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May 09, 2010

I Was With Al Gore Right Up to the Moment He Turned Into A Giant Dickwad

Al Gore:

The continuing undersea gusher of oil 50 miles off the shores of Louisiana is not the only source of dangerous uncontrolled pollution spewing into the environment. Worldwide, the amount of man-made CO2 being spilled every three seconds into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet equals the highest current estimate of the amount of oil spilling from the Macondo well every day.

Right on!

And, of course, the consequences of our ravenous consumption of oil are even larger. Starting 40 years ago, when America's domestic oil production peaked, our dependence on foreign oil has steadily grown...

I am far from the only one who believes that it is not too much of a stretch to link the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and northwestern Pakistan—and even last week’s attempted bombing in Times Square—to a long chain of events triggered in part by our decision to allow ourselves to become so dependent on foreign oil.

Speak it, brother!

This enormous and increasing transfer of wealth contributes heavily to our trade and current-account deficits, and enriches regimes in the most unstable region of the world, helping to finance both terrorism and Iran’s relentless effort to build a nuclear arsenal.

fu.jpg

—Jonathan Schwarz

Posted at May 9, 2010 05:47 PM
Comments

Asserting that the most important concern of your opponents supports your position is actually very common in argument, especially the arguments that lawyers and politicians like. I think it's a learned behavior.

The problem is, enlisting an argument on your own side validates the argument. In that way the Dems completely validated the War on Terror, and before it basically every other war, even the phony symbolic wars like the "War on Drugs."

Plus, disingenuously enlisting arguments you don't really think that highly of on your own side makes you look phony and unprincipled. Fancy that. Being phony and unprincipled will cause people to think you are phony and unprincipled.

Posted by: N E at May 9, 2010 07:24 PM

Surely, the final sentence or two can't be a surprise to you. After all, Gore was a consenting adult participant in the Clinton administration.

Posted by: Datasmith at May 9, 2010 07:49 PM

Surely we can still support someone's views on one thing and disagree on another?

Posted by: Jenny at May 9, 2010 09:16 PM

We all know Al Gore is a dickwad, but this post gets an A+ for incorporating Rage Guy.

Posted by: Sam Mc at May 9, 2010 10:01 PM

We all know Al Gore is a dickwad, but this post gets an A+ for incorporating Rage Guy.

Posted by: Sam Mc at May 9, 2010 10:02 PM

And I get an F- for not being able to competently post a comment.

Posted by: Sam Mc at May 9, 2010 10:04 PM

Gore is just sore because he can’t get a piece of the Iranian nuclear action like he has back here in the States with our own nuclear industry.

Posted by: Rob Payne at May 9, 2010 10:17 PM

Far as I can tell about 80% of the liberals on the planet are just as convinced of Iran's building nuclear weapons as they were of Saddam's, with less supporting evidence. Lucy, football, etc.

Posted by: buermann at May 9, 2010 10:45 PM

this is the disease you get from making out with jim woolsey. it's nasty.

Posted by: hapa at May 9, 2010 11:36 PM

That is an alarming image; it communicates a lot.

Posted by: Jonathan Versen at May 10, 2010 01:35 AM

I Was With Al Gore Right Up to the Moment He Turned Into A Giant Dickwad...

1976?

Posted by: John Caruso at May 10, 2010 02:32 AM

He was kind of being a dickwad as soon as he mentioned, "dependent on foreign oil". That's an appealing to American's jingoism. The comment about Iran is just the logical extension of that "fuck all you foreigners" attitude.

Posted by: DavidByron at May 10, 2010 12:05 PM

"Dependent on foreign oil" must be a lot worse than "dependent on foreign tantalum", or foreign bismuth, or foreign antimony, or foreign samarium.

But whether Iran is or isn't trying to make atomic bombs, they are saying that they are. That should count for something.

Probably it would be more sensible to worry about already existing Pakistani bombs, but Pakistan doesn't have oil. Or the Russian ones. Russia does have oil, but worrying about Russian bombs is very tiring. Or the Israeli ones.

Posted by: Nathan Myers at May 10, 2010 11:38 PM

Was JUST listening to the great Frank Zappa( May God rest his soul).
While I was down
In W D.C.
Certain folks( Al & Tipper)
Were NOT glad
To see Me
I was just tryin'
To get out the vote
When some little weasel(Al Gore)
Must have dropped them a note
It said,
"Check out the politics
Practiced by this Olaf,
AND if they ain't just right,
Feed him confinement loaf".

Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 11, 2010 12:07 AM

"Probably it would be more sensible to worry about already existing Pakistani bombs . . . Or the Russian ones . . . . Or the Israeli ones."

Or, for a change a pace, we could worry about the American nukes--you know, the only ones that ever have been used on people, and the ones that have been threatened against people whole orders of magnitude more often than any other nukes. Our threats haven't been poorly translated metaphorical rhetoric either (see Juan Cole on Ahmadinejad), but very real military threats.

The curious may learn all about this in a fine book, To Win a Nuclear War by Keku and Axelrod. Especially recommended are the hilarious pages about Harry Truman threatening to destroy the USSR in 1946-47 and then finding out (threat already made) that he didn't have as many nukes as he thought he had. Oops.

Those fun-loving nutty Generals in the Pentagon never could get Presidents (even Ike) to be as aggressive as they recommended. See Strangelove, Dr. I wonder why.

Posted by: N E at May 11, 2010 08:17 AM

"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" IS The Democratic Party line as well as the Republican line. Obama promotes it as well as ALL Good Democrats, such as Al Gore.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 11, 2010 11:59 AM

"But whether Iran is or isn't trying to make atomic bombs, they are saying that they are. That should count for something."

Say what? When have they said this? They say they're pursuing civilian nuclear power programs, not weapons.

Posted by: saurabh at May 11, 2010 01:12 PM

saurabh: Agreed. The Iranians maybe pressing it to the edge but they sure aren't begging for "life in the stoneage".

Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 11, 2010 01:36 PM

But whether Iran is or isn't trying to make atomic bombs, they are saying that they are. That should count for something.

I'm so old I remember back when Saddam Hussein "said he had WMD" (Joseph Lieberman). Like Iran, Saddam accomplished this by saying over and over again that Iraq had no WMD.

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at May 11, 2010 02:20 PM

The owners of this country won't accept that the Iranians could remove their chosen Dictator and then 20 odd years later fool them again with the double agent Chalibi.

Posted by: par4 at May 11, 2010 03:22 PM

N E sums is what is probably going on (Gore is conceding a point to make a separate one) and if Rob Payne is right (Gore is payed off by American nuclear power companies), that covers it all.

Posted by: LT at May 13, 2010 05:07 PM