My evening with Al

I and about 1500 others spent a few stolen moments with former Vice President Al Gore last night. He was the featured speaker for the 27th annual John P. Lamb Jr. Memorial Public Health Lecture, and no, I have no idea who the hell John P. Lamb Jr. was. Since this event is sponsored by the ETSU college of public health the theme of the lecture was 'Health Threats and the Climate Crisis.'

After the dean of the school of public health acknowledged about half the people in the crowd for one thing or another he introduced some skinny nervous girl who introduced Al. The girl proceeded to walk stiffly to the podium and she stiffly read her 3 x 5 card that had all her intro information on it. After welcoming us she then said that the former Vice President needed no introduction, and then the poor thing proceeded to give him one anyway. (Note to future introducers, if you say someone one needs no introduction, don't fecking give them one!) Finally she said those magic words, "Ladies and gentlemen, former Vice President Al Gore!"

We, of course, gave him a standing ovation and he drank it up graciously. Al looks good these days. He's lost all that inconvenient weight and he's sporting a decent hair cut for a change. He exudes confidence and intelligence. And the man knows how to get a crowd hooked. He started his lecture off by telling a few self deprecating stories about his life right after having the 2000 election stolen from him and honestly, he doesn't appear to be a bit bitter about it. The reason I think that is, is because he is doing and has done for the past 8 years far more important work than being President ever could be. He knows his legacy will be far more positive and lasting than that of the lying murdering thieving son of a bitch who stole the election from him in 2000. I'll go to my grave regretting voting for Ralph Nader and not Gore in the 2000 election. I'm sorry Al, I hope you forgive me.

Gore's talk was exactly as billed, it was about the public health threats we face due to the man made climate crisis we are facing. He spoke at length, though not at too much of a length, about the various problems that are cropping up as our planet heats up. You're familiar with the usual ones like deaths due to heat waves, droughts, flooding, and the like. But then he got into some of the other things that we're going to face such as increased malaria and other insect borne diseases. He pointed out that four factors prevent the spread of some insect and germ related diseases and those factors are: colder winters, colder nights, stable temps, and a food system that is rich in bio diversity. Then he added that as the temperatures rise all those four factors will be impacted negatively, for instance cities in Africa that were built above the mosquito lines are now seeing infestations of mosquito's and doctors in Canada who never saw any tick related diseases are now being inundated with them. People like that idiot Congress woman Michelle Bachman (R MN) and her intellectual twin in the US Senate James Inhofe (R OK) can say that the climate crisis is not happening or that man is not causing it but the facts, especially those pointed out by Gore in last night's lecture, prove them wrong.

He ended last night's talk with a plea to all of us to do our parts to end the climate crisis and to do something to convince our elected leaders to get off their asses, my words not his, and do something positive to end the this mess we're in. And because I'm such a nice guy, I decided to heed his words, so I'll be badgering the idiots who claim to represent me in Washington DC. And I'm offering you this list of things you can do to help end the climate crisis:

• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs in your homes.
• Use public transportation, a bike, or walk instead of driving your car or truck.
• Plant something. Ideally a tree but even flowers and other plants help.
• Plant a garden and don't use any pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides in it.
• Stop eating so many products that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. Corn farming in this country is killing not only farm land and the rivers and oceans with all the petro chemicals used in it, it's making us fatter as a nation. Read food and drink labels and stop ingesting so much HFCS.
• Stop shopping at places that refuse to join the battle against climate change. The single biggest opponent to fighting the man made climate crisis is corporate America. Stop assisting them by giving them your dollars. Shop locally owned businesses instead.

All in all it was a very informative lecture and I'm glad I went.

Don't hate me because I'm handsome and smart

Hate me because I'm going to see Al Gore live tonight and you're not. Oh and on April 7th, I'll be going to see and possibly meet Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, so there you go.

