I wasn’t going to write about the Heartland Institute shock-horror revelations in the Guardian because I thought it was a non-story. “Independent libertarian think-tank spends trifling* sums of money to counter the state’s liberal-left propaganda”. Gosh, hold the front page. Run it next to the story about the Pope being caught worshipping regularly in Rome and the photograph of a bear pooping behind a tree…

Since then, though, it has got much more interesting. Turns out that at least some of the “leaked” documents purporting to show the round, unvarnished face of capitalist, anti-science evil may have been faked.

Watts Up With That has the details:

My favourite giveaway clue that Watts-y has spotted is this one:
6. Key sentences are rather clumsily written and some make no sense. This contrasts with purposeful language in the other documents. This one…

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Not that Sir Simon Jenkins put it quite so bluntly. But from the chairman of a conservation organisation with four million members, 28,500 acres and 700 miles of coastline this was still pretty powerful and damning stuff.

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Given that all this is so, I really don’t understand why David Cameron feels he needs to impose quota systems on boardrooms. Not for the reasons he gives anyway. I could understand it if he said: “Look, I have no shame, no principles, no moral or ideological core in my blubbery, spineless, Heathite body. My Coalition government is run by Lib Dems, a marketing man and focus groups. And what they all tell me is: “Suck up to the female demographic.”…

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Before I got sidetracked this morning by my sublime irritation at the Coalition’s latest ludicrous foray into Nanny Statism, what I’d meant to blog about was this.

Some of you will have seen it already. It’s by the great Kevin Myers, it ran in yesterday’s Irish Independent (not the English one, for reasons which are bleeding obvious) and it’s the best piece anyone has written, EVER, about wind farms.

Here’s a taste:

Russia’s main gas-company, Gazprom, was unable to meet demand last weekend as blizzards swept across Europe, and over three hundred people died. Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the energy shortfall from Russia?

Of course not. We all know that windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good. Had Europe genuinely depended…

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Concern about declining standards of personal hygiene have inspired David Cameron’s Coalition government to appoint a Personal Hygiene and Cleanliness Supervisor who will advise Britons on how to get the most out of their Personal Hygiene and Cleanliness routines, especially when they use the loo.

“One of the problems associated with toilet use is that people tend to consider it a private moment in their lives in which the government has no business whatsoever,” said the Prime Minister, yesterday, proudly deploying the word “toilet” lest anyone imagine he had been expensively-educated. “But we intend to change that. Without proper government scrutiny, we cannot be at all sure that people are wiping their bottoms properly or not dribbling on the seat or remembering to pull up their flies. The social consequences of this could be horrendous, especially in the…

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“Seit 12 Jahren ist die Erd-Erwärmung gestoppt!”

When the Germans start running headlines like that in their biggest tabloid newspaper, you know that for the eco loons Der Krieg ist Verloren. It means “Global Warming stopped twelve years ago,” and it’s part of a serialisation being run by Bild (circulation: 4 million) of Germany’s newest surprise bestseller – a climate sceptical book called Die Kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun). (H/T Jay)

What’s even more surprising is this: one of the authors, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, is a former environment minister and well-known green activist. P Gosselin at No Tricks Zone has the story:
What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a…

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What are we to make of Anjem Choudary, ex-leader of banned groups including Islam 4 UK, Muslims Against Crusades and, before that, of Al Muhajiroun – original meeting place of the terrorist gang which has just been convicted of a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange?

The sophisticated view – taken by everyone from Justin Elliott in Salon to Rod Liddle in the Spectator – is that he is a harmless, publicity-seeking buffoon.

Here’s Rod:

Anjem Choudray, who dreamed up the march, is one of those thick-as-mince gobby little chancers who could only possibly come from Britain — Welling, Kent, in this particular case. Think Derek Hatton, except with an additional ideological commitment…

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Consider, for example, that disturbingly tentacular collective of self-righteous hippyish busybodies Transition Towns. Here is an…

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I was going to post on biofuels but they can wait: this glorious piece of unintentional comedy from the BBC News website is too good to miss. (H/T Nicholas Jones)

It analyses what BBC reporter Julian Joyce seems to believe is the heartrending plight of a family in Wales struggling to get by on benefits. Apparently – claims unemployed father-of-seven Raymond (“not his real name” – love that detail!) – if the Government manages to enact its heartless scheme to impose a £26,000 per annum cap on welfare benefits, then it could be a “choice between heating or eating.”

Unfortunately, all sympathy for this family evaporates when Joyce goes into more detail about their budget. We learn, for example, that their weekly shopping bill includes “24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes and a large pouch of tobacco.” They also…

(to read more, click here)