Al Gore's Payday

FROM-NRO

Whatever his intentions, the former veep has benefited America’s enemies.

By Robert Zubrin

Recently, it was reported that former vice president Al Gore had managed to sell his financially troubled Current TV network to the Al Jazeera company, owned by the Qatar government, for $500 million, netting himself about $100 million in the process.

There is something unsettling about this transaction. I own a small aerospace company that does some business with the U.S. government. If I were to take a NASA middle manager out to dinner and pick up the tab, the inspector general would be all over both of us in a heartbeat. Yet here is Al Gore, a former congressman, senator, and vice president of the United States, receiving $100 million from a foreign government — and not just any foreign government, but one involved in extremely damaging economic warfare against the United States and the promotion of terrorism worldwide — and yet the attorney general takes no action. What gives?

To be sure, Al Gore is not the first high-level U.S.-government official, or even the first in his family, to obtain a payoff from a foreign government opposed to the United States. For example, his father, then-congressman Al Gore Sr., received a herd of prize cattle from Armand Hammer, which he was able to sell repeatedly at grossly inflated prices to lobbyists who never bothered to pick them up. When Gore retired from the Senate, he took up a $500,000-per-year (in 1970s money) position as CEO of the American coal subsidiary of Hammer’s Occidental Petroleum. Edward Jay Epstein extensively documented in his book Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer, based on KGB files that became public after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that Hammer was in fact — as had been widely suspected before the release of said documents — a top-level paymaster of the Soviet foreign-intelligence services from 1922 onward. According to Epstein, Gore Sr. received his payoff in return for his help in preventing prosecution of Hammer by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as for his key role in encouraging King Idris of Libya to transfer control of his country’s oilfields to Occidental — a move that no doubt facilitated the subsequent transfer of control of Libya itself to the Soviet camp.

So there is no doubt that Al Gore Sr. deserved his payoff from Armand Hammer. But what has Al Gore Jr. ever done for Qatar? Isn’t he, after all, the foremost champion of the worldwide environmentalist movement, which is bitterly opposed to oil production, the very lifeblood of the Qatari regime? Yes, he is, but there is a little catch, because while opposed in principle to oil production everywhere, the environmentalist movement has been effective in reality only in impeding it in the United States.

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Gore Divorce Shatters Washington

Via-Rush

The pathetic god of Environmentalism

Via-American Thinker

By Larrey Anderson

Writing, or trying to write, about God is usually a bad idea. Either there is a God or there is not. If there is no God, then there is nothing to write about. (Sorry atheists -- but if you are right and God does not exist -- why bother spending so much time and energy on ... nothing?)

If there is a God... Let's start with a picture followed by a brief explanation:

I live in the Snake River Canyon. Its rugged beauty is terrifying. A philosopher's job is to try and stay open minded about all questions (including the existence of God) -- to love the truth above all else. But when I step out on my porch, and try to ponder the awesome power of the existence of a Being capable of producing layer upon layer of flowing lava and water carved granite and basalt that formed a 500 foot deep canyon over millions and millions of years, I feel derisory and puny. A Being that can create with such subtle delicacy, and such unimaginable potency, resides far beyond the reach of mere words.

Just thinking about a Creator with that kind of power frightens me. I am not capable of even communicating the dread that I feel contemplating such omnipotence. Nor am I foolish enough to attempt to describe the sort of deity that could produce the majestic (and forbidding) wonder of our world and the vast complexity of the universe.

So I leave writing about God alone -- with one exception. There is one god that I am certain does not exist. It is the god of the environmentalists: Mother Earth or Gaia or whatever other name they choose to call their deity.

Many writers have pointed out that the global warming scam, and environmentalism in general, is a religion or a cult. What has not been done is to examine the nature of the deity of the religion.

The "god" of the religion of environmentalism is pathetic. The environmentalists' god is weak, vulnerable. Their god depends on her followers to save her. Their god is no God. And, as we will see, this tells us something crucial about the religion of environmentalism.

Look at these pictures of their god. (There are dozens of paintings and posters. Take the time to examine some of them. Compare them with the initial photo in this essay of the Snake River canyon right outside my porch.)

The god of the environmentalists has three characteristics:


1) Their god is our planet, the Earth.


2) Their god is female. She is benign, protective, and, most important, vulnerable.


3) Their god is vulnerable because of the "pollution" (most specifically CO2 -- a naturally occurring chemical compound) produced by human beings and our modern industrial society. This defilement of the atmosphere has caused (notice the gender used in the description) "man-made global warming."

