anyone with half a brain can see (or research) how f'ing stupid bill's comment was

Wherein that was almost as much fun as being called a fame whore. If I had any room I'd add it to my header

From some guy/gal who calls him/herself Heger (like hater?):

“Sorry to get all "partisan", but anyone with half a brain can see (or research) how f'ing stupid bill's comment was. Whatever your "feeling" is about global warming, denying Gore's long-time commitment is, well, f'ing retarded. Thanks for bringing the conversation down a level.

If that was a "sign" I'd take a "picture" of it and "submit" to the the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. We've reached the point where Al Gore has been annointed with infallibility. Kinda like the Pope, Mohammed, and Springsteen. Reasonable people can disagree but there are too many bomb-strapped psychotics running around making most conversations pointless. For the record, thinking Gore was a lukewarm to poor choice for the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't have to have anything to do with global warming, politics, or personal opinion of Al Gore. It might, then again you could be wrong. Talk about group think.

Earlier, I pulled a quote about Bruce Springsteen (no worries, I'm alternating ice and heating pads and should be up in another day). I think it needs some editing:

Al Gore is no longer a politician. He's a belief system. And, like any belief system worth its salt, he brooks no in-between. You're either in or you're out. This has solidified Al's standing with his base, for whom he remains a god of total scientific and political authenticity. But it's killed him with everyone else. To a legion of devout nonbelievers—they're not saying Gore, they're saying Bore—Gore is more a phenomenon akin to Dianetics or Tinkerbell. And so we've reached a strange juncture. About America's last honest politician, it's either Pentecostal enthusiasm or total disdain.

And because it amused me and contains at least a tablespoon or two of truth, Poppy Z. Brite:

“It will come as no surprise to anyone that I've not seen An Inconvenient Truth and have no plans to do so, since movies in general are anathema to me. As well, ever since making the horrible, horrible mistake of subjecting myself to Bowling for Columbine in a theater, I will not risk seeing any movie with an even vaguely liberal bent on the big screen. Even though most of my own sociopolitical views tend toward the liberal, I'm afraid the smug, self-satisfied, we're-so-right-and-they're-so-evil audience giggles and commentary will cause me to (A) snap and begin randomly stabbing people or (B) be beaten to death with a raw carrot for my increasingly loud mutterings about tofu, body odor, and the effects of protein deprivation on the human brain. Conservative movies would probably have a similar or worse effect on me, were I to see them with their own sympathetic audiences, and guns are more dangerous than raw carrots. I don't care for party lines of any sort, but what I really hate are propagandists who take for granted -- as Michael Moore seems to -- that all right-thinking people are on their side and everyone else is a tool of Satan.

Back to Mr. Gore: on the one hand, I'm glad someone is apparently calling such major attention to global warming, which seems a real and obvious danger. On the other hand, after seeing the thing, several friends have sent me hysterical e-mails telling me to OMGBBQ GET OUT OF NEW ORLEANS AND MOVE TO A MOUNTAINTOP NOW BEFORE YOU DROWN AIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!111111one!!!!!!!, which makes me reflexively think of the movie as somewhat "alarmist," since most of these people should know me well enough to know I will never leave New Orleans and would rather drown here than live anywhere else. (Someone out there is muttering, "I hope you do, bitch," but they'll miss me when I'm gone.)

Looks like Kottke had a few people show him their ass:

“Man, you folks are testy today. When I say that Gore won a Nobel Prize for a Powerpoint presentation (again, "essentially"), I'm not being derogatory towards Gore. I like Gore...I've written several posts about him. But whatever his other accomplishments regarding the environment, he won the Nobel for An Inconvenient Truth. No movie, no prize. Period. Suppose someone had told you two years ago that someone would win a Nobel Peace Prize for a Hollywood film of a Powerpoint presentation...you'd have laughed in their face and every other part of their body!

If Gore started a dance craze could we call the algorithm?

Added October 16: Daniel Drezner asks: This is a serious question -- for those non-American readers out there, was Al Gore the reason you began to think about global warming? . In the comments, echoing both XWL and me, a Joe M. writes:

“
Gore was VP for 8 years and did not make a single significant move to address climate change. Even, the Clinton/Gore administration did not even attempt to pass the Kyoto Protocol and signed the treaty in the dead of night on the last day of their administration. It is totally sickening that Gore is now seen as someone who is effecting the debate, when he was so hollow as VP. As was mentioned above, all he does now is fly in private jets back and forth to his appointments to show his lame slide show. His movie was more self-aggrandizement than it was a serious discussion of climate change. Gore is a propagandist, plain and simple. And I am someone who deeply believes in the need to address climate change, i just think Gore is full of it.

So when the Nobel Committee gives Gore the prize, it is obviously for publicity, not for accomplishments. There are thousands of people and NGOs who have been working on the ground for decades to make this issue a priority. People who have serious accomplishments to their credit. Even Tony Blair did more in England to lower their carbon emmissions and to set the UK on a green path than Gore's stupid slide show. Or how about Joschka Fischer of the German greens, who forced windmills and environmental policy on the biggest European economy? Or green groups like Friends of the Earth and/or Greenpeace... There are thousands of people who have serious accomplishments. That they gave the award to Gore (I agree with the IPCC part) is a sign that either 1) they did it as a publicity stunt, 2) they are pandering to the USA, or 3) they are complete idiots. I lean toward a hybrid of all three though. It is quite sad indeed.