Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, And Nobody

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

— Author unknown

Thanks to Tim O for posting this on facebook. I’d heard it before but had forgotten about it.

Lies, damn lies, and the ‘Heartland Institute’

I work at a research lab in Bar Harbor, Maine as a System Administrator. My name and title have been in my e-mail signature, not to mention various websites for over 10 years now so the various snail junk mail places can harvest it. Most of the time this just means I get little postcards about the latest backup library or some fancy brochure from HP telling me all about their latest servers (which we don’t use) or other useless junk from Microsoft, etc.

Last week a package arrived from the ‘the Heartland Institute‘ addressed to “Matthew Baya, Administrator” and then my workplaces address. Ok.. I’ll admit just the name ‘Heartland Institute’ raised my skeptic alarms (been listening too Skepticality too much perhaps 🙂 ) but I opened it and pulled out a 40 page booklet called “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate’ that is the ‘Summary for policymakers, Nongovernmental International Panel On Climate Change’. There was also a 10 minute DVD called ‘Unstoppable Solar Cycles – The Real Story Of Greenland’ included with it. The cover letter that came with it had the Heartland Institute logo and short summary of them below it;

“A nonprofit organization devoted to discovering, developing, and promoting free-market solutions to social and economic problems

Free-market solutions? To social problems? er.. like what?

Also, I note there is no scientific mission in their charter, so why are they the ones sending this 40 page booklet by the ‘Science and Environmental Policy Project’ to me? and why me?

My heckles were raised enough at this point and as my high school english teacher Mr. Joseph Porpora would say (paraphrasing, it’s been many years)”<SNIF><SNIF>This paper smells like bullshit to me, go rewrite it so it doesn’t stink so much'” so really I was about to toss the whole thing but curiousity got the better of me so I just had to look a little deeper to see if my 30 second assessment was correct. Continue reading Lies, damn lies, and the ‘Heartland Institute’