The "pledge of allegiance" to the earth, from the Oregon Country Fair, sums up all three of these characteristics:

As I have previously pointed out, the human need, to call upon the gods (whether male or female) to control the weather, to provide for a good harvest, and to protect us from the elements, is as old as human civilization.

What has changed is that environmentalists now look to science and government to save their god from the evils of mankind. Their god doesn't have the power to fix the climate -- so they will do it for her.

Al Gore has stated

"The Earth has a fever and just like when your child has a fever, maybe that's a
warning of something seriously wrong."

Mother earth is like a sick child. The god of the environmentalists is a helpless victim. It is up to politicians and scientists to redeem her and to save her.

There is no doubt about the religious element that prophet of global warming brings to the table. CBS news said of Gore, when he was promoting his film "An Inconvenient Truth"

His slideshows are tailored to his audiences. For example, when he talks to evangelical Christians, he includes passages from the Bible.

Gore is trying to redefine this as a moral and spiritual issue. "We all share the exact same interest in doing the right thing on this. Who are we as human beings? Are we destined to destroy this place that we call home, planet earth? I can't believe that that's our destiny. It is not our destiny. But we have to awaken to the moral duty that we have to do the right thing and get out of this silly political game-playing about it. This is about survival," he said.

The left has given us a watered down version of Christianity in the complementary concepts of multiculturalism and diversity. It is clear that the left is also using the eschatological underpinnings of Christianity to now sell the American people on the impending doom caused by man-made global warming.

Gore opened his 2009 book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis with this:

I'm offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses. - Deuteronomy Chapter 30, Verse 19

Gore's hubris is so blatantly obvious that the passage needs no exegesis.

The God of the Jews is righteous and just. The Old Testament tells the simple story of what happens when God's commandments are followed and when they are disobeyed. The God of the Jews doesn't need any help. He is not a victim. He is the great "I am that I am." As Moses found out, that is all that we have been told (and probably all that we can understand) about God. That was the end of the discussion.


The Christian God is a God of love and forgiveness. But that does not mean that the Christian God is powerless and needs our assistance:

At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:30 [Emphasis added.]

Not so with the pathetic god of the environmentalists. She is sick. She requires that we pass cap and trade legislation -- least she suffer even more.

The theological conclusion that follows from worshipping Mother Earth is that she is no god at all. She doesn't even have the power to defend herself from the CO2 that is emitted when we exhale.

The real gods of the environmentalists are the politicians and the scientists who believe that they can save the planet. Those who worship the environment should understand exactly who their gods are.

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.


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A Hypocrite? Moi, Barack?

The Cornerites are having fun at President Obama's expense, noting this story in the New York Times:

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

"He's from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

But wait! Isn't the planet in peril? Isn't it incumbent on all of us to minimize our carbon footprints by turning down our heat and air conditioning? And how about this Obama quote from the campaign:

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.

I guess he meant your home, sucker, not his.More...

Complete Original Article from Power Line

Obama, Fight The Green Agenda

Don't alienate suburban voters or further endanger the economy.

In his remarkable rise to power, President Barack Obama has overcome some of the country's most formidable politicians--from the Bushes and the Clintons to John McCain. But he may have more trouble coping with a colleague he professes to admire: former Vice President Al Gore.

To date, motivations from sweet reason to hard-headed accommodation have defined Obama's Cabinet choices, most notably in such areas as defense and finance. Oddly enough, though, his choices on the environmental front are almost entirely Gore-ite in nature. Obama's green team, for example, includes longtime Gore acolyte Carol Browner as climate and energy czar, physicist Steven Chu as energy secretary and, perhaps most alarmingly, John Holdren as science adviser.

These individuals are not old-style conservationists focused on cleaning up the air and water, or protecting and expanding natural areas. They represent a more authoritarian and apocalyptic strain of true believers who see in environmental issues--mainly, global warming--a license to push a radical agenda irrespective of its effects on our economy, our society or even our dependence on foreign energy.

We should not underestimate the power of these extreme greens. They can count on the media to cover climate and other green issues with all the impartiality of the Soviet-era Pravda. Stories that buttress the notion of man-made global warming--like reports of long-term warming in Antarctica--receive lavish attention in The New York Times and on Yahoo!.More...

Meanwhile, other reports, such as new NASA studies indicating cooling sea temperatures since 2003, or the implications of two unusually cool winters, are relegated to the mostly conservative blogosphere.

I am no scientist. For all I know, both sides are lying or exaggerating. However, we do need to take history into account. Scientists have not been and are not immune to hysteria or groupthink, particularly when taking the "correct" view means a lush supply of cash from foundations and governmental labs. Nor is "consensus," however constructed, always right.

