Some Background on this Al Gore Guy, Who Just Won the Nobel Prize...

Guy Montag | October 12, 2007, 8:56am | #

The Nobel people finally broke with their police of the Peace Prize being awarded fro trying to push Jews into the sea, like when Arafat and Carter got it?

joe | October 12, 2007, 8:56am | #

Ha ha.

Warren | October 12, 2007, 9:01am | #

The Nobel people finally broke with their police of the Peace Prize being awarded fro trying to push Jews into the sea, like when Arafat and Carter got it?

But fair is fair. They also gave it to Jews for implementing their world domination scheme, like when Henry Kissinger and Yitzhak Rabin got it.

Episiarch | October 12, 2007, 9:02am | #

When will Tipper get hers for her noble attempts to stop the menace of Twisted Sister and Deathtöngue?

semm | October 12, 2007, 9:07am | #

The guy took his already existing fame, and made a documentary which a lot of people saw, at least at first, because it was made by him, a famous person. The result of which has been a slight elevation in the amount of talking about a subject which was already on people's and government's minds beforehand.

Surely there are more deserving people out there.

Erol | October 12, 2007, 9:12am | #

Al Gore, congratulations on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Now it is time to announce your wish to become America's president, take your seat in the White House, and be the leader we have all been waiting for to move beyond the corrupt system of Empire and towards Earth community. Kudos to the Nobel Committee for realizing that sustainability is peace.

BakedPenguin | October 12, 2007, 9:14am | #

Surely there are more deserving people out there.

Yes, but in the minds of Nobel selectors, their selection wouldn't piss off Bush nearly as much. And isn't pissing off Bush what peace is really about?

To the Gore-bashers: are we really better off because Bush "won" in 2000 ?

No, but that doesn't mean he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Episiarch | October 12, 2007, 9:18am | #

Now it is time to announce your wish to become America's president

I thought he was to become Emperor of the Moon.

John C. Randolph | October 12, 2007, 9:21am | #

"To the Gore-bashers: are we really better off because Bush "won" in 2000 ?"

Depends. Economically, maybe. Civil liberties-wise, hard to tell. It was a democrat, after all, who rounded up US citizens and put them in concentration camps in the 1940's.

-jcr

P Brooks | October 12, 2007, 9:22am | #

I'm envisioning of whirled peas.

val | October 12, 2007, 9:29am | #

Heading off half a billion or so climate refugees is a pretty good way of preserving peace.

damn, joe, I must have watched a different documentary

joe | October 12, 2007, 9:31am | #

Yup. He wouldn't have downgraded the Director Counter-Terrorism position from cabinet to subcabinet level a few months before 9/11. He wouldn't have gone off half-cocked and invaded Iraq on false pretenses. He would have finished Afghanistan, closing the deal at Tora Bora. He would not have stripped us of our habeaus corpus rights, nor authorized torture. Nor would he have turned the U.S. Attorneys offices into partisan witch hunters.

James Ard | October 12, 2007, 9:32am | #

Yea, Instead of the economy rescusitating tax cuts, Gore and congress would have been deadlocked on proposed tax increases. Meaning the recession would have lasted a hell of a lot longer.

joe | October 12, 2007, 9:35am | #

We would have had competant emergency personnel managers running FEMA during Katrina and Rita, rather than his cronies' college buddies.

We would have had fiscally-repsonsible budgets submitted to Congress.

We would have had far fewer Enron-esque mortgage derivatives being sold by non-bank mortgage companies, who would have therefore been less eager to push foolish loans, so our economy wouldn't be slipping into recession.

joe | October 12, 2007, 9:39am | #

James Ard,

Are you forgetting that Al Gore ran on a $600 billion tax cut in 2000, or are you trying to snow us?

James Ard | October 12, 2007, 9:41am | #

Joe, the liberal idea of giving loans to people who can't afford them is the root of the sub-prime problem, which apparently isn't triggering another recession.

