Donaldson & Will spar on global warming

This one is from last weekend, but still worth a look - it's conservative columnist George F. Will, a noted Al Gore basher and global warming denier, taking the opportunity to highlight both, ahem, attributes during an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos last weekend.

Kudos to Sam Donaldson for taking Will to task for his head-in-the-sand attitude about global warming. As Donaldson sagely grouses to Will, "If you and Senator Inhofe want to continue to have your heads in the sand, I'm going to continue to call you out on it. But, I have grandchildren. ..."

Good for you, Sam. Just because there are people who believe that global warming is a myth/hoax doesn't make it no so. And the deniers who part company with the bountiful scientific evidence that humans are making the Earth warmer deserve our scorn, and diminished credibility.

What really irks me about selfish people who can only look 20 years into the future with the attitude of, "It won't affect me, so who cares?" is that there are so many other benefits of reducing the burning of fossil fuels, even in the minute chance that global warming turns out not to be true. Increased pollution has many other adverse effects - poor air quality kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world each and every year.

Another thing that really gets on my nerves - the idea that drastically cutting our carbon emissions will harm our economy. When I hear people say this, I ask myself if we should hold a funeral for American ingenuity. Can you possibly imagine the global dominance America could enjoy if we took the lead in hydrogen, electric and hydrogen cars; solar, wind and wave power; and alternative fuels. What we really need is leadership in these areas, but if it doesn't come from a fossil, the Bush administration has shown scant interest.

Whether you like Gore or you hate him, the man is right - we really do need an "Apollo-type program to combat this problem." Gore has also often said that global warming "is not a political issue, it's a moral issue." That's right, it should be. But, unfortunately, some people will never be able to get past the fact that he's a Democrat who ran for (and won) the presidency.

Live Earth on turf

I feel about as happy as the dog above, after tangling with a porcupine.

With all the cities in North America, Al Gore and his team have elected to have the North American Live Earth concert in... Giants Stadium? I'm underfrickingwhelmed.

I couldn't believe it when I read the news today. Philly, New York, Washington, D.C. are just a few of the cities that would have made for an amazingly cool show. Instead, the concert is held in a giant ashtray. Yay.

If I owned a dog, I'd feel like someone just kicked it. I refuse to believe that this concert could not have been held at a more attractive venue. But, so be it - it's too late now to do anything about it .

I still support Live Earth and what the concert stands for, and more importantly, what it's promoting, but I really doubt I'm going to go. Maybe it will be on the Web or something.

The concert is on all seven continents, so I'm sure there will be some cool stuff on the Web surrounding the show.

To be blunt, the North American line-up blows anyway.

This is who London gets:
BEASTIE BOYS
BLACK EYED PEAS
BLOC PARTY
CORINNE BAILEY RAE
DAMIEN RICE
DAVID GRAY
DURAN DURAN
FOO FIGHTERS
GENESIS
JAMES BLUNT
JOHN LEGEND
KEANE
MADONNA
PAOLO NUTINI
RAZORLIGHT
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
SNOW PATROL

And this is the Jersey line-up:
AFI
AKON
ALICIA KEYS
BON JOVI
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
FALL OUT BOY
JOHN MAYER
KANYE WEST
KELLY CLARKSON
KT TUNSTALL
LUDACRIS
MELISSA ETHERIDGE
RIHANNA
ROGER WATERS
SHERYL CROW
SMASHING PUMPKINS
THE POLICE

Okay, I partially take that back - the Jersey show doesn't completely blow, but the London line-up is much stronger. I'm happy DMB will be performing, but I can see the Dave Matthews Band any time. No one else really stands out for me when looking at this list.

Sigh. I might still go, but I'm just not all that excited about the acts or the location.

I strongly support Gore and applaud him for what he's doing - the global warming activist in me thinks this is a wonderful thing.

The concert lover in me is non-plussed; mostly by the venue.

Another quick word on the venue that I'd be remiss to not mention. Originally, Gore wanted to have the North American show in Washington, D.C. on the mall. I think it would have been a fabulous backdrop to bring attention to this important global issue.

Of course, global warming denier Jim Inhofe worked his black magic, successfully blocking the show, stating that "political causes" shouldn't be allowed to hold a concert on the mall. What an affront to democracy, free speech and political expression this man is. He's a national disgrace.

I wonder, if the concert would have been to support the War in Iraq, or advocating banning abortion or gay marriage, if Inhofe would have the same political view on the concert being held on the mall? Of course not.

