This morning's quarterpounder with cheese:

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THEGUARDIAN.COM
World leaders who deny climate change should go to mental hospital – Samoan PM
Tuilaepa Sailele berates leaders who fail to take issue seriously, singling out Australia, India, China and the US
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Robert Brooke Any body who reads the Guardian should go to a mental hospital.
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Elliott Bignell As opposed to Fox news and blogs from teenagers' basements, I suppose. The Grauniad runs off an independent foundation bequeathed for the purpose. It is therefore the ONLY major news outlet that does not serve some external financial or political agenda. This is why it is one of the few remaining respectable popular news sources in the English-speaking world.

I might also point out that it has broken most of the leading investigative news events of the last decade, including Snowden, many of Wikileaks' biggest stories and TTIP. TTIP, in particular, was broken in the Guardian by George Monbiot, one of the best investigative journalists remaining, and his story led to a Europe-wide campaign which led to the stitch-up being dropped. That is an epochal achievement. I should remind you that the Americans, by contrast, have instead elected as head of state an overgrown toddler, who is systematically demolishing every basis of US world prestige and domestic freedom and wrecking the economy, in the mere HOPE of escaping from analogous trade agreements, which said toddler is proceeding to "renegotiate". (I.e. keep.)
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Robert Brooke Keep worshipping at the altar of lies and bias.
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Elliott Bignell Robert Brooke This is a good illustration of the difference between a Guardian reader and a denialist: I give concrete examples, then I call you names, such as George Monbiot and TTIP, you moron. You ONLY have the name-calling.

Facts matter, not just names for facts. Master this simple principle and you might be able to understand some science.
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David A. Burton Elliott Bignell wrote, "The Grauniad... is therefore the ONLY major news outlet that does not serve some external financial or political agenda... [and] one of the few remaining respectable popular news sources in the English-speaking world."
...and then, "I give concrete examples... Facts matter..."

The Guardian is a leftist disinformation source. Here's a "concrete example" for you, Elliott Bignell.

https://www.sealevel.info/Peter_Gleick_DeSmogBlog_and_the_Fakegate_Scandal-Burton.html

In 2012, Dr. Peter Gleick committed identity theft, and impersonated a Heartland Institute Board Member, to steal internal Heartland documents, hoping to find something incriminating that he could use against them.

Gleick didn't find anything incriminating, so he FORGED it!

He created a defamatory fake Heartland "strategy memo," which contained snippets from the stolen documents (to make it look real), intermixed with nefarious Heartland "strategies" from Gleick's delusional imagination, such as a supposed plot to "dissuade teachers from teaching science." Then, with the help of DeSmogBlog, he distributed the forged and stolen documents far and wide, to smear Heartland and the people associated with that fine institution.

Fortunately, Gleick's delusions were not limited to climate alarmism and imaginary conspiracies by Heartland. He also had an absurdly high opinion of his own prominence and importance -- so much so that he inserted into the fake document an incongruous reference to himself, with the strangely flattering description of himself as a "high-profile climate scientist," in a document which said NOTHING complimentary about ANY other climate activists.

What's more, he apparently didn't realize that his own writing is idiosyncratic in quite a few ways, from word choices to punctuation, which made the forged document recognizable as his own work, which led to his being identified as the perpetrator.

Eventually, after he had been publicly identified, Gleick confessed to being the person who had impersonated the Heartland Board Member to steal the other documents, and who had distributed the forged and stolen documents, to smear Heartland.

He denied being the forger, but his denial was a very obvious lie, since the reason he got caught was that his own idiosyncratic writing within the text of the forgery gave him away.

Gleick SHOULD be in prison. It was an open-and-shut case of multiple felonies, committed across State lines (Gleick in California, Heartland in Illinois).

Heartland petitioned the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois to prosecute him, but the U.S. Attorney (an Obama appointee) declined to prosecute:

https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/criminal_referral_of_peter_gleick.pdf

By the time the new Republican Administration took office and replaced the U.S. Attorney, the statute of limitations had run out for Gleick's crimes.

So Gleick got off scot-free.

The episode didn't even hurt his career much. He took a brief vacation from his position as head of the Pacific Institute, but was swiftly reinstated. The AGU let him “resign” for “personal, private reasons” as chair of AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics, and did not revoke his AGU membership. The NAS did not revoke his membership, either.

Leftist publications like The Guardian and Scientific American ran articles whitewashing his crimes. Gavin Schmidt publicly minimized the significance of the scandal, and attacked Gleick's victims (Heartland). National Geographic’s (now thankfully defunct) ScienceBlog subsidiary even rewarded Gleick with a blog there; he was their resident “scientist, innovator, and communicator” on “global water, environment, climate” (and presumably identity theft, fraud, character assassination, and forgery). Michael Mann and Huffington Post still sing his praises.

