Heartland Institute has a notion of software freedom

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heartland Institute has a notion of software freedom. Intl. J. Inact., 2:92–93

I have to admit, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with writing about global warming inactivism, because climate is such a diffuse phenomenon which I can’t simply directly tinker with in a lab. Thankfully, our old climate inactivist friend, the Heartland Institute, started talking nonsense about computer software, something I have somewhat more experience with. After publishing an essay by one James Lakely on their web site about the oh-so-scary Marxist plot behind the Free Software movement, they’ve put up another essay by Lakely which says this: [cached]

Apple has approved the creation of more than 65,000 applications (apps) for its wildly popular iPhone.⁵¹ Yet this year, it denied one — Google Voice — for the very good reason it would supplant the iPhone’s core software design and functionality. That decision by Apple prompted the FCC in the summer of 2009 to launch a net neutrality-related inquiry, creating the impression that anything less than approval of all applications may be presumed to be a violation of the FCC’s broadband principles. That is alarming, and absurd. [...]

If a manufacturer or carrier does not have the latitude to reasonably restrict applications to ensure they abide with contracted terms of use and a viable business model/offering, then a provider effectively would have no property rights under the U.S. Constitution. That wireless provider also would have no meaningful design, operating, or business role to differentiate its product or service from competitors. [...]

As more and more smart phones, netbooks, notebooks, and laptops are enabled to exploit wireless broadband, where would the line logically be drawn where the FCC’s wireless innovation regulation would stop? [...]

Well, as you may remember, the other day I wrote a program which crawls through web sites and IP addresses. In the current proto-Marxist regime, I can just load up the program and run it:

$ ./labyrinthvs.pl go http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: created directory /home/.../.labyrinthvs
labyrinthvs: created db
labyrinthvs: rolled back any uncommitted db changes
labyrinthvs: created any uncreated tables and indices
labyrinthvs: created web ua LABYRINTHVS libwww-perl/5.805
labyrinthvs: added pending url http://climatescienceamerica.org/ (priority 4a957c61.00000000)
labyrinthvs: processing url http://climatescienceamerica.org/
labyrinthvs: ... resolved climatescienceamerica.org to 68.178.254.234

…

Now, if I live in a capitalist world with clear product differentiation and perfect respect for property rights, I’ll probably first need to submit my application to the PC manufacturer for approval, perhaps like an acolyte of yore:

Acolyte (me): O Great Computer Manufacturer Most Wise, Most Capitalist, and Most Free, would you approve my application, that I may use it to perform computations in your honour?

Then the Great Computer Manufacturer will carefully scan my program code for any signs of Marxism, or anti-Apple sentiment, or criticisms of Thomas Jefferson — and if all’s clear, they’ll finally tell me that my software has been approved for running, in accordance with the property rights protections as codified in the Constitution of the United States.

In other news, the Bonner and Associates fiasco continues.

4th I‘C’CC: pay no attention to the exhibitors

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. 4th I‘C’CC: pay no attention to the exhibitors. Intl. J. Inact., 2:87

From the web site of the climate inactivist Heartland Institute’s Fourth International ‘Conference’ on Climate Change: [cached]

We are pleased to offer 14 table-top exhibit spaces [at the conference] in a prime location at this year’s host hotel, the Marriott Magnificent Mile, Chicago. [...]

Booth fee of $1,000 includes:

• 2 full conference registrations (includes all meals and sessions)
• 1 six-foot table
• 2 chairs
• 1 wastebasket

Meanwhile, event “co-sponsors” do not need to fork out any cash; they just need to provide speakers and an audience. Which means the exhibitors are co-sponsors, while the “co-sponsors” are attendees. Or perhaps the exhibitors are actually “Cosponsor Exhibitors” [cached], while the “co-sponsors” are, I don’t know, co-sponsoring co-sponsors. Or something.

4th I‘C’CC: who are these people?

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. 4th I‘C’CC: who are these people? Intl. J. Inact., 2:86

While looking at the Heartland Institute’s list of hitherto confirmed speakers for its coming Fourth International ‘Conference’ on Climate Change [cached], I saw the following names which were unfamiliar to me:

• Helen Roe, Queens University of Belfast
• Gary Sharp, Center for Climate/Oceans Resources Study
• Graeme T. Swindles, University of Bradford

Does anyone happen to know who these folks are, and why they’re willing to associate themselves with an organization like the conspiracy-theorizing Heartland Institute? I’m really curious to know.

