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November 15, 2005

Al Gore: The Most Serious Threat We Face Is... (Wait for It...) Global Warming

Dude, you're fat, balding, and the hippest thing you've done in 40 years is have a pelvic exam. You're 50+, not 18; it's time to start acting like it.

What changed in the US with hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences and that bitter cup will be offered to us again and again until we exert our moral authority and respond appropriately," he says. "I don't want to diminish the threat of terrorism at all, it is extremely serious, but on a long-term global basis, global warming is the most serious problem we are facing."

... he said as he diminished the threat of terrorism.

Almost as if to confirm his claims, three high-pressure systems caused by global warming strapped shrapnel-studded bombs to their bellies and detonated themselves in an Israeli nightclub, just before the classic "I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine" line from One Night In Bangkok.

I question the timing. Because, you know, it's a really cool lyric.

posted by Ace at 07:43 PM

Comments

Gore is so fat that he's starting to resemble Ted Kennedy.

Posted by: The Warden on November 15, 2005 07:54 PM

Poor irrelevant Algore; still stuck in Chicken Little mode. Can you imagine if this idiot had been President on 9/11?

Posted by: zetetic on November 15, 2005 07:55 PM

Al Gore....Al Gore...I'm drawing a blank here. Wasn't he some kind of politico a long time ago? Didn't he have some dork-bait title like "assistant to the Undersecretary for Sewage and Solid Waste" or something like that?

Posted by: Monty on November 15, 2005 07:56 PM

Reading that quote, I can just hear his sing song voice. bleh.

Hey, ace! What's going on in the senate? Hewitt is going ballistic but doesn't quite say what happened.

Posted by: on November 15, 2005 07:59 PM

You know, if Gore is so concerned about increasing the amount of hot air in the atmosphere, he could start by shutting his mouth.

Posted by: Andrea Harris on November 15, 2005 08:01 PM

Urrgghh... that should read "the increasing amount of hot air" -- I don't know who inverted those two words. I blame George Bush.

Posted by: Andrea Harris on November 15, 2005 08:02 PM

I don't know who inverted those two words. I blame George Bush.

I blame global warming.

Posted by: on November 15, 2005 08:08 PM

Was he exasperated with our ignorance and sighing throughout the speech, or screaming it a la "He betrayed this country! He played on our fears."?

I'm curious which Al Gore we're dealing with, here.

Posted by: Adolfo Velasquez on November 15, 2005 08:11 PM

Global warming is real, but its not caused by the reasons poor insane Al thinks.

The trend started 300 years ago when the sun decided it was going to warm up a bit -- about 4W/square meter warmer than 300 years ago.

I did some rough calculations a while ago and that 4W accounts for virtually ALL of the increase we've seen. At the very best we may be able to control around 1/2 of 1% of the increase over the past 300 years.

Its more cost effective to launch some big mylar orbital solar shades.

The moonbats also studiously avoid ever discussing water vapor as a "green house gas" -- because it happens to be the one that has the most effect of anything. The moonbat GHG's account for almost nothing.

Posted by: Purple Avenger on November 15, 2005 08:15 PM

Scratch that!

The most serious threat to the world is ca-ca.

That's right, I said it.

Capital C capital A, CA-CA!

That is all.

After all, it make's a hard man humble.

ZING

Posted by: Al Gore on November 15, 2005 08:16 PM

Global warming is responsible for my recent decline in traffic.

It has nothing to do with the decreasing quality or quantity of my posts, I swear.

Also, global warming cut me off on my drive in to work this morning, and doesn't know how to use a friggin turn signal.

Posted by: Sobek on November 15, 2005 08:17 PM

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL YOU HOLD DEAR.

Somebody give this guy his own daily show on Fox.
A laugh track would be nice, but deadpan would work too.

We need to spread his message to the masses. We need lots of close-ups of him spitting foam into the camera lens in wide-eyed sincerity.

We've grown complacent.
We need his passion, people. You know it. I know it.

Hell, I feel it. Do you feel it too? It feels a lot like right after you eat two Reuben sandwiches with extra sauerkraut. Scorching heartburn.

