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Friday, October 12, 2007
Liar wins Nobel Peace Prize (like that's never happened before)
Al Gore's junk science environmentalism has inspired millions of, er, heated arguments, made little children cry, ruined countless first dates, and contributed to one high profile divorce.
So of course he wins a "Peace" Prize.
Another Alfred -- Nobel -- endowed his famous prizes as a "Winchester House" style conscience sop. He'd invented dynamite, to blast away rock during mining. Naturally, dynamite's until-then unmatched ability to blast away human beings was also discovered shortly thereafter, to Nobel's eternal shame. Luckily, he didn't live to see the prize handed out to Arafat and Jimmy Carter...
If Al Gore is a decent man (and they jury's still out), thirty years from now, having admitted he was wrong about global warming, he will endow a new prize of his own, to be presented annually to a man or woman who tried to undo the incalculable damage he'd done with An Inconvenient Truth.
I hereby nominate Bjorn Lomborg as its first recipient...
Meanwhile, I can think of no better way to commemorate this special occasion than by directing you to Hugh Hewitt's classic litany of Gore's lies, "Gorelero" (which only goes up to the year 2000.)
Here's a sample:
In the fall of 1968 Al Gore claimed that he'd influenced the nomination acceptance speech of Hubert Humphrey through conversations with a Chicago Sun columnist. Al Gore asserted he was Humphrey's ghost writer, but the columnist said that he had nothing to do with that speech. Al Gore's claim wasn't true.
In 1987 Al Gore told the DesMoines Register as he began his Presidential campaign that his youthful reporting had led to the indictment and imprisonment of several people, but that wasn't true.
In August 1987 the Los Angeles Times reported that Gore had bragged that half of his Presidential Campaign staff were women, but it wasn't true.
In February of 1988 the Washington Post quoted Al Gore that he been shot at in Vietnam. It wasn't true. That claim was shot down by Newsweek in December of 1999.
Etc.
Then come back and unload here in the comments.
Posted by Kathy Shaidle on October 12, 2007 | Permalink
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» More on Al Gore from The Life of Nick
Quoting one of teh comments directly:
They've given it to less credible people… [Read More]
Tracked on 2007-10-13 12:35:35 AM
» Al Gore…again from The Life of Nick
"Gorelero": a nice list of blatant lies that Al Gore has told.
Someone should just meet him in a dark alley sometime with a crowbar. [Read More]
Tracked on 2007-10-13 12:58:27 AM
Comments
They've given it to less credible people
-Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
-Frank B. Kellogg, the American diplomat who initiated the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact to ban war forever.
-Anwar Sadat and Menacham Begin
-Jimmy Carter
-Yasser Arafat (Yitzak Rabin deserved it)
-Lester Pearson
Of course what about those who truly deserve it:
-Martin Luther King, Jr
-The Dalai Lama
-Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk
-Lech Walesa
-Mother Teresa
-George C. Marshall
-Theodore Roosevelt
-Woodrow Wilson
To name a few
I'd say that the NPP has been reduced to an annual 'politically correct popularity contest.'
Who'll get it next? Michael Moore?
Thank goodness Princess Diana didn't get one.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-10-12 6:28:32 AM
Kathy - Didn't Gore invent the internet?
Posted by: Joe Molnar | 2007-10-12 6:49:49 AM
Sadly this will give the GW zealots and their champions in the MSM weeks of free propaganda.
Posted by: Larry | 2007-10-12 7:17:57 AM
Poor Kathy (is that pronounced "caty"?). You're so apoplectic that you have to make TWO hysterical, raving posts? Try not to have a brain hemorrhage. Assuming you have a brain, that is....
Posted by: Tony | 2007-10-12 7:39:35 AM
"Sadly this will give the GW zealots and their champions in the MSM weeks of free propaganda."
Of course it will Larry, that is what it is designed to do.
What you are witnessing is a propaganda machine that is unlike anything seen before in the modern era.
The leftist propaganda machine has reached worldwide proportions.
And it always works the same, first come up with the lie, whether it be global warming, the US is losing in Iraq, there is no war on terror, pick any cause on the leftist menu, then watch the left media pick it up and spread the lie as though it was gospel.
The leading proponent of the particular cause (in this case Gore) is then showered with accolades and given the highest honors by every left wing group out there.
Whether that be the Nobel group or Hollywood. And of course each new award brings even more praise from the leftist crowd until they believe the original lie is infallible.
