Supreme Court Gives Gore’s Oscar to Bush

[Nono]

Borowitz:

Stunning Reversal for Former Veep

Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received an Academy Award for his global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Oscar and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead.

For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of his Hollywood audience Sunday night, the high court’s decision to give his Oscar to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate, to say the least.

But in a 5-4 decision handed down Tuesday morning, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Oscar because President Bush deserved it more.

“It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. “But President Bush has actually helped create global warming.”

In another setback for the former vice president, a group of scientists meeting in Oslo, Norway today said that Mr. Gore was growing at an unsustainable rate.

“The polar ice caps may be shrinking, but Al Gore is clearly expanding,” said Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo.

The scientists concluded that if Mr. Gore continues to expand at his current rate, he could cause the earth to spin off its axis by 2010, sending it hurtling into the sun.

“Here’s an inconvenient truth,” Dr. Kyosuke added. “Al’s got to stay away from those carbs.”

[Jack]

Is that another Onion piece?

[RickSp]

Andy Borowitz is is not affiliated with the Onion. His daily "Borowitz report" is worth checking out. Very funny and usually right on target.

[ZNFYRH]

That's what I get for reading headlines... for a second I thought this was real.

[brien]

Let's examine Mr Gore's own inconvenient truth. He is a f*cking hypocrite. He should be given the Oscar for Hypocricy. He tries to make me feel guilty for burning a little wood in my fireplace to keep warm. I yi yi.:rolleyes:


Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”

Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth” Tennessee Center for Policy Research ^ | February 26, 2007 | TN center for policy research Global Warming Spokesman Al Gore Doesn’t Practice What He Preaches | NewsBusters.org Posted on 02/26/2007 2:25:06 PM PST by HarmlessLovableFuzzball Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth” Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy. Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES). In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. “As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

and another source for the hypocrisy for more of his chums.

Global Warming Spokesman Al Gore Doesn’t Practice What He Preaches | NewsBusters.org

Typical elitists who want you to act while they do the opposite.

[RickSp]

The attack on Gore is typical Rovian Swiftboating. Distorted and deceitful. Typical trash. If you don't like the message, attack the messenger.

Keith Olbermann KOs fraudulent accusations about Al Gore's electricity usage

As noted early this morning, Drew Johnson's Tn Center for Policy Research is not recognized as a "legitimate organization" by the TN Dept. of Revenue, yet he's been all over FOX News calling Al Gore a hypocrite. Keith Olbermann further exposes the shoddy manipulative work they do to further the right-wing agenda and simultaneously proves the Al Gore is not a hypocrite - he's walking the walk. With video. Johnson fudged the numbers, not pointing out to viewers that Gore's electricity is way more expensive per kwh than normal because he buys green energy, so of course his bill would be higher by multiples right off the bat. His usage is higher than average because he lives in a much larger home than average, which houses offices for both himself and his wife, guest quarters, and has extra security measures. Johnson's hosts (Hannity and Gibson) added to the misconception of Gore's supposed hypocrisy by muddying the issue of carbon offsets, rather than clarifying and educating viewers. (This reminds me so much of the bamboozlement employed at OJ Simpson's trial, where jurors were so overwhelmed by confusing information on DNA evidence that they chose to ignore it.)

[brien]

Ric; I see it more about walking the walk he talks. I don't condemn the message. I do condemn and expose hypocrites. I have read interviews with advocates like Daryl Hannah who actually live in one bedroom one bath homes because she lives her passion. AL Gore apparently doesn't. Shame on him. The fact remains, after all of the pundits have their say, AL Gore uses way too much energy in his lifestyle. He has two or four homes, depending upon who is talking. He flys in giant jets. He has gas guzzlers for autos. He uses way too much electricity. And on and on.

Global warming spokespeople like Ms Hannah are much more credible, imo.

[RickSp]

Quote by: brien Ric; I see it more about walking the walk he talks. I don't condemn the message. I do condemn and expose hypocrites. I have read interviews with advocates like Daryl Hannah who actually live in one bedroom one bath homes because she lives her passion. AL Gore apparently doesn't. Shame on him.

Give me a break. Al Gore has enough money to have a nice house. I don't begrudge him that one bit. In that house he is doing all the right "green" things. He is indeed paying extra for "green power" contrary to the gross misinformation in the source you posted. The slurs against him were just so much swiftboating bullshit.

To suggest that to be concerned about the evironment, we need to live in one room shacks is just silly.

