Heartland slimebags

Like many corporate-funded institutions, the Heartland Institute is trying to spread lies. Now, they are suing anyone who calls them out.

The Bad Astronomy blog has the original story. According to the DeSmogBlog:

It is clear from the documents that Heartland advocates against responsible climate mitigation and then uses that advocacy to raise money from oil companies and "other corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies."

A comment on Slashdot has a good evaluation of conspiracy theories...

"Turning everything into a massive conspiracy theory is not going to help you do this."
One side promotes the idea that there has been a massive global conspiracy by scientists, across a number of disciplines and organizations, lasting over decades, to lie about a central scientific result in their field. There is no sensible organizational backing or motivation to this.
....
The other side promotes the idea that there is a small political conspiracy to gain by people who have previously been known to engage in political conspiracies of a a similar nature. There is a well known organizational consistency and economic motivation to this.

These legal threats are just one more link in their conspiracy to silence unfavorable opinions.