Mark Steyn has been begging Michael Mann to sue him for defamation and bless my soul he has now gone and done it. Mann is the climate scientist who invented the “hockey stick” model of global warming. Here is the notice of his intention to sue taken from Mann’s facebook page. This is how it starts:

Today, the case of Dr. Michael E. Mann vs. The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Mann, a Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has instituted this lawsuit against the two organizations, along with two of their authors, based upon their false and defamatory statements accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Dr. Mann is being represented by John B. Williams of the law firm of Cozen O’Connor in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. In 2007, along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having ‘created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.’

Nevertheless, the defendants assert that global warming is a ‘hoax,’ and have accused Dr. Mann of improperly manipulating the data to reach his conclusions.

A hoax? Manipulating data? What an idea! The discovery process will be absolutely fantastic. It will be our modern version of the Scopes trial. Kind of like Inherit the Wind Farm. This may be the biggest mistake in going to court since Oscar Wilde.