Not counting DeSmogBlog, The Guardian was the worst. They even ran a blatantly dishonest propaganda denying the undeniable fact that Gleick was the forger:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/21/peter-gleick-cleared-heartland

That's a great example of "fake news." It's The Guardian's story about how Gleick was supposedly "cleared" of suspicion of being the forger. This story is by The Guardian's "US environment correspondent," Suzanne Goldenberg. Opening paragraph:

"A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging any documents in his expose of the rightwing Heartland Institute's strategy and finances, the Guardian has learned."

You might wonder "what review?" Or "by whom?" Or "how is a 'review' different from an 'investigation?'"

In fact, Goldenberg didn't give a source because she didn't have one. Although Goldenberg didn't admit it in the article, she got the information from Gleick's own organization, the inexecrable Pacific Institute, and that organization didn't say who created the "review" which supposedly cleared Gleick, and they never even released a copy of the report from that "review."

It turns out there was no investigation at all. They just hired a lawyer named Gary Scholick, a specialist in labor law, with no apparent relevant expertise w/r/t forgery, to supposedly write a "review" of the documentation which they gave him.

I say "supposedly," because that review was never released, and, to this day, Scholick is not mentioned anywhere on the Pacific Institute web site:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Scholick+site%3Apacinst.org

My guess is that the "review," if it actually existed at all, was just a few sentences in a letter, saying that Scholick found no evidence in the material he was given, blah, blah blah.

There's nothing "respectable" about an organization which perpetrates such frauds on its readers. There's nothing "respectable" about The Guardian. Facts matter -- but, apparently, not to The Guardian and its readers.
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David A. Burton {Well, FB is censoring my long comments, again... I'm trying a short one, with just one link...}

Elliott Bignell wrote, "The Grauniad... is therefore the ONLY major news outlet that does not serve some external financial or political agenda... [and] one of the few remaining respectable popular news sources in the English-speaking world."
...and then, "I give concrete examples... Facts matter..."

The Guardian is a leftist disinformation source. Here's a "concrete example" for you, Elliott Bignell.

https://www.sealevel.info/Peter_Gleick_DeSmogBlog_and_the...
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David A. Burton {Well, FB is censoring me again; trying again, but with obfuscated links...}

Elliott Bignell wrote, "The Grauniad... is therefore the ONLY major news outlet that does not serve some external financial or political agenda... [and] one of the few remaining respectable popular news sources in the English-speaking world."
...and then, "I give concrete examples... Facts matter..."

The Guardian is a leftist disinformation source. Here's a "concrete example" for you, Elliott Bignell.

https{colon,slash,slash}tinyurl{dot}com/fakegate

In 2012, Dr. Peter Gleick committed identity theft, and impersonated a Heartland Institute Board Member, to steal internal Heartland documents, hoping to find something incriminating that he could use against them.

Gleick didn't find anything incriminating, so he FORGED it!

He created a defamatory fake Heartland "strategy memo," which contained snippets from the stolen documents (to make it look real), intermixed with nefarious Heartland "strategies" from Gleick's delusional imagination, such as a supposed plot to "dissuade teachers from teaching science." Then, with the help of DeSmogBlog, he distributed the forged and stolen documents far and wide, to smear Heartland and the people associated with that fine institution.

Fortunately, Gleick's delusions were not limited to climate alarmism and imaginary conspiracies by Heartland. He also had an absurdly high opinion of his own prominence and importance -- so much so that he inserted into the fake document an incongruous reference to himself, with the strangely flattering description of himself as a "high-profile climate scientist," in a document which said NOTHING complimentary about ANY other climate activists.

What's more, he apparently didn't realize that his own writing is idiosyncratic in quite a few ways, from word choices to punctuation, which made the forged document recognizable as his own work, which led to his being identified as the perpetrator.

Eventually, after he had been publicly identified, Gleick confessed to being the person who had impersonated the Heartland Board Member to steal the other documents, and who had distributed the forged and stolen documents, to smear Heartland.

He denied being the forger, but his denial was a very obvious lie, since the reason he got caught was that his own idiosyncratic writing within the text of the forgery gave him away.

Gleick SHOULD be in prison. It was an open-and-shut case of multiple felonies, committed across State lines (Gleick in California, Heartland in Illinois).

Heartland petitioned the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois to prosecute him, but the U.S. Attorney (an Obama appointee) declined to prosecute:

https{colon,slash,slash}tinyurl{dot}com/gleick-crimref

By the time the new Republican Administration took office and replaced the U.S. Attorney, the statute of limitations had run out for Gleick's crimes.

So Gleick got off scot-free.

The episode didn't even hurt his career much. He took a brief vacation from his position as head of the Pacific Institute, but was swiftly reinstated. The AGU let him “resign” for “personal, private reasons” as chair of AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics, and did not revoke his AGU membership. The NAS did not revoke his membership, either.