In fact, lockstep "official" science is often very wrong--from the pre-Copernican view of the solar system, to the decades spent ridiculing the now undisputed reality that continents drift over time, to eugenics or even, back in the 1970s, concern over "global cooling."

The past also suggests we should be particularly leery of purveyors of impending natural apocalypse. Holdren, the new science czar, for example, is a longtime disciple of the largely discredited neo-Malthusian Paul Ehrlich, who in the early '80s bluntly predicted that global mass starvation was imminent and that critical metals would suffer severe shortages. Neither calamity has occurred--even as both global population and economic activity have surged dramatically.

Obama may also want to consider the consequences of following the catastrophists. Supporting green causes might have been useful for bludgeoning George Bush and for raising cash over the Internet from affluent urban professionals. But now these environmentalists could obstruct his program for creating broad economic recovery and meeting the nation's energy challenges--and they could even slow his party's quest to secure a permanent electoral majority.

For one thing, the economic crisis has shifted the public's attention away from environmental issues. Recessions may reduce greenhouse gases and halt development, but they terrify voters and shift their priorities. A recent Pew survey of 20 top priorities for 2009 shows the public places a growing emphasis on strengthening the economy and particularly creating jobs, each cited by over 80% of respondents.

In contrast, concern over the environment has dropped to 41%--down from 57% in 2007. Global warming ranked dead last; 30% of respondents named it a priority, a figure down from 38% just two years ago.

Green activists might force the administration to eschew some of the tools that could best restore the economy. For example, they often oppose expenditures that drive industrial and agricultural growth--investments in ports, roads, bridges and even freight rail--which some see as greenhouse gas boosters. With the likes of Browner, Chu and Holdren in charge--no matter what Congress's intentions are--an emboldened regulatory apparatus could use their power to slow, and even stop, many infrastructure improvements.

At the same time, greens can be expected to line up with the information-age lobby, whose notion of stimulus focuses largely on universities, health care, arts, culture and media. This "post-industrial strategy," notes author Michael Lind, may be fine for Manhattan and San Francisco, but it's not so appealing in Michigan, Ohio, Appalachia or the Great Plains.

All this green-blessed employment would likely produce precious few well-paying, long-term, private-sector jobs for middle- or working-class Americans. Obama should understand, as much as anyone, that the votes that won him the presidency came largely from suburban voters who are concerned about their economic futures.

Of course, suburbanites care about the environment, too, but they would rather see practical steps to clean up air and water quality and expand public open space. In contrast, the greenocrats are generally hostile to cars and single-family homes--the suburbs themselves. In other words, they largely detest many of the very things middle-class voters cherish.

Perhaps nowhere will this green agenda create more potential problems than in the energy arena. I have long held that conservation should be encouraged in every reasonable way possible. However, it is clearly fanciful to believe that solar, wind and other renewables can supply the bulk of the new power we need now to, as President Obama put it, "fuel our cars and run our factories"--much less meet the needs of the 100 million or more American who will be online by 2050.

Just look at the numbers. According to the latest (2007) figures from the Energy Information Agency, renewable energy accounts for less than 7% of U.S. consumption--and almost all of that is derived from burning wood and waste and hydroelectric power. Nuclear generation accounts for over 8%, while fossil fuels meet nearly 85% of America's energy needs. On the other hand, wind and solar power, which the new president has promised to "harness," account for just 0.39% of total American energy.

Even doubling renewables in the next few years--itself an expensive and difficult goal--would do relatively little to meet the nation's demand for energy. In this light, the incoming energy secretary's strong antipathy to fossil fuels, particularly coal, which he once described as his "worst nightmare," coupled with his lack of enthusiasm for nuclear power, which is collectively the source of over 93% of U.S. energy, seems a bit problematic.

We can only solve America's energy needs by blending a variety of alternative solutions--renewables, conservation, nuclear--with fossil fuel-based energy. This approach, which would vary by region, would also help revive manufacturing, agriculture and other productive industries. A renewables-only approach, in contrast, would impose very high prices and require massive subsidization, leading to greater dependence on overseas energy and also, perhaps, to a permanently shrunken economy.

These challenges, along with recent shifts in the public's priorities, suggest that the president may need to distance himself from his extreme green advisers--or, somehow, get them to toe a more sensible line.

In his new job, President Obama must confront many dangerous ideologues, from organizations like Hamas and al-Qaida. His political future, however, may ultimately hinge on how he handles the dogmatic ideologues he has now lifted to the highest levels of our government.

Joel Kotkin is a presidential fellow at Chapman University and executive editor of www.newgeography.com. He is finishing a book on the American future.


Complete Original Article from Forbes