The Wager Part II

This follows from The Wager.


I do not want HotWhopper readers to miss out, so I've archived this WUWT thread (again).  I've written about this particular article already here, but this is a different topic.  You can consider it a sub-topic, or several sub-topics.  Here is a taste, but there's more in the thread if you're into utter nuttery:


Eli Rabett says to Christopher Monckton of Brenchley:

August 28, 2013 at 2:03 pm

Eli understands that there is some betting action to be had on your earlier claim that “A math geek with a track-record of getting stuff right tells me we are in for 0.5 Cº of global cooling. It could happen in two years, but is very likely by 2020.”. It is for two bets of $1000 each from John Abraham to Lord Monckton. Given your claims here, you must believe that this would be easy money. John has added a codicil that if you wish the bet can be for benefit of a charity chose by either side, but who knows, maybe you need the money?

Eli is looking perhaps for some smaller side bets on the proposition and what the good Lord’s reaction will be.

richardscourtney, the WUWT playground monitor says, in a comment that is unique from him because there is not a single word SHOUTED let alone SHOUTED EXTRA LOUDLY:

August 28, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Troll posing as Eli Rabett:
re your post at August 28, 2013 at 2:03 pm

Please be assured that nobody cares about the “betting action” of an idiot so deluded that he is unaware of his own name or his own person. Similarly, nobody cares about the “betting action” of even lesser men than the troll (yes, it is hard to believe, but they do exist).

So you need not waste space on WUWT with such nonsense again.

Richard

Monckton of Brenchley says - again, that he wants to sue somebody, and pikes on the bet (excerpt):

August 28, 2013 at 5:04 pm
...One Rabett says someone wants to take a bet with me about whether the world will cool by 0.5 K before 2020 is out. However, it was not I but another who forecast that. In an earlier posting I merely reported the forecast, which is one of a growing number that find cooling more likely than warming in the short to medium term. To make any such bet symmetrical, there would be no payout if the temperature fluctuated by less than 0.5 K in either direction by 2020 compared with today. The bedwetters would win if the temperature rose by 0.5 K; the army of light and truth would win if it fell by 0.5 K.

However, the creature seeking cheap publicity by offering the bet has, I discover, been part of an organized (and probably paid) campaign to prevent skeptics such as me from being allowed to speak at various universities around the world to which we are from time to time invited. Evidence is being gathered, since in Scotland tampering with the right of academic freedom in this characteristically furtive way, particularly with the wildly malicious claims the perpetrator and his little chums have apparently been making, would be held to constitute a grave libel.

I had hoped to sue the defalcating nitwit in the U.S for an earlier malicious attempt by him to assert that I take a skeptical line because I am paid to do so (if only …). However, the lawyers whom I consulted, after having a good look at the case, concluded that, though what this inconsequential little creep had said was unquestionably libelous, as well as displaying an exceptionally poor grasp of elementary science and even of arithmetic, I did not have title to sue because, in the US, I am counted at law as a “public figure” and the jerklet is not. If he were a public figure, I could sue him. If I were not a public figure, I could sue him. But, since I am a public figure and he is not, I cannot sue him. Not in the U.S., at any rate. I visited the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday …

Eli Rabett says:

August 28, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Now some, not Eli to be sure, thought that it would be most pleasing if the good Monckton of Brenchley made John Abraham put up, but Sadly No.

Instead, as the Bunny proposed but a few days ago, we are treated to an entertaining essay in avoidance. To watch Lord Monckton as his mind works at an astonishingly furious pace, whinging about the ills done to him, the difficulty of confronting his tormentors, and the cruel law which forbid him to pounce upon them, but, of course he could if he really wanted to and they should be more cautious, when shunning a chance to do same, is indeed a show Eli feels privileged to have played a minor part in. 

Such humor is found only in our pale memories except for YouTube. We have Chris.

John Whitman says:

August 29, 2013 at 7:18 am
Christopher Monckton,
Have you considered attending the AGU’s annual fall meeting in San Francisco this December?
John

Eli Rabett says:

August 29, 2013 at 7:48 am
JPeden says: @Monckton But, since I am a public figure and he is not, I cannot sue him. Not in the U.S., at any rate. I visited the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday …
“Run Rabett Run” — 1970′s James Cann movie

Yes, more droppings along the bunny trail.

Monckton of Brenchley says he's changed his mind about suing in the space of a few comments and is now going to sue after all.  If I only had a dollar for every time Monckton threatened to sue someone for catching him out in a lie I could buy those nice italian leather shoes:

August 29, 2013 at 8:17 am
To answer a few questions from commenters: yes, the World Federation of Scientists exists (it has existed for half a century); yes, its climate monitoring panel consists of a dozen eminent scientists from all parts of the globe; and yes, the chairman of that panel announced to the closing plenary that global warming is not, in itself, a planetary emergency; and no, the world’s mainstream media will do their utmost not to report that conclusion, because it does not accord with the Party Line.

The troll named “Rabett” is snide about my not taking an asymmetric bet. Well, I’m not going to give the joke figure who offered the bet any publicity: indeed, it would be improper for me to have a bet with him at present, given the likelihood that he will face court action once the trail of evidence is complete. Interesting how the trolls will talk about just about everything except the science, on which events are proving them to have been so spectacularly wrong.

Monckton of Brenchley says:

August 29, 2013 at 12:58 pm
I am not confident of what temperatures will do, because they are stochastic. A fair bet (if I were a betting man, which I am not) would take zero change as the baseline.

What did I say about denier weirdness and cranks and utter nutters?


Here is a link to the archived thread again.

Read more at Rabett Run.