So let's just argue about the price ...

(Above: no link, no real point, the pond just wanted you to admire The Australian's wit. So clever, so funny. Oh that Pravda by the Yarra riff, it never gets old, it never gets tired, it's a killer diller like Moe doing an eye poke).

It's time to make it official.

The pond hereby notes that it's available for a bout of climate denialism. Is the pond sluttish, can the pond be bought?

Well since you raise the issue, and since now we're only arguing about the terms, how would $1667 a month sound to you? That'd keep the wolf from the door. Second thoughts, that'd mean the pond would have to keep a second job, say at a university, or perhaps retreat to the countryside to write poems for Gina Rinehart. Or maybe do a current affairs chat show for the Ten network.

How about a couple of hundred thousand for a year's honest spin?

Oh I know there'll be indignation from members of the commentariat. After all, it's well known that the climate science industry is built out of career-building, grant-seeking bludgers of the worst kind, and the thought that there's an anti-climate science industry that's like a lap poodle to the Koch brothers would - if it came out - be some kind of swinging gate. Like there's some career-building grant-seeking culture at work in the denialist industry ...

First job? How about spinning and weaving and ducking and jabbing and hooking away at all this jibber jabber about Bob Carter pulling down $1667 a month, and the Institute of Public Affairs being in the Heartland Institute thick of things? Why you can jump from Leaked docs for climate-denying think tank reveal strategy at Crikey to the documents online at Desmogblog, here, but lordy lordy, they're popping up all over the place, and you can also find them all at the Sceptical Science site here, under the header ... yep, you've guessed it, Denialgate ...

Sheesh, if the documents are real, looks like there's a ton of work to do, so let's get cracking, and spinning and whipping it right away ...

Quick, it's already hit the Guardian, that leftie rag, in Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science, and you can be sure the Pravdas by whichever Yarra they lurk will be spreading the meme like a virus ...

And already some of the jibes are hurtful and unkind. Look what they're calling you at Think Progress ... Heartland Documents Reveal Fringe Denial Group Plans to Pursue Koch Money, Dupe Children and Cultivate Revkin.

Fringe denial group? Why that's outrageous.

And they reckon The Onion wrote it all. The Onion? Next thing you know they'll be dragging Mad magazine into it.

Golly it's looking like a tough ask. Perhaps we should be thinking $1,667 a day?

Well if Elliot Spitzer could afford it, why can't the Koch brothers?

So far your response has been pretty feeble, and slow as in: Heartland Institute Responds to Stolen and Fake Documents.

Are you sure you don't need some professional help?

What's that? You're thinking Miranda the Devine might be a better call, after her splendid piece a couple of years ago, when she ranted What it really means to be Green:

Eco-fanatics are no different to totalitarian ideologues through the ages. Evils such as Nazism don’t arrive with devil’s horns; they come in disguise - “sweet camouflaged poison”.

Hmm, I see what you mean. She's a player and a stayer, and she treats the daily smashing of Godwin's Law as her own Godwingate challenge. And she just loves the information the Heartland Institute dishes out on climate science. See, we said 'information' without a hint of an ideological snicker ...

Never mind, if the Anonymous Donor has more anonymous eggs to fry - in the name of transparency and openness - let's see what Tim Blair and his clones are up to in Blair world? Perhaps Blair might be the go?

Sorry, he's too busy dubbing Senator Hanson-Young as a local Kardashian, producing such witty comments as:

As I once said to my ex-wife, she has good child-bearing hips. She is photogenic. It’s just such a shame when she opens her mouth and starts speaking ...

What a pity Tim Blair's too dumb even for the Heartland Institute. The attitude's right, but the wit's right back in the cave ... along with the readership.

But wait, there's always Andrew Bolt, who surely just the right man, and already on the case in Age horrified! Sceptic paid 10 per cent of Flannery's salary.

In a flurry of rhetorical floozies and never mind the question of transparency, or all the elaborate exaggerated dressing up of climate science financed by black helicopter slush funds, the Bolter is outraged at what's going down.

There's all these huge amounts of money being paid to all sorts of "warmists", including but not limited to Al Gore, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and James Hansen:

Care factor at the warmist Age? Zero.

Oh damn that warmist Pravda by the Yarra, damn it to hell.

Sceptic Professor Bob Carter paid peanuts in expenses. Care factor at the warmist Age? Extreme:

A prominent scientist has rejected as offensive any suggestion he is doing the bidding of a US climate sceptic think tank that is paying him a monthly fee.

Confidential documents leaked from inside The Heartland Institute, a wealthy think tank based in Chicago and Washington, detail strategy and funding for an array of activities designed to spread doubt about climate change science… Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, ... receives a ‘’monthly payment’’ of $US1667 ($A1550), as part of a program to pay ‘’high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist message’’.

Peanuts in expenses?

The only problem here is that clearly the Bolter is being paid too much by the HUN and by Ten, since he seems to think $1667 a month is a mere trifle, a bit of loose change, no more than cab fares, per diems, a few telephone calls, or perhaps a few opera recordings (well yes it is important to have a solid collection of Maria Callas) ...

But you have to admit the Bolter flings about terms like alarmist and warmist with exceptional scientific rigour and without a hint of ideological zealotry or personal abuse. It's always down wit the science with the Bolter ...

Which sort of brings us back to Tim Blair and offensive jokes as old as the cavemen who attend his blog:

A guy walks up to a woman and says: "Damn, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I don't want to seem crass but I like to just cut to the chase. I'll give you a million dollars if you sleep with me".

She looks at him and says "Are you fucking kidding me?"

He says "No, this is not a joke. I have a million dollars in cash and I'll give it to you if you sleep with me". She contemplates this for a moment and decides: "A million dollars? Fine. Okay, I'll do it".

Then the guy says: "Actually ... how about ten dollars instead". She gets furious: "What the fuck do you think I am?" The guy replies: "We've already established what you are. We're just negotiating the price". Moral of the story: A whore is a whore... regardless of price.

Put it another way.

All the Bolter was doing in his little response was arguing about the price.

Oh I know, I know, it's a terrible joke, but did you see Indecent Proposal way back when? It seems terrible jokes can lead to terrible movies ... and a terrible understanding of the morality of anonymous benefactors pushing ideological barrows and flinging money about.

But I guess that's what you expect of people like the Bolter. They know how to argue about the price ...

(Below: quick, they're reading the warmist rag right now!)