It has become something that clear thinking people had best be concerned about.
Posted by: deepblue | 2007-10-12 7:42:44 AM
"Aussie 'missing link' ocean current found"
al-Reuters
Australian scientists have discovered a giant underwater current that is one of the last missing links of a system that connects the world's oceans and helps govern global climate. New research shows that a current sweeping past Australia's southern island of Tasmania toward the South Atlantic is a previously undetected part of the world climate system's engine-room, said scientist Ken Ridgway.
Wait a minute there. They were making climate predictions to a tenth of a degree without knowing about at least one major ocean current? How is that possible? (sarcasm)
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-12 7:46:28 AM
Tony:
Shouldn't you be more worked about a life long fraud winning a major international award, than about an obvious technical glitch at a Canadian weblog? Priorities much?
"Catty"? "Hysterical"? Get many dates with that line of chat?
Posted by: Kathy Shaidle | 2007-10-12 8:24:00 AM
Kathy ~
At least not with the opposite sex. :)
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-12 8:33:35 AM
Even though we have always know this fact ... Al Gore should still receive some kind of award for proving it most dramatic fashion that lying works.
He sharing this meaningless Nobel prize with an even less meaningful UN Agency.
Posted by: John | 2007-10-12 9:05:15 AM
Wonder why Algore will not win the Nobel Prize for science?
Science fiction and peace ... OK, I get it.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 9:10:01 AM
It will sound sappy and stupid but it seems to me that taking Al Gore's extraordinary childhood life experience into consideration would account for his life path leading either to crazy phony exaggerating lies or more conventional mass murder with a high power rifle from a clock tower, etc.
His dad was a (forever) United States Senator from Tennessee (I think) and Al grew up living in a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just one or two blocks distant from the White House heading east toward the U.S. Capital building.
Washington, D.C. was a beautiful sleepy town in those days (it changed 100% when Lyndon Johnson brought in Civil Rights full employment of ALL of America's black people in Washington, D.C. federal government jobs, in the late 1960s).
But Al Gore lived (grew up) in hotel hallways with chamber maids or bellboys as the "townsfolk" and "family dinners" sitting in perhaps the same dining room where his dad would probably be at another table getting his arm twisted or palm greased by fawning "big shots."
It is hard to say: "too bad, poor baby..." about such circumstances, but it would certainly be an abnormal and actually very dangerous situation for a kid. One might get great "praise" for making up stories and cleverly "getting out of trouble."
Bill Clinton's background is far more problematic (and pathetic).
By contrast, think of Ronald Reagan, growing up and working as a life guard at his local mid-western town public swimming pool and as the high school radio sports announcer (reporter?), etc.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2007-10-12 9:24:40 AM
Gore's award is just another reminder of how well connected the environmental hysterics have become. Similarly, the Order of Canada has seen to it that virtually all big-name domestic tree huggers are in the club.
Greens have permeated all institutions like the virus they claim humanity to be.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2007-10-12 10:33:48 AM
Sorry but this prize lost all credibility a long long time ago when it became a tool of various political causes. Amazing though that it still has "peace" in the title, but one should be used to the misuse and abuse of language to-day.
Posted by: Alain | 2007-10-12 11:10:08 AM
It's interesting that his Goreship, as Mark Steyn likes to call him won the prize just days after a British judge ruled (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece) An Inconvenient Truth was politically partisan and not fit for British schoolchildren without 'guidance notes' explaining the nine Incorrect Truths he found in the film. That the nine Inconvenient Lies make up the cornerstones of the thing will probably be lost on the poor British students forced to watch the propaganda piece.
Posted by: Bruce - BC | 2007-10-12 11:11:57 AM
"Liar wins Nobel Peace Prize"
Hmmmm a liar just won leadership of Ontario as well...is this a trend?
Posted by: Bill | 2007-10-12 12:50:28 PM
The Nobel Peace Prize is a real coup for Al Gore's egosystem, ain't it!
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-12 12:51:56 PM
He should share the prize with Stephane Dion's dog. And the dog could share his dinner with Al.
Posted by: philanthropist | 2007-10-12 1:31:44 PM
some people think al spends his free time golfing, disguised as Tiger Woods. Once, in the himalayas, he out seanced an entire village of bhuddist monks in five minutes, and drank them under the table that night. Al won the indy 500 20 times in his 72 Pacer, before anyone got off the starting line. Whatta guy!