If only someone would have said something earlier

When the increasingly strong hurricanes start hitting us every three or four weeks, when the Atlantic Ocean conveyor shuts down and permanent winter sets in on northern Europe and Great Britain, when the sea levels rise and all their precious spacious beach houses get washed away, all the Reich wing haters of Al Gore are going to blame him for the drastic consequences of climate change. They're going to scream, "It's his fault for not telling us sooner. It's his fault for not saying it louder and making us listen."

And when their grandchildren and great grandchildren go off to fight wars over water rights and as the human population as a whole gets sloughed off by the planet, they'll wish they'd listened and took positive action instead of sticking their WASPy heads in the sand.

Way to go Al!

The Nobel Committee got it right when they gave Mr. Gore this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Many monkey thanks are being sent to him and to the Nobel committee for their great work. I eagerly await the Swiftboating of the Nobel prize people from the Reich wing corporate media, the White House, and the douchebag Reich wing pundits. Nothing like Gore winning the biggest international prize to suck the air out of Coulter's book tour.

Live Earth 2

Ok kids, we're back from the local Live Earth party. We had a good time, though we thought it might be a little more organizey than it was, but that's fine. It was a nice get together, we had good food (it was a pot luck type thing and we brought homemade hummus, watermelon, and a loaf of bread from our local bakery Scratch, people seemed to like what we brought and we loved some of the dishes other folks brought), saw some of our friends, and met a slew of new people. Plus I got to pass out some of my new cards with my blog name and address on them.

We ate, socialized, and watched some of the concert show that NBC was airing. We also signed up to get more involved with MoveOn.Org, so that's where the organizing may come in later. The girlfriend and I scooted out around 9ish because it was so dang humid in the place where the party was held.

That meant we got back in time to see some of the best performances of the day from the concerts. My gf watched some of the shows before we left so she saw way more of the music than me already but I caught some of the perfs by the rockers and what nots.

I'm no Keith Urban fan but that Aussie dude tore it up when he duetted with Alicia Keys on Gimme Shelter. And speaking of Alicia Keys, hubba hubba, how much did we love her set when she got to play by herself? We loved it at least a solid metric ton.

Corrine Bailey Rae also was tres adorable and did a smashing job on her Marvin Gaye cover, as well as with her own songs. Come now, how cute is she? Off the charts cute.

The other black woman who rocked our Live Earth world was Macy Gray. It looked like she'd just smoked up most of the pot in Brazil before she went on, but Macy managed to tear it up, rip it up, rock it up, chew it up, smash it up like Godzilla over Tokyo, eat it up, spit it out, and do it all over again. We were off the scale amazed at the show Macy and her band and her back up singers put on. I bow down to Macy Gray from now on.

Lenny Kravitz did a great job but all the time I watched him I kept thinking, "Somewhere Terrence Trent Darby is sitting in a below ground apartment shouting at the TV 'That's supposed to be me! He's got my career!'" Ah, well there you go Terrence, perhaps if you hadn't been such an ass to your record company after your second album tanked, then you may still be recording today.

I dug the Police, who closed the NY/NJ show. I liked it when they brought out John Mayer to play with them and even Kanye "George Bush does not like black people" West's cameo with the pale lads was an interesting diversion.

It was nice to see UB40 again.

I loved seeing Pink Floyd, oops sorry David Gilmour, I meant I loved seeing Roger Waters as Pink Floyd again, don't worry Davy boy, you'll still get a nice royalty check for the songs he sang. It was nice to see ol' Rog do some of PF's best and when he brought out the chorus of black kids to back him up on Another Brick in the Wall part 2 it gave me the biggest goofiest grin to see those kids have so much fun with an old white guy. Seriously, when they started dancing behind him, it was adorable.

The Smashing Pumpkins I never have cared for and The Foo Fighters only rate an "okay" in my book. Madonna scared me though. I always feel like I'm gonna get an STD just from watching her. Ewwww.

If you ask me, Sundance Channel had the best coverage, although if I see that Robert Redford promo for The Green one more time I may commit second degree murder. As usual the big corporate network, NBC, showed mostly only American bands and when they showed bands from Asia, they did not even bother to give the names of said Asian bands. Oh well. They must think that money only speaks English and that they can write off all those yellow slanty eyed folk.

