Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments On Leaked Documents

Layzej writes "Bloggers around the world have been commenting on recently leaked Heartland Institute documents that reveal their internal strategies to discredit climate science. These posters are now under threat of legal action. According to the Heartland Institute 'the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages'"

Comments

what does waiting have to do with anything?

[drinkypoo]

If the documents are false they were talking about someone else and it's good for them in the long run because they'll have lots of independents to point to and say "these people are the cause of all this!" But if they are real then they're only going to make it look like they're trying to bury the truth (which would, in fact, be the case) and it can only go against them.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[SadButTrue]

They seem to be a bit confused about the authenticity of the documents:

"Therefore, the authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed." (in bold none the less)
then at the bottom:

"How did this happen? The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to “re-send” board materials to a new email address."

Err so they are your documents but you cannot confirm that they are your documents?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[niftydude]

As if anyone is going to trust Heartland to confirm the authenticity of documents that damaging. Ridiculous.

Anyway, if they try to sue anyone, then their lawyers are going to get spanked. Truth is a complete defence against defamation.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[MisterMidi]

They claim at least one document has been faked (the climate strategy memo) and others may have been altered. If this is indeed the case, the documents aren't authentic.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[gox]

Not that I believe them but the article is quite clear:

Some of these documents were stolen from Heartland, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

Of course they claim one is faked. It's so damaging to them they don't have any other means of defence other than to claim fake. We can expect them to say it's faked either way.

Whether it actually is faked or not is another matter. There's no evidence one way or the other. But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Gideon Wells]

The innocent have nothing to fear, yes, I know that.

If they fear commenting on these documents to such a degree, I have to ask why, All they have to do is never confirm the documents (or wait a few months, on a Friday, at midnight). So there is an easy route of censorship there.

Second, the whole climate change is bunk movement's claim is that politics is being played, and you can't trust the results saying it is happening. We have a memo here implying that politics might be being played, and research/motives to be questioned. Revealing this is grounds for being sued.

Third, lawsuits potentially coming? Even ignoring the chilling effect, do we really need to reach that stage of escalation int his subject where every time someone speaks for one side the other side begins suing?

They are all attacking the messengers and trying to cease the message. They have yet to put out anything to show these are false. Just silencing the people trying to talk about this.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sed quid in infernos]

"But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine." No, it doesn't. We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.* How does the "balance of probabilities" say that this person didn't do something else dishonest to further his agenda? We have no knowledge on this point one way or the other.

*I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself. Which is why I have no idea whether that document is fake or not.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[MisterMidi]

I agree. They look legit to me. I was just pointing out the error in gp's reasoning. If the documents are indeed altered (and that's a big if), they're not authentic. FWIW, I don't believe them, as they could easily have verified the documents by now. Select all, copy, paste in new text document, diff with the original files, done.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sed quid in infernos]

"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

There is actually a pretty significant amount of evidence it's faked. Every document in the bundle except the strategy memo and an IRS document was printed to PDF in the central time zone. The IRS document was printed to PDF in GMT-4. The strategy memo was scanned in with an Epson scanner to a PDF by someone in the Pacific time zone. All documents except the strategy memo and a board directory were printed to PDF on January 16, the day before a board meeting. The board directory was printed January 25. The strategy memo was created at 3:41 PM on February 13. If you want more, read over here.

In short, it really looks like someone got a bunch of real documents and then threw something in to sex it up a bit. The problem for them is that they did it so damned badly. The problem for Heartland is that they're acting like dicks toward a lot of people, when they should be upending heaven and hell to find the memo forger and crucifying him for libel.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[FirstOne]

The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals. Then the cat will be out of the BAG for sure.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[postbigbang]

IMHO, on Heartland's side, this is about generating attorney fees and doing the dumbest things you can do in terms of damage control. This must be a nightmare for them for many reasons, not that I'm sympathizing with them at all.

Loin girding is to be expected, but threatening libel and slander lawsuits is to me, about the most hilarious thing they could do. Getting to the source, proving forgery (if that's possible), and using it all as an "event" in terms of damage control would be the best- but they won't do that, I'm guessing.

Spanking their attorneys makes no real difference; attorneys don't feel pain unless you can't pay them. Then you feel pain.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Moryath]

Your case would be much, much stronger if you weren't quoting Megan "Koch Shill" McArdle.

And your claims are contradictory and easily questioned:
Every document in the bundle except the strategy memo and an IRS document was printed to PDF in the central time zone. The IRS document was printed to PDF in GMT-4. The strategy memo was scanned in with an Epson scanner to a PDF by someone in the Pacific time zone.
Yes, because everyone in a "Think Tank" works in the same monolithic building and lives within 5 miles of each other. Oh wait - no, they don't. They spread all around. "Think Tanks" , especially corrupt corporate shill tanks like Heartland Institute, hire supposed "experts" from wherever they can get them, and they trade on the reputations of their members' day jobs to falsely claim legitimacy.

All documents except the strategy memo and a board directory were printed to PDF on January 16, the day before a board meeting.
Oh my gosh - someone printed a board directory AFTER the board meeting? SCANDALOUS! And they even did it in the central time zone, the same as some of the other documents... wait, weren't you just arguing that the previous IRS and Strategy documents were illegitimate because they were scanned/printed in the wrong time zones???

In short, you're full of horse shit.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Moryath]

The innocent have nothing to fear, yes, I know that.
Actually, what the innocent still have to fear is HI acting like every other right wing shill group. They have two things on their side: money and lawyers. They can bankrupt an innocent person through the act of barratry and as a corrupt right wing shill group whose previous exploits involve funding faked studies to do things like claim cigarette smoke isn't dangerous, they've already shown that they have no moral compass stopping them from doing so.

If they fear commenting on these documents to such a degree, I have to ask why,
See above. If they get exposed so blatantly, they might have to fold. And the people writing for them might have to find real work rather than being right wing shills.

Second, the whole climate change is bunk movement's claim is that politics is being played, and you can't trust the results saying it is happening. We have a memo here implying that politics might be being played, and research/motives to be questioned. Revealing this is grounds for being sued.

Third, lawsuits potentially coming? Even ignoring the chilling effect, do we really need to reach that stage of escalation int his subject where every time someone speaks for one side the other side begins suing?

They are all attacking the messengers and trying to cease the message. They have yet to put out anything to show these are false. Just silencing the people trying to talk about this.
Right wing shillery RELIES on two things: the echo chamber and the chilling effect. Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop? It's because if they ever listened to both sides, they'd realize their side's argument is more full of holes than a loaf of aged swiss cheese.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Tom]

Not that I like them, but that part actually makes sense.

In a real way, in that even if they know they lost documents just like the ones that have now surfaced elsewhere, they would need to carefully read and compare them to the originals in order to confirm that these really are those documents.

And in a legal way, where you always put up all the imaginable defenses even if they seem contradictory. It's tough for geeks with their exclusive-or thinking to wrap their minds around that, but for lawyers, it is perfectly normal to argue at the same time that the client didn't do it and that he was drunk when he did it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Rob the Bold]

There is actually a pretty significant amount of evidence it's faked. Every document in the bundle except the strategy memo and an IRS document was printed to PDF in the central time zone. The IRS document was printed to PDF in GMT-4. The strategy memo was scanned in with an Epson scanner to a PDF by someone in the Pacific time zone. All documents except the strategy memo and a board directory were printed to PDF on January 16, the day before a board meeting. The board directory was printed January 25. The strategy memo was created at 3:41 PM on February 13. If you want more, read over here.

How do these dates, time zones and scanner types recorded in the PDFs suggest that some of these docs are fakes and some are original? Are you suggesting that the time zone discrepancy indicates that?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[robot256]

Clearly they are false because no organization owns more than one scanner! This is clear evidence that someone other than their organization scanned some of the documents. /sarcasm

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Sulphur]

Are they going to prosecute first posters?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you assume the person is dishonest?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ColdWetDog]

The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals. Then the cat will be out of the BAG for sure.

Oopsy, we lost it. Here's a copy.....

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[SadButTrue]

Right. And if they had said that they couldn't verify ALL of the documents or verify that the contents of ALL of the documents their statements would have been self consistent. As is however, they both claim and disavow ownership at the same time.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[multimediavt]

The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals. Then the cat will be out of the BAG for sure.

Why were you the first one to post on this, so low in the chain?!! That was the FIRST thought in my head, "A subpoena ought to clear that up in about a week!" I wish we could mod up thread as well as points!

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[jc42]

It's tough for geeks with their exclusive-or thinking to wrap their minds around that, ...

Oh, c'mon; any true geek would default "or" to inclusive-or. It's only in common speech that "or" usually means exclusive-or. In mathematics and most technical fields, inclusive-or is the default interpretation of "or". Any true geek would understand this.

Actually, there are a fair number of geek jokes based on the difference between the two ors, generally based on a misunderstanding that uses inclusive-or when exclusive-or was correct. Probably the simplest family of such jokes is about a geek who answers a question of the form "Would you like X or Y?" with a plain "Yes."

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[multisync]

article is quite clear

Keep in mind the "article" was a press release on the Heartland Instutute's website.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Surt]

"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?

It doesn't matter whether the documents are authentic. The issue at stake is whether anyone who read the documents and commented upon them had reason to believe that their own comments were false.

"For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court has held:
We hold that a private individual may recover actual damages for a defamatory publication upon proof that the defendant knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that the defamatory statement was false. The conduct of defamation defendants will be judged on whether the conduct was that of a reasonable person under the circumstances."

Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why civil justice is a nonsense. When there's no third party evidence to make it clear one way or another (in which case no sensible party would risk taking it all the way to court), the judge will look at the facts and "on the balance of probabilities" conclude whatever corresponds to his bias.

There really needs to be an, "On the balance of probabilities, I'm not sure - come back later," routine option.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Heartland, for whatever that's worth: "The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to “re-send” board materials to a new email address."

Yeah, we don't know Heartland's statement is true, but it sounds like how you'd get hold of those documents (c.f. HBGary, or most any other big corporate "hacking" event that makes the news). And really, how many ways are there to get secret files without being dishonest, vs. how many with? Odds are heavily on some dishonesty involved at some point...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

Because only one document is scanned. And the one document that's scanned is scanned almost a month after everything else. And the one document that's scanned a month after everything else is the only one that uses inflammatory language like preventing people from "teaching science". It looks fake to me. There's plenty of stuff in the documents that are basically acknowledged as real to let people know how they work, and who they support, and where their money comes from... but the hot, sexy stuff just isn't there. Does your organization work like this? Unsigned, undated memos to people who aren't listed are scanned in from printouts to be put in the corporate file even though everything else you generate goes direct to PDF?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[cynyr]

diff Real_Doc.txt Internet_Doc.txt problem solved.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[mathmathrevolution]

The best evidence that the strategy memo is authentic is the amount of material in that memo that has subsequently been confirmed by other sources: From Desmogblog:

The DeSmogBlog has reviewed that Strategy document and compared its content to other material we have in hand. It addresses five elements:

The Increased Climate Project Fundraising material is reproduced in and confirmed by Heartland's own budget.

The "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" is also a Heartland budget item and has been confirmed independently by the author, Dr. David Wojick.

The Funding for Parallel Organizations; Funding for Selected Individuals Outside Heartland are both reproduced and confirmed in the Heartland budget. And Anthony Watts has confirmed independently the payments in Expanded Climate Communications.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[erroneus]

That's true to a point, but did you know most people still believe "Climategate" was the truth and still is? That's the problem. Once the kind of lies Heartland put out circulated, that was that. When the truth came out about Climategate, no one was interested in publishing the truth... there's no zip, pop or bang in reporting that, after all, and without the zip, pop or bang, you can't sell breakfast cereal advertising.

What Heartland seeks to prevent is... well... exactly the effect they launched against climate scientists.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

This is such an insightful comment. You clearly address my comments about the authenticity of the strategy memo. Thanks.

As for Megan and "Koch shilling", has it ever occurred to you that people who agree with each other politically are going to say the same thing? Next thing you know, Barack Obama and the Brookings Institute will agree! And Newt Gingrich will oppose them with the support of the Heritage Foundation! OMG!!!!!11!!!!11!eleventys!

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

Yes.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

Of all the people in the world who could have provided an analysis that it's a fake, it's the wife of a fellow in the Koch Foundation. The Heartland Institute's biggest donor.

And then all the evidence she gives isn't that it's a fake, but only that the author is different from the other documents. And that the person that wrote it did so later than the other documents and referring back to them. But Heartland is a lobbyist organisation with multiple employees spread out over America, so none of that is evidence of a fake.

It's basically someone with the objective of showing it's a fake throwing everything at it. All of it sounds plausible, but none of it actually logically stands up as evidence of a fake.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[MobyDobie]

Sorry, that is really shitty, argument. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion probably included some accurate quotes from The Talmud. (mixed in with the faked stuff) The presence of any such quotes, wouldn't prove them genuine,

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[owski]

The one document in question duplicates what's in the others that are almost certainly genuine. That in no way shows that the document is genuine, only that a forger could have copied and pasted. That's a pretty weak argument from DeSmogBlog.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Garridan]

If these documents are fake, but bring to light damning facts, their falsity is irrelevant. The damning facts are all that matter at the end of the day. If you have a good argument, and bolster it with lies... you can throw the lies away and still have a good argument. It might make for some confusion and futile debate in the meantime, but ultimately, bad means can get one to good ends. I don't condone this, but it can be effective.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[SlippyToad]

No, the real evidence that this is all genuine stuff is how freaked-out and panicked this philistine think-tank is over the public revelation of their dishonest agenda.

Fuck them.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sed quid in infernos]

Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.

That assessment is overbroad. If someone publishes false facts about Heartland, and these falsehoods are found to be defamatory in nature, then courts are going to conduct the analysis you described. However, it is not at all clear whether someone who repeats false facts (assuming they're false - we don't know) from a document Heartland has repudiated as there own would benefit from the "knew or should have known" defense, especially when the source of the information that is being repeated is unknown to the defendant.

Of course, a lot of comments won't fall under defamation anyway. "I read the documents and they make me think Heartland is untrustworthy" isn't libel, even if the documents were all forgeries.

It's also worth noting that the defense you described is entirely unrelated to the defense described in the post I originally responded to. "Truth is an absolute defense" != "To be found liable, the person who makes an allegedly defamatory statement must have known or should have known the statements were false."

In short, I'm not saying commenters would definitely be found liable. I'm saying we know way to little to say truth will be a defense that will cause Heartland's lawyers to be spanked, and that the analysis of whether the commenters should have know the facts were false (if they were) is much more involved than your post would suggest.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[M. Baranczak]

You've got it exactly backwards. Remember the Dan Rather memo? When that came out, everybody was talking about the forgery, and nobody was talking about the rich frat boy who used his family connections to weasel out of military service.

I hope the same thing doesn't happen here. The Heartlanders are doing real and lasting damage, the last thing we need is to give them more ammo.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[nadaou]

> We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents
> are there is dishonest and has an agenda.* ..
> *I know some people say the same thing about the institute itself.

"some people say"?? it's their entire reason for existence and they've never tried particularly hard to hide it!

some people also say the pope is catholic.. there is a time for
choosing your words carefully, and there are other times to call
a spade a spade.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

whose previous exploits involve funding faked studies to do things like claim cigarette smoke isn't dangerous,.

Have they done studies on how cigarette smoke affects climate change?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a lot like Climategate...maybe in reverse. Why do we need a think-tank to do what grant-hungry "climate change experts" are already doing? Again, take the money out of the equation so the truth can bear some fruit. Alas, everyone's pretty much made up their mind so there's no "truth" to find.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

It's circumstantial evidence. You obviously find it less compelling than I do. It's not proof of a fake, but it's certainly evidence of one.

Incidentally, as for Koch being "[t]he Heartland Institute's biggest donor", go check out their response over here, where they claim (and Greenpeace's records confirm) that they gave $25k to Heartland in 2011 for health care research, not global warming, and that this was the first donation they had made since 1999. They do have one very large anonymous donor, and if you have some evidence identifying who that is I'd for one find it interesting.

If you really care about fixing global warming rather than Team Red/Team Blue, you're going to need to engage people on both sides of the political spectrum. Turning everything into a massive conspiracy theory is not going to help you do this.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Mr. Slippery]

The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals.

And you think these people (to use the term loosely) would comply? Backdating a forgery and saying it's the original ain't hard.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

We know the person who obtained whatever genuine documents are there is dishonest and has an agenda.

This statement, on it's own, impinges on the authenticity of every whistleblower, ever.

Of course, for the aggrieved party, every person who betrays confidences is dishonest and has an agenda. It remains then, for the 3rd party observer, to determine if that evaluation holds up against the scrutiny of the agenda of the aggrieved.

Frankly, "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[MobyDobie]

There mere fact that a document annoys somebody, doesn't prove it genuine either. To continue the example - Jews are pretty annoyed about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion too. But that still doesn't make the protocols into a genuine document either.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[khallow]

No, it doesn't work that way. Just because part of the memo is genuine doesn't mean all of it is. More details mean nothing about whether the parts we're truly interested in have been altered or not.

But that does indicate that there's a good chance that there is a real strategy memo out there that this memo copies in part or in whole. The Heartland Institute could provide that memo so we could see what, if anything, has been changed.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[gweihir]

It is a classical misdirection tactics. If it works, then the initial outrage will be over when independent verifications come in. If is does not work, then they lose nothing as they already look like the jerks they are. So they are trying it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[viperidaenz]

But the lies you put in the middle can get you sued for libel...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Surt]

The defense I suggested in response to yours is how the courts have decided to interpret the 'truth is an absolute defense'. They have extended the notion of truth to anything that is not an intentional falsehood.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop?

But more often I hear liberals screaming nonstop about Fox News. Which is especially funny because they probably never watch it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[DJRumpy]

And herein lies the problem with your argument: "According to Heartland"

You are assuming that Heartland has no stake in this game and of course would also tell the truth. At this point, you can't assume any of these are invalid, or valid given that the only folks talking are those with the documents, and those that lost them.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[WrongSizeGlass]

So you're saying that if Heartland was willing to lie about science then they'd be willing to lie about lying about science? Very interesting ... </Artie Johnson>

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[WrongSizeGlass]

They claim at least one document has been faked (the climate strategy memo) and others may have been altered. If this is indeed the case, the documents aren't authentic.

The only way to prove it is to allow those they sue over this to access their email server in the discovery phase of the trial. I don't think they'd want that.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[mbkennel]

"Turning everything into a massive conspiracy theory is not going to help you do this."

One side promotes the idea that there has been a massive global conspiracy by scientists, across a number of disciplines and organizations, lasting over decades, to lie about a central scientific result in their field. There is no sensible organizational backing or motivation to this.

Scientists try to "engage people" by doing as good science as they can and working hard over decades to produce consensus estimates of the best known status from high-quality experimental and theoretical research, and work to explain it in (highly educated) laymens' terms as well as they can.

The other side yells that they're lying scumbags out to attack freedom.

The other side promotes the idea that there is a small political conspiracy to gain by people who have previously been known to engage in political conspiracies of a a similar nature. There is a well known organizational consistency and economic motivation to this.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Vintermann]

You've messed up the quoting, so it's not easy to figure out what you actually mean, but if you doubt the deniers are capable of legal harassement, look up what S. Fred Singer did to Justin Lancaster, the grad student of the late Roger Revelle who dared to cast doubt on Singer's Lady Hope story.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that that joke has nothing to do with inclusive versus exclusive or.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[mathmathrevolution]

How would the prospective forger have known about Anthony Watt's involvement in the Expanded Climate Communications? This is accurate information and the only possible source for it was the leaked strategy memo. Only somebody working with the Heartland institute could have had the necessary information to "fake" that memo. It could not have been an invention of unscrupulous activists as Heartland claims.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[LordLimecat]

Except that if its not genuine but everyone is assuming that it is, they might have the very same reaction.

This thread has become a hotbed of the worst kind of question-begging. Can everyone try and put on their reasoning hats here before jumping in with more flames?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[DJRumpy]

No, I'm saying that neither has been proven true, or false. Assuming that Heartland would tell the truth about how the documents were acquired without proof of that is foolish. If an unbiased third party investigated and had proof that one of them spoke the truth, I'd be more likely to pay attention.

That said, I agree this looks pretty damning to Heartland. This has Streisand written all over it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

And Left wing shillery relies on two things: vilification of your enemies and the chilling effect.

You know, when you say, "They both do it, and they're both the same", you deny what's going on in this story and in all politics across the nation.

You're responding to the news of a killing spree by saying, "Well, the other side has used spitballs to annoy people", so they're murderers, too.

"They" and "Them" was not an invention of the Left in America. Demonization of the "Other" was purely the Right's innovation. If you go over the history of the US since WWII, you'll find that the Left's approach has been, "Let's get as many people on board as possible" and the Right's approach has been, "We're being victimized by THEM".