Why isn't anybody doing something about it??
GIVE THIS MAN A PRIME TIME SLOT, DAMN YOU!!

*copious weeping and gnashing of teeth*

Posted by: lauraw on November 15, 2005 08:18 PM

Capitalism is at a critical juncture, and now that Kyoto's in the toilet, I'm going to be on these investments like a fat woman on a toilet!

Posted by: Al Gore on November 15, 2005 08:20 PM

Al is improving. I thought the most serious threat would be the VRWC.

Posted by: on November 15, 2005 09:34 PM

I predict around 2025 the environmental movement will shift gears, and claim that the lack of worldwide catastrophe is thanks to all the Awareness they raised about Global Warming in the 90s-10s.

Posted by: Eric J on November 15, 2005 09:35 PM

Is anybody else bothered by the fact that simps like this guy get elected to high office? The collection of chicklet brains that are in the US Senate now make my pothead college roommates look like Plato and his students. I know Al Gore is a fat gas-bag nobody now, but he was once Vice Fucking President- one rib dinner away from being the most powerful man in the world. Do smart people just stay away from politics now?

Posted by: UGAdawg on November 15, 2005 09:38 PM

Do smart people just stay away from politics now?

Yes, if you've ever done anything remotely unwholesome-seeming anywhere with anyone present.

Obviously, I'm not a genius, and I doubt I'd make a good president. But if I were and if I would, I still wouldn't run. I've had a pretty clean life, I think. But not clean enough. I'm sure some former school friends could dig up some dirt on me which would make me very very uncomfortable to have plastered across the evening news worldwide.

Posted by: SJKevin on November 15, 2005 09:47 PM

Is anybody else bothered by the fact that simps like this guy get elected to high office?

Yeah. When you stop and think about it, it's a pretty compelling argument for a small and limited government.

Posted by: on November 15, 2005 09:50 PM

UGAdawg, it takes a different kind of person.

Most people have a better chance of having a happy life as an auto mechanic in this country than as a politician.

Think of all the good working people you know who would make positive contributions once in office; could they hack the campaign? The media delving into their past?

These days, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wouldn't have a chance.

Posted by: lauraw on November 15, 2005 09:56 PM

you guys are right, but that's not the way it should be. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of a vicious media that salivates over any hint of scandal, and on the outrageously dirty tactics used by partisan political operatives now. I know the GOP is not blameless in this, but I see the worst excesses coming from the Democratic camps.

Posted by: UGAdawg on November 15, 2005 10:07 PM

Your scientists will stumble upon it, as they have all the others...but the juvenile minds which you possess will NOT COMPREHEND ITS STRENGTH UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE! ... You see? You See? Your stupid minds! STUPID! STUPID!

Posted by: Al Gore on November 16, 2005 12:11 AM

So true, LauraW.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wouldn't have a chance in today's political arena.

They certainly wouldn't get the black vote, what with owning slaves and all.

Posted by: Bart on November 16, 2005 12:59 AM

I had totally forgotten about that song:

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

That's exactly how you feel after some serious drinking in Soi Cowboy.

Posted by: Michael on November 16, 2005 01:29 AM

"Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham Suite" = possibly the gayest song lyric of all times

Posted by: Knemon on November 16, 2005 02:50 AM

However, Mr. Gore would make an excellent fill in host of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

That voice.
That delivery.
Priceless.

Posted by: fugazi on November 16, 2005 09:45 AM

Bart, you're a pain in the butt.

Posted by: lauraw on November 16, 2005 11:05 AM

I thought the most serious threat would be the VRWC.

And not our Zionist masters?? A little respect, please.

Posted by: VRWC Agent on November 16, 2005 03:40 PM

Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town ...

Posted by: iamfelix on November 16, 2005 09:39 PM

The biggist amount of HOT AIR is comming from AL GORE and the rest of the eco-freaks ranting this poppycock why dont gore put some duct tape over his mouth it will sure cut down on the HOT AIR he spews

Posted by: spurwing plover on November 16, 2005 11:00 PM

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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
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A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
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A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
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Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
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The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

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