In case you missed it, this week Peter Gleick confessed to the crookery that brought Heartland Institute internal documents into public light and generated sensationalized stories about Heartland supposedly conspiring to muddle the scientific debate with financial support from big oil and the Koch brothers. Those stories were carried by the Huffington Post, DeSmogBlog, ThinkProgress.com, and other outlets with little tolerance for skepticism about global warming. Gleick is the President of the Pacific Institute, a vigorous promoter of pro-global warming interpretations.

The quote of the week on this scandal comes from Megan McArdle, who writes: “After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”

You can read up and follow breaking news on the scandal at the Heartland Institute’s new site Fakegate.com.

Here’s a couple of fun facts: Up until the scandal, Gleick was the chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics. He has since resigned that post.

Earlier in the week, reports Steve Milloy at JunkScience.com, the EPA Grants Database listed both Gleick and the Pacific Institute has having been recipients of various grants totaling nearly $1.6 million. That database now seems to have been scrubbed of references to Gleick and the Pacific Institute, reports Milloy.