Even in the area of racism, which was a huge problem for the Democratic Party in the post-war era, you'll find a steady effort by the Democrats to make the party as uncomfortable for racists as possible, so that by the time a black man was the head of the party, the racists had left. And just guess where they all went. When all those racists left the Democratic Party, which party do you think they went to? You think they all became Libertarians? You think they all started voting for the Green ticket?

Even so, if you look at tip of the spear of the Left in America currently, the Occupy Movement, there is still an effort to invite and include the tea party and disaffected poor white working class people (which has been surprisingly effective, by the way). How inviting were the Tea Party to people who were pro-choice or pro-union or pro gay marriage. Even though the Tea Party was ostensibly focused singularly on government spending, there was a whole list of exclusionary issues with which one had to agree with them before they'd even consider you an American, much less "one of them".

From Edmund Burke on, the Right has been purely reactionary. It's what's given them their amazing draw with racists, sexists, bigots. It's what makes every single right-wing talk show revel in racism, sexism and bigotry. Check out at random any right-wing talk show and listen to the callers. Listen to the hosts. There is an effort to outdo one another. If one says "Obama is a liberal" the next will say, Obama is a tyrant, the next will say he's Hitler, and the next will say he's the Antichrist (though, to be fair, "Antichrist" is usually where they run out of steam, because it's hard to top that one, which is why it's usually saved for the most horrible crimes of this President, such as showing respect to a foreign head of state).

You want to say "Oh both sides are equally horrible" you're going to have your judgment called into question, friend.

We're losing OUR country.

And who the fuck is "We", white man? You got a mouse in your pocket? And who are YOU and your "WE" losing your country to, exactly? The liberals? You start out decrying how someone's comments are horrible because they talk about "THEY and THEM" and then you say, "We're losing OUR country". Do you even realize that the statement, "We're losing OUR country" is the very definition of pointing a finger and blaming, "THEY and THEM"? "We're losing OUR country" has zero meaning unless there is a THEM that you are demonizing. So who the fuck are you losing YOUR country to, exactly?

Now I'm going to give you a pass, because it's Sunday and maybe you've had a rough week. But you're going to have to spend a little time thinking this over. You can come back when you've learned something.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe in the movement?

Are you a true believer?

Do you now or have you ever associated with a Denier?

Have you ever had doubts about AGW?

Would you be willing to report any of your colleagues who are not true believers?

Fuck rounding up the lawyers...people like you should be rounded up and shot.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[thisnamestoolong]

"Koch shill"? I would have gone with "Kochsucker", myself...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ravenshrike]

Well, let's see. Except for the one document, ever single one is a professionally designed print to pdf document with creation dates in early and mid January and which has a timecode of CST the region where Heartland has it's main offices. The "memo" is a poorly scanned document that reads like a 8th grader's "how to talk like a supervillain" letter with plenty of copypasta and an outright falsehood. Namely that the Koch brother's donation was concerned with climate change. Given that the donation code was HCN and that Bayer AG and multiple other pharma and medical companies also have the same donation code this is unlikely to say the least. Then there's the fact that the memo was scanned in Februray with a timecode of PST. All in all, a shittastic smear job.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ravenshrike]

ALL of the authentic stuff in the memo was either copypastaed from the other documents or reworded from same documents.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ravenshrike]

They're going to subpeona from Heartland a memo that Heartland is stating is a forgery. A memo which has no identifier as to the creator or recipient. How does that work again?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ravenshrike]

Um.. No. At least for items 2 and 4. There would have been the same outcry over it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[AK Marc]

Also note that they haven't said the document is not authentic. They just said that until they are sure what their liability is for either statement, they refuse to comment. They've never said they are false. They just threatened anyone who talks about them before they verify them, then refused to verify them.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[AK Marc]

The fact that they are not asserting they believe it to be fake indicates to me that they believe it could be genuine. If not, why not state it is fake? The people who can state for a fact it is fake refuse to do so. They are giving it validity, even if they are insinuating it is fake while doing so.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Gadget_Guy]

How would the prospective forger have known about Anthony Watt's involvement in the Expanded Climate Communications?

That was listed in the fundraising plain document on page 19.

That said, I think that it is the most stupid defence to claim that this is a forgery because every fact in it is true! If that is the most damning thing they can say about it, then it is pretty weak.

However, in true-to-form fashion for this organization, it is a often used strategy that works. Look how much time is being spent arguing about a document that is supposedly all true. It is a great way to spread doubt about the revelations and to turn the discussion away from the real meat of the matter - the allegations themselves. As I have been discovering recently in a conversation from a previous story on this matter, misdirection is a key tool in the denialist's arsenal.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm, libel sandwich.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[riverat1]

If I had mod points to give you'd get a +1 Insightful. The idea that so many scientists across so many disciplines from around the world could maintain such a conspiracy for so long is absurd. Do people really believe the so many scientists are willing to risk their scientific reputations for political aims? Anyone who proves them wrong would destroy them and would be up for a Nobel Prize.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoting from TFA, second link in the Slashdot summary:

"One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact."

They say quite clearly that one of the documents is fake. The first sentence is even in bold!

Quoting further:

"Some of these documents were stolen from Heartland, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered."

Read the press release and then read the Slashdot summary again. The Slashdot's summary completely omits Heartland's disavowal the main document and the distinction between the fake document and the potentially altered originals. With "diligent" reporting like Slashdot's, is it any wonder that they're a little be pissed off?

Note: The disavowed document is the one containing the "teaching science" quote.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[riverat1]

Several leading climate scientists have published an open letter (PDF) to the Heartland Institute.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

Well, I suppose that is one way of looking at it. Another would be that there was a global cooling scare in the early 1970s, for which the solution was also to shut down industrial development, and then there was the abortion that was Kyoto, which would wreck the world's economies in return for delaying the rise in global temperature by something like five years (in the best case scenario!). The fact that the science has become certain rather than merely strongly suggestive in the intervening two decades does nothing to improve the policy suggestions, and the fact that we were much more certain of this from the get-go than we were of cooling in the 70s makes no difference to the average man in the street, who sees people proposing higher taxes on his gas to give grants to politically connected businesses.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple obfuscation. When denial doesn't work, try to mess with the facts. Check out demonlapin's /. blog: http://slashdot.org/~demonlapin/journal/.
It's rather obvious that demonlapin exists in /. to comment on political issues. I suspect another paid astroturfer.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it exactly backwards. Remember the Dan Rather memo? When that came out, everybody was talking about the forgery, and nobody was talking about the rich frat boy who used his family connections to weasel out of military service.

I hope the same thing doesn't happen here. The Heartlanders are doing real and lasting damage, the last thing we need is to give them more ammo.

I remember it very well, and it was a completely different situation. You will recall that anybody who knew anything at all about computers immediately recognized the document as fake because it used a proportional font but was dated before Macs existed. I remember yelling at the TV when I first saw it. It was embarrassingly bad, and then when Dan Rather went with it anyway, the forgery was such an instant howler that it didn't matter what it was about. There is no such evidence of forgery in this case.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what the innocent still have to fear is HI acting like every other right wing shill group.

That statement alone shows your bias as it makes the assumption that left-wing shill groups are any better. When you grow up and gain a few years of wisdom, come back and have an adult conversation with us.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[nedlohs]

You get your hands on a real memo, then you add stuff to it. Is that really so hard to comprehend?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Moryath]

"They" and "Them" was not an invention of the Left in America. Demonization of the "Other" was purely the Right's innovation. If you go over the history of the US since WWII, you'll find that the Left's approach has been, "Let's get as many people on board as possible" and the Right's approach has been, "We're being victimized by THEM".

At the risk of Godwinning the thread... the right wing got round to starting this not very long after a war involving Germany, Italy, and Japan was resolved... and their initial targets "just happened" to be blacks, jews, and "communists." Anyone else have a sneaking hunch whose plan they were thinking had worked so well in Europe for taking power?

Even so, if you look at tip of the spear of the Left in America currently, the Occupy Movement, there is still an effort to invite and include the tea party and disaffected poor white working class people (which has been surprisingly effective, by the way). How inviting were the Tea Party to people who were pro-choice or pro-union or pro gay marriage.

Dunno about those groups, but I've gone to a couple events (4th of July celebrations last year) that were swarming with Tea Party folks... they were busy getting drunk as shit and started shouting racist crap and spitting at a friend of mine who's latino, despite the fact that my friend's family presence in the USA predates the entrance of Texas into the country.

If one says "Obama is a liberal" the next will say, Obama is a tyrant, the next will say he's Hitler, and the next will say he's the Antichrist (though, to be fair, "Antichrist" is usually where they run out of steam, because it's hard to top that one

Actually, that's about the time that the dumbasses start insinuating Obama's either a muslim, or start calling him a "marxist socialist."

And who the fuck is "We", white man? You got a mouse in your pocket? And who are YOU and your "WE" losing your country to, exactly? The liberals? You start out decrying how someone's comments are horrible because they talk about "THEY and THEM" and then you say, "We're losing OUR country". Do you even realize that the statement, "We're losing OUR country" is the very definition of pointing a finger and blaming, "THEY and THEM"? "We're losing OUR country" has zero meaning unless there is a THEM that you are demonizing. So who the fuck are you losing YOUR country to, exactly?

Apparently, Mr. Racist Redneck Retard is losing "his" country to actual Americans...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ArsenneLupin]

family of such jokes is about a geek who answers a question of the form "Would you like X or Y?" with a plain "Yes."

The joke works independently of whether you interpret "or" as "inclusive or" or "exclusive or".
This is not a joke about inclusive vs. exclusive, but about a confusion between "please make a choice" and "is this sentence true?"

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Tom]

Geek solution.

Lawyer solution: "Hello, Mrs. Secretary. Please compare these two documents and mark any differences you find."

I am serious. I once had to show the personal assistants of the C-level the Word functionality for versioning.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ATMAvatar]

I'm sorry, your honor, but the documents were electronic, and one of our interns wiped out our document server including our backup system.

I seem to recall several years of White House emails disappearing in a similar manner when they were requested for some legal proceedings. I see no reason why it couldn't turn out the same here.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[cynyr]

speaking of versioning an an office product, does excel have one? that will high which parts of which formula changed?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sociocapitalist]

IANAL but none of that sounds like 'proof' to me.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

Hey if you want to believe it's a fake, that's fine. It could be. There's no solid evidence wither way.

It doesn't really matter because all the damaging facts about the lobbyist nature of their business, who funds them, and which deniers they are paying, is contained in the other documents.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish I could mod you up. Looks like demonlapin got on his sockpuppet accounts and started doling out "troll" mods to anyone who disagrees with him again...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? our government does. The government constantly revises documents, if a correction were done then rescanned then it would show a date dependency. on top of that it's not hard to just change the date on the computer the document was scanned on. The only way this could be used as evidence is if they were to release the date that the documents were leaked, (with reliable evidence of such) and show that this one document was scanned after that date. Heck I've worked in hospitals where an individual changed the computers date when they were looking up a date on the "calendar". The date discrepancy is curious but doesn't prove anything. Now if they could prove that the scanner the last document was scanned on was not owned by them, then they would have the proof needed. (and yes there are ways, but they need to law enforcement to somehow get ahold of that scanner to prove it.)

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

You're right. It's evidence, and circumstantial at that. That's why I called it "evidence" and not "proof".

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

As far as I understand, the bulk of the documents came from a Heartland staffer who was social-engineered into emailing them out. Their mail server should have a log of that...

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

It will be pretty easy to see if its fake by whether or not the Heartland Institute tries to follow through with the disinformation campaign described in their document/non-document.

You can be sure donations and expenditures at the Heartland Institute are going to be under a lot more scrutiny than ever before.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[snakeplissken]

One side promotes the idea that there has been a massive global conspiracy by scientists, across a number of disciplines and organizations, lasting over decades, to lie about a central scientific result in their field. There is no sensible organizational backing or motivation to this.

and remember, not only is this conspiracy world wide, decades old and involves thousands of people, not a single one of the conspirators has come forward and confessed to the conspiracy, shown the 'false science', revealed the secret funding, named the other conspirators. apparently scientists, scientists! are better at keeping secrets than any governmental secret agency in the history of the world, ever! :)

snake

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

Yes, but when have the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ever actually predicted anything?

Why would someone need to make up a document that only corroborates what can be easily substantiated from other sources? The more curious and pertinent question is why would the Heartland Institute try to deny it? They are a non-profit. Why should they be trying to hide their activities?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

If you read the memo: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/heartland_k-12_curriculum.jpg

you will notice that there is nothing with regard to the Heartland Institutes ongoing activities cited in the memo that can not been verified by others sources.

If there is, which one is it?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

Yes, but this conveniently ignores the fact that the Heartland Institute itself has been crowing over its accomplishments in these respects elsewhere besides the internal memos, such as paying one blogger $44,000 to write anti-climate change misinformation. Most non-profits don't get this kind of money to through around "in the shadows" without some serious effort.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

When you consider how much money Koch Industries are paying them, its hard to imagine they can pay a blogger $44,000 to write fake science stories and still have enough money left over to by a $150 dollar scanner.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[turkeyfish]

It would be except for the fact that the Heartland employee identified in the letter has been doing precisely the kinds of things the memo indicates. Perhaps the memo is fake but the contents are true, even though they refuse to actually say so, only suggest that it is fake. No wonder the Heartland Institute is in such a tizzy.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were more peer-reviewed papers suggesting warming than there were cooling at that time. Any scaremongering was done by the media.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Man On Pink Corner]

Yes, but when have the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ever actually predicted anything?

Just don't ask the same question about climate models.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

and what will left-wingers do if they actually take power? give you a hint, they're called re-education camps. look at the 20th century, we have many inconvenient examples which are not at all studied for obvious reasons. or they are merely dismissed with a handwave and the 'no true scotsman' fallacy. it doesn't help anyone to vilify your opponents as racists, playing the racism card is so old and tired.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Wakko Warner]

Exactly. I'm pretty sure Occam's Razor applies here. It was included in a stack of other damaging materials that they've claimed *are* authentic, so it's *probably* authentic too.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[dr2chase]

A few journalists were scared of global cooling. Scientists, not so much, though it was discussed in a small number of papers (which got the attention of journalists, "SQUIRREL!"): http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[theycallmeB]

Actually, the key phrase in the ruling you quote, and in America libel law in general, is 'a private individual.' And as very noisy advocacy group, the Heartland Institute blew past 'private' years ago and is firmly in the realm of public figure. Which in turn means that an entirely different standard for constitutes libel applies, specifically the standard that allows the Enquirer and most political ads to exist. The Heartland Institute would probably have better luck making a copyright claim than a libel claim at this point.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Because it shouldn't matter if press materials are forgeries if the agenda is anti GOP.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Jason Levine]

Not to take the Heartland Institute's side or anything, but if I wanted to plant a fake document that would really hurt an organization, I'd obtain and leak a bunch of real documents from them and include the fake with the real ones. That way, as the real documents are verified as real and unaltered, it would make the "this is false" claims about the one damaging document seem to be lies. This doesn't mean I think it is faked or true... Just that saying "well the others aren't so this one probably isn't either" isn't a valid argument.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

I have sockpuppets now? Rock on!

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[xhrit]

The same people who think a diverse collection of loosely affiliated liberal scientists are smart enough to participate in a global conspiracy also insist that tight-nit black budget conservative agencies within US government are too dumb to be capable of doing anything underhanded without having at least one member come forward to reveal everything.

If the reason the moon landings or 9/11 are not a hoax is because too many people would have to be involved to fake it, then Global warming is also not a hoax. The global scientific community is a lot bigger then NASA, FEMA, and the 9/11 commission put together, and surely someone would have come forward by now with proof that the global scientific community is conspiring to hoax the world about global warming.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

You're talking about the science of the matter, which is pretty simple. I'm talking about the politics of it, which is what the average person on the street remembers, and those are vastly more complicated. The average person is going to notice that they can't get high-wattage incandescent bulbs far more than they will any paper in a climate journal.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[wall0159]

I find it fascinating that this hacking has prompted a discussion about truth, objectivity and facts.

Perhaps we (the public) should apply these new-found reasoning skills to the science of climate change, and ignore some of the ad hominems (and other absurdities) that have been directed against climate scientists by organisations such as Heartland.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

and what will left-wingers do if they actually take power? give you a hint, they're called re-education camps

it doesn't help anyone to vilify your opponents as racists, playing the racism card is so old and tired.

"Re-education"? Who is the side that is trying to change school curricula in America to teach the "controversy" of global warming? Which side wants to re-write American textbooks? Which side has developed a "conservative media", a "conservative alternative to wikipedia", and even a "conservative Bible"? In the US, "re-education" is the sole province of the Right.

Think about the two arguments above that this person, who clearly has a very negative opinion of the American Left, has made. Think about them together and how they relate to each other. Think it over. Think about what he is really saying. Projection is the hallmark of right-wing political opinion in America. When they blame you of something, it is a near certainty that they are most guilty of that very thing. Read some of the right-wing blogs. Listen to right-wing radio, and think about this for yourself. Think about "projection" and see if this is not so.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[nedlohs]

Why would there be anything? The idea of faking such a thing is to not include anything which can't be verified with other sources.

You either take a real exsiting memo, or you make one up wholesale using all the other sources to get the information from. Then you add the bit you want to fake.

In this case:

His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by the Anonymous Donor.

Yes other documents cover the facts their -"$5,000 per module, about $25,000 a quarter" works out as $100,000 and 20 modules (though the verified source does say stating in Q2 2012 which the above seems to contradict).

But "dissuading teachers from teaching science" seems out of place and isn't verifiable in any of the other sources.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[HangingChad]

If this is indeed the case, the documents aren't authentic.

If they sue someone over their publication, it will open them up to discovery and we'll find out if they're authentic or not, plus everything else that's related.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[bzipitidoo]

The sad truth is that it's so very believable that the Heartland Institute would say such stupid anti science things. That's the reputation they have. It's so bad it doesn't matter much whether the documents are real or fake.

That they're anxious to disavow such statements is something. The public still has a healthy respect for science despite the damage these highly politicized think tanks have done, and they know it. So I find it quite easy to believe that they're also lying about the documents not being theirs.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[viperidaenz]

Apparently I've been modded off topic. When the topic is about Heartland Institue threating to sue for commenting of "false" documents. Portraying false documents as fact and publishing interpretations of the falisifed data that any reasonable person would believe is libel.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Larryish]

"The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now."
-- Henry Ford

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[qeveren]

Then again, the Heartland Institute are already known liars, which certainly tends to bias my view of their side of things.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, that is really shitty, argument.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion probably included some accurate quotes from The Talmud. (mixed in with the faked stuff)

The presence of any such quotes, wouldn't prove them genuine,

And yet, at the end of the day, Jews really do control the world. Which, to continue your comparison, shows that Heartland Institute is full of shit.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[JoelKatz]

"But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine."

No, not at all. That's only true if the source of the documents is unbiased. If the source of the documents is biased, it's quite plausible that they would slip an especially damning fake document into a stack of real documents precisely to take advantage of people who erroneously think that makes it more likely to be genuine.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

"Quite plausible" is a long, long way from probable. As I say the balance of probabilities is on it not being a fake. Think Occam's razor.

It might be a fake. But it's probably not.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[rtb61]

It is not a think tank, it is a stink tank. A large public relations firm whose job is to create media to promote the wealth of their donors. No lie to be repeated again and again.

An illusory edifice to sell advertising. Something empty headed politicians bought and paid for by lobbyists can hang their hate.

So they are bitching about the marketing entities ability to promote the agendas of it's donors. Basically a stream of Machiavellian twisted and distorted content and, for all the world content created by psychopaths for psychopaths.

Looking like an actual real world example of James Bond plot. People who spend the working lives plotting and scheming as the minions of some truly enormously bloated ego's, emperors of the world insanity levels, oh my, the Koch(head) boys have wandered right way out there.

The real question here is "is the Heartland Institutes intent criminal" and should it be raided for a whole range of conspiratorial acts.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Dripdry]

Whose shill are you, anyway? It ISN'T left and right. They're all together for the same things and you know it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always threaten to sue someone. You can technically sue anyone for any reason. This isn't always a good idea. They can't arrest anyone or have them arrested. You can always try throwing the word "alleged" around a lot.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[JoelKatz]

Occam's Razor doesn't weigh one way or the other. In fact, Occam's Razor weighs in favor of it being fake, since if it's genuine, there's no explanation for why one document in the stack is so different in character from the others.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[geekoid]

We have, and do. For the vast majority of them, there predictions have been pretty good, overall.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that, yet here you are. Go away already.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it exactly backwards. Remember the Dan Rather memo? When that came out, everybody was talking about the forgery, and nobody was talking about the rich frat boy who used his family connections to weasel out of military service.