Posted by: gal hoar | 2007-10-12 4:01:07 PM
Al Gore earned Nobel Prizes in two categories, Serial Lying and Unsubstantiated Scaremongering
Posted by: Bob Wood | 2007-10-12 4:17:13 PM
From the times article linked above by Bruce:
> Despite finding nine significant errors the
> judge said many of the claims made by the film
> were fully backed up by the weight of science.
> He identified “four main scientific hypotheses,
> each of which is very well supported by research
> published in respected, peer-reviewed journals
> and accords with the latest conclusions of the
> IPCC”.
>
> In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of
> Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is
> mainly attributable to man-made emissions of
> carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide
> (‘greenhouse gases’).”
>
> The other three main points accepted by the
> judge were that global temperatures are rising
> and are likely to continue to rise, that climate
> change will cause serious damage if left
> unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for
> governments and individuals to reduce its
> impacts.
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2007-10-12 4:17:16 PM
Run for your lives!
Run for your lives!
The Goracle won an award for scientific fact .... hold on a minute, NOT!
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 4:44:21 PM
An Inconvenient Fact –
Gore dropped out of Divinity school, Journalism school and Law school – but he is now an expert in environmental studies with no degree?
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-12 4:49:04 PM
"to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
The above is the criteria for the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Can anybody please explain to me which one of these exacting standards Al Gore met?
And a whole series of CBC announcers are coming all over themselves, they're so giddy.
What a joke!
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 5:44:38 PM
See my comments on this wankers' orgy at http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/seymour/
Posted by: Crawford Kilian | 2007-10-12 5:53:04 PM
Crawford:
Actually, the people you call right wingers believe in pure science.
A more appropriate Nobel Prize for Algore would have been in literature ... under science fiction.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 6:32:41 PM
Set You Free:
As the author of 11 published SF and fantasy novels, plus a book on how to write them, I know what science fiction is. An Inconvenient Truth is not SF, but the vast bulk of the posts here are fantasy. Pre-Tolkien fantasy. At least the old master knew what he was fantasizing about
Posted by: Crawford Kilian | 2007-10-12 6:44:07 PM
I wonder if he will up the price to attend his rants to $300 a head from the current $200. The man is making a killing off his BS and that means he will not be running for prez soon,which is a good thing.
Posted by: wallyj | 2007-10-12 6:52:47 PM
Crawford:
Here's some science fiction for you.
One day, Chicken Little was walking in the barnyard.
As he walked under a tree, an acorn hit his head.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Really, though, it wasn't.
And the United Nations, the true recipient of the Nobel Prize, had money pouring in from its members to allay its guilt.
And, they lived happily ever after.
If that sounds like a fairy tale, so be it.
I happen to believe it's true.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 7:10:28 PM
The only fantasy around here is the idea that we can control the weather. 50 years ago you'd be run out of town on a rail for claiming such.
Hansen refuses to publish his flakey methods for 'adjusting' tempurature gauges. until he reveals his methods and there is a little something called 'peer review' it isn't science and any 'consensus' isn't worth a crap.
It has to be repeatable in a lab by anyone and until Hansen releases his methods then there is no science to see here for the Goracle.
Posted by: Bruce T Garrick | 2007-10-12 8:24:50 PM
If you can't tell the difference between science, science fiction, and fairy tales, Set, don't quit your day job.
And if you and your pals here can't get over ad homs as your first and last resort, you're going to end up like a bunch of sad old Trots, wondering what went wrong with your glorious revolution.
Posted by: Crawford Kilian | 2007-10-12 8:27:39 PM
If you can't tell the difference between science, science fiction, and fairy tales, Set, don't quit your day job.
Speaking of ad hominem attacks.
I happen to like science, pure scientific research and proveable scientific facts. Huge emphasis on facts.
A person would have to be a buffoon not to know the earth is warming. I've known it since junior high science classes when we were taught the earth was emerging from its last ice age.
I'd guess we went into the last ice age when the cavemen were convinced they should stop driving SUV's.
As far as predicting the future, that's not true science, that's prophecy.
A good science fiction writer would know the difference.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 8:35:21 PM
Set quoted me and then wrote:
If you can't tell the difference between science, science fiction, and fairy tales, Set, don't quit your day job.
Speaking of ad hominem attacks.
