UPDATE: They apparently had second thoughts. see below.
When the Heartland billboard fiasco came about last week, I pointed to this as a previous example of how both sides have made missteps. Heartland blundered with the unabomber billboard, was summarily denounced by both sides and pulled it within 24 hours.
My reader poll conducted about the issue suggests a majority (72% of 2561 respondents as of this writing) think Heartland made a blunder with the billboard ad. So do I.
It appears now that Climate Progress/Think Progress has been embarrassed enough by the attention brought to their article as a parallel example, to deep six it. Here’s the screencap I made last week.
Visiting this URL I referenced last week yields a “404 – page not found”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/25/277564/norway-terrorist-is-a-global-warming-denier/
I find this development curious, especially since there’s no mention of the deletion on Think Progress/Climate Progress that I can find.
It is still available on Google Cache here:
While Heartland at least made a press release announcing they’d end the billboard, The Center for American Progress appears to have made no announcement of their removing a story linking climate skeptics to a terrorist and mass murderer. If I am wrong, and someone can find such an announcement, I’ll gladly post it as a correction.
Even so, I applaud them for doing so, but there’s no shame in telling anyone that you thought this article was too volatile to leave it in place.
h/t to WUWT reader cbrtxus
UPDATE: 5/8/12 11AM It appears the story has been restored. Second thoughts apparently, or just some sort of ploy. I checked the link several ways yesterday, and it had been removed. Many readers saw the same thing – Anthony
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Acknowledging a mistake, apologizing for it, and then making it right indicates a certain level of integrity.
Sweeping a mistake under the rug, on the other hand…
If their goal is to collapse society so a socialist utopia can arise, the expected outcome would be millions, perhaps billions of deaths. I’m not sure the Heartland missed the mark by much here.
I agree that this type of media presentation (dare I call it that?) is over the top – but on the other hand there is an element of fight fire with fire in all this IMO. As far as I am concerned I NEVER look at such BS – but I do appreciate that some ordinary folk need ‘persuasion’ to look at stuff! Unfortunately, in the Climate Science meme, anything goes (apparently!)…..which, I happen to think is rather sad – I don’t mind the warmists using silly scare tactics ( a la blowing up children in class!!!) but the skeptics must try to remain aloof as far as possible. Heartlands own goal is a shame, but not the end of the argument by any means…….
What was Heartland thinking? Who knows exactly, and I’m fairly sure that what they did was not helpful, but we could take a political advertisers point of view… and think in terms of who the targeted group(s) were?
One very positive development over the last few years is the conservative mass exodus from belief in the leftist AGW fairy tale. Could Heartland have been thinking that this is a “base solidifying” ad? Going after laggard or “maverick” conservatives that still toe the leftist line, like Chris Christie?
Rewriting the past is integral to leftist politics and warmist science.
Bishop Hill have also ensured that the Climate Progress story is preserved for all to see……
http://www.bishop-hill.net/storage/Norway%20Terrorist%20Is%20A%20Global%20Warming%20Denier%20_%20ThinkProgress.pdf
This is why the Heartland billboard was genius. It forced the warmists to condemn something they were already doing themselves at every turn, and which was a successful tactic. Now every time they use it their own words will be turned on them. In exchange, what has Heartland really lost?
The date on that post is almost 1 year ago, 7/25/2011. Reading the story in detail, it shows that Brevick had a conspiracy theory about AGW, which is similar to what can be found posted on this web site. For Brevick this wasn’t a casual thing. He followed the issue in detail. He said about those who want action against global warming:
“You might know them as environmentalists, enviro-communists, eco-Marxists, neo-Communists or eco-fanatics. They all claim they want to save the world from global warming but their true agenda is to contribute to create a world government lead by the UN or in other ways increase the transfer of resources (redistribute resources) from the developed Western world to the third world. They hope to accomplish this through the distribution of misinformation (propaganda) which they hope will lead to increased taxation of already excessively taxed Europeans and US citizens.
The neo-communist agenda uses politicised science to propagate the global warming scam in order to implement their true agenda; global Marxism. Marxism‘s ultimate goal is to redistribute wealth from successful nations to failed nations, instead of actually trying to fix these broken nations. Politicised science is being used by the cultural Marxist hegemony to manipulate the unsuspecting masses. They are using our trust and faith in science to spread lies and hysteria that will allow Marxists to implement socialist “solutions” to a problem that never actually existed. …”
This news story about Brevick’s views is a legitimate news story. It is a one off. [snip – facts not in evidence]
Orwellian revision of a website or blog without noting and explaining change is more than bad form, it is a conscious form of deception. However, they have to know that nothing really “disappears” on the web, as this thread shows. Perhaps it is the arrogance of believing they can get away with it. They had to know that “skeptics” are likely to take notice, but they hope that there are no wider repercussions.
Damned by faint praise.
“The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.” Omar Khayyám (1048–1131 – Persia)
Except for Internet Tears…
Heartland blundered and were forced to issue an apology and retraction that WILL be used against them in the future. The warmists (with a ton of dosh and a compliant MSM to help them) are very good at the public relations game (even if their “science” is flawed). The polar bear imagery was a fraud but a highly effective one.