Right, but that was because it's not News that rich frat boys with family connections weasel out of military service, everybody knows it happens and while it's despicable it's hardly a major story. But many people enshrined Dan Rather in their minds as a pinnacle of Morality and Truth, and the forgery helped shatter that very widely held perception... and that was News.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Sorry, that is really shitty, argument. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion probably included some accurate quotes from The Talmud. (mixed in with the faked stuff) The presence of any such quotes, wouldn't prove them genuine,

Figures that the deniers now want to paint themselves victims of a dedicated smear campaign leading to genocide.

And just for the record: No, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion does not include any accurate quotes from The Talmud

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

and what will left-wingers do if they actually take power? give you a hint, they're called re-education camps.

That's funny, seeing as how the original article here is about how a right-wing disinformation organization (Heartland Institute) is apparently paying to set up faked school curricula to further their sponsors' goals.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sg_oneill]

I find it fascinating that this hacking has prompted a discussion about truth, objectivity and facts.

Perhaps we (the public) should apply these new-found reasoning skills to the science of climate change, and ignore some of the ad hominems (and other absurdities) that have been directed against climate scientists by organisations such as Heartland.

The problem is, the general public are not climate researchers, heck most scientists are not climate researchers, and are thus not really able to correctly evaluate the truth claims made by various researchers in the field.

To this end, however, its a fact the field acknowledges, and thus we have the IPCC who issue meta-reports that take broad surveys of the field and break it down into bite-size chunks for journalists and the public to digest (with the appropriate references if you wish to brave the hairier math and science in the original studies).

Its interesting thus that a lot of the so called debunkers rarely actually try and go after the research with a few exceptions like Mann's famous hockeystick, instead trying to go after the meta-studies, because quite simply most of the debunkers are themselves unqualified to comment on the science itself to be able to offer cogent responses to the original studies.

This should be instructive to people. If the deniers actually wanted to engage in science, they would be doing studies that attempt to refute the actual base studies and submitting these to the IPCC for inclusion, but either they don't, or in the few cases they have ,they have mostly been found to be of low quality or plain out cranky pseudo-science.

The problem though is really with journalism. Journalists report fake controversies rather than going to the credible sources such as the IPCC which exist specifically to lay out what parts of the science are known and what parts are still under research or unknown. Joe public isn't expected to know this stuff, but Joe journalist damn well should.

And thus we have the parlourous state of debate on climate change where people are still bloody trying to debate whether a phenomena which has actually been happening around us and was first documented over 100 years ago is happening, rather than the actually interesting debates about how to mitigate it, and just how bad it might get.

Its the whole "scientists debate evolution vs creation" nonsense again. No scientists don't debate it. The science is settled on whether its happening or not. We actually know its happening. The science is now about "How bad, and what to do about it?"

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[TemperedAlchemist]

Surely they have to provide evidence that their entire server was wiped, yes? I don't think getting out of a subpoena would be so easy.

And then there's the issue where Heartland is prosecuting, meaning it's the burden of proof is on them. If they can't provide evidence beyond, "lolo take our word for it," then I really don't think they're going to get anywhere. I don't see how they could weasel their way out of the subpoena AND win any legal disputes at the same time.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[LordLimecat]

The sad truth is that it's so very believable that the Heartland Institute would say such stupid anti science things. That's the reputation they have. It's so bad it doesn't matter much whether the documents are real or fake.

This is called honesty, and its nice to see you being candid, but its also an admission of gross bias and slashdot's own tendency to throw reason and rigor to the wind when its users have an axe to grind.

One would hope, when criticizing others' alleged disregard of reason, that its critics would not become hypocrites.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[mikelieman]

Well, all Hartland needs to do now is allow a forensic examination of their computers, servers and backups, and we can evaluate their claims objectively.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[silentcoder]

...beautiful. I am now making it my official future name for teabaggers, science-deniers, corporate-ass-kissers and pretty much everybody else it can usefully describe.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Courageous]

Most whistleblowers don't commit crimes to get their whistleblowing done.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

There is actually a pretty significant amount of evidence it's faked. Every document in the bundle except the strategy memo and an IRS document was printed to PDF in the central time zone. The IRS document was printed to PDF in GMT-4. The strategy memo was scanned in with an Epson scanner to a PDF by someone in the Pacific time zone. All documents except the strategy memo and a board directory were printed to PDF on January 16, the day before a board meeting. The board directory was printed January 25. The strategy memo was created at 3:41 PM on February 13. If you want more, read over here. In short, it really looks like someone got a bunch of real documents and then threw something in to sex it up a bit.

No, it looks like somebody prepared a lot of documents for a board meeting and handed them out as PDFs (in addition to paper), and later others produced more documents, one of which was send out by snail mail and archived as a PDF by one receiving party. That's exactly how management works.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Except that that joke has nothing to do with inclusive versus exclusive or.

Good point: it has to do with inclusive or or exclusive or.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[GameboyRMH]

it's the wife of a fellow in the Koch Foundation. The Heartland Institute's biggest donor.

The Koch foundation is not Heartland's biggest donor, not by a long shot. That would be The Anonymous Donor who donated $1.6m the year after the Koch bros. donated only $200k.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?

Truth doesn't work against Heartland, why would it work for them?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[GameboyRMH]

But, but, what about Big Green, that dangerous industrial complex that has such unfair, UNFAIR! influence despite the fact that they're a mere cottage industry compared to the fossil fuel industry?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[GameboyRMH]

Spreading light FUD discredits the documents, outright denial would seem more like an admission of guilt.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

Whose shill are you, anyway? It ISN'T left and right. They're all together for the same things and you know it.

There is a Left in the US, on the resurgence. The success of the Occupy Movement is evidence. It's been a long time since it existed in any viable form, but I'm optimistic.

No, the Democratic Party is not "The Left" but neither are they as dangerous and poisonous as Republicans. But dangerous in their own way because they fool some people into thinking corporations are not in charge.

Yes, I would vote for Bill Ayers for President.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Of course they claim one is faked. It's so damaging to them they don't have any other means of defence other than to claim fake.

That reminds me of the firing squad of five with one being given a blank shell. Doesn't change things too much, does it?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

The year after?... The Koch foundation only has one recorded donation, of $25,000. And it's for healthcare. Heartland rightly or wrongly were expecting $200,000 in 2012. And the Koch foundation have said they're not going to give it.
So how can it be the year after?

I misremembered the bit about the Koch foundation being the biggest donor. But if you're going to jump in and correct it, at least get it right.

Now who is that "Anonymous Donor", who's giving large amounts of money? Generally over a million each year, and up to $3,000,000. The documents (including the authenticated ones) refer to the donor as "he", so probably an individual rather than an organisation.

We're looking for an individual, who opposes the consensus in global warming, tends to back his political opinions with cash, and can afford to donate millions per year. There's actually not that many people that describes.

He also funds "Operation Angry Badger" which is anti collective bargaining.

OK, I can think of 2 possibles. The surnames of both coincidentally begin with K. And end with CH. Also the major funders of the Tea Party.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[St.Creed]

With all due respect to your statements, the conservapedia largely appears to be the work of one low-flying dingbat who's also trying to create a conservative bible (without much success, as far as I can see).

About the media you're right but here we are talking about unscrupulous people that can recognize a bandwagon a mile away. They just went for it. Definetely not the first time a populist rises to the top, standing on the backs of the uneducated. To me, the conservapedia/CBP are outflows of that.

What is more worrying is the silence of those who could and should say something about that.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[maple_shaft]

Right wing shillery RELIES on two things: the echo chamber and the chilling effect. Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop? It's because if they ever listened to both sides, they'd realize their side's argument is more full of holes than a loaf of aged swiss cheese.

You deserve +5000 mod points for this alone. I grew up in an disgustingly conservative family where Fox News was playing nonstop. I was an extremely conservative Fox News parrot until I moved out on my own and actually started noticing other viewpoints. After realizing how duped I was, I became almost militantly leftist out of the anger and realization that I had been lied to my entire life, but then that anger and vigor passed and am now compassionate towards my right-wing brothers who are so led astray.

It is my hope and wish that they can work past the brainwashing and put aside the emotional arguments, read a few select books, mostly on topics such as History and Game Theory, discuss the facts, then think long and critically on it. If they can do this and understand how events in history relate to today, and understand the logical and illogical reasons that people make important decisions then they have a good chance of seeing the light. Fundamental acceptance that people are fundamentally the same as they were tens of thousands of years ago, the nature of societies, and the reasoning behind important decisions by important people throughout history.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the description of events, I'm not sure this one did either. Of course, I may be wrong, it might be illegal to have someone email you documents because you asked them to. I can't imagine a scenario where that law would be a *good* one, but it might exist.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

Of course there's an explanation for it being different in character from the others. Heartland is an organisation with many employees. Just because it has a different author doesn't mean it's not from Heartland or that it's a fake.

Of course Occam's Razor weighs one way. Two explanations of these documents:

1) Social engineering was used to get a Heartland employee to mail the documents to an outsider, who then sent them to the media.

2) Social engineering was used to get a Heartland employee to mail the documents to an outsider, who then faked an extra document, then sent them to the media.

Number one is the simpler explanation, and is most definitely the Occam's razor solution.

Not that it matters. All the interesting stuff is contained in the documents that Heartland isn't disputing.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is the correct definition of 'truth'. Someone can spout inaccurate (or even flat-out incorrect) information all day long. If they believe the information to be correct, they are telling the truth. That's the important distinction between 'truth' and 'fact'. A 'truth' can be wrong, a 'fact' cannot.

Religion seeks truth.
Science seeks fact.
Neither one has a perfect track record, but Science is more willing to admit its errors.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[calixaren]

Whether it actually is faked or not is another matter. There's no evidence one way or the other. But it being in a bundle with genuine documents does put the balance of probabilities on it also being genuine.

There may be no evidence that one is faked, but the fact, that the one is scaned hrom hardcopy and the rest are direct saved as .pdf is prety sugestive one.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing a defendant's lawyer is going to do is subpoena a true copy of the originals. Then the cat will be out of the BAG for sure.

Silly fool. You know all they have to do is say, "the cat ate that document....". :)

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[ukemike]

At my company before a board or shareholder's meeting the exec committee, the financial guy, and others usually prepare documents for the meeting. A few years back they woudl out print lots of copies and hand them out, now they pdf them and email them out a day before the meeting. Anything that is intended to be confidential would not be shared at a board meeting because it is then part of the official record and is very discoverable.

So an underling of one of the board members get's cc'd all the board handouts. Later the underling sees a copy of the inflammatory memo, and being shocked at it's content quickly throws it on the scanner and makes a copy and then decides to release it and some supporting documentation.

See that's not too far fetched.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[GameboyRMH]

Really? Says here they gave $200k in 2011:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/denialgate-heartland.html

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Catbeller]

Ah, the Dan Rather Discreditation Offense. Works if the judges are on your side. Ignore all other facts and evidence, zero in on the "alleged" nature of one piece you can hammer on endlessly, and "disprove" all other facts thereby.

Of course there is a massive series of oil and coal industry funded fake science attacks on real climate science. This was uncovered years ago. It's also obvious on the face of it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Catbeller]

Goodness me - are you saying that the anti-science material is a Republican operation? That's quite the admission. Thanks for that. Not that everyone didn't already know that it was.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[BasilBrush]

That's interesting. I was going on the "2012 Fundraising Plan" document, which has $200,000 listed as as 2012 forecast. Which I suppose could have already been received, or could just be promised.

The Koch Foundation themselves appear to deny that they gave the $200K.
http://www.charleskochfoundationfacts.org/
Although it does have a feel of doublespeak.

So who knows? To be honest I don't think that particular line means much as it does seem to be for healthcare.

I think the "Is the Anonymous Donor one of the Koch brothers?" question is more interesting.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Catbeller]

No, I don't remember that because it wasn't true. Within a day of the allegation, it was known that IBM Selectrics had proportional font balls at the time of the memo. AND the military had them. AND the same font was used in other Bush docs that weren't in contention. AND the font is from the Sixties, so yes it is possible that it was used. The "fact" is that it was not a forgery. Fonts didn't begin with Macs. And that it is unutterably sad that reality doesn't have a chance in American anymore, not against a Republican cause.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

Shocked at its content? According to their website, there are only 40 people in the whole organization. I doubt there's anyone there who doesn't agree with them politically.

However, your scenario is not implausible, but turns out that the claims in the "strategy memo" that aren't supported by the other documentation are all skewed one way. (I've mentioned it in several other comments, but the strategy memo says that the Koch foundation provided $200k in funding; the actual number was $25k, and it was directed to health care research.) As I said elsewhere, it's not definitive proof - but it is suggestive to me. And it doesn't ring true. Getting teachers to stop "teaching science"? Nobody talks like that because, contrary to the conspiracy theorists' fervid belief, the deniers really do think that they are fighting against a bunch of weak mathematical models that are being used to push an anti-corporate political agenda; they don't think of themselves as an anti-science vanguard out to crush reason and truth in the world.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[rk]

Yes, that's why George W Bush resigned the presidency after the Killian documents Dan Rather and CBS released.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lot of material that shows that the budgetary sections are true. Independent contact with the recipients for example has been undertaken and they acknowledged the accuracy. "Because Heartland was not specific about what was fake and what was real, The Associated Press attempted to verify independently key parts of separate budget and fundraising documents that were leaked. The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, a Chicago elected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i1OHQWK4TJALYxaP8WjUijdBq0rg?docId=b8b17e53a4e041a9b742a79a3f2be5f1

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[nobuddy]

If their position is that the document in question is a forgery that never existed... what are you going to subpoena? You: "I demand the original document!" Them: "Take that up with whoever created it." Judge: "They can't produce what did not exist. Since their check cleared, overruled."

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should mod them +1 Troll. Just another bi-partisan lemming who fails to consider that there are more sides than two.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we get to continue our ad hominems against "climate deniers"? You know, the heretics.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

What is more worrying is the silence of those who could and should say something about that.

Your points are excellent. But "one low-flying dingbat" is symptomatic. It's all reactionary at heart, and it has been since Edmund Burke, who is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Conservatism".

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[riverat1]

Maybe there are more than two sides but I'm on the side of science. Science isn't always totally clear but it gives better answers than any other side.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Tamerlin]

" The problem for Heartland is that they're acting like dicks toward a lot of people, when they should be upending heaven and hell to find the memo forger and crucifying him for libel." The most likely reason that they're being so aggressive is that this approach is that in order to prove that the document is libelous, they'd run the risk of having the rest of the documents verified in the process.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever actually worked directly with a C-level executive or a corporate board member? I've worked with several across many companies. Not one of them has been able to write on an 8th-grade level. How people like that manage to stay in power is anyone's guess, but plenty exist.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

Meh, they've as good as verified the others. And the others don't really tell too much that's scandalous.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[JWW]

So sorry I screwed up the quoting.

But I can't help noticing that you're flaming me for my comments about our rampant politization of everything in a discussion about global warming, but then you start talking about a killing spree? WTF?

The point I'm trying to make is that there should be some things where it shouldn't matter what party you are in.

I did say that both sides were hypocrites with respect to Obama's foreign policy.

If Bush did what Obama has done the right would have been just fine with it, but the Democrats would have rioted in the streets. This is for exactly the same actions!!

So YES I am saying that both sides are the same!!

People are just letting the labels behind the names govern their reactions.

Learn something. Yes I agree, people should learn what our representatives are doing and they should be appalled. They should also allow no passes for their rep having the same initial behind their name as you have on your voter registration card.

Your historical "Republicans are all evil" bullshit is just more rationalization that your side is the "good" side.

I love how Liberals all refuse to see the world in anything but shades of grey (which is true), until they talk about those "black" republicans.

Does everyone need to go learn something until they think just like you? I just love how open minded you are.

BTW: I happen to agree with you that OWS and the Tea Party have many things in common. But again the labeling of members of each group as misguided others keeps them separated. And what forces are backing that? The old guard political apparatus is.

WE and OUR could easily cover both the TEA PARTY and OWS, but that is the last thing the parties want to see happen.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Man On Pink Corner]

We have, and do. For the vast majority of them, there predictions have been pretty good, overall.

Unfortunately, I need more than "pretty good, overall" before agreeing to trillions of dollars in economic rewiring and redistribution.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the documents are false they were talking about someone else and it's good for them in the long run because they'll have lots of independents to point to and say "these people are the cause of all this!" But if they are real then they're only going to make it look like they're trying to bury the truth (which would, in fact, be the case) and it can only go against them.

From The Wall Street Journal:

"When did it become received media wisdom that global warming skepticism was all the work of shadowy right-wing groups lavishly funded by oil companies? As best we can tell, it started with a 1995 Harper's magazine article claiming to expose this "high-powered engine of disinformation." Today anyone who raises a doubt about the causes of global warming is accused of fronting for, say, Exxon, whatever the facts.

Now comes a rare glimpse inside the allegedly antiscience behemoth, with the online publication last week of documents purloined from the conservative Heartland Institute. The files appear to contain detailed financial, donor and personnel information and outline the think-tank's projects. Chicago-based Heartland says one of the documents is fake and warns that others may have been altered.

Given the coverage the story has generated, you'd think some vast conspiracy had been uncovered. Heartland is, according to the Associated Press, "one of the loudest voices denying human-caused global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of skeptics on climate change." The Vancouver Sun reports that it is "heavily funded by right-wing industrialist Charles Koch," while the Virginian-Pilot dubs it "the ideological center of the denial movement."

So how flush is Heartland? The documents show the group is expecting revenues of $7.7 million this year, mostly from private donations and grants. Mr. Koch's "heavy" funding came to $25,000 in 2011, though the Heartland "Fundraising Plan" has it hoping for an increase in 2012. To put those numbers in not-for-profit perspective, last year the Natural Resources Defense Council reported $95.4 million in operating revenues, while the World Wildlife Fund took in $238.5 million.

Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland's plans to produce and distribute "educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn't alarmist or overtly political." Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has "had only limited success," per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren't returning Heartland's calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on "public education" alone.

As for "the largest international scientific conference of skeptics," Heartland will, according to the documents, spend all of $388,000 this year on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. That's against the $6.5 million that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change costs Western taxpayers annually, and the $2.6 billion the White House wants to spend next year on research into "the global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels."

In the pages of Rolling Stone last summer, Al Gore warned of the "Polluters and Ideologues [sic] . . . . spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media." He had the wrong spenders."

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

You complained about people who say "THEY" and "THEM" and then you said, "We're losing OUR country".

So my question remains: Who is "WE"? And just who is it that you are losing your country to?

Everything else is just talk. There is a question on the table.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[sed quid in infernos]

"The defense I suggested in response to yours is how the courts have decided to interpret the 'truth is an absolute defense'." No, the two defenses spring from very different lines of analysis. The defense you described was borne of the first amendment here in the U.S. It is a product of free speech jurisprudence, not truth as a defense to libel.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do that all the time. It actually provokes people to think about what they are asking before they ask it.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

You fell for the same bullshit as Dan Rather, that George W. Bush avoided military service. Congratulations for confirming how fuckingly stupid Slashdotters are.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[demonlapin]

As it turns out, Peter Gleick impersonated a board member of Heartland in order to get them to send him the documents after he "received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy." He goes on to say, "I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name." Source for both. I'm not up on Illinois law, but that might be a crime.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> They seem to be a bit confused about the
> authenticity of the documents:
>
> "Therefore, the authenticity of those documents
> has not been confirmed." (in bold none the less)
> then at the bottom:
>
> "How did this happen? The stolen documents
> were obtained by an unknown person who
> fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland
> board member and persuaded a staff member
> here to âoere-sendâ board materials to a new email address."

When Dr. Laura's nudie photos of her college days came out, her lawyers simultaneously claimed it wasn't her and that she owned the copyright on them.

When asked how this could be, the lawyers shrugged and laughed and pointed out that good lawyers just cover all the bases.

Why they didn't lose their licenses for provably lying, I don't know.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[JWW]

WE is, quite literally, the 99%.

Its one of the things OWS has right. I may disagree with their methods a bit, but 1% of the country is controlling a lot of what happens here.

The Tea Partiers have that same vibe.

Last year a paper was written by an academic that was sympathetic to the Tea Party where he broke down the class situation in the country to the Ruling Class and the Country Class. In his paper he pointed out that the Ruling Class contains both of the major political parties. This concept exactly matches the OWS 1% - 99% argument.

IMHO green issues and environmentalism are being used to keep the liberals in line and keep the Democrat party viable as a part of the ruling class.

On the conservative side, morality and social issues like gay marriage are the handwaving that is keeping the Republican party viable.