I liked the shows, the party, and the message. It's going to be fun to listen to the Reich wing corporate hacks slam the event and bad mouth Al for doing something positive. But you know what? No matter what they say, Al got his message across and nothing they say or do will stop people from doing at least some small thing to help stem the tide of climate change. And they can't stop all the kids he's influenced either. So suck on that MalkinExxonMobilCoultergiestFOXComedynews, suck on that.

Live Earth

Despite what Bob Geldof wants, I'm fully behind today's Live Earth concert series and parties. In fact I'll be attending one later tonight here in Johnson City. It's at the Acoustic Coffee House and it's going to be hosted by my friend and fellow anti war protesters Sandra and her brother Mike.
That intellectual dwarf Michelle Malkin has already been slamming the event on her blog as has her eminently idiotic and increasingly out of touch pals over at the National Review. They just hate it when anyone tries to make a positive difference in the world. They hate it even though if we fully embraced the reality of our changing climate and started doing something about it, then hundreds of businesses would spring up to come up with alternative energy solutions and they would employ thousands of people. But that would be a bad thing I guess to Malkin and her rich old stick in the mud buddies because multinational corporations wouldn't get to dominate the field like they do everywhere else. And they hate it because people will be meeting their neighbors and networking at the local parties worldwide, they always hate it when the people get together and do something to help one another, their goal is to keep us separated and dispirited.


I'm not gonna lecture you all about recycling or using fluorescent light bulbs in place of the older incandescent kind, hell most of you know that. But I will write later about things we can do to change the corporations behavior to make them better citizens of our world. And I'll let you know if any thing interesting happens at my Live Earth party.
Have a great Saturday boys and girls, and I'll see you after the soiree.

The endorsements keep rolling in

Look who else has come out for me:

You'll wish you had listened to Al Gore sooner when this type of stuff starts to happen

But you know what? Al will be totally cool with it and he'll help you subdue Zog because that's the kind of guy he is.

Why the right wingers hate Al Gore

First of all they hate him because he was Bill Clinton's Vice President. Only a tiny number of people will ever become Vice President and all of the haters will never achieve what Gore did. And they hate it that because of Gore Bill Clinton got elected not once but twice to the highest political office in the land.

They hate ol' Al for telling the truth about the change in our planet's climate and the human role in it. Right wing nut cases continue to deny that our climate is changing and they continue to deny that man, especially people in the so called 'first world,' the USA, Canada, and most European countries, are the main cause of the changes in the climate. They claim that not all the facts are in and yet every peer reviewed study on climate change says that man is causing the changes to our climate. There is no peer reviewed study that says the opposite. One can not find any scientific study or fact that contradicts the evidence that we humans are fouling up our planet with greenhouse gasses.

Now why do they hate Al Gore for telling us all this? Because if he is correct, and yes Vice President Gore IS correct on this climate change matter, then that means that they are going to have to revise their ways of life. It also means that they would have to help out people they hate, for example all those dirty brown skinned people in Bangladesh and the damn dirty commies in China, the fags in New York, and the human scum who don't vote Republican in Florida. It galls the right to no end that they may have to actually help someone other than their rich white skinned brethren. It also means that they will have to help out poor people and Jeebus knows they don't want to do that.

They also hate Al because he got more votes than bush jr in 2000 and they know that ol' Al by all rights won that election. Had the recount gone forward and that dragon "woman" Harris not certified the false election returns as accurate, they know that Gore would have won hands down.

They continue to hate him because they know he is still a potent political force in this country. They know that if he chose to, he could be elected president once more and just as sure as the sun rises in the east he would show everyone how much better of a Commander in Chief he would have been if the Supreme Court had not appointed bush jr to the post in 2000.

Finally, they hate Al Gore because he beat them at their own game. He was just a heart beat away from being President for 8 years, he is the "leader" of a movement that is doing good worldwide, and he can, if he wants, become president, hopefully sometime soon.