[brien]

Not what I am suggetsing at all. He needs to walk the walk. He doesn't even come close. So far I have found 2 homes and have read of a thrid. His primary home is a 20 room mansion. Look, I have no problem if he owns 20 homes, uses a gizzilion mega watts, and drives 30 cars.. But AL, don't lecture me on global warming when he is not doing everything he can do to make himself more credible. Global warming could use a more credible spokesman.

He is indeed paying extra for "green power" contrary to the gross misinformation in the source you posted. The slurs against him were just so much swiftboating bullshit

.

Bullshit??? Hmmmm



Let's look at the AP story. USA Today

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe - USATODAY.com

Enlarge By Rusty Kennedy, AP Former Vice President Al Gore shakes hands with a woman after signing a copy of his book An Inconvenient Truth for her, in Philadelphia last month. By Peter Schweizer Correction: In this column that appeared Aug. 10 on the Forum Page, writer Peter Schweizer inaccurately stated that former vice president Al Gore receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property in Tennessee despite his environmental advocacy. He no longer does, as the mine was closed in 2003. Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin." Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed. For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.) Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself. Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents. But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths. Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee. Maybe our very existence isn't threatened. Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn't mean living oil-stock free. snip> The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives

.

[brien]

Also from Drudge:

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2007®

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. “As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson. In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

Green or no green this guy is an enegy PIG

I found this answer to Gore's explanation about his energy usage;

Cutting carbon | Free exchange | Economist.com

Some of this response seems flatly silly. The electricity usage is what Mr Gore consumes after things like solar panels and CFLs are taken into account; it's hardly comforting that he could be emitting even more carbon, since that is true of almost all of us, yet has not stopped Mr Gore from hectoring us to reduce our carbon output still further. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that Mr Gore has actually reduced his carbon output "as much as possible"—and if Mr Gore so believes, I invite him to take a train up to New York, where I will show him what a more carbon efficient lifestyle looks like. The carbon offsets, on the other hand, sound like a very reasonable plan. That is, they did until I began thinking about them. Most carbon offsets seem to work on one of a few principles: they plant trees, invest in renewable energy sources, or pay someone in a developing country to use some less-polluting technology, like a CFL. It turns out that a lot of websites have already devoted quite a lot of space to discussing why these plans don't work particularly well. Calculating one's carbon output, and the carbon savings from various offsets, is very tricky and may be manipulated by unscrupulous offset firms. Trees take quite a long time to get to the stage where they are actually absorbing all that carbon—and tend to die shortly thereafter, releasing all that carbon back into the atmosphere, there to wreak havoc. By legitimating carbon usage, offset companies may actually be increasing it. But surprisingly few make what, to me, seems like a more basic point: energy is a tradable market good. It is not as if there is some fixed demand for energy, so that by using less carbon-emitting energy, you actually decrease the amount of carbon emitted. This is, of course, ridiculous. When you donate money to build a new windfarm, you don't take any of the old, polluting power offline; you increase the supply of power, reducing the price until others are encouraged to buy more carbon-emitting power. On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest. Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power. Instead, renewables are likely to take relatively clean (and expensive) natural gas plants offline, since those are the ones that provide "extra" power to the system. Similarly, by giving villagers in Goa energy-saving CFL bulbs, you do not lessen the amount of electricity consumed; rather, you make it possible for other people to purchase the extra energy freed up by more efficient lightbulbs. This may be excellent poverty policy, but it does not lessen the carbon footprint of your international flight. Obviously, the same is true of individual conservation efforst. Thats why any attempt to abate global warming has to be massive. Huge numbers of people in the rich world have to fly less, drive less, consume less, and live in smaller houses. If Mr Gore really wants to encourage this (as I do), then he should try leading by example.

[RickSp]

Like Bush and Kerry and most of Congress, Gore is rich and has several homes. I am shocked! Shocked!

Let's see we have the Drudge Report here. Next is a guest editorial from USA Today from a Hoover Institute hack who makes his living calling liberals hypocrites (yah, he is unbiased.) as well as the orginal "Newsbusters" - "Exposing and Combatting Liberal Media Bias". Not a group of sources I would necessarily trust to tell me the time of day.

This is such typical right-wing character assassination crap. I would prefer to consider the man's ideas than to attack him personally. If you want to play swiftboating-politics-of-personal-destruction games, that is entirely up to you. Not my choice.

[Osborn F Enready]

More typical Washington.

Say one thing, do another.

By all means, lets keep voting the two parties that brought us this streak of insanity for the last 157 years.

