It really is hard to know where to begin with this one. But let's start with: "What on earth were they thinking?" 
 
 The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns. 
 
 I'll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there's simply no need to finesse it further: 
 
 Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world's most notorious criminals say they "still believe in global warming" – and ask viewers if they do, too…The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010). 
 
 These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it. 
 
 Why did Heartland choose to feature these people on its billboards? Because what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the "mainstream" media, and liberal politicians say about global warming. The point is that believing in global warming is not "mainstream," smart, or sophisticated. In fact, it is just the opposite of those things. Still believing in man-made global warming – after all the scientific discoveries and revelations that point against this theory – is more than a little nutty. In fact, some really crazy people use it to justify immoral and frightening behavior. 
 
 But then comes the best bit: 
 
 Of course, not all global warming alarmists are murderers or tyrants. 
 
 It tries to morally justify its posters - the first of which appeared over the Eisenhower Expressway yesterday - by saying that, due to ""Climategate" and the recent incident in which a US scientist called Peter Gleick admitted to obtaining and releasing internal documents (one of which Heartland claims was faked) detailing Heartland's funding and policy strategies, that "the leaders of the global warming movement are willing to break the law and the rules of ethics to shut down scientific debate and implement their left-wing agendas". 
 
 It adds: 
 
 The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen. 
 
 The bigger question, beyond trying to analyse the collective mentality of an organisation that would sign off a poster campaign like this, is whether it will now lead any of the speakers, attendees and sponsors to pull out of the conference and dissociate themselves from this thinktank. 
 
 As a result of the embarrassment caused by the release earlier this year of its internal funding documents, the US car giant GM pulled the plug on its funding for Heartland. Will Microsoft, Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline, for example, now also choose to cut their funding to this organisation? 
 
 You also have to wonder if any of the scheduled conference speakers are now having doubts about whether they want to be associated with Heartland. One person who is on the list to speak is Roger Helmer, a British politician who has attended previous conferences. Having recently left the Conservative party as an MEP, the prominent climate sceptic is now the UK Independence Party's spokesperson on industry and energy. 
 
 Earlier, I sent him an email with a link to Heartland's poster campaign press release and asked him: "Will you now be reconsidering attending in light of this new poster campaign for the conference? Do you approve of or condemn the poster campaign?" 
 
 He confirmed he was still attending, adding: 
 
 I am delighted that the Heartland campaign for the Chicago climate conference has succeeded in its purpose and attracted the attention of the Guardian. I urge Guardian readers to attend the conference if they can, but failing that, to follow it on the web. 
 
 I simply have nothing further to add. ||||| In some ways, this is an almost perfect illustration of what has happened to the "right." A refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association. Here's how the Heartland Institute describes this new campaign: 
 
 The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010). These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about how man-made global warming is a crisis and how mankind must take immediate and drastic actions to stop it. 
 
 This is where the American right now is: 
 
 The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen. 
 
 Mann and Ornstein are correct. Large sections of the American right are now close to insane as well as depraved. And there is no Buckley to rein them in. Just countless Jonah Goldbergs seeking to cash in. ||||| May 4, 2012 — The Heartland Institute pulled its global warming billboard starring Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber whose manifesto expressed his belief in catastrophic man-caused global warming, after 24 hours.* Read the release here. 
 
 May 3, 2012 — The Heartland Institute announces the installation of a digital billboard, along with an essay by Joseph Bast. Read them both here. 
 
 (* When Heartland took down the billboard, it also took down the image from this page. If you want to see it, Google will surely oblige. The above is the billboard Heartland has run from May 5 through its conference on May 23.) ||||| Michael Mann, a scientist at the centre of the "climate wars", has sued a rightwing thinktank and a magazine for comparing him to the convicted sex offender and disgraced football coach Jerry Sandusky and accusing him of academic fraud. 
 
 Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, announced the defamation lawsuit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the National Review in a posting on his Facebook page on Tuesday. 
 
 The 37-page complaint arises from blog posts published last July, and accuses National Review and CEI of recycling "false and defamatory statements" about Mann's research. 
 
 Mann, the author of the iconic hockey stick graph showing a sharp uptick in global temperatures after 1900, has come under repeated attack from climate contrarians. 
 
 He has been cleared of academic wrongdoing by seven separate investigations, but the attacks have persisted – culminating in last July's blogs which likened Mann to Sandusky. 
 
 A post on the CEI blog referred to Mann as "the other scandal" at Penn State and accused the scientist of "molesting data" about climate change. The sentences likening Mann to Sandusky were later removed. 
 
 National Review later picked up the post, although the writer added a minor caveat. 
 
 "Despite their knowledge of the results of these many investigations, the defendants have nevertheless accused Dr Mann of academic fraud and have maliciously attacked his personal reputation with the knowingly false comparison to a child molester. The conduct of the defendants is outrageous, and Dr Mann will be seeking judgement for both compensatory and punitive damages," Mann's Facebook page said. 
 
 Mann said the lawsuit was part of a larger effort by scientists to push back against the attacks on climate science. 
 
 Another new front was opened up in that broader fight, with the release of a report by climate contrarians intended to undermine an authoritative US government study on the effects of climate change. 
 
 The Daily Climate reported that another rightwing thinktank in Washington, the Cato Institute, planned to put out its own version of a landmark US government climate science report – aimed at discrediting mainstream climate science. 
 
 The Cato report appears almost identical to a 2009 study detailing the effects of climate change on the US. The Cato version, however, was assembled by climate contrarians and concludes that the impacts of climate change would have "little national significance" in the US.
– A conservative think tank has pulled a controversial billboard that compared those who believe in global warming to deranged killers. The Heartland Institute was taking heavy flak for the digital sign in Chicago that featured a photo of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and the question, "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" reports the Washington Post's Plum Line blog. The institute explained on its website that the "experiment" was designed to be deliberately provocative. It had originally planned to follow up with images of Osama bin Laden and Charles Manson, among others. An earlier post from the site explained that "the most prominent advocates of global warming" are "murderers, tyrants, and madmen." It added, helpfully, that "not all global warming skeptics are murderers or tyrants," notes the Guardian, which first spotted the billboard. Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast thinks it's everything that's wrong with the right—"a refusal to acknowledge scientific reality; and a brutalist style of public propaganda that focuses entirely on guilt by the most extreme association." GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a prominent skeptic about global warming, vowed to pull out of an institute-sponsored conference later this month if the ad campaign continued; it ended soon after.