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Al Gore IS Tennessean Of The Year-NO DOUBT
Mr. Gore has been honored by the very newspaper he worked for 5 years upon his return from Vietnam as a Reporter, along with his wife Tipper who did some photography, as Tennessean Of The Year. An honor Mr. Gore is truly deserving of, and much more.
'07 accolades spotlight world-altering vision
"It's been an interesting year."
The understatement last week came from a man accused by his raucous critics of everything but understatement.
Al Gore, seated on the side porch of his Nashville home, couldn't be challenged on this one.
This year, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, focusing on his efforts to educate people about global warming, won an Oscar. His television network, Current TV, picked up an Emmy.
He and an international panel of scientists shared the Nobel Peace Prize for alerting the world to the dangers posed by pollution-driven climate change.
And, one of his daughters got married.
An "interesting" year, for sure, for a man who, now 59, has served as a congressman, U.S. senator and vice president and won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential race — but not the job.
Gore, who has been named 2007 Tennessean of the Year by readers and The Tennessean's editorial board, said he was honored and touched.
[snip]
His fervor to inform and find solutions is mustering a growing army of volunteers trained through The Climate Project, headquartered in Nashville, to educate others.
In just over a year, at least a million people have been reached by the 1,000 "presenters" in this country alone, according to Gore's staff. He has held training sessions in Spain, too, and Australia.
One volunteer, Gary Dunham, a retired Republican businessman from Texas who went on the road to spread the word, is responsible for about 20,000 of the contacts, Gore said.
"They're able to reach in one month more than I've been able to reach in 30 years," he said. "I'm just so grateful for all the work they're doing."
His goals include more volunteer training sessions, with the next one in India this spring.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Flipping open his laptop to an "Ecospot" on Current TV's Web site brought sparkle to his often serious demeanor.
The just-over-2-year-old cable and satellite nonfiction network is rooted in viewer-created content and citizen journalism.
It boasts 51 million paying subscribers and is "aimed at giving a voice to the average person who has not had a way to break into the conversation of democracy on television," said Gore, who is the network's chairman.
He began searching on the computer for the grand winner out of about 3,000 entries in a competition for television ads to educate people on the climate issue.
An animated feature popped up showing a city with smoke pouring from stacks and heavy traffic. Car horns beeped and then an elephant dropped from the sky, squashing a vehicle.
"In 2005, the U.S. released 6.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air," the clip reads, referring to metric tons.
More elephants fall. "That's 1.2 billion elephants," it says. A man looks at the mayhem and then shrugs. An elephant falls on him.
"It's time to stop ignoring the 1.2 billion elephants in the room," the clip ends.
Gore, smiling broadly, chuckles.
"Madison Avenue wouldn't have come up with that," he said.
The walls of a hallway in his home are lined with memories: A photo of a longish-haired Gore paddling a canoe on the Caney Fork River with wife Tipper, pregnant with daughter Karenna in 1973.
Nearby is the first campaign poster — year 1938 — of his now-deceased father, U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr., who eventually lost his seat when he opposed the Vietnam War. Looking out from another frame is Cordell Hull, a U.S. Secretary of State who served as a U.S. senator and in the House of Representatives.
Hull is the only other Tennessean to win the Nobel Peace Prize — in 1945. The lake named after Hull lies near Carthage where Gore, who was born in Washington, D.C., spent summers while growing up.
URGENCY NEEDED
In his speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, he referred to a new study coming out two days later that would have the "shocking" news that the North Polar ice cap could be completely gone in seven years.
The very next day, however, another study came out and said, "No, we think it could be as little as five years," he said.
"When evidence like that keeps on slapping us in the face worldwide, pretty soon the whole effort by the deniers to pretend it's not real just collapses.
A BOOK TO COME
Gore, author of the bestsellers Earth in the Balance and the published version of An Inconvenient Truth, also turned out a book this year, The Assault on Reason.
Another bestseller, he wrote about what he sees as American participatory democracy at risk with low voter turnouts, a Bush administration trading in misinformation and secrecy, and media that can shut out the public.
The Internet is one of the avenues for greater public discourse and involvement, he said, and networks like Current TV.
Another environmental book, meanwhile, is on the way.
Gore is working on The Path to Survival. Billed as a blueprint for changes that should be made worldwide, it's expected to be out in summer 2008.
Despite his many projects and forays around the country and world, Nashvillians can still expect to see or hear-tell of Gore out and about in town.
"We love it here," he said. "This is really a wonderful home for us."
Show: Expand All Reply
Well, this should be interesting.
Late Night Hosts Crossing The Line!!!! By steve young Hey Jon, Stephen, Jay, Jimmy and Conan: Just Who Will Be Supplying Your Content?