The Tea Partiers missed the boat so to speak. They should have been violently opposed to integrating any morality aspects into their midst. It allowed the triangulation of the old guard Republican apparatus to regain control. Just look at the candidates they're putting forth, only one could really be embraced by the Tea Partiers and he's the one constantly labeled as being "unable to win."

With OWS this process is only just beginning, but you can clearly see the moves being made to make OWS a fullyÂfunctioning arm of the Democrats. The green issues, environmentalism, and social justice are being used to pull OWS in as a Democrat organization. Woosh, there goes their ability to claim to represent 99%.

If OWS and the Tea Party could actually merge their core values and effectively fend off attacks by the established parties to marginalize them with, frankly, unimportant side issues. They could be a viable third party that would mop the floor with the other two parties. But as we have seen the establishment fights that HARD.

The key problems in the US right now are Debt, Entitlement Spending, and Defense Spending. The major parties are uniformly committed to basically doing absolutely nothing to really solve those issues. But they're more than willing to fight gay marriage, bailout failing industries, hand out largess to their political allies, continue policing the world, etc.

WE (the voters) need to make some hard and difficult choices to get rid of THEM (the ruling elites).

I have no confidence at all that either grass roots movement (OWS or Tea Party) will be able to really make that happen.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

WE is, quite literally, the 99%.

And you're the spokesman. I'm pleased to meet you.

WE (the voters) need to make some hard and difficult choices to get rid of THEM (the ruling elites).

Yes, I agree we need to regulate the biggest corporations and their ability to control elections via unlimited, anonymous contributions.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

so, they "can neither confirm nor deny" that they are their documents. Now, where have I heard that expression before?

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[JWW]

Dude, I just completely don't get you.

There are things that vast numbers of US citizens can agree about. That's all I'm saying.

There are even a number of important political actions and efforts that a large majority of US citizens want to see happen.

There are plenty of people saying the same thing I am.

Why are you so stringently trying to keep having your labels stick?

And while I don't agree with you that we should limit donations to campaigns because donating to campaigns is an expression of free speech, I'll at least throw out another potential option.

Since the government regulates elections and regulates the airwaves (TV and Radio), I believe that the government should, in the interest of a better informed citizenry mandate that the broadcast TV and radio stations be required to provide X amount of advertising to registered political candidates for free. This would have to be a pretty good amount of time in order to mitigate the paid advertising that wouldn't be illegal. But if the free advertising to the candidates was a large enough amount, then every candidate would get their message out.

It always makes me scratch my head when the talking heads on the TV news complain about campaign finance, and then their network or station() rakes in the money on campaign advertising. The airwaves are regulated, the gov't should use that regulation as the level to fix campaign financing problems.

So there, see, I can even disagree with your premise on campaign financing, but propose a solution you might be able to live with. Now, I fully realize that you may respond to this derision and a reference to me needing to "read more", but if you're honest you should realize that I'm just trying to look at things based on working to tackle issues where there is consensus and not getting caught up in divisive rhetoric.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[PopeRatzo]

Since the government regulates elections and regulates the airwaves (TV and Radio), I believe that the government should, in the interest of a better informed citizenry mandate that the broadcast TV and radio stations be required to provide X amount of advertising to registered political candidates for free. This would have to be a pretty good amount of time in order to mitigate the paid advertising that wouldn't be illegal. But if the free advertising to the candidates was a large enough amount, then every candidate would get their message out.

That's not bad. You could also do what some other countries do, and have a hard limit on the number of political ads and when they can be run.

Am I mistaken, or does Britain ban ALL political ads for the week before the election? I thought that the case.

I still prefer public financing of national campaigns. Also, I favor a very low limit for the amount that can be donated to a political candidate. Maybe $100. Money is not speech. If it was, I'm pretty sure the Founders would have said so in plain English. Also, corporations are not people. If you can't vote in an election, you should not be allowed to donate money to political campaigns. These last two would already be the law if the Bill of Rights had specified "natural" person instead of just "person". I think it was just an oversight, by men who didn't think anyone would ever dare to try to make the case that a corporation has any inalienable rights. After all, a corporation only exists because the government allows them to exist. They are a legal entity, nothing more and nothing less.

reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[TheGratefulNet]

we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation.

lol

you guys are fundies. your rep is what it is, memos or no memos.

enjoy your 'moment of babs', you losers.

What, no comments?

[salvorHardin]

Strangely, there don't seem to be many comments on the subject of "Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments...".

Re:What, no comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's one: fuck those assholes.

Sue me, bitches.

Interestingly

[Anonymous Coward]

Their view of law is very similar to their view of science.

Re:Interestingly

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of hot air...?

Re:Interestingly

[Anonymous Coward]

That money should dictate its direction? That sounds about the same as the opposing team which has far more money pushing the narrative.

Posturing

[gweihir]

Of course, it all those that published the documents now cower in fear, then mere posturing can be quite effective. Manipulating emotions (as they do not have any rational arguments at all) is, after all, a specialty of this truly and utterly evil organization.

Streissand

[Sqr(twg)]

Hiring Barbara Streissand as a legal consultant was not their smartest move.

Re:Streissand

[__aarzwb9394]

Maybe the Streisand Effect will get more eyeballs on their sites?
They claim that their message is being suppressed by the forces of evil anyway. Their target audience might just see the leaks as the work of the conspiracy of freedom haters and lap up the message.

Re:Streissand

[Anonymous Coward]

They want the Streisand effect. Their job is to create the impression of widespread doubt, the opposite of consent. What better way to do that than a heated debate? Observe how they will redirect the publicity away from their motives to the "topic at hand: climate change".

Re:Streissand

[Hrdina]

I wish you were joking...

Re:Streissand

[Anonymous Coward]

Science,
Like the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored Science
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures,
Of the Lies we left behind
Lies we gave to one another
For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?

Science, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

So it's the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember...
The way we were...
The way we were...

Re:Streissand

[BasilBrush]

Their target audience might just see the leaks as the work of the conspiracy of freedom haters and lap up the message.

Of course they will. The very same people that were so pleased that the CRU email server was hacked into in the so called "Climategate" affair. That said how great it was that this information was now in the public domain.

Cretins.

Re:Streissand

[jo_ham]

They were hoping to nose ahead in the legal proceedings.

Re:Streissand

[Anonymous Coward]

The Heartland Institute is a private company, they are entitled to privacy (to an extent).

The CRU is funded by public money. The laws of the UK make very clear that their research is public information. The CRU were illegally hiding this research from the public.

Can your superior mind spot a difference between the two scenarios?

Re:Streissand

[Anonymous Coward]

All i can think of is now is of this video
  Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo [x7]
So rough baby baby

Barbra Streisand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Io3aSEkG_s

Re:Streissand

[turkeyfish]

The Heartland Institute is a non-profit organization not a private entity. According to them their mission is "to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.", which no doubt is true if those free-market solutions are owned lock, stock and barrel by Koch Industries, their primary financial backers.

They are a political lobbying organization, which given the corporate mindset of US laws means that they can be used to launder lobbying expenses on behalf of Koch Industries.

As far as mindsets go, you have clearly demonstrated yours, but like Heartland you have to do it as an Anonymous Coward.

Re:Streissand

[oiron]

The person who stole the CRU mails broke the law. True or false?

Most of the mails really showed nothing wrong - just the usual process of science and scientists griping to one another in what they thought were private mails. Except for that one bit about denying the FOIA request, there was nothing to show a conspiracy to hide anything, even in the mails that were being waved around, like the "hide the decline" bit (that one has been answered recently - it's the deep ocean)

Legal or illegal, now we have some internal information out in public about what Heartland is all about. Legal or illegal, we had some internal documents of CRU circulated. Now, the question is, what do those documents/mails/whatever say about those respective institutions?

The legality of the action is an independent question. If it's found to be illegal, crucify the guy who leaked them. But now that there's information, analyze it dispassionately, and tell me honestly, which organization was distorting facts?

Re:Streissand

[MidGe]

"Can your superior mind spot a difference between the two scenarios?"

A matter of transparency or openness?

Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Heartland institute.. A bunch of lying douchebags!

Come sue me.. You'll fuck that up too.

Re:Comment

[cvtan]

I'd like to comment on your comment. They are going to sue anyone with the initials "AC". I feel good commenting on this because, according to the Heartland site, they support "Ideas That Empower People". They also admit that some of the stolen documents are genuine. Why not just claim that everything made public is a fabrication?

Re:Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps because some of it is sufficiently documented that there's risk of it being proved genuine later.

Or, improbable as it might seem, it's just possible that some of it is genuine, and some of it was faked to punch it up a bit.

Re:Comment

[cvtan]

Including partial truths is a very effective way to get a lie across. This is the Rush Limbaugh method. Although in this case it is likely 1 fake doc for every 10 real ones instead of the other way around.

authenticity confirmed

[Lehk228]

'the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents.

well I guess that confirms the authenticity now

Re:authenticity confirmed

[PapayaSF]

Many of the documents seem to be genuine, but the "smoking gun" document that everyone is quoting looks like a fake. This possibility seems to have been raised first here on Slashdot by eldavojohn, and Megan McArdle of The Atlantic has written extensively about it.

The Heartland people are making themselves look bad with these silly threats, though, which will lose them the sympathy they should get as victims of a forgery-based smear job.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of these documents were stolen from Heartland, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered.

RTFA

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Megan McArdle? Really?

Just what does an economics writer who knows nothing about either economics or simple math have to do with document authentication?

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Jiro]

If the documents made the left look bad instead of the right everyone would be falling over themselves to claim that Internet people with no professional training who figured out the documents were fake were doing the people a valuable service and a prime example of how the Internet empowered the common man.

There certainly have been cases in the past where fake documents were exposed by people on the Internet with no professional training. Remember Dan Rather's Killian documents? (Another case where the documents made the right look bad, but turned out to be fabricated). It wasn't the mass media that exposed those--it was guys on the Internet.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is listening to anything that Megan McArdle says, considering that she's an extreme right-wing hack with a huge axe to grind, not a journalist.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[calidoscope]

So the only people who are qualified to be journalists are extreme left wing hacks with huge axes to grind?

A monoculture in journalism is even more dangerous than a monoculture in operating systems.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[JoshuaZ]

McArdle is fairly right-wing, but she strongly disagrees with the right-wing attitudes about climate change. She both agrees with the scientific consensus that it is happening due to people, and she supports direct government intervention to help deal with it. She isn't a person who is going to make apologetics for Heartland on this simply for that. In any event, putting the author aside, she does seem to raise some pretty troubling issues about the nature of the document. Her pieces make me much less certain that the document is real. I still think it is more likely than not to be real, but not by much.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Megan McArdle? Really? Just what does an economics writer who knows nothing about either economics or simple math have to do with document authentication?

A mindless ad hominem argument? Really? Just what does criticizing the messenger have to do with document authentication?

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked, and -- you're not gonna believe this -- but apparently there are people who are neither extreme right wing hacks with huge axes to grind nor left wing hacks with huge axes to grind!!! I know!! Incredible! Maybe we should hire some of those people to be our journalists?

Re:authenticity confirmed

[turkeyfish]

Just goes to show that if an entity is a non-profit organization and consequently avoids US taxation, then all their emails and other documents need to be readily available to the public and subject to Freedom of Information Requests. If they don't want to do this, they need to shed themselves of their Tax Exempt status as a Non-Profit organization.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[turkeyfish]

With weeds like Andrew Brietbart and Matt Druge growing everywhere, its doubtful that any case could be made for monoculture in journalism. Then again, it sounds more desperate if you claim that the only right wing hacks are being persecuted and have no axes of their own. Nice ploy, even if its not true.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Khyber]

If you had enough of a mind to know who Megan McArdle is, you'd not be asking your stupid question.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[ravenshrike]

Yes... an extreme right wing hack who voted for Obama.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[snowgirl]

The Heartland people are making themselves look bad with these silly threats, though, which will lose them the sympathy they should get as victims of a forgery-based smear job.

Indeed, even more so, because as a "public figure", the HI is at a disadvantage for proving libel or any other form of defamation. As such, they could only have a chance of winning if the defendant had "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

Early comment on the documents is going to probably be fine, and measured evaluation of the purportedly faked document (i.e. here's what it says, here's the grain of salt) would still remain entirely valid.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[turkeyfish]

" Her pieces make me much less certain that the document is real."

Then you are pretty easy to convince. The only real "evidence" she offers that they are fake is that the PDF headers have different dates. The PDF's could have been created and sent by anyone associated with Heartland anywhere. Why on earth that that give you confidence in McArdle's sleuthing skills? Why should all the documents have the same date on their headers? Do you change the System Clock on Your Machine to 1 Jan 1900 12:00 AM everytime you create a PDF?

Re:authenticity confirmed

[JoshuaZ]

That isn't the only piece of evidence. Please reread her piece. There's the matter of the discrepancy with what the Koch funding is for. There's the general lack of standard puffery in the piece that you expect in a strategy document- this reads much more like a monologue by an evil villain. Contrast it for example with the Wedge document - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_document, a similar leak from the Discovery Institute, and note the differences in presentation. There's the convenient matter, that every factual detail is contained in the other documents. There's the strange focus on Forbes, which seems out of place in the document. There's the fact that the document looks photoscanned (in contrast to all the other documents in the leak). None of these are absolute markers, but each is a small sign of weakness. Taken together they raise a serious issue.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Heartland has issued a threat for my alleged comments, and did not wait for me to confirm or deny the authenticity of the alleged comments. Therefore I believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which I may plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages arising from any charges or lawsuits they may file against me.

And for the record, yes I did wait, just because they chose to drag their feet and don't like how long I waited is too bad for them. I'm not a News Organization, so don't expect to hold me to the same Standards of Verification unless you're planning on giving me all the protections which goes with it.

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

If the documents made the left look bad instead of the right everyone would be falling over themselves

Everyone would fall over themselves? Really? You mean Left and the Right would set aside their differences and come together to defend the "Left"?
What the fuck are you smoking, and why haven't you passed it around yet? Oh wait, +5 Insightful... apparently you have passed the pipe, and the mods took a double hit.

Under what pretense ?

[zero.kalvin]

Even if they were written by his holiness Satan himself, I don't get how that would stop me from 'commenting' on them!

Re:Under what pretense ?

[MightyMartian]

I guess they're hoping that their opponents are as gullible as their supporters.

Re:Under what pretense ?

[nurb432]

Not sure how this works legally, but if the document was illegal for you to consume, can you legally post a review of its contents or even acknowledge you saw them?

You cant retain such documents if they are deemed 'illegal', so in theory you must forget anything you read in them.

Much like if you bought a counterfeit book, it would have to be destroyed.

Re:Under what pretense ?

[zero.kalvin]

This is interesting, how a document be illegal for me to read ?

Re:Under what pretense ?

[turkeyfish]

Clearly, the only solution is to vote republican and make you illegal.

Re:Under what pretense ?

[nurb432]

That is easy. If the document was for internal use only and you were not authorized by its 'owner'

Or if it was classified and you didn't have clearance.

Or if its 'illegal' material, such as child p0rn. ( true that is pictures, but you get the idea ), or soon various technical books like DIY explosives.

Re:Under what pretense ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is interesting, how a document be illegal for me to read ?

You don't have a warrant or subpoena, and you're not the government (who doesn't need a warrant or subpoena anymore).

Re:Under what pretense ?

[oiron]

That's thought-censorship.

I have NEVER signed an NDA with the Heartland Institute. The documents caught my eye while I was browsing the web, and I read them. The only person liable under this is the one who released the documents - Heartland's Bradley Manning, if you will. The rest of us are completely free to comment as much as we like.

Only if they can prove that people were commenting on documents that they knew to be fake could they be sued for libel. Assuming that a document on a HI letterhead is authentic is NOT grounds for libel. It's grounds for the HI to be putting out a press release denying it as a fact, and then proving itself.

Treat them like they treated CRU. That's only "fair and balanced"!

Re:Under what pretense ?

[zero.kalvin]

You are not allowed to obtain them by any illegal manner, I agree with you on this on. But imagine, you are walking down the street, and someone approaches you and tells you what's inside the papers. You are not commiting any crime by listening! Even if it was kiddie porn and was forced to see them, how are you commiting any crime by commenting ? As someone commented above, I didn't sign any NDA, I didn't obtain them by any illegal means, as far as I care, they can go screw themselves!

Re:Under what pretense ?

[yurtinus]

Only your last example is valid for the case of a document falling into somebody's lap. Documents marked "for internal use only" are only enforceable through whatever contract kept them internal. Unless you are an employee or in some way responsible for keeping it "internal" then there is nothing to keep you from reading it. Writing "don't read this" on a document doesn't give that document any special powers.

In general, the same applies for classified documents. The US has no general "Official Secrets" act, so you can't prosecute just anybody for leaking - much less reading - classified documents. There are exceptions, but they must be narrowly defined.

Right Wingers

[kurt555gs]

And some of you want Republicans in public office?

Re:Right Wingers

[betterunixthanunix]

As opposed to Democrats? Some of us want to kick both parties out of our government.

Re:Right Wingers

[Daniel_Staal]

Well, to be fair, the Democrats are only slightly better... And are in bed with the RIAA and the MPIAA. (Among other things.)

It's really a matter of 'who will do the least damage to the country', not 'who will make the country better'.

(Personally, I refuse to vote for either party, but I know that it's a vain hope that my vote will make any difference.)

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that is your true belief, but many who profess that claim turn right around and vote for one party regardless.

Not that I blame them, the party ffactionalism makes character less relevant than pattern

Re:Right Wingers

[History's Coming To]

You'll probably like the Lamb Of God frontman who's standing for election.

My first act as President of the United States will to be shot. That’s right, SHOT. With a high-powered assault rifle. Immediately after taking the oath of office, I will be escorted about twenty yards away and be shot publicly in a non-lethal area of my body by a highly trained Navy SEAL sniper. It will hurt like fuck. Why would I do this? Because I will now be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. This means that during my term I will probably have to make some tough decisions affecting the survival of other men. And as commander-in-chief, I shouldn’t expect anyone in our military to do anything I’m not willing to do myself. That includes getting shot. Me being shot will be broadcast live world-wide via satellite, with no bleeping out of the incredible string of curse words I will undoubtably let fly with. I will be required to walk/limp/crawl on my own power a minimum of 50 yards through the mud to an ambulance that will take me away to patch me up. If I can’t make it on my own, I’m not tough enough to be your President.

Re:Right Wingers

[forkfail]

Just remember - power abhors a vacuum. Maybe you're right to want to kick both out (as I'm sometimes inclined), but if the power structure of government is torn down, others will move quickly to fill that void. And the power poised at this time is corporate power, which when allowed to be unchecked is not controlled by the invisible hand, but rather, becomes an heriditary feudalistic system.

Yeah, they're corrupt as all getup. But when the question is tear it all down or try to fix what we've got, and tearing it all down opens things up to even worse scenarios, one is only left with trying to find a way to fix what is.

At least, until it gets so bad that everyone takes to the streets and we wind up shooting each other until the rage is burned out and the next generation of politicians of some stripe take the reigns.

Re:Right Wingers

[TheLink]

Shot in a known nonlethal way. Bah. Many sociopaths would do that if it means they get what they want.

Here's how to really be commander-in-chief, risk your life on the line and lead the soldiers out to battle in spirit:
http://slashdot.org/journal/208853/how-to-reduce-unwanted-wars

That would make even sociopaths think harder before telling others to put life and limb on the line. When you send soldiers to war you're not sending them to be shot in nonlethal parts of their bodies.

Re:Right Wingers

[TheLink]

At least, until it gets so bad that everyone takes to the streets and we wind up shooting each other until the rage is burned out and a Dictator of some stripe takes the reins.

Fixed that for you.

When you have a violent revolution, the odds are the person or group willing AND capable of exerting the most violence will rise to the top. Once they rise to the top, they are unlikely to give up their power or hold democratic elections. At which point who in the country can kick them out? They already have proven to be capable of the most violence.

And that's why Communist revolutions end up as dictatorships - the Communist Manifesto has violence as part of the implementation plan. When the process of selecting your leaders is not by votes but by violence what do you expect? Once in a while you may get a benevolent dictator, but generally you have to wait for the Dictator's children or grandchildren's generation for things to start changing for the better.

Re:Right Wingers

[Nadaka]

Transitioning away from the two party system does not mean tearing down government as a whole.

1: eliminate the electoral college, make it a pure vote.
2: eliminate first past the post elections. Use some form of Instant Runoff or range voting option.
3: Change the US senate to be proportional representation. No more 2 seats per state, instead each party gets a number of votes equal to their percentage in a national election rounded down. This gives other parties a fair chance at establishing themselves and influencing larger parties through coalition.
4: change the house so that each states seats are proportional, allowing for local growth of alternative parties.
5: eliminate anonymous political contributions over $5000. If corporations expect to scream during an election, they should be as identifiable as anyone else cheer leading for their cause with a bullhorn.

