Latest update on our friends at Heartland
Guardian has a brief rundown. I misunderstood previously what I think was John Mashey's point in the comments a while back, about the importance of a coal association showing up to support Heartland financially. I thought that wasn't very surprising, but it seems that HI had been trying to maintain a facade of independence from that economic interest. Not anymore, and maybe not even enough time to funnel the dollars through a masking fund.
Also interesting that Heritage Foundation, a right wing "think tank" hack job, would pitch in financial support for HI as a potential competitor. Maybe the competition isn't all that fierce, or that Heritage prefers someone who's even more ridiculous than they are to provide a contrast.
Guardian also says HI lost board members, but no name. Inquiring minds want to know. UPDATE: ask and ye shall receive.
UPDATE 2: As to Heritage being so generous, maybe they're not the ones making the call on that decision. Page 93 of Crescendo to ClimateGate Cacophony shows lots of overlapping denialist donors. Perhaps the donors decided the funding allocations were off due to a series of unfortunate events and prodded Heritage along.
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Assuming a director does the trick -
Another director, Robert Lamendola, resigned last Friday because of the ad, according to sources. He's a senior adviser for Renaissance Reinsurance, which terminated its relationship with Heartland over the billboard after giving the organization $407,000 during the past two years.
Along with the next most-senior staff member I can spot; that other Eli -
Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland's biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them...
Even Heartland insiders, such as Eli Lehrer, who headed the organisation's Washington group, found the billboard too extreme. Lehrer, who headed the biggest project within Heartland, on insurance, immediately announced his departure along with six other staff.
"The ad was ill advised," he said. "I'm a free-market conservative with a long rightwing resumé and most, if not all, of my team fits the same description and of us found it very problematic. Staying with Heartland was simply not workable in the wake of this billboard."
"The new organization is not going to promote climate skepticism," Lehrer said. "I can say that for sure."
Thanks Bill!
Inquiring minds also want to know whether or not Tony Watts is still going to accept the now even more tainted money from Heartland?
"Hurtland Destitute?"
-- by Horatio Algeranon
Heartland is Hurtland
A funder's Desertland.
Thanks Horatio! :-)
Never mind, HI still have (Non)Sensenbrenner, who threatened to withdraw from the ICCC-7 over the billboards, but has apparently decided they were his kind of folks anyway and toddled along after all.
This may well prove to be a good thing, when he then gives us gems like this:
CO2 is a natural gas. Does this mean that all of us need to put catalytic converters on all our noses? The fact that people think CO2 is a pollutant … basically goes into propaganda.
Hydrogen cyanide is part of the natural bouquet of bitter almonds. Does this mean we all need catalytic converters on our Koolaid cups?
Will Romney veto them if they also react CO2 with H20 to form alcohol?
Worth keeping an eye on Suzanne Goldenberg's Twitter feed. It's more official than ever: Heartland are bona fide deniers.
Global Warming?
Not man made:
* It's natural variation
* Human impact is very small
* Computer models are flawed
* There is no "consensus"
Not Harmful:
* Past warmings were beneficial
* No current harms
* Future warmings were modest
* Warmer is better
Thoroughly deluded. Apparently Monckton's birther jokes went down very well. What a surprise.
Well color me stoopid, that is why they call me "hey stoopid".
A very interesting turn of events indeed. Just one of the many, that truth must endure, in the long battle to overcome the evil propaganda lies of the denialati.
In other news, Brendan DeMelle at "Desmogblog" has an interesting piece of news culled from the closing speech of Joseph Bast at the "Denial-A-Palooza ICCC Conference."
link:- http://www.desmogblog.com/joe-bast-announces-death-denial-palooza-final-heartland-iccc-conference
Lest we forget, the only reason why truth won that skirmish, was because Joseph Bast, deliberately shot himself in the foot, heart and head, with the billboard of shame.
A true cynic would say, winning just one battle is not a complete or final victory over the denialati megaphone war of propaganda, lies and misinformation.
Thus the war on the truth, that our addiction to burning fossil fuels for cheap energy, is killing us all slowly by degrees, continues unabated.
Winston Churchill : “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
Such is life. ;)
Why climate sceptik is a misnomer:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/23545084344
The proper word is "skeptik".
Eli prefers the Weasel's word, septic. They poison any debate before it starts.
"I left my Heartland in Ad Fiasco"
Horatio Algeranon's parody of "I left my Heart in San Francisco" (by Tony Bennett)
The memory of Gleickgate
Seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Climategate
Is of another day
I've been terribly alone
And forgotten in DC
I have a feeling, I'm going to have to pay
I left my Heartland in Ad Fiasco
High on a billboard, Ted calls to me.
To be where Fargo armored trucks
Deliver piles of bucks!
The funders' flight may chill the air
I don't care!
My love waits there in Ad Fiasco
Above the dark and stormy sea
When I come home to you, Ad Fiasco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!
And four more corporate donors do a runner. If HI really operated in the corporate free-market paradise they so adore and champion, I can think of a few board members who'd be involuntarily looking through the job pages right now.
Something new has come up at Dave Appell's blog. Apparently Pacific Institute sent him a note which he believes shows Suzanne Goldenberg's story is not correct. Of course this interpretation means that he doesn't actually know the story, which he shows he doesn't in the comment section. Goldenberg reported on the actual investigation, noting that she has no information of what Pacific Institute will do with the findings regarding Gleick's employment. The Pacific Institute told him the Board is reviewing the investigation (as an aside, this pretty much shows us that Goldenberg was right in that the investigation is complete - Appell never noticed!)
This has been shown to him several times in two threads. Instead of correcting himself he has instead attacked the anonymice commenters as "pussies".
After being shown that his reporting is wrong and that the idiots at Watts are propagating it as truth, viciously attacking Goldenberg, Appell has yet to acknowledge his error.
I can only guess he isn't smart enough to know what he's done wrong, or is too proud to change it. Or perhaps the specter of Gleick being guilty is too tasty for these reporters to admit that Goldenberg just might know something they reuse to accept. Either way, the story should be set straight somehow, just as courtesy to Goldenberg, or just to note objective reality as a concept.
No, he is a journalist, and we know that anonymous sources are not to be trusted.
Instead of correcting himself he has instead attacked the anonymice commenters as "pussies".
Horatio thought pussies were actually the natural enemies of mice (of all types, including the anonys)
And now we learn that mice can actually be pussies?
Is this the Trojan mouse that we have all feared?
This is a most troubling development.
~@:>
"We know that anonymous sources are not to be trusted"
If irony had mass
That surely would curve space
And probably put a smile
On Albert Einstein's face
~@:>
I mostly agree with Eli's take at one of DA's threads.
G could be read to have implied that PI's report was complete and now PI is deciding what to do with it. PI's report isn't complete - all they have is what an outside investigator gave them. I don't think DA's interpretation of G was inherently wrong and in need of correction. The problem could've been G's editor though.
Still, if something's written so vaguely that it could be interpreted differently from what the author meant, then that's not the reader's fault.
Brian,
DA didn't know that the investigation and the Board's review of the investigation were two different things. He showed that in the comment section and has yet to correct it. Goldenberg's article is correct on that point. DA's is not. DA has yet to acknowledge it. He wrote a post saying he has different information than Goldenberg and he doesn't. It's that simple. It's DA's fault that Watts is running with it until DA fixes his mistake.
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