BakedPenguin | October 12, 2007, 9:43am | #

...He would have finished Afghanistan, closing the deal at Tora Bora. He would not have stripped us of our habeaus corpus rights, nor authorized torture. Nor would he have turned the U.S. Attorneys offices into partisan witch hunters.

joe, I agree with you on Iraq, I seriously doubt he would have invaded, and yes, (Told You So), that alone would be worth the price of admission.

The rest of what you're saying (joe) is speculation. Clinton liked to abuse his power, and he didn't even have a war going to give him the excuse. The Dems are not better (as a group) on discretionary power.

joe | October 12, 2007, 9:43am | #

I believe Gore also ran on regime change in Iraq.

You believe a lot of things, James. They just rarely have anything to do with fact.

Episiarch | October 12, 2007, 9:46am | #

joe, your crystal ball is quite powerful*. Can you give me the next winning Powerball numbers please?

* yes I realize that I also predicted that Gore would be just as bad on civil liberties. This prediction is based on the fact that basically all politicians are terrible on civil liberties, and not on the fact that Gore is, according to you, Jesus without all the icky religion stuff.

joe | October 12, 2007, 9:50am | #

Yeah, the case "Gore would have been just as bad as Bush," that people like Ard and Episiarch are reduced to arguing, "Al Gore would NOT have been perfect."

Nice strawman, hosers, but it just draws attention to how impossible it is to defend your original statement.

DannyK | October 12, 2007, 9:51am | #

Al Gore: A bigger fascist than FDR, or just as big?
--Stephen Colbert

ed | October 12, 2007, 9:53am | #

what would your illustrious Science Correspondant say?

We don't need no stinking science correspondent. We have joe to set us straight!

Scooby | October 12, 2007, 9:54am | #

Gore couldn't do worse if he tried.


But you know he would have tried.

John-David | October 12, 2007, 9:57am | #

We're in fantasy land now, where things like Waco, Elian Gonzales, bombing Sudanese aspirin factories, and parsing the word "is" on national television happened under some president who wasn't Bill Clinton.

joe | October 12, 2007, 10:04am | #

Episiarch,

This prediction is based on the fact that basically all politicians are terrible on civil liberties

See, and that's the difference between us. I base my opinions on the specific facts and evidence of particular cases, and you base yours on broad statements that don't require you to know what you're talking about.

For example, I looked at those actions George Bush undertook which were unique, novel, and at odds with either what Al Gore has specifically said, or with the prevailing opinions of everyone outside the Bush administration, and concluded that Al Gore would not have done those things.

You started with the premise that Al Gore is just as bad as George Bush, and then concluded that statements to contrary must therefore be wrong.

joe | October 12, 2007, 10:05am | #

RC,

How high did the seas rise in one day in New Orleans?

You do understand that flooding happens in intense bursts in specific locations during storm events, right?

joe | October 12, 2007, 10:07am | #

Let's all close our eyes, and pretend that the worse things that our government did in the last six years were Waco, Elian Gonzales, bombing Sudanese aspirin factories, and parsing the word "is" on national television.

This is supposed to be the case against Gore?

joe | October 12, 2007, 10:11am | #

RC,

You do understand that dramatic climate changes result in formerly fertile areas becoming less able to support crops, right?

You do understand that Bangladesh is already a flood-zone nightmare, and just a small sea rise would make the problem vastly worse, right?

You do understand that Pacific islands have already been abandoned, and their residents forces to relocate, because of rising sea levels, right?

You need to start grounding your opinions in knowledge, instead of what you can make sound plausible if you play dumb hard enough.

An Ottawa Reader | October 12, 2007, 10:15am | #

joe, using Canadian insults is going a bit far, don't you think? Eh?

Yeah, really!

joe is right, though--the prize was shared between the IPCC and Gore (they got half each). I don't think Gore deserved half the prize. At best, you might just as well say Bono deserves the prize. The IPCC did all the work.

