The Heartland Institute has begun a new ad campaign. I’ll put the billboard below the fold, but first you have to try and guess what direction they’ve taken. Facts to consider: it’s a right-wing think-tank committed to climate change denial. They’re pro-corporate and anti-science, and apparently they don’t know much about logic, either. And a final hint: it’s a place full of sleazy Republicans, and this campaign aims to outsleaze their presidential campaigning.

Before you read the rest, try to imagine what kind of wretched ratfuckery they could be up to.

TA-DAAAA!

Warms the heart, it does, to see how low they can sink with good old-fashioned, old-school slime tactics. And this isn’t the worst: they also have signs featuring Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden.

They do have a rationale for this approach, but knowing the Heartland as we all do, you just knew it would be dishonest.

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.

The majority of climate scientists accept the fact of anthropogenic global warming; very smart, very well educated people actually do believe those things, while it’s mainly conspiracy theorists and corporate tools who argue otherwise. But then, as we all know, all scientists have the crazy scraggly beard and wild staring eyes and murder people for fun.