Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me

Sincerely of course.

Eli has been having some fun with Peter Woods over at the Chronicle, pointing out that Wood's copycatting on the Michael Mann is just like Jerry Sandusky act (very popular in some circles), is, well, as Steve McIntyre would put it, defamatory.

  It has come to Eli’s attention that you have made defamatory statements about Michael Mann, in an article by juxtaposing him with the odious Jerry Sandusky.  Moreover you have made serious, defamatory and untrue statements about the Penn State Investigation on Prof. Mann's scientific work

This, of course, was a take on McIntyreGate XCII, where Steve tried to first bludgeon David Karoly, by sending him, what, on the face of it, was a demand letter, sincerely, of course

dkaroly at 08:06 AM on 14 July, 2012

This is a very welcome initiative. The threats of legal action and FOI requests are not just occurring in North America. In Australia, I have just received a threat of legal action from Steve McIntyre in Canada and am currently dealing with 6 different FOI requests.

The usual comedy of errors ensued when the publisher of Karoly's book review moved it from free access  behind the paywall (for their reasons, which themselves added to the fun read the comments over at the skeptical science thread hijack that followed) and McIntyre upped the Gate count to XCIII by doing the innocent old me act with a dash of belittlement thrown in.  Tom Curtus (HInAL and an Aussie one to boot), summed it up both at Skeptical Science AND at Climate Audit

Tom Curtis at 07:30 AM on 20 July, 2012

That claim is simply absurd. All that McIntyre needed to do so that the letter did not have the form of a concerns notice under Australian law was to drop the phrase "defamatory". By excluding that word, the letter no longer makes a claim of defamation and therefore no-longer clearly presents claims of defamation.

Further, McIntyre's claim that his only intention was to persuade Karoly to "behave as a professional" is dubious. A professional, and certainly a scholar is concerned to be truthful. Simply alleging that Karoly's claims where untruthful would have been sufficient if McIntyre's purpose had only been to persuade Karoly to desist from allegedly unprofessional conduct. Given that, the only point in including the term "defamatory" would appear to be to make Karoly (at a minimu) reflect on his legal situation - and if that was the intent it was definitely an implicit threat. On McIntyre's say-so I will accept that his letter was poorly drafted for his stated intent. But as drafted, it was legally a "concerns notice" and as such represented a threat of legal action.  

For true high comedy, head on over to Climate Audit to watch pro parsing at work with a fair dollop of confusion.

Well, another shoe has dropped, a demand letter from Michael Mann's lawyers (published on Mann's Facebook page) showing that, well, yes, the word defamatory in a letter DOES have legal meaning even in North America.  Evidently Prof. Mann has decided to pull the football on the denialists.

The letter, to National Review, starts

The purpose of this letter is to put you on formal notice of the defamatory content of a recent article that was published on your webside, National Review Online, regarding my client Michael Man and to demand a retraction and an apology.  We also demand that the publication be removed immediately.

A copy of the defamatory publication is attached to this letter.  It is entitled "Football and Hockey" and was authored by an individual named Marc Steyn.  The letter makes the false allegation that Dr. Mann has engaged in academic fraud an allegation which, of course, is defamatory per se.  Specifically  the publication states that Dr. Mann "was the man behind the fraudulent "hockey stick" graph the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus"

Your allegations of academic fraud is false, and clearly made with the knowledge that it was false.  It is well known in the scientific community, and certainly well known to you and Mr. Steyn, that there have been numerous investigations into the issue of academic fraud in the wake of the disclosure of certain e-mails from the the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and that every one of these investigations has concluded that there is no basis to these allegations and no evidence of any academic fraud.

. . . . .

further you draw insidious comparison between Dr. Mann and Jerry Sandusdy, who as you point out, was recently convicted of child molestation.  This reference is simply outrageous and clearly subjects your publication to a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress

Now, Brian (BISAL) might disagree, but that last paragraph is a neat piece of jujitsu, because, as all bunnies know, the rest of the denial sphere is going to start making the same comparison, but their doing so strengthens Mann's claim against NRO.

Popcorn please, sincerely of course.  UPDATE:  Eli will share with J Bowers