When Reason and its science correspondent comes to accept that climate change is a real problem, I consider debate among reasonable people closed, though the issue of just how to deal with it remains as interesting as ever.

Given this, did the IPCC deserve the prize? Discuss.

Episiarch | October 12, 2007, 10:22am | #

Spoken out against the civil liberties violations of the Bush administration.

Oh please. And if Gore had won, Bush would have "spoken out" against Gore's inevitable encroachments. It's called "politics". I mean, politicians never oppose things because they are done by the opposite party.

Your faith in your savior is touching.

Dakota | October 12, 2007, 10:24am | #

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," ..."and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."

Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994.

val | October 12, 2007, 10:29am | #

geez, joe, take it easy, I dont think even the Ron Paul groupies get that worked up around here when some on attacks their man

joe | October 12, 2007, 10:35am | #

val,

I know that these comments are difficult to read emotionally, but let me clear something up for you:

I'm not upset; I'm psyched. What you're picking up on when you say I'm "worked up" is the joy that comes when a victory turns into a rout.

thoreau | October 12, 2007, 10:42am | #

Show some gratitude, guys. If Al Gore hadn't invented the internet how could we all bitch about him together? We'd have to bitch about him in our own little local pubs, instead of a big nationwide complaint fest.

For those about to whine, I salute you!

JasonL | October 12, 2007, 10:44am | #

"For example, I looked at those actions George Bush undertook which were unique, novel, and at odds with either what Al Gore has specifically said, or with the prevailing opinions of everyone outside the Bush administration, and concluded that Al Gore would not have done those things."

But to be fair, it is only the actual president who has to face the overwhelming pressure to "Do something!" or "Make us safe now!" I blame most civil liberties problems that arise from crises on voters, and tend to believe that no politician wants to be the guy who 'didn't do enough'.

Russ R | October 12, 2007, 10:46am | #

Guys...

Come on now... let give joe his one happy day to bask in Al Gore's gloryhole.

thoreau | October 12, 2007, 10:50am | #

I blame most civil liberties problems that arise from crises on voters, and tend to believe that no politician wants to be the guy who 'didn't do enough'.

What do you say about voters who knowingly support a candidate who authorizes torture?

Neu Mejican | October 12, 2007, 11:02am | #

Given this, did the IPCC deserve the prize? Discuss.

That's no fun. Can't make fun of someone who is more successful than you in that discussion.

joe | October 12, 2007, 11:21am | #

See, Episiarch, this is why I keep getting to do end-zone dances, and you don't:

Pox on both their houses" isn't a spiritual creed, joe, it's just a dispassionate observation.

That statement can be BOTH. If you're actually talking about a situation in which both parties are equally bad, then it is a dispassionate observation.

But if you are just assuming that both parties must, in whatever case comes up, be equally bad, then it is a statement of faith.

Your ideology is not a defense against partisan bias - EVEN IF your ideology incorporates equivalency between the two parties as a fundamental statement of faith. All you've done is pledged your allegiance to a thrid type of partisan bias.

Lamar | October 12, 2007, 11:38am | #

It is outrageous that they would give the Nobel Peace Prize to guy who doesn't even support the troops.

Mike Laursen | October 12, 2007, 11:59am | #

joe, Episiarch, once you guys wrap up your brilliant debate and one of you convinces the other of what would have happened in an alternative universe where Al Gore served as President, can you just post a brief summary of what you concluded?

VM | October 12, 2007, 12:14pm | #

joe -

your first comment, the Nelson Munz'esque "Ha Ha" is awesome! Hilarious!!!!!

:)

J sub D | October 12, 2007, 12:24pm | #

See, Episiarch, this is why I keep getting to do end-zone dances, and you don't:

Excellent metaphor, joe. Terell Owens and Randy Moss do a lot of end-zone dances. Barry Sanders just handed the ball to the ref.