Former Air Force Colonel and Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski -- who was the key whistleblower who revealed that the Pentagon had a special division producing cooked intelligence on Iraq -- recently wrote:
"The republic is dead. Not sick, not dying, not failing, or in a gradual decline, not waiting to be resuscitated, but already stone cold dead."
Is she right?
Well, there are some indications that America as envisioned by the the Constitution and the Founding Fathers doesn't just need our help. Is not merely in trouble, or fragile, or under attack. But rather, there are indications that America is already dead. That we lost. That its over.
I’d like to be the harbinger of good news, and there is some, but all-in-all, 2007 was a disaster for Democrats and the country at large - Bush and Cheney are still at the helm of power and Congress remains cowed and ineffective. There have been instances of courage, and you have to admire Chris Dodd for sticking to his guns and coming off the campaign trail to effectively forestall granting the telecoms, and Bush by means of proxy, immunity for illegally helping the government to wiretap innocent Americans and help the Bush administration spy on America.
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, each in different ways, have rocked the conventional political wisdom in our country, and instead of being “politically correct”, each in his own style have been honest with the country and stood-up for our constitutional values and the rule of law - proving the population is desperate for the truth, and the Mainstream News Media has been exposed to be cowardly and complicit with the Bush administration and corporatism (a polite word for fascism.); true investigative reporting is almost dead - and the Washington Post ( The Washington Compost would be a more befitting title), once a bellwether for breaking news that actually affected our lives and brought-down a President is now a government mouthpiece and their rank cowardice and fear and/or collusion with this administration will never be forgiven by the American public.
Muhammad Khurshid: Benazir's Death: Now The Truth Must Come To The Fore (5 comments) Shedding a few crocodile tears after great tragedy is the habit of rulers of this world presently led by US President George W. Bush. The rulers after failure in saving the lives of victims of 9/11 tragedy must resign. But at that time Bush introduced the new term of terrorism and made a pledge he would eliminate this menace. But the people may agree with me or not, but terrorists have been ruling the world.
So many nefarious plots, so little time to get them all done before Jan. 09.
BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered (2 comments) When a news organization as venerable as the BBC censors the reportage of a story as important as the assassination of Benzir Bhutto --a highly visible critic of Bush/British policy with regard to the "War on Terrorism" et al --it is fair to ask: who is the BBC protecting?
Will someone please explain the pocket veto? I spose I could go look it up, couldn't I?
Pocket veto a gift IF............................ An unexpected opportunity has been presented to the Congress to correct some of the errors of the past year. The President inadvertedly gave them a get out of jail free card by pocket vetoing the DOD spending bill. Now it's up to the Congress to realize it contains the $ 186 billion he so desperatly needs to fund his wars. Can they now tighten the purse strings ?
I like Elizabeth Edwards. I believe what she has to say.
Bill Clinton could be a help in any administration because of many reasons, but you really can't find a better intellectual brain, no matter his personal failings.
Hello all.
Just catching up on some threads. Ironman Mike, LOVED your photo finish. What a triumph. Thanks for posting it and congratulations!
Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season:)
186 Billion more for the occupation...and it's in a pocket veto which I just looked up....the dems can just strip the money from the bill...
How could putzie have made this mistake? Or is it a mistake? Does he want that 186 billion for Iran or Pakistan?
Quick, make another movie about political intrigue.
From the previous thread
56.
seashell :-)
Sun, 12/30/07
"Charlie Wilson's War"
comments 2 and 3 at http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/23384...
seashell :-)
<
I agree that this could be an opportune moment, what with the dick-head's pocket veto. But, don't forget that the dick-head machine hashes all angles before the dick-head in chief acts.
The Congress should tread lightly, but I hope they stick down the dick-head's mouth (IE urethra).
10.
*** cChalfonte***
Sun, 12/30/07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uKepmXSy...
Catchy tune.
10:08pm
Just talked to Thankful, she said to tell you that the world is still round, and she hasn't fallen off the edge. And she loves you.
Perhaps that should have been: ya'll. . . .
http://www.potatoengine.com/potatoradio....
Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing Joe Satriani
New Potato Head Caboose Grateful Dead
Potato Head Blues Louis Armstrong
Sweet Potato Pie James Taylor
Tell her that there are no edges to fall off, so we all trust her footing is fine. Heck, the world we exist on is not like a dime on the street.
Peace and good tidings.
Miles Davis Quintet - Footprints - Live in Sweden 1967
http://mog.com/DLuebbert/blog_post/133011?from=top_music_videos
60 Minutes just had quite a piece on the forest fires in the west - how global warming has so changed things. I hope the non-believers tuned in. We had a friend in San Diego this year say to us during the fires *and I don't want to hear that global warming garbage*. Unbelievable.
POTATO PHILOSOPHY PAGE: http://www.potatoengine.com/potatofestiv...
