Al Gore
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 10,285
From: Albany, NY
Al Gore isn't going to run so it doesn't really even matter.
The big 3 have not done too good with an Oil man in charge of the country. At least if we had someone with some better direction in charge the big 3 would know were they stand and could work to beat Toyota and Honda to that end goal.
I take it you will never like Al Gore, but many in the auto industry have changed their tune about him.
http://www.autospies.com/news/one-ti...Al-Gore-14786/
Instead of more subsidies for the oil industry like Bush has done, it would be likely that Gore would work with Detroit on developing new technologies and the infrastructure to support them.
The Electoral College was not an original part of our system. It is a hold over system from the middle ages. It is very much obsolete today.
The big 3 have not done too good with an Oil man in charge of the country. At least if we had someone with some better direction in charge the big 3 would know were they stand and could work to beat Toyota and Honda to that end goal.
I take it you will never like Al Gore, but many in the auto industry have changed their tune about him.
http://www.autospies.com/news/one-ti...Al-Gore-14786/
Instead of more subsidies for the oil industry like Bush has done, it would be likely that Gore would work with Detroit on developing new technologies and the infrastructure to support them.
The Electoral College was not an original part of our system. It is a hold over system from the middle ages. It is very much obsolete today.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 10,285
From: Albany, NY
C. The guy lives in a pretty huge mansion, like anyone else that's rich. Unlike most everyone else who's rich, his home is set up to be a bit more energy efficient (I recall solar panels for energy and double pane windows for starters), and is still a "work in progress".
FWIW:
the "Al Gore uses X-times the energy of the average home" story originated with the Drudge Report, was picked up by the news media, and fanned continuously by Fox News, and.... ironically.... got alot of the mindless, way-out-there, treehuggers up in arms.
News media as we keep finding out, favor the sound bite story at the expense of real story. It makes a bigger news impact in comparing the energy bill of an enviromentalist's very large mansion and guest house on the property (which is the size of a modest home in itself) to the "average American home".... instead of comparing his energy bill to other similar homes in the area, of which his bill is lower.
FWIW:
the "Al Gore uses X-times the energy of the average home" story originated with the Drudge Report, was picked up by the news media, and fanned continuously by Fox News, and.... ironically.... got alot of the mindless, way-out-there, treehuggers up in arms.
News media as we keep finding out, favor the sound bite story at the expense of real story. It makes a bigger news impact in comparing the energy bill of an enviromentalist's very large mansion and guest house on the property (which is the size of a modest home in itself) to the "average American home".... instead of comparing his energy bill to other similar homes in the area, of which his bill is lower.
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,180
From: Yadkinville, NC USA
What good does it do to have a "majority rule" system if the majority does NOT rule?!?!
Electoral college was founded in a day and time where campaigning was done on horseback and trains. TV and radio were science fiction. Most people did good to get a few years of basic schooling, and many farmed or frontiered to survive. Likewise, there was no way to convey the results of a vote from all states and territories to Washington in a decent amount of time, nor to count or tally such a large number of votes. Women could not vote. Blacks could not vote. Even white men that were not landowners or educated could not vote. The college was sort-of needed just to keep the system functioning and manageable.
Today, there is no excuse for any American not to know the subjects and politics of any candidate, and therefore make their own decisions and cast their vote. The system could, and should, be able to accurately count and tally every vote in a reasonable time and manner, and generate results in a timely fashion. To simply report those results to a representative in a chamber in Washington to "speak on behalf of XXX jurisdiction", is absurd in today's environment. I resent the college 100%, and advocate it's disbandment.
Registered User
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 1,179
From: Ballwin, MO
People's values and point of view vary greatly by background, and the region in which they live. California and NY would basically disenfranchise small population states as a matter of numbers. Is that fair?
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,180
From: Yadkinville, NC USA
We have posted similar thoughts before - you know where I stand... right in the middle - straddle the fence.
I currently own 86 guns. Needless to say, I am not for more gun control.
Likewise, I enjoy hunting, fishing, and outdoor sports, and it's hard to catch fish in a river loaded with heavy metals, dioxins, and chlorides, or hunt birds over a barren oil field - a healthy environment is everything.
I have conservative views on some things, liberal views on others.
WRT Mr. Gore, I think the USA would be better off right at this moment with him in office from 2000-2004 as opposed to King Bush. Many reasons, don't have time to list them all.
As far as Gore's environmental policies... his are not perfect and I can shoot holes in them to be sure, but his ideas are better than Bush's current plans (what plans FTM?!?!) Pumping oil out of Iraq under guard of US military is not a good domestic environmental plan IMO. Alaskan drilling is a mistake too IMO... again, the conservative side of me says this is a stash that should be held on to for a "rainy day" - why burn it up now for no reason - nevermind the environmental risks and costs. I digress.
You guys can say what you like, but Gore is not a bad guy, and he could do lots more for our domestic economy and environment than he is being credited for, certainly more than the current admin is doing.
Under the Clinton/Gore admin, there were at least 3 cases where Clinton or Gore directly requested congressional investigations into price-fixing of gas prices. After the announcements were made, prices actually came down - magically - and the investigations were always dismantled or blown away.
