Heartland institute documents leaked; reveals climate skeptic strategies

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

 

[Triple Zero]

It's absurd that they're still pushing the "scientists are uncertain" meme? This is a Frank Luntz creation from the mid 90s that got out of control.

Frank Luntz doesn't even support it anymore! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yz8UwRsWPA - they're recycling 7 year old talking points. He says, "It's unfair to take a document that was written in 1998 and apply it in 2006."

It really underscores the lasting power of good communication.

THIS GUY!! ARRRRRG

Listening to him is even more gut-wrenchingly horribly fascinating than reading Kafka

I was going to say HA mr Luntz so you let the genie out of the bottle and now you can't get it back huh?

But that's not what happens at all.

He wouldn't write this memo this way today, at all--is a non statement of course, he'd probably have written a very different memo already a month later.

And those who keep repeating it, it's their responsibility. It's like he really doesn't care at all!

Even though he says "my beliefs have changed since then", but listen carefully, it's not his own literal beliefs on climate change that have changed, no:

His beliefs of what the American People think of climate change have changed.

(in other words what he means is that he would play them differently, today)

There's a good chance that he really has no beliefs either way. Which is unlikely for an average person with knowledge about climate issues, but Luntz isn't very average.

So fucking creepy. I wonder what he thinks of himself. In terms of being of the same species as the rest of us.

It's like he's a golem, or something. Except inside-out. He doesn't have a tiny scroll with instructions inside his head, but you can insert a coin through a slot and then his mouth opens and a scroll rolls off his tongue, ready to be placed in the overfull stuffed head of that other golem, the demiurge, the American People.

It's like, you know, if we ever accidentally the whole singularity and get a trans-human AI living inside the Internet controlling whatever is going on in the world, like in that one Asimov story, managing our politics and our economies. I think it'll be a lot like mr Luntz. Caring neither way, and never speaking of its own beliefs and ideas, but communicating through a choir of voices that reflect the collective consciousness, vox populi but not in the traditional meaning of the word.

Brrrr.

[Triple Zero]

you don't think it would become quickly apparent that the public blowback would offset the gains in protecting their image?
isn't the image of the RIAA/MPAA tarnished most heavily by their hamfisted techniques?
or are my filters clouding my view?

Yes well but who are the RIAA/MPAA?

"The X association of Y"

They're not even the fall-guy, they're merely fronts.

So the RIAA/MPAA gets tarnished. Who exactly gets tarnished?

Maybe there will be some blowback on some big movie companies. Big deal. People want entertainment anyway. And if the RIAA/MPAA gets too bad of a rep, what would a conscionable media company do? Well, they'd publicly distance themselves from RIAA/MPAA of course and start a new, better, more ethical association with a disgustingly euphemistic name. Calling it now, 1-2 years.

And in the mean time, every entity with money, regardless of their involvement in the media industries, gets to exert more control over free speech on the every-inter-wheres.

Entities like Heartland are profiting too from this happening. The RIAA/MPAA might get tarnished. All the suits are laughing and profiting, while the public spits and kicks and stomps on its own brightly coloured CGI rendered blockbuster toys. And the suits cheer us on "yes! this is why you can't have nice things! harder!" (well it sounds like a cheer ...)

[Cain]

Incidentally, guess who set up the Heartland Institute?  If "well-funded libertarian think-tank" did not already tip you off, this may be of interest.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am disappointed that Heartland is not on theyrule.net. I bet that would reveal some fascinating connections.

[Cain]

I'm sure some of their members are.  They're too well connected in the Cato Institute/revolving door of lesser Koch-funded think-tanks nexus to be entirely overlooked.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm sure some of their members are.  They're too well connected in the Cato Institute/revolving door of lesser Koch-funded think-tanks nexus to be entirely overlooked.

Yes, definitely. It's just that since Heartland itself isn't on there I can't pull it up and view the tangled web with it at the center.

[Triple Zero]

Who made theyrule.net? If you think they should be on there, maybe you can email them to fix that error? (unless I'm suggesting something outrageously difficult)

[Cain]

There is a Kevin Fitzgerald at the Heartland Institute, as Executive VP.

A Kevin G. Fitzgerald sits on the board of Murphy Oil, "an international oil and gas company, founded in 1944 as C.H. Murphy & Co by Charle H Murphy Sr., that conducts business through various operating subsidiaries. Murphy produces oil and/or natural gas in the United States, Canada, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Republic of the Congo and conducts exploration activities worldwide. Murphy also has an interest in a Canadian synthetic oil operation, owns two petroleum refineries and two ethanol production facilities in the United States and one petroleum refinery in the United Kingdom. The Company operates a growing retail marketing gasoline station chain on the parking lots of Walmart Supercenters and at stand-alone locations in the United States, and also markets petroleum products under various brand names and to unbranded wholesale customers in the United States and the United Kingdom."

Not definite, but struggling to find a pic of Murphy Oil's Fitzgerald to confirm.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Who made theyrule.net? If you think they should be on there, maybe you can email them to fix that error? (unless I'm suggesting something outrageously difficult)

Josh On made it, and he's surprisingly difficult to contact directly. Plus, I'm not at all sure how recently it's been updated.