Noble Nobel Prize

Dubya will be known as a great president. Great in the sense that:

• his butchering of the English language was complete and pronounced
• he consistently marred the global perception of American democracy and liberty
• his drinking and drug habits rivaled those of coca lords portrayed in Miami Vice
• he probably did more to widen the chasm between the rich and poor, a more than any other president since Reagan
• he ushered in a new wave of privacy violations (I'm looking at you Patriot Act and illegal wiretapping)
• he exuded the general complacency and smug attitude that afflicts Americans, thereby maintaining the status quo, and (it could be argued) accelerated the process of dumbening that we've witnessed in recent years
• he unswerving demonstrated his lack of interest and responsibility in global warming (remember the 1997 Kyoto Protocol?) and essentially whored himself out to corporate sponsorship and 'market-based' solutions.
  

I could go on...okay, let's at least honor the wonderful contributions he made to the state of Texas in his 1994 term as governor when he made it legal to carry concealed weapons and supported laws against sodomy. I think this was also the same term in which he so famously mocked the soon-to-be executed Karla Faye Tucker. Classy G-Dub! You da man!

Yes, folks, he was the 'compassionate conservative'.

But you know who was the greatest un/almost-President of recent years? Al Gore. You know the guy who won the popular vote but lost the electoral college votes back in the 2000 election? Yeah that guy. It might've been the best thing that ever happened to him, and to the issue of global warming (eff that politically correct 'climate change' nonsense).

Today Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2006, he won an Academy Award for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Here he is from Barbara Boxer's fundraising event this Thursday in San Francisco. You can see what he has to say about his nomination, which was ratified today.

It's like the rest of the world is saying, we know, America. We know 2008 and the future years will be better. These past 8 years have been hard on us all, but we know that we're going to be able to get on with our plan to make this place better for everyone, and it's people like this who are going to be instrumental in making this happen.

Is Al Gore the new Bill Graham?

He used to be called the "dull" one. Now he's nominated for an Oscar for his documentary, at which nay-sayers (read: people who still think the Earth is flat) scoffed at his "facts" and "scientific evidence". He's also recently announced the July-launching campaign: Save Our Selves — The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis. The concert is set up like Live Aid, and according to the AP, is being euphemistically referred to as "Earth Aid". It's got a stellar list of performers...although so far I haven't seen the Dixie Chicks listed, which would be cool given their take on Dubya.

Yes, this is the same Al Gore who was the U.S. VP for 8 years. Not "Bore", as we used to call him. This guy's got stupid crazy charisma now because it seems like he's really finally doing what he cares about, and couldn't do before as a candidate for the White House. Why? Because he would've scared off the conservative vote with his ridiculous and Satanic comments about this great God-fearing nation of carbon emitters. "HE WANTED TO TAKE AWAY MY GOD-GIVEN SUV (read: 2007 Earth Destroyer)! HE'S A COMMIE PINKO TERRORIST!", they'd say. Then they'd burn their daughters at the stake for doing calculus and smack their wives around, "cuz, they were gittin' uppity".

More than 100 performers are scheduled to appear at the July concerts, including Melissa Etheridge (whose song in "An Inconvenient Truth" is nominated for an Oscar as well), the Foo Fighters, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Duran Duran, Korn, Pharrell, the Black Eyed Peas, Akon, Enrique Iglesias, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

Can't you just see Akon smackin' that a-- for global warming awareness?

Relatedly, and I'll be the first to admit I don't have any data on this, so I'm going straight from the gut on this one (did you know there are more nerve endings in your gut than in your head? Look it up, people), I'm postulating that American children's medical needs are the root cause of the failure of the auto industry. Just allow me some room to drift here...it's all tied up in a neat little package for you:

• Cause A: Kids need good medical attention to become happy healthy members of society;
• Cause B: Medical insurance is expensive to pay for out of one's pocket, and employment that provides subsidized healthcare benefits is the ideal solution;
• Factor A: American car manufacturers produce gas-guzzling vehicles that are of shoddy construction and which pollute the environment and keep us fixed on the sweet tit of foreign oil;
• Primary Effect: Kids get sick from breathing in the crap (this is a scientific term) in the air;
• Secondary Effect: Parents go to work to provide for their families/children illnesses brought on by said crap;
• Tertiary Effect (as related by Factor A): American car manufacturers try to cut costs by reducing healthcare benefits for workers or closing plants altogether (here's where carbon emission pollution and healthcare costs implode upon each other);
• Quaternary Effect: Parents lose their jobs and lose healthcare benefits, thus reducing their socio-economic viability in this country, thus reducing the amount of quality medical care their children can receive;
• Quinary Effect: Children of these parents turn into adults and require even more medical coverage in order to combat health problems that could've been addressed during common preventative doctor visits, of which costs would've been subsidized by the auto maker.

I'm still working on the details, but this is the general gist: get rid of American children and replace them with robots powered by Dick Cheney's evil, soul-sucking smile.

Note that this cause-effect model is intertwined with the issue of carbon emission pollution of which the primary effect is global warming, which effects polar ice caps, which...eh...you get the picture.