:rolleyes:

[Gods_Mercenary]

I live in a large home, drive less than economic cars, and am an all around apathetic jerk when it comes to the environment, but I am not claiming that people should change their lifestyles to fit my conception of a good energy usage. Gore is. He is a hypocrite, only making sacrafices where his money can buy a way out, like the green energy.

[RickSp]

And Jefferson owned slaves and was a bankrupt, but I still admire the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia's Statute of Religious Freedom.

The argument here seems to be that if Al Gore lives in a big house or even two, that it would have been better if he just kept his mouth shut. That would be the preferred choice of the swift-boaters who will dig up anything they can on anyone who gets out of line. If you can't beat the argument, go after the speaker. Straight out of Carl Rove's playbook.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Yes, I agree that the founding fathers were being hypocritical, they admitted it themselves, but necessity often dictates we be hypocritical, Gore only takes away from his movement by being hypocritical.

[Boetie]

I find it funny that there are posters screeming that Al Gore is a hypocrite.

Yet when Bush Jr said, "I am compassionate" a million times, no one ever bothered to find out if it was true. If anything everybody clapped.

I have actually wrote to newspapers, editorialists, newsroom, if they could provide us with any case history that backs up Bush Jr's claims. Nothing nothing nothing.

Remember when everyone screamed and Clinton had to get an office in Harlem?

How much will you bet that Bush Jr will one upmanship Clinton and open up an office in the basement of a crack house?

[Technosoul]

Well President Bush should get an oscar because he is a good actor, at least he fooled most of the people most of the time with his acting abilites.

Also, President Bush created a lot of films for the news media in order to win support for his war on Saddam (Irag) and is still producing stuff for a war on Iran. So as a actor and as a producer of media clips he should get some kind of an award. In fact his work before the camera was far more realitistic then some of the movies that come out of Hollywood, even some of those "special effects". I like the film where he was on that aircraft ship in military uniform saying "we have won the war in Irag" (or something to that effect?). Yep, when it comes to "pretending" I think that President Bush is worthy of that Oscar. However the buzz is that Mrs Bush will not let him bring the naked golden boy home unless he dresses it up in a GI Joe uniform. My oh my, what our our Fuddie Buddies think? She told Harry King.

[gallo]

Quote by: brien Let's examine Mr Gore's own inconvenient truth. He is a f*cking hypocrite. He should be given the Oscar for Hypocricy. He tries to make me feel guilty for burning a little wood in my fireplace to keep warm.

Actually, brien, Mr. Gore didn't say anything about you burning wood in your fireplace to keep warm. Did you actually watch the film?

I'm sorry that you don't have a central heating system that can keep you warm, because if you did and you were informed, you would be aware that a fireplace in a house with a central heating system has a negative energy effect.

Quote by: brien Typical elitists who want you to act while they do the opposite.

Actually, I think it was an effort to educate you. Did you actually see the film? If so, it doesn't seem to have worked.

By the way, the word is spelled, "hypocrisy".

[gallo]

Quote by: brien I do condemn and expose hypocrites.

Really?

Quote by: brien I have read interviews with advocates like Daryl Hannah who actually live in one bedroom one bath homes because she lives her passion. AL Gore apparently doesn't. Shame on him.

Do you? From another post we know that you heat exclusively with a wood burning fireplace. Good for you. That would be much too expensive for me. I have central heating and understand that when I fire up the fireplace, I am wasting more energy than I am saving. But the effect on my wife on the floor in front of the fireplace is more than worth it, Al Gore or not.

Quote by: brien The fact remains, after all of the pundits have their say, AL Gore uses way too much energy in his lifestyle. He has two or four homes, depending upon who is talking. He flys in giant jets. He has gas guzzlers for autos. He uses way too much electricity. And on and on.

And you ride horses?

Quote by: brien Global warming spokespeople like Ms Hannah are much more credible, imo.

Great. She is telling us the same message.

[gallo]

Quote by: Technosoul I like the film where he was on that aircraft ship in military uniform saying "we have won the war in Irag" (or something to that effect?).

The banner behind him said "Mission Accomplished". An indication that the mission was, from the start, the overthrow of the government of Iraq. There was, of course, no understanding of the political situation in Iraq. Without the oppressive government the result has been civil war with us in the middle, with religious zealots from the several sides who think that they get to have 72 eternal virgins for eternity if they kill innocent people by making themselves walking bombs.

Have any of you ever heard anything so stupid? What kind of god do these people serve?