He's the type of "legislator" who is bad for America. He's vehemently anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, and a global warming denier. He received the second most amount of funding from the oil and gas lobby that last time he ran for reelection.

Congratulations, Senator Inhofe. You've now succeeded Rick Santorum as the senator that most Democrats and liberals love to point to when talking about extremism in the Republican Party. Maybe the people in Oklahoma will wake up and throw this bum out of office next year.

If it were up to morons like Inhofe, we would not have had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's march on Washington - it would have been "too political," right senator?

A little more Gore

I just had to bring you a little more about Gore's testimony on Capital Hill last week. Pretty interesting to hear about the campaign to smear Gore, too. This shouldn't come as news to anyone. Just as Howard Fineman said, Gore is winning the argument, which is only going to ramp up attacks against him.

Inhofe is one of the most pathetic shills ever to serve in Congress. I loved hearing Fineman talk about one of Inhofe's attack dogs buzzing around the press table, handing out disparaging press releases about Gore, and that this same guy used to work for Rush Limbaugh's TV show. Yea, there's a reliable source!

Also interesting to hear that in many communities, it's illegal to put up solar panels.

I really hope Gore gets in the race, but it's looking a little more unlikely that he will. But, I still haven't given up hope.

Gore's Repube opponents bring lots of bark, very little bite

Could these morons be any more trite? This past week, Al Gore testified on Capitol Hill about global warming. I've already posted video of global warming denier-in-chief Jim Inhofe getting a beat down from Barbara Boxer, and that was good to see, but that didn't stop Repubes from bashing Gore on the talk show circuit.

I'm not going to repeat myself over and over in defending Gore on his home consumption habits - the "story" has been thoroughly debunked, especially when you consider the source; and that would be The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, and it's CEO, Drew Johnson. (Read more about that Here.)

From some of the less partisan stories I've read, maybe he could do a little better with energy consumption, but he's probably doing a helluva lot better than most Repubes, who think nothing of global warming. Many Repubes don't even acknowledge that global warming exists at all, so I'm quite certain that Gore is doing more to combat global warming than they are.

Terry Holt has a lot of balls being outraged at the supposed "hypocrisy" of Gore, stemming from his energy use at his home. I wonder if Holt is every bit as outraged at Newt Gingrich, who saw fit to go over President Clinton for adultery when Gingrich was getting some "Speaker of the House booty" on the side, while married?

What annoys me more than anything is the right's continued assertion that Gore said, "I invented the Internet."

It's one of the biggest bullshit lies of all time, yet Republicans, to dramatic effect, have repeated it over and over and over again. Repetition of this lie has been so great that the mainstream media has dutifully reported it as fact since before the 2000 election.

What Gore really said was this, during an Interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in 1999:

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have been important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Funny, I don't see anywhere in that statement where Gore was saying that he invented the Internet. Read the entire CNN interview transcript Here.

To read of a thorough dissection of this staple from the GOP lie book, click Here.

Best of all, read about Gore's role in Internet legislation from one of the Internet's true innovators, Vint Cerf, click Here.

Actually, it's boring to fight arguments that are eight years old, but to be honest, as long as Repubes keep spewing them forth, they are worth rebutting, because some people hear this stuff, and believe it.

A lil' more CPAC love

I wanted to bring you a little more Conservative Political Action Conference love before I move on to other stuff. Today's Washington Post carries a story about CPAC that has some interesting tidbits [with the Coulter quote buried nice and deep] about the Republicans spreading the love, and the diversity.

Read for yourself:

In the session preceding Romney, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) said of Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq: "She's an idiot." In the session after Romney, Ann Coulter used an anti-gay slur to describe John Edwards (the line drew applause) and asked: "Did Al Gore actually swallow Michael Moore?"

When a questioner asked Coulter why she praises marriage but broke off so many engagements, she responded by calling the questioner ugly.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) got the crowd cheering early in the day. "I have been called -- my kids are all aware of this -- dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun," he announced. "And I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly."

Inhofe repeated his view that man-made global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and he quarreled with a Bush administration proposal to list polar bears as a threatened species. "They're overpopulated," he declared. "Don't worry about it: The polar bear is fine." His staff handed out supporting documentation, including the claim that "MARS HAS GLOBAL WARMING DESPITE ABSENCE OF SUVs."

Someday, maybe long after he's gone, or at least when his career in the Senate is over, who would be surprised if it was revealed that Inhofe received large sums of money from Big Oil? In some ways, he's a dumbed down version of Ann Coulter. (Take that comment literally or figuratively - it works either way.)