"Man is only truly alive when he realizes he is a creative, artistic being...even the act of peeling a potato can be considered a work of art if it is a conscious act." ---JOSEPH BEUYS
We can vote absentee in ME for any reason, mary vb.
http://tinyurl.com/2uobbf
And register for any party--provided it's done 30 min. before the caucus is convened.
I don't like 'em, either--but we're stuck w/'em (state is too cheap to appropriate funds for primaries).
Gore's 2000 race did have a primary; and turnout was outrageously higher.
People like to vote in private here (myself included).
This time, the Dem. candidates are total duds, so turnout will be pathetically low @the caucuses.
The traffic at the political blogs isn't really hopping. I remember when Dean was running - my goodness we had so many threads with hundreds of posts. Not a ton of enthusiasm out there IMO.
Woohoo...nice to see....thank you!
I would like to remind folks that they can celebrate and ring in the New Year with Mr. Gore's current tv as they bring on Radiohead for the New Year's Eve celebration. Radiohead will be playing their entire new album on Current tv.
No enthusiasm 'cuz the candidates on both sides are duds, that's why.
...which means that turnout thru Super Tues. will matter, even moreso.
Voting defensively/strategically will be the name of the game in '08 (early on), mary vb.
Like it or not--that's the reality.
If Billary catches any sort of steam, I'll vote absentee/re-enroll.
A.B.H.
Just for shits-n-giggles.
mainefem - So if we are *stuck* with Hillary - who will you vote for? My husband said he'll stay home.
"I was under the impression that the contents of telegrams in Austria are private." Capt von Trapp to the young Nazi Rolff who had just told him the contents of the telegram he was delivering.
I personally would find an Obama/Schweitzer ticket incredibly appealing. Obama/Dodd too.
That's my snus. Nitie.
11:30 PM ET and all is more or less well in Gatorland.
The mechanism still exist to bring it back -- the Constitution. But which leaders are willing to step forward to defend it with more than words?
I'm coming to the conclusion that there isn't time to rebuild the Democratic Party from the bottom up as Dean and DFA are trying to do. By the time it happens there may well be no Constitution left to defend.
I'm right at the point of thinking that Real Democrats like Gore, Dean, Feingold, McDermott, Waters, and others need to just say to hell with the Dem Party and form a new one based on the tenants of the Dem Party that it no longer governs by.
sitka.....
I have thought that is the way to go. How do we fix it so that we get the spoils when the split happens?...the data bank, the new building, etc. can we do it by dumping them out in the cold, instead of our leaving? Or would it be good riddance, we leave, take a shower and start over?
i guess it's the dumping them out that is the problem. If we could have done that, we wouldn't be having problems now.
What I want to know about John Edwards is what did he do after the 2004 election?
Just answered my own question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward...
Very honorable except for Fortress Investments.
37. Oh Oh...even I can answer that one....he started teaching some classes at the college in NC and he was pushing his campaign to help the poor and was campaigning to raise the minimum wage. He even came to Cincinnati for a rally to raise the miniumum wage.
That's about all I can offer.
Well, I'm off.
All be well.
And Thank you Mr. Gore for doing so much to try to help us!
Thanks, Linda. I just feel like he was such a DLC'er in the Senate plus that war vote. He doesn't excite me in the least.
Tanner update
http://eatapyzch.blogspot.com/
I have thought that is the way to go. How do we fix it so that we get the spoils when the split happens?...the data bank, the new building, etc. can we do it by dumping them out in the cold, instead of our leaving? Or would it be good riddance, we leave, take a shower and start over?
That fancy new building paid for with corporate bribes is a symbol of what the Democratic Party has come to be dominated by. Let the DLC keep their worthless trophy after Dean hands it back over to them and leaves to help form a new party.
The new party will have the internet as its HQ. A new data bank will happen overnight when people realize a new party with true and viable leaders is available to them. And the new party will funded as well or better than the corrupt old ones with good old dollars from ordinary people who won't expect anything in return but that those they elect remain true to the platform they campaign on.
OK. My vacation on Fantasy Island is over. Back to the grim expectation that corruption and collaboration will carry on as usual.
thank you, puddle, thank you.
I'm in favor of the new party too. If Hillary's the nominee, we'll have to do something and fast IMO.
Just in from salting...
Sitka has a dream most everyone would support...but his expectation is more realistic, sad to say.
Another cat nap for me before plowing...it's really coming down now.
If Hillary's the nominee, we'll have to do something and fast IMO.
The only thing that could happen that fast is if Gore decides to run (with Bloomberg and his billions?)
It wouldn't be as good as getting a lot of Democrats to form a new party, but it might be the beginning of it.
Hi puddle...I haven't been around much lately...say hi to Thankful for me if you would.
1:50 am
puddle
Tanner's big smile and the story go so well together.
one of the reasons central blogs have slowed down is the poliferation of smaller ones
it's a good thing
the veto could reopen many of the contentious issues that stalled the legislation’s approval in the first place, including efforts by Democrats to impose conditions on spending for the military operations in Iraq.
