Satirical cartoon from Cartoonsbyjosh.com

Michael Mann filed three briefs last week in the ongoing defamation lawsuit. In one he claims:

In view of the defendants’ initial public bravado regarding Dr. Mann, their latest attempt to avoid a trial on this matter rings hollow–and basic principles of equity and fairness should estop them from now seeking an appeal. Defendants baited Dr. Mann to file this lawsuit.

After he asked for a retraction and apology, the defendants told their readers that they would welcome a lawsuit because it would give them the opportunity to take discovery from Dr. Mann and his colleagues.

They boasted they would hire dedicated staff to sift through that discovery and make it publicly available.1 They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from their readers to pursue this discovery. They proclaimed they would “kick” Dr. Mann’s “legal heinie” in court.

LEGAL_17107968v1_OppositiontoMotionforInterlocutoryCertification Click for the brief.

One only has to look at Dr. Mann’s  Twitter account to see examples of his ‘climate baiting’ in action on a daily basis. #kochmachine #kochtopus #deniers #antiscience, etc.

Dr. Mann is conflating satire at his hockeystick driven web antics with defamation. His claim of “baiting” is nothing more than a psychological projection of his own immature actions and he seems clueless that his own super-sized monolithic ego is the reason that he’s in the position he’s in.

As Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. once quipped:

If Michael Mann did not exist, the skeptics would have to invent him.