CK:
No, you're committing equivocation--shifting the meaning of the terms to suit yourself. SF is not fairy tales. Neither is fantasy. Using them as synonyms is sloppy argument.
Set:
I happen to like science, pure scientific research and proveable scientific facts. Huge emphasis on facts.
A person would have to be a buffoon not to know the earth is warming. I've known it since junior high science classes when we were taught the earth was emerging from its last ice age.
I'd guess we went into the last ice age when the cavemen were convinced they should stop driving SUV's.
CK:
If you'd looked at climate science since junior high, you'd know very well that routine climate change is largely a function of the Milankovitch cycle. The present warming is out of step with that cycle. Idle sarcasm about cave men driving SUV's only demonstrates how few facts you know.
Set:
As far as predicting the future, that's not true science, that's prophecy.
CK:
On the contrary, science can predict a great deal about the future, or we would not be conducting this discussion on the internet, and space probes would never reach their destinations, and children would still die of polio and smallpox.
Set:
A good science fiction writer would know the difference.
CK:
Technically, the prophets were policy wonks who gave the kings of Israel a lot of trouble by forecasting the problems that royal misdeeds would cause.
SF writers make pretty good prophets sometimes, but we're lousy at predictions (we never predicted the internet, and we plagiarized our predictions of atomic weapons from late-1930s news stories).
For predictions, we rely on the scientists, and the scientists themselves will junk their theories as soon as prediction fails. As Feynmann said, the first duty of a scientist when he's framed a hypothesis is to prove himself wrong. That's why he makes predictions, to see if he's screwed up.
And that's what a good science fiction writer always remembers.
Posted by: Crawford Kilian | 2007-10-12 9:46:47 PM
Crawford Kilian. we're happy right wingers on this blog, who accept the world as being the world.
when right wingers rant they do it joyfully, robustly, and with a love of the fight. they generally don't take it too personally when things get a bit rough. social libs, on the other hand, seem to become morose. why is this?
"sad old Trots"? you're joking, right? the war was fought. capitalism won. our job on blogs like this is to protect and maintain it.
it's fun, Crawford.
you present your credentials to people you don't respect? your pretentious foppery is telling. your self doubt is obvious.
Posted by: shel | 2007-10-12 9:47:01 PM
shel:
Notice how crawford demonstrates his briliance by fisking?
There was a golden age of science, when the exercise was about discovering the beauty of our physical world.
Although I'm certain the majority are still dedicated researchers who are pursue knowledge and understanding, a repulsive breed of political scientist has crawled from under some unkown rock.
Their prime purpose is to deceive us with half-truths.
And the inconvenient truth is that Al Gore's only possible qualification for a Nobel Prize would have been in the literature award ... if there is a category for science fiction.
To say Al Gore promoted world peace by understanding how powerful a medium movie-making has become in influencing the weak-minded is a real head-scratcher.
Oh, well.
Logic has never been a strong point of those who let others do their thinking for them.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-12 10:01:39 PM
google this:
"green myths on global warming debunked"
"global warming" "no scientific consensus" (both phrases quoted)
read everything, pro and con. come to any conclusions? i have. there's not enough evidence one way or the other. therefore, i have to make a choice.
i can choose an historically unprecedented international welfare transfer scheme, penalizing and fettering sovereign nations to international courts. i can inhibit the success of prosperous nations, which must be kept healthy as an example for other nations to aspire. i can push for the retardation of economic growth in nations which would benefit the long term health of the earth by developing green technology. i can accept a cap and trade approach at home and let the State mandate which companies must limit how much co2, thereby creating a potential for corruption. i can accept the fact that, although global warming advocates tend to not care about stifling the economies of nations, they are pure capitalists in the way they raise money and maneuver themselves for lucrative research grants.
or: i can say, as a nation, "f:)ck Kyoto", and develop green technology, as many are doing now, if only you lefties would read the good news on occasion (The Economist. a recent edition for one).
let's err on the side of the markets, liberty, the sovereignty of nations, and logic.
Posted by: shel | 2007-10-12 10:56:45 PM
syf. i agree. logic doesn't come easy for anyone. it's hard work to develop a solid political philosophy. ya gotta reed buks. all kinds o' buks.
ever notice the politics of people who aren't political are almost always social liberal, with a bit of contradiction thrown in on occasion when they've been roused by some crime story on the news? social liberalism sounds so sharing and caring, and maintaining liberty sounds too harsh and takes so much effort.
thank God these people don't vote.