Talk about Fantasy Island. Only the most extremely gullible will believe that DCDems who eagerly collaborated two weeks ago to give Bush everything they THOUGHT he wanted will now plant their feet and oppose him. The "DC" stands for "Democratic Complicity."
one of the reasons central blogs have slowed down is the poliferation of smaller ones
And the fact that the enthusiam for Dean in 2004 was a phenomenon that this year's second rate selection of candidates can only dream of achieving.
Edwards goes into full attack mode.........
Edwards, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2004, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Democrats would face "an epic fight" in pushing for reforms such as universal health care if they reclaim the White House, and argued that he, as a longtime plaintiff's lawyer, was best suited to wage those battles.
(Nothing wrong with touting himself. But now the attacks.......)
He said Obama "has this philosophical view that you can sit at a table with drug companies, oil companies and insurance companies and negotiate with them, and somehow they'll just voluntarily give their power away -- and I think that's a complete fantasy. It will never happen."
Meanwhile, he said, Clinton "defends the system in Washington" that Edwards blasts as "rigged" by corporate interests.
"I don't think you can take these people's money, the lobbyists, the PACs, et cetera, and sit at a table and make a deal with them," he said. "I think if that worked, it would have worked a long time ago."
Edwards also used the term "fantasy" to describe Clinton's statement that if she became president, her husband -- former President Bill Clinton -- would have no official role in her administration. Edwards said he would put the former president to work if he were elected, "providing help around the world and with leaders around the world."
So much for the St. Edwards myth.
Edwards has been raising the volume with populist attacks on corporations and Washington lobbyists. And he implies that Obama is too mild-mannered to fight those entrenched special interests.
"All the fancy words in the world will change nothing," Edwards told a packed crowd Saturday in a public library in Washington, Iowa. "You better send somebody into this arena that is ready for this fight, somebody who's got the guts and the determination to fight for you, and your children and your grandchildren."
Though Edwards rarely utters Obama's name, he's the unmistakable target, as the two have sparred with greater and greater intensity during the past two weeks.
Obama has been jabbing back, questioning whether Edwards' fiery rhetoric about taking on special interests is really backed up by his record in the U.S. Senate.
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This all good news for Hillary who might now be able to pull it out with Edwards doing the attacking for her.
If Gore could step in now, he'd wipe the floor with the lot of them.
I don't consider what Edwards said about clinton or obama to be attacks, but rather the truth. An attack on Clinton would be: She's a lesbian" or some such. Both Obama and Clinton are corporatists and that should be pointed out clearly in IA. They are also both very pro AIPAC and if the early voters understood what that means for our foreign policy future, they might throw both of them out - as well they should be IMO.
If the dems are short-sided enuf to nominate Clinton, they shouldn't be surprised if she loses the general. It's time the base takes its cue from the RW nutjobs who control by withholding votes.
HQ, put up some bats for goodness sake. Bats for all the dems running. Please, do something so we frustrated people who won't have a chance to vote for a decent nominee can at least support en masse those one or two we like. My purse is staying mostly closed unless I see a bat. Why isn't this being done in the most important election of our country?
BATS, please! We might be able to help Dodd or Kucinich more that way. I just don't get it. We could be doing so much more...right now I feel like DFA is democracy for female (prez).
Watch for a Hillary/Obama ticket. (fix) Obama is shilling and *attacking* as her proxy. And IA may fall for it, not distinguising between fact and attacks. What's the deal with Iowans not liking fighting amongst the candidates? If Iowans aren't as pissed as many of us are, they perhaps are not paying attention.
IMO Clinton's a corporatist control freak, Obama is not defending the Constitution and he's an effing Con. lawyer. He should be freaking out about this. Sorry, he doesn't get my vote either.
Kucinich and Dodd. We have decent choices and I haven't a clue what Iowans are thinking. It seems to be some sort of mass hypnosis, induced by the CMWs.
I would love to see an upset.
And I'm nervous about this pocket veto. This was not done out of ignorance or some little mistake. Something's going on. The BH is just upped the ante big time. If the dems strip the funds, they'll be called "anti-troops." If they leave them in, they'll be called supporting the neo-con position. That's too simplistic. Is this the bill with all the earmarks that putzie doesn't like?
He would need a running mate, or would HE be the running mate to Gore?
NYT: "Bloomberg Moves Closer to Running for President" 12/31
This is just unbelievable. Believing Musharraf is as reliable as believing putz.
OH MY, who would have ever seen this coming? Who could have imagined that somebody would fly planes into buildings? Who could have imagined that Bhutto died bumping her head?
More on Bloomberg
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By Linda on Dec 30, 2007 1:05 PM ESTAl Gore, American of the Year!