Civil disobedience is civil

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Civil disobedience is civil. Intl. J. Inact., 2:79–80

Click to view an updated version of the global warming debate flowchart.

Civil disobedience is in the air! Michael Tobis writes:

In the typical congressional recess, American congressmen hold lightly attended town hall meetings to discuss issues with the more engaged fraction of their constituencies. This tradition has been badly disrupted by concerted efforts to disrupt these meetings with loudly and urgently repeated misrepresentations of the legislation.

There was an incident here in Austin, one among many, apparently centrally organized, apparently funded in part by Republicans and in part by insurance interests, although drawing upon genuine backwoods fear and paranoia, as well as whatever racism might be handy to the purpose.

Tim Russo:

This is what Republicans do with online organizing. They organize riots.

UPDATEx2 – A teabagger at the event suddenly realizes who she’s joined up with. [...]

Freedom loving patriots celebrated liberty by knocking down a disabled woman and starting a fist fight with someone. I feel sorry for the people who went there to learn, whether it was to support or criticize. Too bad they weren’t allowed to speak.

Well, as Cicero (I think, as far as I know) famously said — and who dares to contradict Cicero? –

Extremism in defence (or is it pursuit) of liberty (or is it patriotism) is no vice!

And besides, the protesters were just following Henry David Thoreau’s tradition of nonviolent resistance! (That is, minus the “nonviolent” part.)

In contrast, if anyone even tries to pull off something similar at the Heartland “global warming is a scam and Obama is a secret Marxist” Institute’s upcoming Fourth International ‘Conference’ on Climate Change — nay, if anyone even utters a single phrase criticizing the ‘conference’ — now that, that’ll be crossing the line between civil disobedience and outright fascist Hitler-esque ad-hominem Inquisitional brownshirt-ism!

Let me explain. You see, even if you believe with all your heart and soul that global warming is an extremely serious, extremely dire planetary emergency that requires urgent action yesterday, the moral high ground says that you should still maintain the highest standard of decorum at all times! You must first insert “please”, “Sir”, “thank you” at the right places in your speech, before we’ll even begin to consider that there may be a planetary emergency.

This is wrong:

Someone: [sees a fire burning in the room] Fire!!! Fire!!! Fire!!!!

Even-handed impartial observer (i.e. me): Hmm, this guy is shrill and frantic, therefore I’ll ignore him.

This is right:

Someone: [sees a fire burning in the room] My dear Sirs, with all due respect, please be aware that there’s now a fire in the room.

Even-handed impartial observer (i.e. me): Hmm, this guy is civil and polite. However, if the fire’s so serious, then why’s he taking so long to warn us about it? I think I’ll ignore him.

And here, my friends, is the difference between small-government patriotism and big-government alarmism.

This is vewwwy vewwwy sewwwious

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. This is vewwwy vewwwy sewwwious. Intl. J. Inact., 2:78

Question: Out of the following events, which is the most serious of them all?

1. The Heartland Institute, a think-tank which opposes global warming regulation (among other things), was found to move its ‘conference’ audios around on its web server, causing some hyperlinks to the audios to become broken for a short while.
2. Global warming ‘skeptic’ Anthony Watts reports that another ‘skeptic’, Steve McIntyre, suddenly finds that some files originally on a climate research center’s web server are now missing. The files might have been purged, they might have been moved; who knows. But let’s just assume that there’s something really big and really sinister going on. [cached]
3. A think-tank was found to send anti-climate-regulation letters with forged letterheads to a US Senator. (A brave act of civil disobedience, I suppose.) [cached]
4. Watts slaps a bogus DMCA complaint onto a YouTuber for reproducing the cover page for one of his ‘reports’. [cached]
5. I need a drink.

Answer: According to Watts, the correct answer is 2. But I beg to differ: the answer should be 5.

Americans beware: French ex-President wants to take away your guns! Oh noes!