Guy Montag | October 12, 2007, 12:28pm | #

Does it count if Gore warns that the sea will rise to consume the Jews?

Ah, now he fits into the set. The matter is settled, like science.

Graphite | October 12, 2007, 12:31pm | #

The Nobel Committee could have made a terrific statement by awarding the prize, not to an individual, but a large group, namely the courageous Buddhist Monks in Burma who faced down the Junta.

But Douglas, even if their opposition to the Junta had succeeded, they would have all been wiped out by catastrophic global warming induced floods and tsunamis! Clearly Gore has made the greater contribution to peace in Burma.

Vermont Gun Owner | October 12, 2007, 12:41pm | #

joe, Episiarch, once you guys wrap up your brilliant debate and one of you convinces the other of what would have happened in an alternative universe where Al Gore served as President, can you just post a brief summary of what you concluded?

Well, let's just follow what that Family Guy episode says. Oh wait, that's what joe's been saying the whole time.

dhex | October 12, 2007, 1:00pm | #

everyone dance like there's a hamster in your pants...

Stevo Darkly | October 12, 2007, 1:08pm | #

This discussion of the Goretopia we'd all be living in, if only Gore had been selected president, is interesting in light of a novel I recently finished: The Execution Channel, by Ken MacLeod. (MacLeod is a leftyish Scottish science fiction writer with strong libertarian sympathies and a few anti-Yank-imperialist antipathies.)

MILD SPOILER WARNING, because we don't find out until we're nearly halfway through the book, and it doesn't really affect the main plot. It's just part of the background.

But The Execution Channel is set in an alternate present/near-future, in which Gore was elected president instead of Bush.

The terrorist attacks of 9-11 still occurred, but differently. For one thing, they occurred on 7-7.

And President Gore is blamed for precipitating them. See, a few months earlier, President Gore "pulled a Clinton" and for political reasons launched a cruise missile attack on an alledged terrorist base camp -- in the process, killing a prominent anti-American Islamist leader named Osama bin Laden.

This unprovoked attack enraged many in the Muslim world, who launched the 7-7 attacks as part of the blowback against President Gore's imprudent action. (Certainly no one can imagine the 7-7 attacks happening "out of a clear blue sky" if they hadn't had Gore's attack as a pretext.)

As a result, the USA is involved not only in a war in Afghanistan, but elsewhere in the Middle East (but Iran instead of Iraq, IIRC) and in the Muslim regions of Central Asia following the collapse of the Communist Chinese government.

(Paranoid right-wing conspiracy theorists think President Gore precipitated the war in the Middle East and Central Asia on purpose. In order to deliberately drive up the price of oil. So that people would be forced to turn to alternate, non-oil-burning technologies. And thereby stave off Global Warming. Which President Gore is so obsessed with, he just might be capable of starting a war in order to avert this supposed environmental apocalypse.)

And the US government is still guilty of using torture in the War Against Terrorism, not only in the Middle East and Central Asia but against suspected enemy agents domestically and in Europe.

Because a certain number of atrocities are inevitable when a nation goes to war.

(One character, a US government agent, feels sickened after a torture session. But it had to be done. One of the many ways the Gore administration's critics are wrong, he thinks, is that they keep assuming the Gore government and its loyalists enjoy using torture. That's probably because most of those critics are conservatives, he thinks, and hence mean-spirited sadists themselves.)

Kind of depressing to think that world under President Gore wouldn't be all that different.

It's just a science fiction novel, though. Doesn't have anything to do with the real world.

joe | October 12, 2007, 1:36pm | #

RC Dean,

So, joe, you're claiming that an increase in storms, rather than a rise in sea level, is going to create 500 million refugees?

You just did the equivalent of asking whether an atomic fireball, or the splitting of uranian atoms, destroyed Nagasaki.