Here’s one of the their latest: green bike lanes. Yep, they really are painting the lanes on the roadway green!
http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_20567909/green-bike-lanes-spreading-across-bay-area
It’s silly and completely lacking in any substance. But I think it’s quite brilliant and an excellent way to reinforce the green agenda with a huge and receptive audience. Much more powerful than regular advertizing and probably cheaper too.
WUWT readers may consider the manner in which Climate Progress pulled their advert less than honorable and even sleazy. But it will work for them and attacking them for it will fail. They have a really, really easy defense. “We received a handful of complaints and we pulled it!”. Game over because it’s a solid position.
Be afraid because the warmists ARE still winning the war of image and public opinion even while their flawed science is taking hit after hit in this forum and elsewhere.
I am always left wanting as to how sane and intelligent people can upon serious reflection still hit the SEND button on these types of hit and run advertisements. Nothing good ever comes from ridiculing people. Ideas are fair game, but not people. It only creates a smallness of humanity for those doing the ridiculing, and turns everyone off to the message.
Climate Progress disappears their own climate ugliness…
but the lunacy continues amongst their faithful.
…..The Center for American Progress appears to have made no announcement of their removing a story linking climate skeptics to a terrorist and mass murderer. If I am wrong, and someone can find such an announcement, I’ll gladly post it as a correction. –Anthony Watts
I think I hear crickets chirping.
Eric Adler says:
May 7, 2012 at 4:35 pm
The date on that post is almost 1 year ago, 7/25/2011
===================
Eric, why do you think it was ok for a year, then they pulled it last week?
Mike Smith is right. CAGW Theory is a hulk blazing from stem to stern but still refuses to sink.
It is propped up on reefs of money stolen from the taxpayers.
Hey–maybe their whole web site will disappear! Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of science deviates.
Skiphil says:
May 7, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Orwellian revision of a website or blog without noting and explaining change is more than bad form, it is a conscious form of deception. However, they have to know that nothing really “disappears” on the web, as this thread shows. Perhaps it is the arrogance of believing they can get away with it. They had to know that “skeptics” are likely to take notice, but they hope that there are no wider repercussions.
——-
You may be correct but we seem to be the only people discussing them and their website. I wonder how long it will take their readership to notice them missing.
Mike Smith says:
May 7, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Heartland blundered and were forced to issue an apology and retraction that WILL be used against them in the future. The warmists (with a ton of dosh and a compliant MSM to help them) are very good at the public relations game (even if their “science” is flawed). The polar bear imagery was a fraud but a highly effective one.
———————————
Mike, Heartland blundered in that it was the inappropriate source to run such an ad. It lost support of a corporation, distanced Microsoft and frightened off the gentility. Not good if you are targetting the mainstream. But I think it’s a recoverable situation and our support of Heartland and proper pressure on the faint-of-heart will help a lot.
But what’s more interesting to me is that Climate Progress, with their piles of money and super-duper marketing gurus chickened out, meaning that they are afraid of this kind of a battle. Instead, being the weasels they are, they provided a link to the article on another online venue and count on oily slime-muppets like Eric Adler to repeat the Breivick canard without sullying their cool kid image. It won’t wash. The Warmists’ crimes are too big for such a maskirovka. The Soviets controlled all their media, institutions and education and backed their message with a mixture of bribes and state terror and they still lost. As Smokey said on another thread, there is no reason to say that the message itself is wrong. It’s correct in that the suffering, the starvations and the deaths they have brought and are plotting to bring about make Kaczinsky look like a puff, and I’d add Breivick too. Don’t worry about their “highly effective” PR either; it’s cheap yesterday’s shlock by has-beens who’ve been plied with billions, and they are still screwing up, losing and running scared because they know we haven’t even begun eviscerating them.
Maybe they removed it because they realized that Brevik was right about one thing – green IS the new red.
And this is why we must call for the AGW fraudster like Mann, Hansen and the leading journalists to face jail sentances for what they have done. We are no winning this debate, they are not and will neve let up until they know they will be brought to account for their crimes
I posted the following on Heartland facebook page. I would have posted it at their ‘contact us’ link, but they don’t have one – ring any bells for you re communication ?
… “billboards are an effective way of getting your message accross. but you don’t actually want to infuriate anyone in the revenge business.
much better to embarrass a democratic state government, and a politician within it. what do your politicians say about un-elected administrators, a la UN agenda 21 ? that might be a bit strong for a billboard, but appropriate elsewhere.
I would recommend ‘GLOBAL WARMING is a SCAM’
boasting but… our residential community took on the state government, and won !
a 4×3 metre banner which I painted and put on my roof, read ‘minister for transport DUDS ….. … residents’. it was visible from 250 metres, to thousands of commuters, the ‘fine print’ from 50 metres.
think of banners and billboards from a haiku and fibonaci perspective.
a better placement would be in a high pedestrian traffic area when you are less likely to be sued for causing traffic accidents”…
Now that I understand Heartlands motivation for that poster it makes a lot more sense. I think that had a point.
Baghdad Romm