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Americans beware: French ex-President wants to take away your guns! Oh noes!
Intl. J. Inact., 2:76

British nobleman Christopher Monckton has a dire warning this June for all freedom-loving Americans: French ex-President Jacques Chirac wants to take away your guns by promoting the cruel hoax of ‘global warming’! Oh noes!

As Maurice Strong, Jacques Chirac and their ilk had always intended, the IPCC will emerge after [the UN Climate Change Conference at] Copenhagen as the prototype and nucleus of a world government. We have already seen this in the EU.

This is the same Monckton who claimed back in March that American President “Osamabamarama” has a

stated ambition of shutting down nine-tenths of the economies of the West and flinging us back to the Stone Age without even the right to light fires in our caves.

Bwahahahahaha.

(And with this, I’d like to announce that there’s now another update to the genealogy of climate conspiracy theories.)

Skills that will equip you for (our own) success

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Skills that will equip you for (our own) success. Intl. J. Inact., 2:75

Be very afraid, for these people know how to judge art objectively.

I’ve been busy (like Greenfyre, I guess), but check out this seminar announcement from the “College of the United States” which the Heartland Institute has been disseminating:

Announcing
The Great Connections:
Mastering the Intellectual Tools that Transform
a College Education into Lifetime Success

Here’s one of the “skills” which the seminar will impart:

• Explore the application of the concept of objectivity to art, and decide whether something can be judged a work of art – or not.

What this has to do with attaining “success” is anyone’s guess. Then again, the seminar costs US$1,300, and it has a session on global warming with Larry Gould as instructor, so it must be pretty good, no?

* * *

Update 2009-06-20: Someone from the “College” has replied, and so have I.

Heartland Institute’s coded messages

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heartland Institute’s coded messages. Intl. J. Inact., 2:73–74

No, the solution to this cipher is not “The Magic Words Are Squeamish Ossifrage”.

The Heartland Institute — the ‘academic think-tank’ which disputes the theory of global warming for purely ‘academic’ reasons — seems to be bent on using every rhetorical trick in the book. After outright promoting Rush Limbaugh’s ACORN conspiracy theories, and then later trying to look all serious and balanced and nonpartisan, they’ve now decided to send out politically coded messages to the right-wing ‘base’ (emphases mine):

[...] the [Obama] administration plans to use something on the order of 50 to 70 percent of the revenue raised from his [greenhouse gas emissions] cap-and-trade plan to directly provide “middle class” tax cuts, much of them to people who are already essentially net tax consumers rather than net sources of tax revenue.

[...] What it [cap-and-trade] is really about is using the Teflon shield of environmental apocalypse as one of many means to pay for Obama’s wealth redistribution agenda.

Anyone who’s been watching McCain’s presidential campaign last year for more than a few minutes knows what “wealth redistribution” means in the wingnut imagination. And “people who are already essentially net tax consumers”? That’s so convoluted that I wonder why Heartland didn’t simply list the types of people that fit this description and make everything clear. Then again, that won’t be fun, will it?

Heartland Institute tries to save climate ‘skepticism’ from wingnuts… and fails?

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Heartland Institute tries to save climate ‘skepticism’ from wingnuts… and fails?
Intl. J. Inact., 2:71–72

This is interesting. The self-styled ‘academic think-tank’ known as the Heartland Institute, after spreading Rush Limbaugh’s ACORN conspiracy theories, suddenly remembers that it’s supposed to be a serious and bipartisan policy research institute, and publishes an essay titled How Skeptics Hurt Their Own Cause, by Milwaukee ex-Mayor John Norquist — who isn’t exactly your usual wingnut. Norquist says, among other things:

Two climate change ‘conferences’ in four months

cite as: F. Bi. 2009. Two climate change ‘conferences’ in four months. Intl. J. Inact., 2:67–68

Governments all over the world have their hands full trying to deal with swine flu, and the academic policy ‘think-tank’ known as the Heartland Institute has decided to help out by… organizing yet another ‘conference’ promoting climate change inaction!

The Third International Conference on Climate Change will be held in Washington, DC on June 2, 2009 at the Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Avenue NW. It will call attention to widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on various aspects of climate change and global warming.