A week ago, I wrote a snarky post in which I implied that the criticism of Michael Mann and his hockey stick had gone beyond a debate about the science to become a personal attack. A thoughtful commenter suggested that perhaps I’d gone too far: “There has been little in there which is ad hominem, and I do not recall any personal criticism of Mann- which is what your sketch seems to imply.” The comment was true with respect to the Wegman report, but it is most assuredly not with respect to the broader discussion that has accompanied it.

Today, on a New Mexico science email list, one of the discussants compared Michael Mann to Jeffrey Dahmer:

Here’s what I think of Mann and his cronies, including the Oil for Food guys. Is Jeffrey Dahmer an okay guy since he hasn’t killed anyone lately? First off, I will admit the comparison is not equivalent, but not for the reason I think you would suggest. What Mann is doing, considering the possibility that CO2 is beneficial, is orders of magnitude worse.

As Dave Barry says after penning something that seems too absurd to be true: I am not making this up.