How many inquiries have been made since 2000 by B2 or Cheney? Hmm.
Now... TRY to convince me that GM, Ford, or Chrysler would not benefit from stabilized (or lower) fuel costs?
So you see... is your glass half-full, or half-empty?
Extremists... beware thine own.
Registered User
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 10,285
From: Albany, NY
Yes it is. And just because you are from a state doesn't mean you will vote for XXXX. We could also use more states right. Big Fed. isn't really working out that well, but that is for a different thread.
Registered User
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 148
From: Rochester, MN
Al Gore has his own agenda - to make money with his scare tactics... getting you to watch his "documentary", buy his books, and buy into his carbon credit theory.
You want a debate? Watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...62022478442170
Then tell me you subscribe to his theories. His version of the "truth" is a twisted version of half the facts. Hell, even the co-founder of GreenPeace says global warming by way of carbon emissions is BS. Watch that video, even the first 5 minutes, and tell me that Al Gore is telling us the truth.
It's all about the $$$, nothing more.
You want a debate? Watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...62022478442170
Then tell me you subscribe to his theories. His version of the "truth" is a twisted version of half the facts. Hell, even the co-founder of GreenPeace says global warming by way of carbon emissions is BS. Watch that video, even the first 5 minutes, and tell me that Al Gore is telling us the truth.
It's all about the $$$, nothing more.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 6,165
From: Sterling Heights, MI
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 6,165
From: Sterling Heights, MI
There are other arguments for the college which can be found around the 'net.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,000
From: TX Med Ctr
Registered User
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,406
From: Philaduhphia
The Electoral College does offer some protection to the smaller states whose interests would largely be cast aside if it weren't for the college. As it stands now, a state like Michigan that has a huge interest in which President stands to work with Domestic automakers more would have roughly 6% of the overall vote in the college, but only 3% if we went to a straight "majority rules" system.
There are other arguments for the college which can be found around the 'net.
There are other arguments for the college which can be found around the 'net.
The college takes the majority of votes from a state and makes that ENTIRE state to vote one way or the other. Which means one of the two parties will get their way for their state. Givign a state actually less power in deciding in president in my opinion.
When you remove this system, all you are left with is a nationwide popular vote.
No state has any say one way or the other when it comes down to it. It all matters in how many votes the ENTIRE nation voted for you as a candidate.
So please tell me how a state has less power, when it matters that ALL Democrats or Republicans band together to vote for their candidate.
Prominent Member
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 2,282
From everything I've read and researched, Al Gore is either a liar, idiot or at best an opportunist....or just a combination of all three.
The scariest part of all of this is the fervor that this myth is being shoved down our throats and into policy....
http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto...92.A12354.html
The scariest part of all of this is the fervor that this myth is being shoved down our throats and into policy....
The result is a cadre of GW believers and plenty of doubters among the so-called "scientific community." Which group gets the media attention and lucrative research grants? Which gets ignored, marginalized, ostracized, demonized, sometimes fired and even death threats? Yes, death threats! Such is the depth of GWF passion.
The New York Times, among others, took Gore's GW Inconvenient Truth film apart for its errors and exaggerations. He says CO2 is the most important "greenhouse" gas. But 95 percent of that mix supposedly causing Earth to cook is water vapor; CO2 is four percent.
For example, just two percent of Antarctica is dramatically warming while 98 percent is cooling, according to Bjorn Lomborg, author of the widely acclaimed book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, and sea mass is increasing in the Northern Hemisphere while decreasing in the Southern Hemisphere. And global temperatures dropped for three decades following their recent high point in 1940 despite increasing levels of CO2. Now they are rising again and approaching that 1940 high. These cycles correlate closely with solar activity, not CO2.
What seems difficult for non-scientific GWFs and GW believers to grasp is that two things happening simultaneously - increasing CO2 and increasing temperatures - are not necessarily linked. Is increasing human life expectancy caused by increasing CO2?
The fact that CO2 levels are higher than they've ever been, Easterbrook points out, "does not mean that CO2 is causing global warming. The increase in CO2 since about 1945 has been from 0.03 percent [of the Earth's atmosphere] to 0.038 percent, a change of only 0.008 percent. The data I have indicates that CO2 is not the cause."
All human activity (including breathing) produces about 3.3 percent as much CO2 as does nature itself, primarily from solar ocean heating and decaying plants and animals. While CO2 now comprises 0.038 percent of the total global atmosphere, human activity contributes just four percent of that, and the U.S. supposedly 25 percent of that four percent. So if the entire United States were to disappear overnight, the resulting reduction in generation of new "greenhouse" gas would be one percent!
.......listen to geologist Easterbrook: "Extending the past [global temperature] pattern into the future," he contends, "we should start cooling again beginning between sometime this year and 2010." That should eventually hush GWF hysteria and send doomsayers over the edge (again) about "global cooling," as in the mid-'70s. He further projects that the globe will cool "half a degree or so" between 2010 and 2040, warm between 2040 and 2070, and cool again from 2070 to 2100, "give or take five years."
