Newsday reports on a successful cooptation of the activist group ACORN [3] by Shell Oil [4]'s natural gas venture: "Amid its ongoing effort to garner community support for its controversial offshore natural gas terminal, Broadwater Energy [5] yesterday announced a 10-year, $10-million initiative to fund the weatherizing of more than 2,000 houses in low-income parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties [in New York]. Critics of the proposed offshore terminal blasted the idea as a naked attempt to buy friends for a project about which they have raised a host of environmental and economic objections. ... The program would be administered by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now [6], or ACORN. ... Outspoken Broadwater critic Adrienne Esposito ... called the program 'a bribe to bring good public relations points. A lot of money doesn't make Broadwater a better project.' ... Partnerships with third parties [7] who have some community credibility is a common strategy in advancing controversial projects, according to [CMD's] Sheldon Rampton ... 'I think the community ought to look carefully at what they're getting themselves into. Would [Broadwater parent] Shell Oil be doing this project if they weren't planning to build the natural gas terminal?'" ACORN also receives funding from the Democracy Alliance [8], a network of Democratic Party millionaires. Shell, long advised by activist-busting PR firms including Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin [9], has an infamous history [10] of targeting, dividing and conquering activists.