Leftist publications like The Guardian and Scientific American ran articles whitewashing his crimes. Gavin Schmidt publicly minimized the significance of the scandal, and attacked Gleick's victims (Heartland). National Geographic’s (now thankfully defunct) ScienceBlog subsidiary even rewarded Gleick with a blog there; he was their resident “scientist, innovator, and communicator” on “global water, environment, climate” (and presumably identity theft, fraud, character assassination, and forgery). Michael Mann and Huffington Post still sing his praises.

Not counting DeSmogBlog, The Guardian was the worst. They even ran a blatantly dishonest propaganda piece denying the undeniable fact that Gleick was the forger:

https{colon,slash,slash}tinyurl{dot}com/grauniad-lies-for-gleick

That's a great example of "fake news." It's The Guardian's story about how Gleick was supposedly "cleared" of suspicion of being the forger. This story is by The Guardian's "US environment correspondent," Suzanne Goldenberg. Opening paragraph:

"A review has cleared the scientist Peter Gleick of forging any documents in his expose of the rightwing Heartland Institute's strategy and finances, the Guardian has learned."

You might wonder "what review?" Or "by whom?" Or "how is a 'review' different from an 'investigation?'"

In fact, Goldenberg didn't give a source because she didn't have one. Although Goldenberg didn't admit it in the article, she got the information from Gleick's own organization, the inexecrable Pacific Institute, and that organization didn't say who created the "review" which supposedly cleared Gleick, and they never even released a copy of the report from that "review."

It turns out there was no investigation at all. They just hired a lawyer named Gary Scholick, a specialist in labor law, with no apparent relevant expertise w/r/t forgery, to supposedly write a "review" of the documentation which they gave him.

I say "supposedly," because that review was never released, and, to this day, Scholick is not mentioned anywhere on the Pacific Institute web site:

https{colon,slash,slash}tinyurl{dot}com/scholick-pacinst

My guess is that the "review," if it actually existed at all, was just a few sentences in a letter, saying that Scholick found no evidence in the material he was given, blah, blah blah.

There's nothing "respectable" about an organization which perpetrates such frauds on its readers. There's nothing "respectable" about The Guardian. Facts matter -- but, apparently, not to The Guardian and its fans.
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Elliott Bignell So you're basically accusing a man who does not even work for the Guardian of crimes for which he has not been and cannot be tried, which is a lie and a defamation in its own right, and then claiming with no basis whatsoever that the Guardian is lying because it uses an unnamed source - a routine practice in journalism. And you are actually so stupid as to think that no-one will evaluate your lies critically, when even FB won't let your bullshit sources through.

And you wonder why the world regards you clowns with contempt!
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David A. Burton When someone isn't troubled by dishonesty in others, it is usually because he is dishonest, himself, and even dishonest WITH himself.
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Elliott Bignell Well, demonstrate dishonesty in others and you may have cause for complaint, then. DEMONSTRATE, note, not merely accuse. So far all you have done is defame another person against whom no charges exist and try to draw a spurious link back to an unrelated publication against which you have a political animus, based only on your ideological faith that your own defamation need not stand up to examination. That only demonstrates dishonesty in yourself, and it troubles me.

It troubles me sufficiently, in fact, that I just mailed Dr. Gleick and flagged up your libel. Let's see if we can't strip one of you fuckheads of a few hundred thousand for your lies for once.
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David A. Burton Elliott Bignell, I DID demonstrate it, beyond any reasonable doubt. You just won't read it, presumably because you don't WANT to know the truth. (You'll have to de-obfuscate the links I posted, of course, which you obviously haven't bothered to do.)

Gleick knows he's guilty, and he knows that the only reason he didn't go to prison is that the Democrat U.S. Attorney protected him, despite his obvious guilt.

If you contend that you DID read the evidence at the links I posted, then you'll be able to answer a simple question, from that material:

What are the names of the two federal felonies which Gleick committed, by the actions that he ADMITTED to?
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Elliott Bignell David A. Burton One of the foundational principles of a free society is the presumption of innocence. What your mind-reading abilities permit you to claim others "know" has no import or interest to others. The existence of unsupported claims against a man who does not work for the Guardian and has not been charged does not demonstrate wrong-doing by the Guardian. No, not even because you are desperate to believe otherwise. Get that through your thick, lying, denialist skull.

You are filth.
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David A. Burton Elliott Bignell, I have provided you with overwhelming evidence that Peter Gleick is guilty multiple federal felonies, which, if justice had been served, would have earned him decades in a federal penitentiary.

The reason you can't even name Gleick's felonies is that you refuse to read the evidence. But that doesn't keep you from calling it "unsupported."

The Guardian's wrongdoing was in lying to their readers, claiming that Gleick had been cleared of suspicion in the matter of the forgery, when he had not. Like you, The Guardian has demonstrated that truthfulness does not constrain what they write.
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