I am sure there is more that could be done, but that is where I would start.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

And then a few days later, once he begins to govern For The People instead of For The Elite Corporate Interests, he'll be shot again. This time, in the head.

Re:Right Wingers

[kurt555gs]

I wish the Pirate Party would gain a foothold in the USA. I don't like either sides of the same rotten coin that has power now.

Re:Right Wingers

[LandDolphin]

Why do you want the Senate to become the House of Reps. instead of representing the States interests?

Re:Right Wingers

[the eric conspiracy]

Changing the Senate to a proportional system will never happen. It was the key point in the most important part of the compromises the states made in order to get the Constitution accepted. The smaller states will never go along with ratifying the amendment needed to make it happen.

It's why it was called the "Great Compromise".

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

He will be so sorry afterwards, when the nerve pains start. Before that he has started a golly holy war with everybody and renamed French fries again.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the guy's point. As CinC he'll only order military people into situations where they know ahead of time that they'll be shot in a non-lethal body part?

Re:Right Wingers

[Daniel_Staal]

Not going to happen. If a political party can't get at least 35% of the vote in any particular election, it's not relevant in American politics. (And I might argue that number is higher.) Winner takes all, single representation means that there is no space for small parties to gain a foothold and grow: You either need to be a serious contender right off the bat, or you aren't going to be worth talking about.

Re:Right Wingers

[Nadaka]

The states still have power based on on their population in the house. And I am not suggesting changing the senate to be like the house. I am suggesting the senate be changed to be more like a national parliament. Libertarians and Greens for instance may have 5% to 10% of the public interest, but they will almost never get in the senate under the current system. Under the system I suggest they would both win several seats.

It is my primary engine of change to break the stranglehold that the republican and democratic parties have on this country. I will grant that it is a major change, but major change may be necessary to reach that goal.

Re:Right Wingers

[Nadaka]

I see no reason for smaller states to wield a disproportionate amount of power at the federal level. Is there a more "acceptable", but no less effective, means of ensuring 3rd parties fill seats in the senate?

Re:Right Wingers

[artor3]

This guy watches too many movies. Unless they're just shooting off a pinky finger, any area you get shot by a "high-powered assault rifle" is a lethal area, barring immediate medical attention. Even a shot to the calf would have him bleed out long before he managed to crawl fifty yards.

It's pretty telling that he has given no thought whatsoever to the conscience of the shooter. He's going to order this young man to shoot, and likely kill, someone on live television, just to show how tough he is. He's willing to deal with the physical pain of being shot (likely because he doesn't understand the consequences), but the idea that forcing a person to murder another human being could cause emotional scarring is completely alien to him.

Thankfully, there is absolutely zero chance of this guy being elected to any office.

Re:Right Wingers

[TheGratefulNet]

hmmm: big media or big religion.

I guess I'll take the least sucky of those: big media.

big religion scares me much more than big media ever will. big media worships the dollar and we can all understand that, to some degree. big religion thinks there are sky daddies in control and you just cannot reason with folks like that.

I will never accept republicans as viable until they tear down this old tyme religion they have recently clung to.

Re:Right Wingers

[LandDolphin]

I am still a supporter of the original design of the Senate - to give States equal representation in the Government.

Making both the House and the Senate proportion by population diminishes power of smaller states and gives too much to larger states.

Re:Right Wingers

[Nadaka]

Within the house, my suggestion is that the number of seats appointed to each state remains the same. But within that allotment, the seats are granted proportionally. For instance Texas would still have 36 seats and might fill 15 of them with Republicans, 10 with Democrats, 5 with Libertarians and 6 with the Republic of Texas party.

I don't really have an issue with the smaller states having more or less power. But with only 2 seats per state in the senate, I don't see a way to break the duopoly party power in the senate without a major change.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just get a Reinhart von Lohengramm type who rejects the "In modern times this is impractical and counterproductive" bullshit and overthrows the current order.

Re:Right Wingers

[Curunir_wolf]

I see no reason for smaller states to wield a disproportionate amount of power at the federal level. Is there a more "acceptable", but no less effective, means of ensuring 3rd parties fill seats in the senate?

They don't wield a "disproportionate" amount of power - on the contrary, they are less powerful than more populace states. You probably mean that the people of those states seem to wield a disproportionate amount of power in the senate (senators from small states represent less people than senators from populace state). But that is the only concession currently left to any of the small states. And they are states, not provinces or territories. The US is a conglomeration of sovereign states, left with most of their autonomy by the compact of the Constitution.

Without some influence as equal partners in the Federal compact, the small states would be marginalized by the larger ones. That would be a travesty, because the coastal states cannot represent the interests of the heartland states.

Re:Right Wingers

[rrohbeck]

There is only one party with two right wings.

Re:Right Wingers

[colinrichardday]

I might care more about the interests of the states if they didn't pass laws requiring women to undergo vaginal ultrasound in order to get an abortion, or usurp federal power with anti-immigration bills, or attempt to treat performing an abortion as a felony.

Re:Right Wingers

[wavedeform]

When you have a violent revolution, the odds are the person or group willing AND capable of exerting the most violence will rise to the top. Once they rise to the top, they are unlikely to give up their power or hold democratic elections.

Like what happened in the American revolution, or maybe the French revolution, or any of the other democratic revolutions over the last couple of centuries?

Re:Right Wingers

[turkeyfish]

It can happen if the smaller parties start focusing on local, county, and state elections and ignore the federal scene until they are well represented at the local, county and state level. At that point, they will be too powerful to be ignored. The problem is that few want to do the hard work necessary to make it happen. They just want the other guy to do things their way.

Re:Right Wingers

[History's Coming To]

That did cross my mind, the best I can think of is to go for an arm, and from what I've heard of modern assault rifles you'd probably lose the arm entirely?

Re:Right Wingers

[ravenshrike]

The american revolution was NOT a violent revolution. The vast, vast majority of the violence was between military forces. Whereas the vast majoirty of the violence in the French revolution was against political enemies, with no regard to resistance. They fucking invented a machine designed for cutting off heads. That's fucked up right there.

Re:Right Wingers

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

(Personally, I refuse to vote for either party, but I know that it's a vain hope that my vote will make any difference.)

If enough people voted their conscience instead of for a team all of our votes would start to make a difference again.

We don't actually have to win an election in order to affect politics - all it takes is enough voters to scare the big-team parties into thinking they need to adopt some of the platforms of the parties of conscience. It is the marginal risk that can make the difference - e.g. if the democrats had wised up and adopted more of the Green party platform many of those people who voted for Ralph Nader would have voted for Gore instead. The democrats ignored the risk of losing a couple of percent of the voters and it lost them the election. The republican ass-kissing of the tea-party is an example of them having learned the Ralph Nader lesson.

Re:Right Wingers

[Attila Dimedici]

As another poster points out, the American revolution was different from other revolutions for several reason. At least one of which was the fact that it ended up being a war between armies. In addition, it was a war of independence rather than a traditional revolution.
On the other hand, the French Revolution ended up exactly as the poster you replied to said. The French Revolution did not end in a democratic government for France. It ended in Napoleon's imperial rule of France.

Re:Right Wingers

[phantomfive]

He's going to order this young man to shoot, and likely kill, someone on live television, just to show how tough he is.

If you don't think there are a lot of marines who would enjoy this, you haven't met very many marines.

Re:Right Wingers

[wavedeform]

The US just got lucky with Geo. Washington.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, the Daniel Stall number of political relevance... splattered from his butth ole with the curry sauce. The nation is replete with counter examples, but I'm not interested in them because to accept your generalization has a nice side effect. So long as it remains impossible to make a worthwhile principled vote for a third party, the U.S. and its citizens deserves everything they get. I hope that corruption, corporatism, and plutocracy destroy this festering pisshole and other better people learn from our mistakes.

Re:Right Wingers

[History's Coming To]

Agreed, although the one's I've met (about six of them on Embassy duty in Kathmandu c.1995) wouldn't enjoy it any more than they would enjoy killing an opposing soldier. They'd just do what they were ordered to and get on with it.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, making up theories that fail many historical tests (aka "cherry picking" much ?) and then using them to predict the future is really an impressive persuasive technique.

Re:Right Wingers

[Attila Dimedici]

There is something to that. However, if that was all it was, the U.S. would have descended into anarchy after Washington's death until a unifying, dictator sort emerged. If things had been only a little different, Andrew Jackson could have been such a figure. I still think the fact that each of the states was a semi-independent government and that each of those state governments joined in the revolt from Britain (rather than the revolt being an overthrow of the state governments as well as of the British government) played a significant role in the American Revolution turning out differently.

Re:Right Wingers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair, the Democrats are only slightly better

I wish...

Both sides have shown themselves to be equally corruptible. I have seen votes bought and paid for on both sides. I have seen both sides not even bothering to write their own bills. Hell I have seen senators/congressmen/state levels of the same thing not even bothering to answer the phones and let whomever they are shilling for answer it.

Only one has shown he has a spine and thats Ron Paul. *THAT* is scary in and of itself... I am voting for him (which if you knew me says a lot...). I think he is the only one who has shown us the right way. Unfortunatly its not going to be pretty. In fact it is going to be downright devastating.

We have been sold down the river for the lowest bidder. Did you know for as little as 2 'high end' meals you can get legislation passed in North Carolina? Least the democrat held out for 2k instead of what the republican held out for (2 pricy dinners). For the *EXACT* same worded legislation. You get to the fed level you better be talking at least 5k and up. Follow the money. Its not a pretty sight.

Re:Right Wingers

[geekoid]

I would rather the RIAA and MPIAA got completely lock down then industry be allow to run amok.

One means lock down on entertainment, the other means people die.

Plus., you're not really possible to lock down media, so the RIAA will loose anyways.

"(Personally, I refuse to vote for either party, but I know that it's a vain hope that my vote will make any difference.)"
Sadly, most third party is much, much worse and deluded.

Re:Right Wingers

[GameboyRMH]

True. He was offered the chance to become King of America, but because the US got so damn lucky with George Washington, he said no. That's how close the US came to becoming a dictatorship.

Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a comment. Will you sue me now?

MAKE MY DAY

[mbone]

Go ahead. Make my day. Sue on that basis. Let me make some popcorn.

Re:MAKE MY DAY

[colinrichardday]

So punk, did I file six depositions, or only five? You know, in all the excitement in clean forgot. So the question you have to ask yourself, punk, is do you feel lucky? Well do you, punk?

Re:MAKE MY DAY

[mbone]

In this case, I do.

Re:MAKE MY DAY

[oiron]

You know, in all the excitement in clean forgot.

You know what's scary?

I can actually imagine them filing so many, that they forget one or two...

Heartland Institute?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never heard of it, and have no comment about it.

So sue me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heartland, you suck. And you are fraudulent shills whoring out to the highest bidder. Not that we didn't know that before.

Your turn!

bored

[Anonymous Coward]

And then maybe if YOU'RE bored, you can learn the difference between your and you're.

My comment on the leaked documents

[SloWave]

My opinion is that if these documents are true then Heartland Institute should be dragged across burning hot coals and their stomachs roasted and eaten.

Re:My comment on the leaked documents

[Nadaka]

I wouldn't eat them. All that tobacco smoke and petro dollars have to have spoiled the meat.

Re:My comment on the leaked documents

[TheGratefulNet]

My opinion is that if these documents are true then Heartland Institute should be dragged across burning hot coals and their stomachs roasted and eaten.

folks, we bring to you the first of the annual heartland haggis roast. NB: BYOB.

Re:My comment on the leaked documents

[GameboyRMH]

Forget that, do you know how much oil & tobacco industry semen is in those stomachs? x_x

Fuck Heartland Institute

[Anonymous Coward]

These are all my opinions, 100% protected by the first amendment, so go fuck yourselves.

A) You're not in the heartland
B) You have no heart
C) Fuck You!
D) You deserve to be sued out of existence for trying to do the country and the people of the country irreparable harm just to cash in by spewing non accurate drivel.

Mission accomplished

[pecila]

"Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems."

Re:Mission accomplished

[Torinir]

I dunno... I think a more accurate description of their mission is: "to discover, develop and promote social and economic problems to free-market solutions."

Re:Mission accomplished

[turkeyfish]

Heartland Institute like many of these corporate sponsored non-profits are PR front groups. In Heartlands case they are a front group for Koch Industries, so that they can get a tax deduction for donations for funding their own PR. Its as simple as that.

Re:Mission accomplished

[Black Parrot]

"Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems."

And the free market solution to global warming is... to deny it.

Maybe Mother Nature's invisible hand at work deciding which species will inherit the galaxy.

Re:Mission accomplished

[Black Parrot]

I dunno... I think a more accurate description of their mission is:

"to discover, develop and promote social and economic problems to free-market solutions."

Or: "to prevent any laws or regulations that might cost big corporations some money, no matter how desperately we need such rules".

Re:Mission accomplished

[Eunuchswear]

Heartland Institute like many of these corporate sponsored non-profits are PR front groups. In Heartlands case they are a front group for Koch Industries, so that they can get a tax deduction for donations for funding their own PR. Its as simple as that.

Factualty incorrect.

They are a front for the "Anonymous Donor" and we don't know who he is.

Hypocrisy at its finest

[JoshuaZ]

The most fascinating thing about this is the general hypocrisy involved. Whenever the whole "ClimateGate" matter occurred, Heartland was at the front of trumpeting the documents from that (which incidentally turned out to be utterly benign), with zero concern about the ethics of taking confidential documents from other people using hacking. Yet now, when the same thing happens to them, they use every bit of the legal system to go after not just the people who actually did do it but anyone who is then commenting or reproducing the documents. Really charming behavior.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[MightyMartian]

I can't sort out what part of the legal system they plan on using. If you can find the leak, then certainly you can persue them criminally and civilly. Perhaps if it's being reproduced word for word on websites, then you can probably go for copyright infringement, though by now the document has spread to the four corners of the planet and it's far past the point when that's really a meaningful option. As to suing people that comment on the document, that's patently absurd. In most Western countries there are protections on that sort of speech. I guess you could try to claim libellous conduct, but by now tens of thousands of people have likely commented on it, and the idea that you can actually bring any fraction of them into court is highly unlikely, and that's not even talking about the odds of conviction (pretty low in the US, that's for sure).

I've seen some pretty pathetic legal threats, but this more resembles the kind of nonsense I used to see on some Internet forums where some nasty little prick, when cornered, would make some vague legal threat. Might as well threaten that Jesus will come down and stomp on your balls.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Gaygirlie]

I guess you could try to claim libellous conduct

That would only work if they could prove the documents were indeed forgeries and that the commenters knew about them being forgeries. Neither of which applies in this case, so no libellous conduct - defense for them. In short, there is nothing they can do about this, they're just pushing out lots of hot air right now.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Guppy06]

In most Western countries there are protections on that sort of speech.

All you need to do is find one jurisdiction where there aren't. For the English language, the jurisdiction of choice is England and Wales. It's called "libel tourism."

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[mbone]

That would only work if they could prove the documents were indeed forgeries....

For some reason, Wilde vs Queensberry comes to mind here.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Foobar of Borg]

The most fascinating thing about this is the general hypocrisy involved. Whenever the whole "ClimateGate" matter occurred, Heartland was at the front of trumpeting the documents from that (which incidentally turned out to be utterly benign), with zero concern about the ethics of taking confidential documents from other people using hacking. Yet now, when the same thing happens to them, they use every bit of the legal system to go after not just the people who actually did do it but anyone who is then commenting or reproducing the documents. Really charming behavior.

You want to see even greater hypocrisy? Go to the Heartland Institute site and look up their articles on Tort Reform. Hypocrisy indeed!

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

The Climategate emails have never been proven to have been stolen. Many people believe they were in fact leaked.

The Climategate emails were true. At least one of these documents was almost certainly faked.

Climategate involved emails that were created by people working for the public, with public funds, and making recommendations to the public. These documents were a private organization, working with private funds.

In short, it's different. As someone else said in this thread, the Heartland Institute is making itself look bad. And probably has no real legal case. On the other hand, bloggers who spread the faked document all over the internet when it was pretty obvious from the start that it was villian-monologuing over-the-top and noticeably different from the rest of the documents pretty much deserve what they get legally.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[demonlapin]

If they can find the memo forger, though, they will have an excellent case against him or her.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[phantomfive]

I can't sort out what part of the legal system they plan on using.

My guess is libel, and they won't go after the average blogger, but print operations like the New York Times. To make a case with libel in the US, they need to show five things:

1. The plaintiff must prove that the information was published
2. the plaintiff was directly or indirectly identified
3. the remarks were defamatory towards the plaintiff's reputation
4. the published information is false 5. that the defendant is at fault.

1, 2 and 3 are easy to show, 4 is probably not too hard, with all the newspapers in the US, probably some of them printed something false, and they will only sue the ones who printed something false. Then publicize their victory as a way to show they are honest.

Number 5 is the hard one, so they are probably relying on the idea that newspapers are held to a higher standard, and should verify things before publicizing them. I don't care enough about the Heartland Institute to look at the documents myself, but this guy suggests some of them were fake.

I don't know if that will work. It could just be that they are using it as a publicity technique to convince people of their innocence. Announcing a lawsuit that you never intend to pursue is a PR tactic. But to me it looks like they probably have a case that won't get thrown out of court immediately.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[rrohbeck]

the kind of nonsense I used to see on some Internet forums where some nasty little prick, when cornered, would make some vague legal threat. Might as well threaten that Jesus will come down and stomp on your balls.

This isn't any different.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

Might as well threaten that Jesus will come down and stomp on your balls.

And then your sig of many years happened. THAT'S comedy.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[dfarrell07]

The Climategate emails have never been proven to have been stolen. Many people believe they were in fact leaked.

Doubt it.

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Several weeks before the Copenhagen Summit on climate change, an unknown individual or group had breached CRU's server and thousands of emails and computer files were copied to various locations on the Internet.

The Climategate emails were true.

Wrong.

Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[oiron]

The Climategate emails have never been proven to have been stolen. Many people believe they were in fact leaked.

The difference being?

The Climategate emails were true. At least one of these documents was almost certainly faked.

Requires substantiation. A disputant cannot win an argument by mere affirmation

Climategate involved emails that were created by people working for the public, with public funds, and making recommendations to the public. These documents were a private organization, working with private funds.

Private funds being used to influence public decisions on a topic that is no less than the survival and continuation of the human race!

I don't understand this fetish over public vs. private; as far as the CRU people were concerned, those emails were private discussions between colleagues, not public policy documents. Yes, they probably needed better training in handling such cases, but they were just being scientists griping over a bunch of things in most cases. Be that as it may, want a bet that somebody broke the law (or at least, an NDA/contract) in "leaking" those mails?

In short, it's different. As someone else said in this thread, the Heartland Institute is making itself look bad. And probably has no real legal case. On the other hand, bloggers who spread the faked document all over the internet when it was pretty obvious from the start that it was villian-monologuing over-the-top and noticeably different from the rest of the documents pretty much deserve what they get legally.

"pretty obvious" - There are probably lots of people right now who'd believe anything anyone said about Heartland - they've been scum, ever since the tobacco lobby days. "You should have known" is hardly a legal case for proving that commenters knew a document to be faked, and hence are liable for libel.

In any sane system, the party alleging the libel is the one who should prove their case. The burden of evidence lies on the side alleging bad faith. Unfortunately, given how these laws are written...

Sins of omission

[Anonymous Coward]

The critical detail missing from the original post is that Heartland claims that one of the documents in question - the "incriminating" one - is a forgery. Unlike some other recent leaks - any Wikileaks scandal and Climategate, for example, the authenticity of the documents is in question. If the docs have been faked, it's an important change in the context.

How should an organization (or individual) respond to something falsely attributed to them?

Re:Sins of omission

[MightyMartian]

State it's a forgery. What else can you do? Do you think threatening every person who comments on the document is a rational response?

Re:Sins of omission

[Anonymous Coward]

About 0% percent of the sites that published the story will follow up with a retraction if it is shown the documents are fake, though. That's how the media rolls.

TFS artfully avoids mentioning their assertion that the frequently-quoted "strategy document" was a fake, which is a pretty important piece of context for the discussion.

Hell, it even continues to state that the documents "reveal their internal strategies to discredit climate science". That makes it sound like the institute hasn't disavowed the strategy document. That is pretty libellous when the very page it links to state that it's a fake.

Feeling lonely.

[TaBuNiW]

Can't wait for the letter from the legal department of these science hating fuckers. Feeling lonely.

Scientology

[David Gerard]

Because it worked so well for Scientology.Yeah, I can't see this going wrong in any way at all.

Pants on fire.

[sgt scrub]

The best way to win in the court room is to prove a witness has a history of lying. This begs the question, "Who from Heartland could be a credible witness"?

