Notes on the faked Heartland document

“Prepare for a shock, he’s endorsing Obama instead :”
Seen why?
We changed nothing with a ‘Conservative’ government, different faces at the trough is all.

The alternative explanation, Latimer, is that the fake is a quick and dirty job put together (eg within an hour) by somebody who knew that warmists would believe the thing anyways, and the scandal would occupy hundreds of web sites before being shown as a fake. Also, the net being the net, the fake news will never go away really.

btw…the Forbes article was called “The Real Climategate” but, if u google it now – u will find a number of links about it. similarly, click on the link in Nelson’s blog below, and u will get the article i posted above instead:
15 Feb: Tom Nelson: Forbes warmist Steve Zwick “sees” what he desperately wants to see: Heartland “spreading dangerous disinformation”; ClimateGate scientists “obsessing over getting things right ”
(LINK) The REAL Climategate: Blog Busts Anti-Science Warchest – Forbes
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/forbes-warmist-steve-zwick-what-he.html
don’t know if anyone has a screen capture of the original “real climategate” article.

Anthony, several of your points are transparently false as can be determined by comparing the “strategy” document with the 990 form. The later is clearly an authentic document, containing, as it does, the signature of Bast. Equally clearly it is a scanned document, containing as it does hand written notation. Inspecting its properties shows that it lacks entries if the fields for Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, and Application, and PDF producer. As it is last modified in August 2011, it was not scanned by the releaser of the documents at the time of their release, and consequently there is no reason to think the missing fields were “sanitized”.
The simplest assumption is that the scanner used simply did not enter the data in those fields when the document was made.
Applying the same assumption to the strategy document, there is no reason to believe metadata was sanitized from that document either. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was a paper document that was scanned on the day before it was released by desmog blog. That, by itself, provides no reason to think the document inauthentic. It does give reason to think its authenticity is inconsistent with the Heartland Institutes account of events. Specifically, had the document been received as an email, or email attachment from a phishing scam, then there would have been no reason to first print it out and then scan it. On the other hand, if the document is authentic, then some person had a paper copy of an authentic document which is inconsistent with the Heartland Institutes account of events.
The Heartland Institute can clarify this point by the simple expedient of releasing the email from the person fraudulently pretending to be a board member, and the covering email sent to that purported board member. Simple checking of the times of creation will then show that these documents predate the release, and that their story is accurate, thereby confirming the fraudulent nature of the strategy document. Public release of the (already released) attachments would aid this process.
As it stands, one piece of evidence strongly suggests that the leak was performed by an insider, not by an outsider conducting a phishing attack as suggested by the Heartland Institute. Specifically, the date of last modification of the 990 form differs between that released by the leaker, and that released by the Heartland Institute. Had the 990 document been obtained by a phishing attack, then the last modified date on the 990 document would have been the same as, or post dated that released by Heartland. Clearly the leaker already possessed a copy of the 990 form prior to its modification on December 6, 2011. It may be that the leaker already had the 990 form in their possession, and then phished for the other documents, but absent clear evidence to the contrary (ie, the release of the emails), the presumption must be that the leak was from a member of the Heartland Institute, and therefore that the “strategy” document is, as it purports to be, and internal document of restricted circulation rather than an official document.
(Note, for the respective dates of the 990 modifications, I am relying or your quote of Dukes, and have not confirmed it for myself.

Heartland has stated the “Strategy” document was forged. It is this document that contains the prejudicial comments – including the part about discouraging teachers from teaching science:

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.

This document as has been noted was a scan, created Monday of this week, by an Epson scanner. Scanning the document strips originating information from document properties as Anthony and others have showed.
What is also revealed however, is that the writing style, both what and how it is phrased, and key punctuation, is different.
Below is the section on the Climate Education initiative from the detailed 29 page “Fundraising Plan” document. That PDF has NOT been stripped of document properties, and shows it was created by Joseph Bast on 1/16/2012 at 10am.
This commentary greatly expands on the alleged “Strategy” document, and the description of the education program shows they have engaged a professional, well connected and credentialed individual, to create a teaching program that meets the requirements and explores both sides – noting these items are controversial. There is nothing remotely similar to or whatsoever related to the alleged comment that the goal was to dissuade teachers from teaching this topic.
Several other notes …
First, the alleged “Strategy” doc author states “the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain”. However, a read of the lengthier and more detailed education comments in the “Fundraising” document shows no mention of the term “uncertain” – only the word “controversial” was used … its use is an inflammatory embellishment.
Second, I would note the author in the alleged “Strategy” document makes the comment about dissuading teachers from teaching after use of a dash. Here too the comment is an inflammatory embellishment, with no similar mention made in the longer and more detailed education section in the validated “Fundraising” document.
Third – the author in the “Fundraising” document in all of its 29 pages – used the “dash” in a sentence a total of 3 times. Each of these times he used them in a pair – as I did in prior and this sentence – in place of comma’s. The “Strategy” author used dashes a like 3 times – in just two pages. And each time as a single dash, used in place of a comma or semi-colon – to add a modifier or extension to the sentence.
Last – no other document in the group at desmog contains wording remotely similar to the inflammatory statements in the alleged “Strategy” document. Similarly none of the writings anywhere from Heartland – not even their “Response to Critics” page (which shows deSmog as a long time attacker) is anything other than straightforward.
For example: the “Fundraising”, “Binder1” and “Budget” PDF files (all validated as created by J. Bast) all have writing style that is similar in each and every one. Straightforward – free of inflammatory embellishments – exactly as one would expect from a professional organization. The “Strategy” document on the other hand has several inflammatory embellishments – both uncharacteristic of the writings of J. Bast – and not found in any of the other documents.
Draw your own conclusions.
It is sad that these people have so much hatred that they would attack Heartland, and those associated, in the first place – especially when it exposes their hypocrisy – exposes the huge, orders of magnitude, difference in funding for the AGW brigade vs the skeptical science side.
Worse though, that they would be so desperate they would forge a document to make it seem worse.

H. Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Schools
Many people lament the absence of educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn’t alarmist or overtly political. Heartland has tried to make material available to teachers, but has had only limited success. Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. Moreover, material for classroom use must be carefully written to meet curriculum guidelines, and the amount of time teachers have for supplemental material is steadily shrinking due to the spread of standardized tests in K-12 education.
Dr. David Wojick has presented Heartland a proposal to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools that appears to have great potential for success. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. He has a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science and mathematical logic from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S. in civil engineering from Carnegie Tech. He has been on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon and the staffs of the U.S. Office
of Naval Research and the Naval Research Lab.
Dr. Wojick has conducted extensive research on environmental and science education for the Department of Energy. In the course of this research, he has identified what subjects and
concepts teachers must teach, and in what order (year by year), in order to harmonize with national test requirements. He has contacts at virtually all the national organizations involved in
producing, certifying, and promoting science curricula.
Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy”), climate models (“models
are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global
food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”).
Wojick would produce modules for Grades 7-9 on environmental impact (“environmental impact is often difficult to determine. For example there is a major controversy over whether or not
humans are changing the weather”), for Grade 6 on water resources and weather systems, and so on.
We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $5,000 per module, about $25,000 a quarter, starting in the second quarter of 2012, for this work. The Anonymous Donor has pledged the first $100,000 for this project, and we will circulate a proposal to match and then expand upon that investment.

A rational person would endorse someone only after they knew who the opponent was. Very strange, coming ftom Delingpole.
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Did you read the article? Very tongue in cheek. If you can call being compared with a tarantula in the bath an endorsement then, yes, he endorsed Obama. What he’s really saying is that, sadly, Mitt Romney is a clone of David Cameron. I can sympathise because, here in Australia, we have had the same experience with Kevin Rudd. As for our present PM, Julia Gillard, words can’t express how loathed she is.

Just realised that I wrote a whole piece without commenting as to whether the paper was a fake.
Let’s put it this way … I’ve got kids, if they had produced these documents … I would be quite proud of their ingenuity. But if these are produced by anyone old enough to vote.
As for people like the BBC and Guardian thinking it was true. Come on!
As my kid said (quoting the Beano) “Look, there’s gullible written on the ceiling”.
p.s. …. and yes I did look …. but I claim I didn’t hear properly. Which my wife also did and also claimed. Which I suppose means we both like to see the evidence ourselves …. even if its evidence that we are gullible!

Are the cops involved yet? Presumably they are a bit more competent over there than our own blessed Norfolk constabulary, and can track the document source fairly quickly.
Mmm, actually I base this only on US police TV series (CSI Heartland?). US citizens may have a different perspective?

Alan Wilkinson says:
February 16, 2012 at 12:33 am

Question: are there any facts in the faked memo which could not have been extracted from the other documents or otherwise publicly known?

It seems to be spiced with a few facts but that doesn’t change much. Anyone with any experience knows that the best way to sell a lie is to mix a few bits of the truth in with it. It grants authenticity and creates a situation where one can then claim that people who point out the fake parts are attempting to deny The Facts, as exemplified by the little bits of truth and ignoring the mess of forgery in which they’re embedded.

I’ve just read the document at DeSmugBlog. The thing that leaped out at me was the description of certain potential Heartland sympathisers as anti-climate. Huh ! People who are against the climate !!?? I have only ever come across this sort of sloppy caricature in pro-CAGW propaganda.

Anthony
With regard to the BBC (Black) and Guardian (Hickman and others) is it worth you sending an advisory memo to the Leveson inquiry.
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/
We’re interested in hearing from professionals and the public with
information and examples in response to the specific questions below.
Your answers may be considered as potential evidence to the inquiry.
The issue of stories that attract a high degree of press attention but
subsequently turn out to be false was raised at the seminars. The
Inquiry would be interested in submissions from editors, reporters and
subjects of such stories – why they occur (what are the pressures that
drive press interest), and how they occur (what checks and balances
are or should be in place to stop this happening and why do they
sometimes not operate)?