Scooby | October 12, 2007, 1:46pm | #

You just did the equivalent of asking whether an atomic fireball, or the splitting of uranian atoms, destroyed Nagasaki.

[pedant]That one's easy. It was an atomic fireball, since the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb, and didn't involve the spliting of a significant number of uranium atoms.[/pedant]

R C Dean | October 12, 2007, 1:56pm | #

So, joe, you're claiming that an increase in storms, rather than a rise in sea level, is going to create 500 million refugees?

You just did the equivalent of asking whether an atomic fireball, or the splitting of uranian atoms, destroyed Nagasaki.

No, joe, I'm just curious about what kind of science-fiction-movie storms are going to render homeless nearly a quarter of the people on the planet.

joe | October 12, 2007, 2:12pm | #

You suck, Scooby!

highnumber,

My point is that a President Gore, free of the delusion that people with money can do no wrong, would probably not have watched the subprime loan/mortgage derivative beast grow over the past few years and done nothing.

alphahawk1999 | October 12, 2007, 2:31pm | #

It seems to me that peace and and Gore's movie on global warming are two different concepts. Yes he does share the prize with IPCC. He made the movie to appeal to the anti-industrial choir. I fail to understand how two hundred years of industrialization can undo 4 billion years of natural devlopment. I think that if you program a computer to find evidence of global warming, or not to find it, you will see what you want to see. I do admit that the earth's temperature has risen a degree. What is causing it I'm not sure.

Stevo Darkly | October 12, 2007, 3:57pm | #

I think we need a new Al Gore thread:

"Al Gore would be a cooler captain of the USS Enterprise than Jean-Luc Picard, but not as cool as James T. Kirk. Agree or disagree? Discuss."

Lamar | October 12, 2007, 4:39pm | #

Al Gore is like Captain Malcolm Reynolds, except without the swagger, witty sayings, tight pants, hot chicks, cool gun, rugged looks, mysterious heroics and introverted masculinity.

Right?

Stevo Darkly | October 12, 2007, 5:40pm | #

I'd rate him as cooler than Captain Archer, but not as cool as either Kirk or Picard.

No, "a cooler captain than Picard" is kind of a gimme. Everybody is a cooler captain than Picard.

I think Gore would rank in coolness about the same as Captain Bridger of the seaQuest in seaQuest: DSV.

Not as cool as the actor Roy Scheider, but about as cool as the character of Captain Bridger.

I would also add that Gore is cooler than that young ensign, Lucas, and Darwin the talking dolphin.

But imagine how much better the world would be if Darwin the talking dolphin had been elected president instead of Bush II. He's smarter, more environmentally aware, and has never been acused of doing anything of the bad things that Bush has done. Also: a better public speaker.

Stevo Darkly | October 12, 2007, 5:45pm | #

Smart, kind, sensitive
Handsome in a blocky way
Go gay for Al Gore!

joe | October 12, 2007, 6:08pm | #

Captin Gore would be less cool than Christopher Pike, post-plasma core accident.

The beeping lights on the wheelchair are certainly more emotionally expressive.

Toast, Powdered. In a can. | October 12, 2007, 6:35pm | #

You missed the point. Even if Gore carried out activities exactly like those you mentioned, we would still be in a vastly better country than we are after the last six and a half years.

That's what I've been saying all along. This only supports the argument that leftists have nothing better to do than whine and make the rest of us miserable.

But that doesn't mean we should cave in just to make them go away.

Rick Barton | October 13, 2007, 12:33am | #

Dear RC,

love,

joe

Ok-I'm starting to get kinda misty now, you guys. I've had spirited diagreements on different issues with both joe and RC. But the H&R cyber family warmth is always there...Right? Uh...right guys?

BTW, does it seem to anyone else that words like "cyber" and "blogosphere are starting to feel a tad passé maybe? But I still use em.

Now what was this thread about? Oh yeah!….The elephant in the room here is that THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM IS GETTING WARMER!!