Re:Pants on fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly I don't think 'begs the question' means what you think it means

Re:Pants on fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

and if they sue, then there is the small issue of discovery. Where the defense team can ask for backup tapes, other access to prove/disprove these items. They are already on the defensive. Even suing someone, though it might seem as an attack, would open them up even more (though I am sure there is a bit of house cleaning going on now).

Re:Pants on fire.

[LandDolphin]

I don't think " 'begs the question' " means what you think it means anymore.

Re:Pants on fire.

[wbean]

Sadly, it does now mean what the parent poster thinks it means. I gave up on this one when the Economist started using it with the new meaning. Also note the last paragraph of the Wikipedia article.

Re:Pants on fire.

[Opyros]

Language Log recommends against using the phrase at all (in either sense), but also against arguing about its "correct" meaning if anyone else uses it.

Re:Pants on fire.

[auLucifer]

This would have to be the most boring /. meme in recent memory...

Re:Pants on fire.

[uncadonna]

It doesn't mean anything anymore and has to be dropped. It leads either to confusion if used right or grammar peeves if used wrong. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Re:Pants on fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off my lawn!

Re:Pants on fire.

[snowgirl]

It doesn't mean anything anymore and has to be dropped. It leads either to confusion if used right or grammar peeves if used wrong. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

You're just trying to restrict my freedom of speech. CHILLING EFFECT!

Re:Pants on fire.

[martin-boundary]

Assuming, as you seem to think, that the "new meaning" has replaced the "old meaning", then what we have here is merely evidence that meaning can change if people use words as they wish. And that implies that if you decide to use the words in their "old meaning", then it becomes possible for the new "old meaning" to replace the old "new meaning".

Humpty Dumpty said it best: "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Re:Pants on fire.

[sgt scrub]

I think it means exactly what I expect it to. I also believe it does not relate nor should it relate to petitio principii.

Re:Pants on fire.

[Tristonian]

inconceivable!

Re:Pants on fire.

[MidGe]

Indeed! And also, there is sufficiently overwhelming historical evidence that English is not a prescriptive language that only arch-conservative grammarians would say the contrary.

Gee, this was never a problem for "Climategate"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Heartland Institute didn't find it necessary for following this protocol for commenting on leaked documents when it came to Climategate.

Re:Gee, this was never a problem for "Climategate"

[jo_ham]

That was my first thought exactly. One rule and set of ethics for them, another set for everyone else and any time the spotlight is on them it's "persecution".

Shares a lot in common with the way religious fundamentalists operate, too. "You're oppressing my religious freedom by not allowing me to force my beliefs on others! That's unfair!"

Re:Gee, this was never a problem for "Climategate"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody came out and said the Climategate emails were fake. The police are still investigating, by the way. So no, you're totally and utterly wrong. Thanks for listening.

the most logical /. response is to organize...

[acidfast7]

everyone to comment on it! Where is the FB group? or where is published link so that I can refer to the referenced blog in a status update. it's about time that /. realized that it has a moral duty to combat stuff like this. without organization, ACTA would still be a huge deal.

GIant...

[Ryanrule]

...assholes. They are kock connected to. I would if anon would do a group mob hit buy?

Re:GIant...

[tqk]

Giant assholes.

Well, since everybody else appears to be doing it, I guess I need to chime in too.

They are kock connected to.

That would be Koch Bros? s/to/too/ ?

I would if anon would do a group mob hit buy?

s/would/wonder/ ? I think they do it for the "lulz." No buy necessary.

Just tryin' to help ...

Re:GIant...

[tqk]

Ah, !@#$. Does this mean I'm going to get sued now?

Good luck with that.

Re:GIant...

[tqk]

/. bottom page bubble:

The public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble. -- Thomas Carlyle

I think that's the best thing I've seen /. say in quite a while. Keep it up.

Fake.

[cryptical]

The "smoking gun" memo is most likely faked, see Megan McArdle's analysis at http://www.theatlantic.com/megan-mcardle/

Re:Fake.

[drinkypoo]

I read it and I don't find it compelling. Also she is dumb or a shill, read down to the story collection she posted before the "analysis"

Pharma shoots self, the rest of us, in the foot:

But what you didn't hear from Sen. Kagan today is what happened behind the scenes. It turns out that big pharma helped to kill an earlier version of the TREAT Act, which would have created an entirely new "progressive and exceptional approval" pathway for innovative new drugs: something that could have turbocharged drug development in several fields.

Big Pharma does NOT repeat NOT want it to be easier to bring new drugs to market, that would make competition feasible, and it would eliminate their competitive advantage over naturopathic medicine, which is being forced off store shelves firstly by being prevented from making even those claims supported by science, and secondly by assertions that citations from scientific research or historical data is the same as making claims. This does not represent a self-foot-shooting, only the usual crapping-on-us. Again, she's dumb or a shill and I'm not interested in her opinion. We've seen out-of-style memos in larger releases of information before, so unless there's some compelling evidence either way I will just continue to ignore it like I am the whole flap.

Re:Fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never read The Atlantic before but I always used to think it was a real news source but now I see it's just conservative infotainment. Good to know.

Re:Fake.

[the eric conspiracy]

Thanks for providing a nutter tag word i.e. "naturopathic".

Re:Fake.

[bughunter]

Overall the Atlantic is rather good journalism, with well-written science articles for the layperson and many good progressive viewpoints well expressed in their pages, but they do seem to suffer from the need for "objective balance" -- McArdle is one of their biggest counterweights on the right, and it shows in every column she writes. And they give space to no one with an alternative viewpoint in that department, which they call Economics. There's been a growing movement in the progressive blogs to petition the Atlantic to let her go, but it has fallen on deaf ears.

I elected not to renew my subscription to them when it came up in the stack of bills this month. It was a tough decision; I like the magazine. But McArdle's continual drumbeating for kleptocracy made up my mind. That was just a week ago. Now, I don't regret it. For the same amount, I can subscribe to Rolling Stone and get Matt Taibbi's articles, which are much more original and definitely not corporate-sponsored.

Re:Fake.

[colinrichardday]

it would eliminate their competitive advantage over naturopathic medicine, which is being forced off store shelves firstly by being prevented from making even those claims supported by science,

And what would "those claims supported by science" be?

Re:Fake.

[drinkypoo]

If you want to claim eating flax seed decreases risk of heart disease (which has shown to be true) you have problems but nabisco can say the same thing about whole wheat on a box of triscuits.

Don't clench your asshole so tightly when you post, it shows.

Re:Fake.

[geekoid]

"Big Pharma does NOT repeat NOT want it to be easier to bring new drugs to market"

Please do some research before making your self look so fucking stupid.

" and it would eliminate their competitive advantage over naturopathic medicine"

Ah, so research, science and actually thinking is right out for you, dumbass.

A) Faster the drugs get to market, the more money they make. They have been pushing for faster, and more dangerous, methods for years.

B) naturopathy doesn't work. Feel free to link to a good study.

Good study:
Double Blinded, well controlled, decent sized.

Re:Fake.

[geekoid]

citation need. And please don' sight the crappy study with 66 people in it that showed modest adn short term effects. It's only showed medes termporary change AND it was a tine percentage. Morgin od error percenteg.

That said, let me explain how this works:

Lets say flaxseed doss have a large enough effect.
A pharmacy company, or chemical company, will find out the exact compound that cause it is. Then either prefect a precise extraction method that ensure a very high probability of the exact same dose, or they will synthesize it. They will determine the optimal dose for age and weight groups. Then they will sell it.

So that the 'natura'l product become part of medicine.

It's not fucking magic.

As for your little comparison between people claiming something is medicine when there really isn't strong evidence and someone selling a box of snacks is fucking stupid. You should be shunned for a week.

Funny, you talk about him clenching his asshole, be clearly you ignorance has made you defensive. Educate yourself, fool.

Re:Fake.

[drinkypoo]

Lets say flaxseed doss have a large enough effect.
A pharmacy company, or chemical company, will find out the exact compound that cause it is.

It doesn't necessarily work that way. For many things it's not just one compound. Also, nutrients don't really get taken into the body well except during digestions, which is why supplements are bullshit. You need to eat your vitamins. Some of the supplements taken with food kind of work, but it's always best to cook it in, unless it's in a drinkable form, which is the fastest and most complete way.

As for your little comparison between people claiming something is medicine when there really isn't strong evidence and someone selling a box of snacks is fucking stupid. You should be shunned for a week.

I didn't claim it's medicine, but your lack of reading comprehension might lead you to read it as such. I claimed that the FDA is claiming that anything that makes health claims is medicine, unless it comes from a major corporation. Come back when you learn to read.

Re:Fake.

[drinkypoo]

naturopathy doesn't work. Feel free to link to a good study.

Homeopathic and allopathic medicine were equally effective when the AMA was founded. 80% of all medications are derived from or a synthetic form of a plant compound. References abound.

shakespeare's answer:

[circletimessquare]

"methinks the lady doth protest too much"

if the documents were fake, they wouldn't elicit such a strong reaction. therefore, the documents are real

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[Jiro]

if the documents were fake, they wouldn't elicit such a strong reaction. therefore, the documents are real

By your reasoning, it should be okay to run around saying that black people are low IQ and are stealing all the white women. I mean, you know there would be a strong reaction to that, right? So it must be true.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[Foobar of Borg]

"methinks the lady doth protest too much"

if the documents were fake, they wouldn't elicit such a strong reaction. therefore, the documents are real

Not to be nit-picky, but when the queen said this in Hamlet, she meant "promise" too much, as the word was sometimes used then.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

"methinks the lady doth protest too much"

if the documents were fake, they wouldn't elicit such a strong reaction. therefore, the documents are real

You don't understand that (mis)quote, methink.
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lady-doth-protest-too-much-methinks

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[sessamoid]

Plus GP misquoted the Shakespeare.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[sed quid in infernos]

And anyone who says they're not an alcoholic is just in denial, right?

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[Rob the Bold]

if the documents were fake, they wouldn't elicit such a strong reaction. therefore, the documents are real

By your reasoning, it should be okay to run around saying that black people are low IQ and are stealing all the white women. I mean, you know there would be a strong reaction to that, right? So it must be true.

I believe the "strong reaction" to which the GP was referring was the strong reaction of denial by the alleged authors of the leaked documents, not the "strong reaction" by those now reading them.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[LandDolphin]

Either way it is a saying now and has been for some time.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[circletimessquare]

it depends. is it 11 am and you are in a bar when you say it?

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[circletimessquare]

yes, the quote has been misquoted, taken out of context, and then taken on a life of its own as an example of meaning that has nothing to do with shakespeare... not by me, but in the wider society and culture for many decades

so i am on solid footing, in this odd respect

it's actually probably a good academic write up someone should do: how the shakespeare quote got misquoted, by who, placed out of context, and became a symbol for a meaning that has nothing to do with shakespeare, and yet captures so succinctly a certain meaning, that it has taken on a life of its own outside of the bard's realm

so i was well aware of this odd lineage before i used the "quote" here today, and i will use it again, in full knowledge of the disconnect, and probably face posts like yours again, but its ok, because the quote is still useful as an example of the meaning it seems to convey, with no context

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[tqk]

yes, the quote has been misquoted, taken out of context, and then taken on a life of its own as an example of meaning that has nothing to do with shakespeare... not by me, but in the wider society and culture for many decades

Ya gotta love a language that's still alive.

"Dont! Stop! Don't stop!"

I'd also like to point out here that it's very disconcerting to see so many of you people writing pretty much the same damned thing I was just about to write. Herd mind, anybody?

Moo.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[tqk]

And anyone who says they're not an alcoholic is just in denial, right?

"I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, no problem."

["Said (British) pounds (Sterling) in fire?!?" Said pounds in fire?!? "Let us conflagrate."]

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[hrimhari]

Because you would ignore a world-wide defamatory campaign claiming that you are a child molester unless it's true?

If that's your notion of judgment, I'll stick to the justice system.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[geekoid]

boilded it down to child molesting, huh?

You proud of yourself for that? hmm? you, think you did something clever, did you? hmm? Is that really how you debate? whe shown to be in a corner, youplay the child molester card do you?

Learn to think, learn to have an intelligent conversation.

Re:shakespeare's answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the "strong reaction" to which the GP was referring was the strong reaction of denial by the alleged authors of the leaked documents, not the "strong reaction" by those now reading them.

Oh, well in that case, anyone who denies your accusations of having a low IQ and stealing all the white women, therefore, are guilty.

AWWW...

[Kupfernigk]

Perhaps some of their funding is under threat as the pendulum slowly moves away from anti-science craziness to wondering why the Greenland glaciers are melting and whether buying beachfront property is now only a short term investment. Perhaps, I don't know, some very rich people are looking at San****m* and Romney and thinking that, just perhaps, the time has come to start repositioning themselves as progressives, because rich people like to be on the winning side. And perhaps suing John Doe for punitive damages for commenting on a leaked document looks like a way of restoring some of that funding.

*letters omitted to protect sensitive but uninformed Slashdot readers from the effects of a Google search.

Re:AWWW...

[rrohbeck]

That sounds reasonable given how they were begging for donations "to defend themselves" against the leak.
Although calling "being afraid of getting outed as a donor to a right wing money laundering organization" "repositioning" is a bit generous.
If I was one of the donors I'd run like hell since they can't keep highly sensitive information under wraps.

sue this

[Anonymous Coward]

all people at the institute rim goats and kiss underage boys. climate science is as false as my statement

Re:sue this

[Foobar of Borg]

all people at the institute rim goats and kiss underage boys. climate science is as false as my statement

Slanderous nonsense! Everyone knows they kiss goats and rim underage boys.

Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[forkfail]

And to make sure that there's some substance:

My read on the documents is that they provide conclusive proof that the Heartland Institute promoted systematic criminal fraud, corrupted science and effectively engaged in treasonous activity.

There. Now sue me.

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[ixnaay]

I would have modded this up, but I am terrified that could possibly be construed as a 'comment' by our Heartland masters.

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really not sure that you understand the law on Libel and Slander.

1 - Saying that 'This is what I think...' won't cut it. You're ALLOWED to think what you like, and tell people about it.

2 - You actually have to publish or say something defamatory. "X raped my daughter" might do it. Not "I think X raped my daughter". So you have to actually accuse Heartland of 'systematic criminal fraud'....

3 - To defame someone your assertion has to be credible. If it is not credible then no damage has been done. So wild, impossible or unsubstantiated accusations rarely reach a court. One way to be credible might be to fake a document showing Heartland to be undertaking 'systematic criminal fraud', and then publish it.

Your initial assertion has no libelous substance whatsoever. I suspect that you are aware of that, which is why you are making bold-sounding statements which are, in fact, perfectly safe. All this does is make you look like a coward.

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[snowgirl]

they provide conclusive proof that the Heartland Institute promoted systematic criminal fraud, corrupted science and effectively engaged in treasonous activity.

This is a statement of fact. That it is prefixed with "My read on the documents is that..." does not magically turn that statement of fact into opinion.

So you have to actually accuse Heartland of 'systematic criminal fraud'....

You're confused... in fact, actually, you have to not accuse someone of a criminal act, as an accusation is protected, rather you have to state that Heartland committed an illegal act as a fact.

And seriously, you don't think his statement is credible? If a newspaper prints, "Person XY entered the house and raped the 47-year-old victim at 12:00", then it can be sued for libel. Until Person XY is convicted, you cannot make assertions of fact like that.

Your initial assertion has no libelous substance whatsoever. I suspect that you are aware of that, which is why you are making bold-sounding statements which are, in fact, perfectly safe. All this does is make you look like a coward.

If you want to get on this then, "Heartland Institute has promoted systematic criminal fraud, corrupted science and engaged in activities that are detrimental to the public good, and these papers prove it."

Fine, there. Happy now? OOooooo... I can paraphrase another person's statements of fact into a clearer statement of fact. (Note, I don't think they've committed treasonous activities, because it does not fit the Constitutional definition of treason... and besides, who's going to get two people confessing to treason in the same act?)

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[forkfail]

Wow. Getting called a coward by an anonymous coward.

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...If you want to get on this then, "Heartland Institute has promoted systematic criminal fraud, corrupted science and engaged in activities that are detrimental to the public good, and these papers prove it."...

And now you only have to make that statement credible. At the moment it has about the same credibility as claiming that you have been abducted by an alien. You still seem to have difficulty with the basic concept of Libel.

'Corrupting science' and 'detrimental to the public good' are value judgments which cannot be the subject of libel. So I suggest that you stay with something like 'systematic criminal fraud'.

An accusation is NOT 'protected' in any way. I don't know why you made that up. Accusations have to come with a justification, which then allows them to be fair comment, assuming that the justification is made in good faith - that is why you will often see the villain in movies say to the hero: "If you don't stop making these BASELESS accusations I will sue you for slander...".

  In this case, let us assume that you are accusing Heartland of 'criminal fraud' - this is a bit vague to be an obvious libel, since we can claim almost any vague justification. I suggest that you make your accusation more precise, citing the actual action and part of the strategy document that provides the justification (in your eyes). It has to be the strategy document, since that is the one Heartland have said is false. If you simply take the documents which specify the Heartland spend and claim that these 'prove that they are working against science', this could easily be construed as 'fair comment'.

I am not sure how you would come up with 'criminal fraud'. The strategy document suggests that some kind of conspiracy charge might be more believable, and hence credible. And to make it more solid, you should add a statement to your accusation along the lines of: "I know that they have stated that this document is a fake, but they're lying...."

That should do it. You can see that it is actually rather difficult to make a clear-cut intentional libel, which is why people can generally say what they like on comment boards without fear of legal comeback. And even a single assertion might not be deemed sufficiently damaging by the courts, since such things are often sorted out by apologies. Repeated assertions are probably necessary to indicate an intention to damage someones reputation - ideally setting up your own web site to make the accusation.

Hope that helps?

Re:Here iz me commenting on ur leaked docz.

[snowgirl]

Dude, you're coming across as a fucking idiot, and you appear to be armchair lawyering, and doing a miserable job of it.

Defamation doesn't need to be credible in general, the falsehood just has to be acted upon. Namely, ONLY ONE PERSON has to believe it, and have it color their actions with regard to the person subject to the defamation, in such a way that it causes them injury.

In many states, suggesting that a single woman is unchaste, or that a married woman has had an affair is defamation per se, in that you don't even have to prove damages, credibility, or anything like that. "Did you say it?" and "Is it true?" are really the only two relevant questions at that point.

In fact, a google search for "defamation credible" and "defamation credibility" turn up nothing suggesting that the falsehood has to be credible. Because again, you cannot normally sue for defamation until you have suffered harm, at that point, any doubt about "credibility" is worthless, because someone HAS ALREADY ACTED UPON THE DEFAMATION, thus proving the credibility per se. Naturally if you cannot prove harm, then you would have to be able to prove that the claim was, is, or will be likely to be acted upon, which is perhaps where you're getting this "credibility" crap.

And this notion that a vague statement can get you out of a defamation suit is also completely bogus. "Criminal fraud" is a specific claim, and can be proved sufficiently false, or true. If I were to claim that you were a burglar, or a felon, it would clearly impart a defamatory opinion about you to a third party. It doesn't matter what the felony involved in the burglary was, or what the even more generic felony was for, it doesn't matter that it is vague. It's fucking bad enough to make a 3rd party take a harmful action towards you. Specifically, Alice is applying for a job with Bob. Charlie tells Bob that Alice is a felon, despite Alice never having committed a felony. Bob then declines to hire Alice, due to a belief that she is a felon. Voila, textbook defamation. No need to prove "credibility" because the information was already acted upon, and despite being a ridiculously vague assertion of facts, Charlie still clearly committed defamation. (Unless Alice is a public figure, in which can she would have to prove that Charlie knew the information to be false, or recklessly failed to verify the assertion.)

Lastly, you can't use villains in movies for what they say, because movies commonly fuck up ALL jargon and terms, legal jargon and terms being no exception. This is especially true because the average person has no fucking clue about the technicalities of legal jargon and terms themselves. Your argument is tantamount to using Swordfish as evidence about a specific feature of computer hacking/cracking.

The one good point that you have is that I should have said that good-faith accusations are protected from defamation. This is primarily because claims made in the process of litigation and criminal trials are privileged from defamation claims. (However, they are not immune to perjury claims, but then those are actually even harder to prove than defamation anyways.)

Climategate policy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lessons: Disagreement over the causes, consequences, and best policy responses to climate change runs deep. We understand that.

But honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours. As a matter of common decency and journalistic ethics, we ask everyone in the climate change debate to sit back and think about what just happened."

They're right, of course. But I wonder if their condemnation was as strong over the "Climategate" affair.

Incidentally, from their website

[Kupfernigk]

Those persons who posted these documents and wrote about them before we had a chance to comment on their authenticity should be ashamed of their deeds, and their bad behavior should be taken into account when judging their credibility now and in the future.

