINED AND BOUNCE THE LIGHT PRODUCED WITH KNOWN INCANDESCENT LIGHT FRAME BASE IT,S the equal of two full moon,s WITH SEVEN TO COMPLETE TO PREVENT LOSE OF LIFE AND PRODUCE THE VEGETATION WE NEED THREW THE RESTORE SEVEN YEARS AT FULL STEAM AND WITH GOD GRACEBrief Summary: CO2/DOSE NOT = GLOBAL WARNING OR ENCOMPASS THE PROBLEM
[Most of the rest appears to be a speech by Joe Biden]
I would guess Robert’s testing out a Markov-chain based text generator. I think it may need some (a lot) more work.
Also, it’s fantastic to have you back!
[Thanks. Maybe he’s trying out some Chamber of Commerce/Koch Brothers “persona” software? – Ben]
I just thought he was someone messing on the recroom computer waiting for the med cart to finally arrive.
Maybe that’s the BEST algorithm Tony’s been on about.
Lest we forget the last time he attempted a vanity libel case.
Let the fun and games continue, one can live in hope that a former teacher called Dr Tim Ball may learn from his grave errors of bad judgment of telling lies and carbon pollution industry propaganda for profit, to augment his pension and pay all his legal debts, and finally retire to live out his few remaining twilight years in peace and quiet!
More from Desmogblog: The Decline of Tim Ball: Denier champion reduced to railing at real scientists (4 April, 09)
Welcome back! I suppose the actual timing was irrestable. Canadian topics appear infrequently at WUWT.
[Tim Ball is yet another attention-seeking denialist who would be better off keeping out of the public record. – Ben]
Tim Ball seems to be a slow learner. He does not seem to have benefited from his attempt to sue Dr. Don Johnson and 4 Calgary Herald editors several years ago.
Roger D. McConchie (and David A. Potts) literally wrote the book on “Canadian Libel and Slander Actions”.
McConchie law corporation prepared the statement of defense for Dr. Dan Johnson when 8-year Geography professor Tim Ball sued Dr. Johnson and four Calgary Herald editors for $325,000, alleging defamation.
McConchie also represents Dr. Andrew Weaver.
The responses from McConchie, and from the Calgary Herald’s advocates, were so effective, and so devastating, that former Geography Professor Ball gave up.
Ball Statement of Claim
Johnson Statement of Defence
Calgary Herald Statement of Defence
[I wonder if there’s a compulsion in denialist psychology that drives them to repeat their errors so determinedly. – Ben]
Deniers claimed some sort of victory when the law society of BC found no basis for a complaint that John O’Sullivan was practicing law in B.C. without being a member of the bar.
That was in connection with repeated claims by John O’Sullivan to be representing Historical Geographer Ball against Climatologist Weaver, and to somehow be involved in legal actions involving Prof Mann.
The Law Society of BC decision includes a letter from former Geographer Ball’s actual legal team which basically says “John who?”.
That is, they have had no interaction with John O’Sullivan and O’Sullivan has no standing in the libel actions against Ball. O’Sullivan doesn’t need to be a BC Law Society member because he is not representing Ball in the B.C. Actions, end of story. Lots of sound and fury signifying precisely nothing.
By the way, if you read Historical Geographer Ball’s papers analyzing climate related information from the (mandatory) Journals kept by Hudson Bay Company traders and factors you learn that Ball agrees that climate warmed since the earliest journal entries containing climate data from the late 1600s. Thermometers were about as common then as mass spectrometers are today, but the journals record dates for migration of Geese and other birds, first snow days, snow off days, freeze over and break up days for water in ponds, lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean.
Ball deals with that discrepancy by saying that Global Warming ended in the 1950s!
[Denialists like O’Sullivan (and of course Monckton) have a pathological need to insert themselves into issues. Ball’s just another conclusions-then-facts idiot. – Ben]
The latest is that while Tim Ball’s law firm avoided sanctions for paying John O’Sullivan as “legal advice” by claiming that they did not bother to check his background they are now claiming that all correspondence between non-lawyer John and Ball are protected by Solicitor Client Privilege.
Details about the abrupt end of O’Sullivan’s career as a High School Art Teacher and his decision to write a “fact based novel” about a High School Teacher sexually obsessed with a teenage student also emerged.
You could never make up stuff this bizzare if you tried, you have to fact check on deniers such as Mssr. O’Sullivan to come across it.
Affidavits in Michael Mann Libel Suit Reveal Astonishing Facts About Tim Ball Associate John O’Sullivan
[I had to wait until I could verify the link before approving this comment. It makes Monckton look mainstream… There is a strong streak of grandiose self-delusion in the denialist community. – Ben]
My understanding is that the case against Ball has collapsed due to neither Mann or Weaver being willing to allow discovery.
Ball is now suing them for vexatious litigation.
Rather strange that neither were willing to have their “science” investigated.
[Citation needed. If true, it sounds like yet another instance of Shaw’s advice – “never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” – Ben]
Oh, look what showed up, “Harry”: Climate Denial Industry Hits Courts And Hollywood As Threats Fly
Lord Monckton claimed on March 1 that Mann “gave up the case” against Ball, neglecting to check with Mann or his lawyer first. Mann’s lawyer in the case is Roger McConchie, who it turns out was busy on March 1. Doing what, I wonder? He told me via email
Joanne Codling (JoNova) has since corrected her story.
Former Historical Geography Prof Ball is probably having a very bad day.
Climatologist Andrew Weaver has won 4 defamation claims against the National Post, $50,000 in damages, and an internet take-down order against the NP.
Judgement here.
Think of that as the Defamation equivalent of a DMCA take down order.
Weaver was represented by Roger McConchie the same Lawyer who left Ball beating a retreat after suing Environmental Studies Prof Dan Johnson and the Calgary Herald.
McConchie (and David Potts) literally wrote the book on “Canadian Libel and Slander Actions”.
[A great result! These slime-balls count on the burden of legally challenging them to get away with their malicious behaviour. Their fallback benefit is that it takes so long to drag their slippery asses to judgment that they gain short-term benefit from their lies. A shameful example of acting against the public interest. – Ben]
The resolution of the Weaver v. Ball action was that the Judge concluded that Ball is someone nobody in their right mind would believe, so his rantings did not damage Weaver. (Short version). The Judge did not think that Ball could have persuaded “reasonably thoughtful and informed readers”.
https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/b-c-green-party-s-andrew-weaver-loses-defamation-lawsuit-1.23174209
‘ “A climate-change denier’s article critical of B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver was so “poorly written” and lacking in credibility that it cannot be considered defamatory, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled.
…
Skolrood found that while the article is “derogatory,” “it is not defamatory, in that the impugned words do not genuinely threaten Dr. Weaver’s reputation in the minds of reasonably thoughtful and informed readers.”
Ball’s article was “rife with errors and inaccuracies” that showed a lack of attention to detail and an indifference to the truth, Skolrood wrote.
The “article is poorly written and does not advance credible arguments in favour of Dr. Ball’s theory about the corruption of climate science. Simply put, a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views, including his views of Dr. Weaver as a supporter of conventional climate science,” Skolrood wrote.
Ball’s words “lack a sufficient air of credibility to make them believable and therefore potentially defamatory,” the judgment concluded. ‘
Seems that poor Tim Ball was “triggered”!
Ball said despite the ruling in his favour, he’s frustrated that Skolrood saw fit to judge the quality of his argument in the article.
“Yet here he’s passing judgment on the quality of my article on something he knows nothing about.”