The New York Times, among others, took Gore's GW Inconvenient Truth film apart for its errors and exaggerations. He says CO2 is the most important "greenhouse" gas. But 95 percent of that mix supposedly causing Earth to cook is water vapor; CO2 is four percent.
For example, just two percent of Antarctica is dramatically warming while 98 percent is cooling, according to Bjorn Lomborg, author of the widely acclaimed book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, and sea mass is increasing in the Northern Hemisphere while decreasing in the Southern Hemisphere. And global temperatures dropped for three decades following their recent high point in 1940 despite increasing levels of CO2. Now they are rising again and approaching that 1940 high. These cycles correlate closely with solar activity, not CO2.
What seems difficult for non-scientific GWFs and GW believers to grasp is that two things happening simultaneously - increasing CO2 and increasing temperatures - are not necessarily linked. Is increasing human life expectancy caused by increasing CO2?
The fact that CO2 levels are higher than they've ever been, Easterbrook points out, "does not mean that CO2 is causing global warming. The increase in CO2 since about 1945 has been from 0.03 percent [of the Earth's atmosphere] to 0.038 percent, a change of only 0.008 percent. The data I have indicates that CO2 is not the cause."
All human activity (including breathing) produces about 3.3 percent as much CO2 as does nature itself, primarily from solar ocean heating and decaying plants and animals. While CO2 now comprises 0.038 percent of the total global atmosphere, human activity contributes just four percent of that, and the U.S. supposedly 25 percent of that four percent. So if the entire United States were to disappear overnight, the resulting reduction in generation of new "greenhouse" gas would be one percent!
.......listen to geologist Easterbrook: "Extending the past [global temperature] pattern into the future," he contends, "we should start cooling again beginning between sometime this year and 2010." That should eventually hush GWF hysteria and send doomsayers over the edge (again) about "global cooling," as in the mid-'70s. He further projects that the globe will cool "half a degree or so" between 2010 and 2040, warm between 2040 and 2070, and cool again from 2070 to 2100, "give or take five years."
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 178
1. Gore won't run. (sadly). 2. Greenpeace is a bunch of environmental extremists whose ideas, while well intentioned, run the gamut from sane & reasonable, to completely irrational, which is why no government agency will listen to them. 3. Does anyone have any proof that Gore owns or is heavily invested in a company that's poised to make a killing off of a "green initiative"? In fact, is there even a company so poised at all? So I don't think he's about the money. 4. I laugh when I hear Bush referred to as Mr. Big Oil, he was the only oil man in Texas who couldn't find any. Was real good at digging holes though. Thank God his dad sent his friends in to buy up his companies at a profit or his resume would have been a list of his business failures. That's not to say that he isn't a close personal friend of Big Oil though, he is.
Registered User
Joined: Nov 1998
Posts: 3,252
From: Knoxville, TN
In direct response to posts above...thank God for the Electoral College and the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.
In the 2000 Presidential election, Al Gore won 48.4% of the popular vote. George Bush won 47.9%. I don't see how that is a "desicive" majority of American citizens (and is far smaller margin than Bush in 2004).
A "majority" does not, and never has ruled in this country. Thankfully, we are not a true democracy - no matter how much that term gets bantered around, or what your third grade teacher might have told you.
Personally, I cannot think of any realistic scenario in which I would vote for Al Gore. I'd vote for Hillary before him - and that's very, very hard for me to say.
Al Gore might 'help' the Auto Industry through protectionist measures, but long term, that will hurt, not help, IMHO. More Gov't this, more gov't that. Every election, this country becomes more and more socialist, and less and less capitalist.
Once again, I am eternally greatful for our Founding Fathers.
No way to not turn this thread political, thus I'm done. Have fun.
In the 2000 Presidential election, Al Gore won 48.4% of the popular vote. George Bush won 47.9%. I don't see how that is a "desicive" majority of American citizens (and is far smaller margin than Bush in 2004).
A "majority" does not, and never has ruled in this country. Thankfully, we are not a true democracy - no matter how much that term gets bantered around, or what your third grade teacher might have told you.
Personally, I cannot think of any realistic scenario in which I would vote for Al Gore. I'd vote for Hillary before him - and that's very, very hard for me to say.
Al Gore might 'help' the Auto Industry through protectionist measures, but long term, that will hurt, not help, IMHO. More Gov't this, more gov't that. Every election, this country becomes more and more socialist, and less and less capitalist.
Once again, I am eternally greatful for our Founding Fathers.
No way to not turn this thread political, thus I'm done. Have fun.
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,400
From: Michigan's left coast
Personally....Gore running for President would HELP General Motors immense due to the fact that the Chevrolet Volt is so close but literally the ONLY thing missing is the battery tech.
Gore would surely finance a battery program from the U.S. Government to help U.S. automakers.
Gore would surely finance a battery program from the U.S. Government to help U.S. automakers.
Besides, Congress allocates funding for federal programs, and neither party has shown much enthusiasm for doing anything except dicking around with CAFE proposals.