Presumably they have the same attitude to the leaked University of East Anglia emails, and have campaigned to have the people responsible for the leak, and the many, many denialists who misrepresented their contents, taken to court.

Re:Incidentally, from their website

[demonlapin]

The authenticity of the UEA emails was not, I believe, ever in question. That's the fig leaf they're trying on.

Re:Incidentally, from their website

[oiron]

From the moment of the leak, to the moment of confirmation, one could argue that the authenticity was in doubt.

UEA, not being a lobbying "institute", did the decent thing and stated in public that the mails were authentic, the moment that they were able to verify that. As far as I remember, they didn't really threaten to sue anyone for merely commenting on the documents...

Heartland Institute Corruption?

[andydread]

I would seem that the Heartland institute is a truly corrupt entity. The Heartland institute cannot expect to stifle discussion of their seemingly corrupt behaviour. The Heartland institute must not have heard of the Streisand Effect. Maybe the Heartland institute should get a a clue and stop trying to squelch discussion. Its funny that the Heartland institute is trying to squelch speech yet the Heartland institute claims to be for free speech. The Heartland institutewere at the front of the line waving internal documents of climate scientists. Yet The Heartland institute is now threatening to sue anyone who discusses their internal Documents. Such pathetic doublestandards highlight the hypocrisy of the Heartland institute A poster child for corruption.

Re:Heartland Institute Corruption?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there :) Good job :)

Sue me

[2Y9D57]

So sue me. If the district court judges here can stop laughing long enough, they'll sanction your lawyer and award me costs.

My comments on these documents:

[thisnamestoolong]

FUCK YOU HEARTLAND INSTITUTE. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK. YOU.

Whew... Now that that is off my chest...

This is completely unacceptable. We really ought to have laws in place to smack down people that try to use the legal system to suppress protected speech -- this type of prosecution, regardless of the ultimate outcome, causes great harm to the people that are caught up in it. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to defend yourself, which is financially ruinous to the average person. This creates a chilling effect on free speech, which we really cannot allow if we want to remain free. I honestly believe that the people from the Heartland Institute belong behind bars for even attempting such a thing. So, in short, fuck off Heartland Institute. Keep your shit-digging hands off of my civil liberties. Even if you weren't a braindead anti-science piece of shit of an organization, I would think that it is time for you to go. The fact that everything your institute stands for is a huge, fat, retarded lie does not help your case.

Re:My comments on these documents:

[Hentes]

This is completely unacceptable. We really ought to have laws in place to smack down people that try to use the legal system to suppress protected speech

The easiest such law would be the protection of free speech. Sadly, free speech isn't implemented in its ideal form anywhere, and this is a fine example how libel/slander laws can be used to silence the opposition.

Re:My comments on these documents:

[ninetyninebottles]

This is completely unacceptable. We really ought to have laws in place to smack down people that try to use the legal system to suppress protected speech -- this type of prosecution, regardless of the ultimate outcome, causes great harm to the people that are caught up in it.

The crime is called "barratry" and there are numerous state laws as well as the federal SLAPP act.

Re:My comments on these documents:

[phantomfive]

We really ought to have laws in place to smack down people that try to use the legal system to suppress protected speech

We do. See for example, the anti-SLAPP laws in California. If it gets really out of hand the lawyer can be disbarred. See, for example, Jack Thompson, one of the most entertaining people alive. Though unintentionally.

Re:My comments on these documents:

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, why hold back. Why dont you say what truly feel? :-)

Re:My comments on these documents:

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK YOU HEARTLAND INSTITUTE. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK. YOU.

According to the Heartland Institute 'the individuals who have commented so far on this Slashdot story did not wait for Heartland to "like" the fucking article, or post a bitchy youtube video response to it. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages'".

Re:My comments on these documents:

[nobuddy]

Look up SLAPP and the various laws against it. It's already illegal... it just doesn't phase them.

Heartland Institute = propaganda machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Various groups want to convince the public that things which
might not be true are "facts".

So these groups fund "studies".

These groups do NOT care about the truth or the consequences
of acting on lie.

Vote accordingly, this November.

Re:Heartland Institute = propaganda machine

[turkeyfish]

The most troublesome aspect of the entire affair is that Koch Industries then gets a tax deduction for contributing to the non-profit Heartland Institute to do their PR for them.

I'm leaving Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm Anonymous Coward and I've been posting to slashdot from the very beginning.

However you lot have just become too fucking old. You've lost your idealism, and become shitty old men, which is why I'm moving to Reddit.
At first I was concerned by the lack of editors, but it's not like the editors here are worth a damn, and the new censorship system is just unacceptable. The mod system doesn't even go up to 11.

Well, it's been fun but fuck you all. And your mothers.
Good bye sirs.

Re:I'm leaving Slashdot

[Surt]

I for one will miss your 'first post's.
Farewell.

Re:I'm leaving Slashdot

[Legion303]

"which is why I'm moving to Reddit."

Enjoy your cat pictures.

Re:I'm leaving Slashdot

[MidGe]

"... which is why I'm moving to Reddit."

Yes, AC, but you have said that many times before!

SLAPP!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

Even worse, this isn't even the lawsuit, but the threat of the lawsuit. Does that count as racketeering?

From Internets to Heartland

[TemperedAlchemist]

Come at me bro.

As it turns out, we do know what burden of proof is. We know that you have it. And I am prepared and willing to watch yourself just try to violate the axiom of non-contradiction. Either they're your documents or they're not.

See there is this thing called the first amendment...

Always idiots...

[russotto]

OK, suppose everything Heartland says about the documents is true: someone leaked a bunch of real documents, and slipped a bogus "smoking gun" memo in there.

Any PR firm worth its salt could have a field day with that, portraying the Heartland Institute as the victim. Why would they then ruin it by making ridiculous statements implying it's an individual's legal obligation to fact check a document before commenting on it? Do they just have an institutional need to twirl their evil mustache?

Re:Always idiots...

[rrohbeck]

This.
They're acting exactly as if caught red-handed. They've been a professional PR organization in controversial fields and a hostile environment for decades and they can't spin this? Hmm.

Re:Always idiots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good point, and the reasoning another poster has already alluded to. They're in a panic, in damage control mode -- PR has gone out the window, they're trying to send a clear message; that anyone who lets the cat out of the bag any further is going to be on the bad end of their lawyers. They're hoping that will be enough to silence the entire Internet.

This should be entertaining. The "Heartland Institute," a rather high-and-mighty name for a group who's sole purpose is to quash scientific research that might actually _save_ the heartland.

Re:Always idiots...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

They're acting exactly as if caught red-handed. They've been a professional PR organization in controversial fields and a hostile environment for decades and they can't spin this? Hmm.

They are used to playing offense, not defense. I don't think it is a stretch to assume they have been caught off guard and, being humans, have reacted imperfectly under the stress of unexpected events.

Re:Always idiots...

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe that last leaked document is indeed a fake, and constitutes their spin on it: "if one of the documents is a proven fake, surely you'll believe us that the other leaked documents are fakes too and won't subpoena us for attempts to corrupt the education of your children".

Document already shown as fake.

[will_die]

There have been plenty of places that have shown the document is a false.
Here is one from a liberal source so some of you will not automatically ignore the truth http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[stevebyan]

Megan McArdle is not a liberal source. http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/08/04/under-pressure/

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[rahvin112]

Ah, there's your mistake. A liberal is obviously anyone that disagrees with someone that identifies as "conservative". Doesn't matter what they really think or do.

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you notice from reading just the words in your link, that page doesn't prove it's fake. What's more, there's faulty reasoning in the article.

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Column makes an excellent point. I don't understand why you had to make it seem less trustworthy than it is by taking the other extreme view point (that the article never takes): Nothing is "shown as fake" at this point -- there are strong indications that there's something wrong with the memo -- no sane person would use that as evidence of anyhting -- but there's no proof about it either way.

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[turkeyfish]

The fact that the document in question was faxed and does not bear the same PDF metadata as do other files means nothing with respect to whether or not the contents of the document are fake. Any Heartland employee could easily have prepared the document at an other location and printed it out before hand to fax it from a different location is hardly proof it is fake. If it were fake, why would a Heartland secretary have access to the document and bundled it with the others?

The McArdle articles are a very shoddy effort on the part of Heartland to try to make people believe the controversial document was a fake. This same "journalist" has a history of laundering up excuses and providing cover in other pro-corporate efforts to provide alternative PR.

Re:Document already shown as fake.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Colbert so nailed that one with, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

NO U, Heartland

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Heartland: I "believe [your] actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which WE THE PEOPLE should plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages". Your actions are roughly comparable to convincing residents of a burning building that it's not actually on fire and that they shouldn't evacuate or try to put out the fire. Fucking die, you worthless Christianist oil-whore scum.

How about the power of rumor?

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to deal with threats of libel suits is to present data from the documents as if they were rumors. Yes, the data will be less believed, but it will also be impossible to keep the data from spreading. And, of course, any data-item that gets proved-to-be-true simply reinforces the believability of all the other data items.

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[Moryath]

we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation.

Translation: we're going to sue everyone we possibly can, because the papers were correct, our position is publicly indefensible, and the only resource we have is lawyers and money to threaten people with like mafia leg-breakers.

This from the same money-laundering front group (I call them this as they REFUSE to disclose their donor list) who commissioned bogus "studies" to try to claim cigarette smoke isn't dangerous.

Another Bush discharge memo ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems the left is back with their old tactics. This time they did not used software written 20 years after the fact :-) Lie, lie and lie until believes in it. Uncle Stalin is proud of you !

JAM

Re:Another Bush discharge memo ?

[MightyMartian]

Two words.. Karl Rove.

This idea that only one side of the political spectrum takes part in dirty tricks is either a sign of some sort of mental disorder or in and of itself a dirty trick.

Nice font

[sjames]

I thought they chose a nice font for the documents.......DOH!!

open documents

[Skapare]

Any HONEST and HONORABLE institution should have nothing to hide. With all their working documents publicly available, this kind of thing would not happen. I have to conclude that Heartland does not meet this ideal.

Re:open documents

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the IPCC, for example...?

Re:open documents

[turkeyfish]

The IPCC to their credit wen back and did a thorough reevaluation of all of their work, removed incorrect statements and added new evidence. The result as far as global warming is concerned is that yes the planet is heating as a result of carbon dioxide pollution regardless of our previous errors, which as it turns out were relatively minor as borne out by subsequent independent investigations by scientists throughout the world.

I very much doubt that the Heartland Institute will do well by attempting to equate their methods with those of the IPCC, which are entirely open to the public.

Deceptionated, then accuses everyones.

[JCPM]

WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I think they may be stupid.

[RandomAvatar]

What they are asking is for those blogs etc. to censor themselves. Why not just ask them to append their statement to the posts, which will make their claims look more legitimate as well as making people not think they are hiding something devious.

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[ColdWetDog]

When you have the law in your favor, bang on the law,
When you have the facts in your favor, bang on the facts,
When you have neither the law nor the facts in your favor, bang on the table.

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[Moryath]

Right wing followup:
When you have neither the law, nor the facts, nor the table in your favor, get a lawyer to hold a gun to someone's back and tell your opponent to shut up or you'll bankrupt them in legal fees defending yourself anyways.

This is the problem of the current state of US law. It doesn't MATTER if you have the law in your favor, or the facts in your favor, provided the other side has enough money to make you waste all of yours defending yourself in court against spurious motions and threats.

It's the cover-up stupid!

[mrmtampa]

It's always the cover-up that brings them down, Perhaps they should hire a new PR firm.

Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Of speech. I don't think they can sue the world ;)

Re:Freedom

[turkeyfish]

That's obviously for the way for whoever intercepted these documents to play it. Post copies to foreign news outlets in countries like the UK, France, Australia and Japan with far healthier respect for the environment and then let the US news media pick up on the chatter via foreign websites and blogs. Nothing Heartland and its army of lawyers will be able to do about it, except perhaps if they want to transfer the entire Koch family fortune to their lawyers.

WHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[JCPM]

They wanted extracting more latter proofs accusing to each accusee without the previous former proofs of the possible deception that they got.

So that, they dislike to follow the legal procedure of "DON'T ACCUSE THEM WITHOUTH PROOFS ON THE HAND".

JCPM: peoples shouldn't fear themselves about those accussers that provoked a generalized PANIC to the slashdot community!

How many more blogs?

[Walter White]

I think I need to start another blog. Where do I find these documents so I can comment on them?

Re:How many more blogs?

[turkeyfish]

See above.

The big picture

[metrometro]

Think about this: how committed to individual liberty is a group that threatens civil and criminal penalties for discussing their donor list?

The Heartland Institute calls themselves a "libertarian think tank" which is rarely disputed. However, they are actually a pro-corporate think tank. This involves a lot of libertarian language and theory, but all of it is aimed at crippling government regulations over their donors. This works very well. It does not, however, advance the libertarian agenda or discussion in useful ways. They are shaping the discussion of liberty along frames they find useful, but have the effect of isolating and stupifying the libertarian movement. The result is bipartisan consensus on the Patriot Act. SOPA. TARP.

Pro-corporate think tanks and their government allies will never be able to have a conversation about state capture, the role of corporate institutions in individual liberty, or free individuals as a curb on corporate excess because a corporate-run tyranny is their preferred outcome. Libertarian-leaning people need to point this out, loudly and often, or they will continue to us for ends we do not support.

Re:The big picture

[digsbo]

Thank you! The "Heartland Institute" is not in any way libertarian or free-market; it is clearly crony capitalist, big-government. Frankly, you see even the CATO institute and the Libertarian Party ignoring Ron Paul because he's "too" libertarian (even though his policies are much more mainstream than most of his supporters' philosophies). And the CATO crowd is, effectively, a GOP-lite variant of mainstream republican attitudes. Big government plus legal pot, I think. Whereas Heartland Institute is big government, playing to a particular set of large corporations.

People actually think that the bank bailouts were a product of the free market. The level of wanton ignorance required to believe this is simply astounding.

Re:The big picture

[Black Parrot]

Think about this: how committed to individual liberty is a group that threatens civil and criminal penalties for discussing their donor list?

The Heartland Institute calls themselves a "libertarian think tank" which is rarely disputed. However, they are actually a pro-corporate think tank. This involves a lot of libertarian language and theory, but all of it is aimed at crippling government regulations over their donors. This works very well. It does not, however, advance the libertarian agenda or discussion in useful ways.

This is what "libertarian" has become in the USA. Republicans without the pretence of being on God's advisory panel.

Re:The big picture

[turkeyfish]

Makes one wonder how many other non-profits are using $100,000 anonymous donations to fund their activities. Someone at the IRS ought to take a good very hard look at their next filing. There may be money under the table here that could be unreported. Its not often most folks accept $100,000 anonymous donations for doing educational development for K-12. Heartland Institute seems to have a different set of standards.

And when someone shows up at there offices

[Anonymous Coward]

To harm people they always wonder why it happened.

Maybe the forge is a strategy?

[future assassin]

so when they get sued the lawyers will request the real copies from Heartland. So Heartland will commit suicide.

Reading their web page

[Kupfernigk]

They can't hire a new PR firm, because I don't think they have one to replace or add to. Any decent PR company would look at that piece on their website and cover it in red ink. It reads as if it has been written by an intern, and that may be unfair to some interns. "Their bad behaviour should be taken into account..." Obviously written by someone who has yet to meet a real, live journalist.

Re:Reading their web page

[turkeyfish]

They can't hire a PR firm, because they are a PR firm for Koch Industries.

I WANT TO BE SUED

[glorybe]

I hasten to offend in every way I can the Heartland Institute. I hope they spend a vast fortune trying to sue me. I'm willing to do most anything to expose these creeps and could care less whether I win or lose a law suit with them. Fact is I am immune from bad consequences to a civil court. I intend to remain immune as well. In my state a person on Social Security, disabled who only owns one home and one vehicle can not be touched by a civil suit. So if these think tank types wish me to let up on them they better give me a small fortune so i would feel some sorrow if they win in court. I think these creeps rape babies. They might be the ones who murdered that Ramsey child. They might even have murdered Nicole Simpson. Worse yet I suspect they are Republicans.

QFT

[Anonymous Coward]

Taken from Heartland's website (and the article in question):

...Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems...

I guess by "free-market solutions" they assume "free to threaten freedom of speech and the press." I guess they never heard of opinion and belief and reaction as a plausible defense for criticism.

Re:QFT

[turkeyfish]

No, by "free-market solutions" they are referring to Koch Industries bottom line.

Thankfully, it can be proven!

[celtic_hackr]

Thank goodness the Feds got the printer and scanner makers to put those tiny yellow dots on printouts! Now we can use that information to find the serial number of the Epson scanner and find the hacker... oops... Heartland employee...oops...?... who created that document.

Or vice versa. In any case, whoever did the scannin' is the one who will get blamed for doin' the deed of releasin'...err stealin'... err ...?

Well anyway we know, something. But we're not quite sure what and we can't really talk about it \'cause Heartland seyz it's illegal maybe, and we'll all go to jail for 50 years, or somethin'. And doooon't yoooou forget it! Babaloooie!

Of course if it makes it to the Internet, it MUST be TRUE!

Re:Thankfully, it can be proven!

[turkeyfish]

Unfortunately, the thief was apparently smart enough to photocopy the documents and then pass them through a filter. Poof, no yellow dots.

The problem for Heartland is these guys got caught with their pants down and revealed they have quite a few less inches than they were claiming.

No real evidence that they are forged.

[Geoffrey.landis]

There is actually a pretty significant amount of evidence it's faked. ...

No, what you listed is merely evidence that the pdfs were not all produced at the same time.

This is interesting, but has no relevance to whether it's faked or not. There is no reason that real documents might not have been pdf'd at different times.

...The problem for Heartland is that they're acting like dicks toward a lot of people, when they should be upending heaven and hell to find the [putative] memo forger and crucifying him for libel.

Which brings up an interesting question. When somebody broke into the CRU and published (what turned out to be a highly edited selection of) stolen e-mail, the response of "let's upend heaven and hell to find the thieves" did not seem to be high on anybody's priority list. So, apparently, it's only an important crime if you steal documents from people denying the science?

Re:No real evidence that they are forged.

[demonlapin]

I don't really care about Heartland either way. I was just saying what I would be doing in their place.

Re:No real evidence that they are forged.

[turkeyfish]

Bingo.

Nobody did expect riots in Hearthland.

[JCPM]

Nobody did expect riots in Hearthland [ Institute ]. Right? Or left?

Will Heartland Institute Sue Associated Press

[DERoss]

See http://news.yahoo.com/influence-game-leaks-show-groups-climate-efforts-210616751.html.

Shameless Denier

[buttfuckinpimpnugget]

I'm a full on denier, skeptics are pussies. The money spent by/on so called deniers is a small fraction of what the agw crowd gets. But fuck these guy's. Guess I'm gonna have to host these documents now.

Re:Gee whiz Dr. Doolittle

[Anonymous Coward]

1) There was no need to wait because the authenticity of those documents was never challenged.

2) If you haven't noticed, (and obviously no one at /. has...) the discussion of anything that detracts from the acknowledgment of climate change and/or the need to address its likely effects is the exactly what the Heartland Institute strives to achieve.

Congratulations all you /.r'ers you're might as well start sending your membership dues, or perhaps you'd like to send the money straight to the Koch brothers so they can allocate your political donations to their 'proper' choice of candidates, super PACs or clandestine extrajudicial international activities.

In short

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, if you accept human-caused climate changes this is simply fodder for you. Just like Climategate was for those who do not accept it. *YAWN*

Re:Compare

[TaoPhoenix]

Why would they need to read them to compare them? Isn't that what text comparison methods are for? Maybe file comparison methods would work too.

Does Heartland think there are multiple versions of the same document floating around which is why they're hedging?

But I thought they were nice heartland people

[KingTank]

Good folksy, homey people from the heartland with good hearts who love their families and are good, wholesome and folksy and wear cowboy hats and say "god bless" all the time.

Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

How foolish. If you could do that, then you could sue anyone for commenting on anything because you can never really confirm anything. Anyone who understands language, epistemology, and how we structure reality at the fault lines of belief clash. Wow, these people are fucking morons.

Re:Discredited climate science

[mbkennel]

Name something they have published in a journal which is "discredited".

Re:Fake?

[turkeyfish]

The entire thesis of the Megan McArdle's two pieces rests on the assumption that the metadata associated with the pdf is several time zones away from the Heartland institute and hence, is a forgery. The problem with this line of reasoning is obvious, since any Heartland employee producing the memo could have been elsewhere when they created the PDF and then emailed it. The fact that the time posted on the metadata are not the same is hardly proof of anything in regard to the authenticity of the document's contents, although I can understand why someone might be willing to argue so if enough money exchanged hands.

