horror of horrors

The big controversy for the week is the theft of documents from the Heartland Institute, and the disclosure of information on the internet. It looks a lot like Climategate but there is a very big twist, and this time the Watermelons have left themselves open for accusations relating to document fraud (I know that is nothing new for watermelons).

Someone who claims to be Heartland Insider sent documents to the DeSmogBlog(I am not going to link to that blog but you can get details from Watt’s Up with That if  you so desire. I think that the name Heartland Insider is the first clue about the trickery and fakery that is involved, but I will deal with that later. The blog that released the information and forwarded it to the usual suspects did not bother to confirm the content, which has left it open to a possible lawsuit. The point is that there is one document that Heartland Institute has stated is a fake. It was not written by them. In fact that document is a very clumsy attempt to smear Heartland Institute, Anthony Watts, Professor Bob Carter from Australia as well as some other individuals who have received minor funding from the Heartland Institute.

The poor little watermelon luvvies have been wetting themselves with glee, and have been farting for two days over this whole saga. You see the Koch brothers have provided a very small donation to the Heartland Institute, and using guilt by association that means that Anthony Watts for example has been a hypocrite because he has accepted funding from what is claimed to be Big Oil. Wait there is more because those evil beings at the Heartland Institute according to these fart-sniffing little luvvies are in the pay of the Tobacco Industry because they had the temerity to write an article against the notion that second-hand smoke causes lung cancer!!  Talk about guilt by association. According to the little watermelon luvvies it is evil to accept money from the libertarian Heartland think tank!!

First of all, I will address the research of Heartland Institute regarding second-hand smoke. I will address a couple of issues because I do in fact believe that second-hand smoke does affect peoples’ health, but I am not convinced that it causes lung cancer. The first point to make is that the initial research accepted by the EPA and the FDA was in fact flawed, yet this is an issue “there is consensus” and the “science is settled” despite the fact that the research involved samples that were too small. The result was extrapolated to the claim that at least 5000 people were dying of lung cancer as a result of second hand smoke. Unfortunately, there is no real proof to support this claim… and this is the point that was made by the Heartland Institute.   My second point is actually anecdotal because I have been personally affected by cigarette and cigar smoke to the point of not being able to breathe. It is not asthma but my upper air passages do block up and I have trouble breathing. At one point I even had a situation where my heart was racing and I started to grey out…. but that was resolved when I saw a heart specialist and he diagnosed a problem with the electrical system of my heart.  This is purely disclosure as to whyI do believe that second hand smoke does in fact influence other peoples’ health.

Second, I will address the Anthony Watts issue because Anthony approached the Heartland Institute in an effort to find finding for a new project that will help us to understand NOAA data which is published but not easily understood. Those who accuse Anthony Watts of hypocrisy are themselves being bypocrites in this matter. The project is not yet up and running and the disclosure regarding funding was to be made when the new site was ready…. this has been turned on its head.

Third, I want to address the fake document because I see this as a very grave issue. The claim within the document, which if you think about it looked like something that could only come from a leftist luvvie, was that the education project was to turn teachers off teaching science. It was an entirely false claim. Mr Bast from the Heartland Institute has a response relating to the document as does the scientist who proposed the education project in the first place. Whoever wrote the document was trying to slime the Heartland Institute as being anti-science, yet Dr. Woijack (sp) is a consultant for the EPA and he was proposing this project for a curricula that would be age appropriate.

Fourth, is the name of the alleged leaker, “Heartland Insider”. I thought about this name because I read White House Insider and I am aware of the fake who is goes by the moniker of “And Another Thing” but who puts up posts that looke like WhiteHouse Insider but they are not, and also writes the fake Palin Insider posts. It has crossed my mind that the person who stole the documents from the Heartland Institute and created the fake document is that same person. However, I could be wrong.

Fifth, DeSmogBlog is operated by the man who is the PR for David Suzuki. Can you see the connection? I will leave this point open for now.

Sixth, the real difference between Climategate and this new scandal is the way in which documents were made available. There is real evidence that the Heartland documents were obtained through fraud. In fact what seems to have happened is somebody contacted one of the secretaries and convinced her that he was a member of the board and got her to send documents to him via an unknown email address. She sent the documents. The fake document is based upon these underlying documents which means that the claims that the fact document is genuine are themselves false claims because of the way that the document itself was constructed. With Climategate the documents were uploaded onto a server, and then a link was provided so that the documents could be downloaded.  In this case I think that is someone from within UEA was responsible for the leaking of those documents.

Getting back to the sliming of the Heartland Institute, something else that indicates the document is fake which is a real standout in my view is that the author takes the view that being libertarian is being anti-science, and there is a hint that the person actually thinks that being libertarian somehow means being anti-evolution, even though this is not the case!!

Meanwhile, here in Australia, as the week dragged on and we have not gotten rid of the wicked red-haired witch who has been lying about her involvement in the Australia Day mini race riot…. we wait and wait and wait… and we want an election!!