Re:Gee whiz Dr. Doolittle

[Pluvius]

1) There was no need to wait because the authenticity of those documents was never challenged.

You do realize that this begs the question, right? Since the denialists immediately trumpeted the Climategate emails as authentic, how could there have been a chance for any question of authenticity to arise? This is exactly what the Heartland Institute is criticizing now, that "the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents." The fact that the Climategate emails did indeed turn out to be authentic is irrelevant to this hypocritical argument.

Rob

The irony of those pro-tort reform candy butts....

[sgt_doom]

...always ranting and raving for tort reform, but always the first wussies to threaten everyone with a lawsuit, when clearly they have broken the law.

Re:Discredited climate science

[turkeyfish]

And of course you can point us to your peer reviewed rebuttals of their work, which we all eagerly await.

Good Luck, I'm behind SEVEN Proxies

[Anonymous Coward]

Sue me, I'm commenting on it right now. DOOOO EEEET :3

Re:Characteristics of a Conspiracy Theory

[riverat1]

And your post is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy theory.

Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[tgibbs]

Another plausible scenario is that that one document was leaked first, in the form of a paper copy (or scan of one), and it was the information of that document that inspired those who received it to seek further corroborative evidence via "social engineering."

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[demonlapin]

The "strategy memo" is, from what I have read, dated on the afternoon before this was all released. I suppose your scenario might apply if it was dated even a few days earlier, but 3:41 pm Pacific is 5:41 pm Central - i.e., Heartland's offices would almost certainly have been closed. And that strategy memo, which is the one whose authenticity is most suspect, is also the one that makes the broadest, most vilifying claims (about preventing teachers from teaching science, or the megabucks from the Evil Kochs to trash talk global warming, or the journalists who are supposedly in their pockets). In at least one case - the Koch funding - it's clearly contradicted by the other documents, so if you want to be a responsible journalist you'd have to question your source's reliability when the document with the juiciest information isn't supported by anything else.

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[dr2chase]

I think we've got little-to-no useful information, either way. That strategy memo could also have been a paper copy in someone's hands, scanned at the last minute. And it might have been paper, not emailed around, because everyone knows you're not supposed to plot world domination, monopoly, or the destruction of Los Angeles over email (or text message, or on Facebook, or Twitter). I'm not claiming that any of this is the case, merely that there's decently reasonable explanations for a lot of these discrepancies (at least, based on what I've heard).

The way we find out, is IF Heartland sues. Lawsuit provokes discovery, meaning we get more information -- unless, of course, there's a mysterious hard drive crash at Heartland the day before they file their suit.

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[demonlapin]

Discovery is limited and depends on what they sue for. It's not carte blanche to investigate anything and everything they've ever written. If they don't make an issue out of the ones that pretty much everyone thinks are genuine, but instead only focus on the strategy memo, it's probably not going to tell us much of anything.

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[turkeyfish]

Keep in mind the Koch donations are not secrets revealed in the memos nor are the activities described in the memos secret either. They just don't want them to be seen as stemming from internal memos.

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[dbIII]

i.e., Heartland's offices would almost certainly have been closed

Am I the only one here who went to work on Sunday? What sort of sheltered life are you guys leading that you cannot conceive of anyone woking late?

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[silentcoder]

Not to mention, if you're going to sneak into the office, grab a document that's internal-only, scan it, put it back, and email it out...

Well wouldn't you WANT to do that on a day when the office is as empty as possible ?

Re:Or perhaps they were leaked at different times

[tgibbs]

Another plausible scenario is that that one document was leaked first, in the form of a paper copy (or scan of one), and it was the information of that document that inspired those who received it to seek further corroborative evidence via "social engineering."

Looks like I may have guessed right. Peter Gleick has now admitted that he received one document through the mail, and obtained the emails himself by misrepresenting his identity in order to confirm the information in the document that he was sent.

Godwin's Law Has Struck

[ios and web coder]

Just Sayin'...

ad nazium...

I Found the Fake Document!

[LifesABeach]

There's a personal email that states the sender caused his spouse to reach that moment of joy, because she said so.

my contribution to the general chaos

[Anonymous Coward]

I have absolutely NO clue who or what Heartland is/are.
I have even less idea what data they may have or have had, or of any leak.
BUT, now I have commented, so I shudder in fear under my stairs, awaiting the steel-capped boots with SWAT guns....

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost forgot to add: GOD DAMNIT OBAMA WANTS TO BAN ME FROM BUYING GUNS AND DRIVING DOWN THE HIGHWAY GUZZLING WHISKEY AND SHOOTING AT THEM ILLEGAL MEXICANS!!!

Or maybe "them right wing masters paid to have an illegal kenyan muzlim put in the white house to destroy mah country ah want mah country back where we can kick the niggers out and keep em out of school and shoot the gays and nobody says anything."

Yes.

[s-whs]

Because only one document is scanned. And the one document that's scanned is scanned almost a month after everything else. And the one document that's scanned a month after everything else is the only one that uses inflammatory language like preventing people from "teaching science". It looks fake to me. There's plenty of stuff in the documents that are basically acknowledged as real to let people know how they work, and who they support, and where their money comes from... but the hot, sexy stuff just isn't there. Does your organization work like this? Unsigned, undated memos to people who aren't listed are scanned in from printouts to be put in the corporate file even though everything else you generate goes direct to PDF?

If I were an dishonest organisation out to influence an manipulate then yes of course, all the saucy stuff would never be kept as PDFs only as hardcopy/eyes only.

So these arguments that it's a PDF from scans in my view make it not less real. Specific type of language is also meaningless because esp. in such documents which are 'inflammatory', people (the one/ones writing it) tend to write in their own style, not a 'house style'. Therefore the argument that this Megan McArdle gave is not an argument at all.

Re:Yes.

[demonlapin]

The conspiracy keeps getting deeper...

esp. in such documents which are 'inflammatory', people (the one/ones writing it) tend to write in their own style

So you have a lot of experience with writing inflammatory documents that are eyes-only?

Re:Yes.

[demonlapin]

Actually, to take a slightly different tack from my previous reply:

Is there anything that could be put on paper that would make you say "You know what, that just doesn't sound right. Nobody talks about themselves like that"? This memo appears to be sourced from somewhere completely different from everything else - the vast majority of the stuff was printed directly to PDF in their main office (Chicago?), and emailed out by a staffer, while this was ostensibly scanned in to a PDF by someone at Heartland (because if a hard copy were leaked, I would expect to see it). That doesn't, by itself, make it a fake. But you do have to at least consider that it might be a fake. So what would it take to convince you, short of someone standing up in public and saying "I faked it! They never said it!"? After all, it disagrees with the other funding documents that were released.

Re:Yes.

[turkeyfish]

Its fairly easy to substantiate that the contents of the memo are probably genuine, since the Heartland employee receiving the $200,000 would not be known to be doing what the memo says he is doing. More revealing will be whether now that this is in the open, whether the Heartland Institute will back off its "educational" plans. Surely, journalists in Chicago will have far more to say on that in the coming days.

Re:Yes.

[demonlapin]

Well, some contents of the memo are almost certainly true - they're substantiated by other documents that were released. But the Koch funding level wasn't accurately described, and neither was the purpose of the Koch donation (health care, not GW). And the phrases that everyone seized on last week - like keeping teachers from "teaching science" - aren't substantiated by the other documents. All the comments about journalists aren't in the other stuff at all.

In other words, if you desperately opposed Heartland, and set out to try to make them look as bad as possible, using the other documents that were released as your only sources, you'd write something that looks almost exactly like this memo. You wouldn't put any names in, because you don't want it to be provably wrong. You'd throw in a lot of trivially true, verifiable things to give yourself a veneer of accuracy. Is that what happened here? I don't know, and the only people who know for sure are those who work at Heartland and, if it is actually faked, the faker. But I'm strongly inclined to believe that's what happened here.

Re:Yes.

[silentcoder]

>So you have a lot of experience with writing inflammatory documents that are eyes-only?

I don't know... does "hot sex chat e-mails" count as "inflamatory" ?

Extortion, Blackmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Extortion - Neither extortion nor blackmail require a threat of a criminal act, such as violence, merely a threat used to elicit actions, money, or property from the object of the extortion. Such threats include the filing of reports (true or not) of criminal behavior to the police, revelation of damaging facts (such as pictures of the object of the extortion in a compromising position), etc. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups.

Blackmail - It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats for the purposes of taking the person's money or property. It is the name of a statutory offence in the United States, England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Victoria,

Both from wikipedia

Re:Characteristics of a Cult

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti Global Warming trolls are a cult now?

Fuckers won't even follow their own bible

[Anonymous Coward]

Matthew 5:40

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

Matthew 5:44

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Beauty may only be skin deep, but hypocrisy goes all the way to the soul; if you believe in such.

The crooked persuading the...

[Paracelcus]

The crooked persuading the stupid that up is really down, Adam & Eve were real and climate change is a fairy tale!

Why is the future of humanity important?

[turkeyfish]

The authenticity of the documents seems not to have deterred British Newspapers, who are all over this see for example:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/15/leaked-heartland-institute-documents-climate-scepticism

Which has republished the original document in question:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/heartland_k-12_curriculum.jpg

A rather chilling read, when you consider the amount of money their sponsors are pouring into this effort.

The depth of the Climate Denier Conspiracy will continue to be big news as more and more of its internal operations are exposed and as the climate continues to grow warmer.

Why is the future of humanity important?

[turkeyfish]

That is their claim. However, it will now be a lot harder for them to fake whether or not Dr. David Wojick gets his $200,000 gift from the Anonymous Donor to Heartland Institute for his anti-science "modules" to be directed at elementary and high school students and their teachers. People are going to be watching.

Yes, officer ...

[PPH]

... I can identify the guilty party. It was Guy Fawkes. He came in, made a comment and then ran off, laughing.

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[baegucb]

Sort of how this billionaire supporter of Romney does it when papers or websites investigate him: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/19/billionaire_romney_donor_uses_threats_to_silence_critics/singleton/

Publicity

[Anonymous Coward]

The Heartland Institute aren't going to be quiet on this.
1> The mainstream will not debate the science. This gives the Heartland Institute a chance to debate the science in court. Expect them to win, they usually do in open debate.
2> The whole episode illustrates that the Heartland Institute runs on very little, illustrating how effective it's message is. The AGW mainstream science and associated lobbies attracts many billions of dollars, including donations from most major corporations and governments. The HI runs on a few million dollars a year, almost nothing. And the left-wing mainstream is scared of HI, despite the mainstream's immense wealth.

The Heartland Institute Donor List

[Anonymous Coward]

No less than 4 people have access to this computer, plus all the extra computers, and the door is unlocked so the neighbors can come in when they like.

So, in no particular order, I give you the names I remember overhearing who are donors:

Planned Parenthood
PETA
Barack Obama
Orrin Hatch
Newt Gingrich
Rahm Emanuel (King of Small Penises)
Dr Michael Greene (Jester of Small Penises)
Hugo Chavez
Amway
Google
Oberweis
Apple
Sony
Hitachi
Simon & Schuster
The Koch Brothers (Feeble and Droopy both, funding lies, deceit, and pretty much Everything Evil while keeping Mostly Under the Radar)
Heritage Foundation
Greenpeace (helping you think we're doing anything but buddying up to government for over 30 years!)
George Bush
Richard "Wiggles" Cheney
Johnson & Johnson
General Motors
Goldman Sachs
J.P. Morgan
Jimmy "The Hoff" Hoffa
Jessie Ventura
Al Franken
Dan Rather
Justin Bieber
NPR
Wolfram Institute
Nike (who doesn't want you to know they own Cole Haan)
The Family (pretentious Christians, like the Mormons only with more wives and altar boys per man!)
Mormons (more of us running your life than you care to think about!)
Campus Crusade For Christ
The FCC
Berkshire Hathaway
Haliburton
Balihurton
Bally's
Starcom Media
Raytheon (We make missiles, yes we do! Your tax dollars, fuck you too!)
Boeing
Facebook
AT&T
Verizon
Playboy Enterprises
Harley Davidson
GM
Miller

That's all I overheard. It's just speculation but it seemed worthwhile to pass on. So many donors, so little time!

Re:The Heartland Institute Donor List

[Eunuchswear]

The joke is...

You are actualy right for some of these.

Yes, GM donated to Heartland - who then whine about "Government Motors".

Re:Characteristics of a Cult

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you miss this is the tip of a very large iceburg of deception, pulled off by our one party Repubmocrat system. In power in it's present form for more than a century. Slowly eroding our freedoms till they have a nation of subjects to offer as security on the debt that empowers them. Suckers!

Re:Characteristics of a Conspiracy Theory

[silentcoder]

Considering that actual conspiracies can and do happen - there is absolutely no reason to believe a conspiracy theory that is otherwise supported by the known facts is false.
The degree and veracity of said facts are the only measure for it's probability. If one of those facts is "a well-funded lobby group with a 40 year history of politically acting against science that could harm the profitability of the clients*" then a conspiracy theory has an even stronger balance of probability.

Now that doesn't prove it true. It doesn't prove it false. But it does mean that we should consider seriously the possibility that it may be true.

*Perfect summary of heartland: the same group was once the most vocal denialists of the link between smoking and cancer.

You are all going to be sued!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all going to be sued! We told ya so!

5:41 pm Central Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely, the Heartland offices were closed! Global-warming deniers always make the links by 3 pm!

Fuck em

[alfredo]

Their profit does not take precedence over our survival.

Suck it , biotch

[WOOFYGOOFY]

You need to get on your hands and knees and fucking suck it, biotch. It's called being in the public eye and you have exactly ZERO legal recourse towards the people who exposing what scum you are using the memos because you're a PUBLIC entity in the PUBLIC eye and your ability to sue people for talking about what a bunch of fucking scum sucking mass homicide planning sub human degenerate predator animals you are is exactly ZERO.

Holy fuckin' shit it's fuckin' the first annual national DRAW fuckin' Heritage fuckin' Foundation day!!!!

I am short my crayons just now but picture Paul Weyrich with his dick up Edwin Feulner ass while he's being sucked off by Joseph Coors whose micro-phallic situation is on full display.

and Paul is saying to Edwin "say, let's wipe out half of human civilization and start this whole damn thing over with me an' you at the helm.."

and Edwin replies

Oh JESUS FUCK yeah , the ol' fuckin' Pol Pot Zero Day approach .. I fuckin' love it! Just start civilization over and make it go the RIGHT way this time HAW HAW HAW HAW...Kill the intellectuals and scientists first !!!! If it wears glasses and can read, it's a lefty! Kill em all! "

And then Joseph Coors pipes in "see my little dicklet? This is why I have to buy whores because no woman on the face of the earth would fuck me unless I paid her".

Fucking people talking about you online is going to be the LEAST of your problems. After the 114th US Congress passes the National SuperCrimes Bill of 2020 and the Torture Prohibition Repeal Act of 2020 designating any crime that effects millions of people a SuperCrime and permitting torture be used as a form of punishment, you'll be lucky if everyone who ever funded you and everyone in your organization from the President down to the fucking copyboy of your shithole lying cesspool "think tank" isn't last seen being reduced at the hands of the US Government to a reddened mass of flesh in some fucking DOD Dungeon crawling along the stone floor dragging 15 feet of your best intestines behind you and begging, pleading, squealing like a fucking pig not for mercy, but for the release death would bring.

Suck it bitch. Suck it.

Not Working

[Anonymous Coward]

The orginal docs are still up with the comments and analysis and now everyone is commenting on HI's intimidation & terror campain against the world.

Basically every news organization across the planet is saying F**K YOU HI.

Fakes being sold as true docs

[Anonymous Coward]

If I put out a fake document stating that you are a child molester and you said "it is a fake" and I keep commenting with it as if it is real then I am open to legal action.

The proof that it is real is completely on those saying it is. Prove it is real. You can not expect the accused to prove it is false. If they say it is false then it is up to those who say it is real to prove it. That is basic legal 101 stuff.

Desmog put it out within 2 hours of getting it and didn't bother to check if it was real. They will now end up funding the heartland institute unless they can prove it is real or withdraw their accusations. They played this very badly and now retract or pay are their options.

The raging ironoy of it all

[nobuddy]

I find it highly amusing that people are questioning the data based on minor irrelevant circumstantial data when the subject is an organization that makes sweeping generalizations denying proof based on minor irrelevant circumstantial data.

Or the Los Angeles Times?

[DERoss]

Today's (20 Feb) edition -- print and online -- of the Los Angeles Times contains an unsigned editorial (thus, the official opinion of the newspaper itself) condemning the Heartland Institute. The editorial notes that, even if the document whose authenticity is being disputed is a forgery, other Heartland documents that are authentic also discuss the planting of school curricula that deny the existence of global climate change caused by human activities.

See http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-climate-20120220,0,3564279.story.

Where was the angst?

[oDDmON oUT]

Heartland concludes their attributable post with "But honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours. As a matter of common decency and journalistic ethics, we ask everyone in the climate change debate to sit back and think about what just happened."

My question to them?

Where was that same call for reasoned response in 2009? (http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/)

Do you people even read?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you people even read the notice sent? The Heartland Institute clearly state that the one document is a fraud and the others are under investigation.

http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy

Dear Mr. DeMelle:

On or about February 14, 2012, your web site posted a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” (the “Fake Memo”), which is fabricated and false.

On or about the same date, your web site posted certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute (“Heartland”). Heartland has not authenticated these documents (the “Alleged Heartland Documents”).

Re:reputation? you never HAD one, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the right realize if they get the tort reform they so desire, these lawsuits will no longer be possible?

Things are Warming Up?

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth has been warming for sixteen thousand years. The rest is distraction regardless of left vs. right. Its not recent at all.

And now for the latest...

[lego_boy_aus]

Looks like the source of the release has identified himself:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/-the-origin-of-the-heartl_b_1289669.html

It would appear from this that there is a high likelyhood that all except one of the documents is genuine.

Of course, there's no indication (as yet) that the "Climate strategy" is not a part of the original documents, but given that one document was received from an anonomous source, and Heartland deny that this specific item originated from them, it'd be interesting to know where it originated from.

Looks like the rest of the documents are probably authentic, though.

Re:And now for the latest...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Looks like the rest of the documents are probably authentic, though...."

As Heartland said. Too bad that the genuine documents don't make Heartland look bad at all, while the faked document is obviously intended as a smear. And it's a member of the 'Pacific Institute' who has performed this illegal act.

Kind of goes to show who the real heroes and villains are in this little episode. And it looks like the vast majority of slashdotters are backing lies and criminal activity over the truth. Funny, that....

Couple good reads from Warren Meyer...

[rayvd]

Skeptic, but his perspective and analysis is spot-on:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/02/heartland-documents-whose-biases-are-being-revealed-here.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/21/peter-gleick-admits-to-stealing-heartland-documents/

Does this really reveal anything nefarious about anyone other than the clergy of the Church of Global Warming? It rightly *is* the goal of the skeptical community to combat the hysteria with both science and by exposing the lack of trustworthiness of those who would have us sink our hard earned money into this far from settled theory.

If anything, this has now backfired and truly exposed how the tide is turning in the AGW debate.

threats, threats, more threats

[KingBenny]

at least they're all doing a perfectly good job of making everyone insensitive, is that a dare perhaps ? maybe someone missed the memo on what's been waking up the past few years? Do those people look like they are sensitive to threats? I think not

Well..

[Galestar]

I better not comment then.

...crap

Sue me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that their documents show a flawed strategy.

Now that I've commented on the documents, are you going to subpoena /. for my IP address, then subpoena my employer to find out who I am, sue me for the comment, sue my employer because I'm posting from their computer using their internet access, and sue /. for hosting my comment? GLWT. If you were Scientologists, I might believe you have a slim chance of doing any of that.

Location, location, location

[biodata]

Or someone may have changed the timezone in the OS they used to construct the PDF, inadvertently or deliberately, or they may not have changed the timezone in the OS since the default it came with which differed from that of HI.

Followup: the most Damning document IS a FAKE

[scorp1us]

Important information has come forward.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/20/breaking-gleick-confesses/#more-57113

Here's the gist:
Gleick posed as someone on the board of the Hearland Institute and had someone send him internal documents. He then wrote his own document, bolstered by information gleamed from other true documents, threw it in the mix and claimed it as theirs. To hide his authorship, he scanned a print out into PDF and released the scanned document. Of course, the most objectionable content about targeting teachers and the like are all Gleick's words and not the Institutes.

He has now come forward and admitted his actions.

My favorite part

[Thuktun]

(paraphrased) "These documents are not necessarily authentic. This particularly bad one is faked. [...] We apologize to all the donors who expected anonymity but were exposed by these faked, not-authentic documents."

0_o