Posted by: shel | 2007-10-12 11:13:28 PM
It is the "man-made" fraud of the global warming debate which removes the more profitable discussion of global warming (if it is occuring in a predictable-reliable straight line).
I've not consulted my big book of global temperatures yet today, but I wonder what the global temperature changes were during World War II when tremendous man made fires were routinely caused, and tremendous rampant no holds barred high polluting industrial economic activity occured everywhere until it could be bombed out of existence.
As shel points out, plenty of money and benefit to all populations can come from innovations, which anyone would happily support if they produced economies (i.e. its cheaper) in energy use or to make other improvements in our lives. But that approach would reward the actual innovators and the actual producers, rather than the gas bag fiction frighteners.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2007-10-13 10:46:57 AM
Consensus, eh?
"Gore gets a cold shoulder"
ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".
Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.
His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.
"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."
At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."
Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.
But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.
"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.
He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.
"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-13 1:37:08 PM
I say to Albert Gore, carpe diem, it's not going to last. Time will expose the truth and it won't be good for the Goracle. Not looking too good for the Nobel awards either. They've taken themselves down yet again. Peace prize, indeed. Borders on idiocy.
Posted by: Liz J | 2007-10-13 2:33:39 PM
General comment:
Science, by its very nature is never settled.
It's an exercise in discovery of our natural world.
What would have happened, for example, is somebody would have said the science is settled the moment the atom was named.
Atom, of course, as defined by the smallest indivisible particle.
Can you imagine if people would have accepted the premise of settled science on that issue.
No protons, no neutrons, no electrons, no quantum physics.
The history of science shows that the more questions that are answered, the more fields of study are open.
Settled science on the theory of climate change is a joke.
Long live pure science.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-13 2:50:42 PM
SYF, when science is settled we'll all be dead.
Agreed, "long live pure science".
What the hell does Gore know about science and where does this peace prize fit the puzzle?
Posted by: LizJ | 2007-10-13 3:06:15 PM
syf. wow... you nailed it and put it in a box.
LizJ. "where does this peace prize fit the puzzle?"
funny you should mention that. :) i was just listening to Quirks and Quarks on the Communist Broadcasting Corporation. Bob MacDonald was interviewing some guy and asked the same thing.
this is gonna blow you away. the guy said global warming will potentially create economic hardship and force nations into situations of war.
holy crap. what a stretch.
good night
Posted by: shel | 2007-10-13 3:27:24 PM
Liz:
Short answer ... one world government.
The prize was actually an attempt torally a demoralized UN, who are desperate to regain some type of legitimacy in the face of a bunch of useless programs.
My theory, anyway.
See you on SDA.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-10-13 3:27:43 PM
Thanks for that shel. When things get hot we'll all start fighting.
Geez, can't stop laughing........
Posted by: LizJ | 2007-10-13 4:40:12 PM
Liar is right ("I invented the Internet")
Snake-oil salesman is right ("The science behind global warming is 100% accurate")
The Nobel Peace Prize has been devalued and degraded. Gore is a bum.
Posted by: Werner Patels | 2007-10-13 6:14:32 PM
Werner,
I know I am sort of pissing in to your conflakes here, after all you want to put down Al Gore, and that's perfectly fine, I mean after all he is such a dishonest person, but it seems he never said that he invented the internet:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the Al Gore technology that we now know as the Internet. To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. Gore never used the word "invent," and the words "create" and "invent" have distinctly different meanings — the former is used in the sense of "to bring about" or "to bring into existence" while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone's thinking up or implementing an idea. (To those who say the words "create" and "invent" mean exactly the same thing, we have to ask why, then, the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he "invented" the Internet, even though he never used that word, and transcripts of what he actually said were readily available.)
If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while President, "created" the Interstate Highway System, we would not have seen dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.
Whether Gore's statement that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" is justified is a subject of debate. Any statement about the "creation" or "beginning" of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it's a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). Despite a spirited defense of Gore's claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the "father of the Internet") in which he stated "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it," many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in
1977.
It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).
In May 2005, the organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements honored Al Gore with a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. "He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions," said Vint Cerf.
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2007-10-13 6:35:18 PM
"the Webby Awards"
Another Leftist circle jerk organization, akin to the Emmys, Oscars and Nobel Peace Prize.
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-13 6:39:15 PM
Yes I know OBC, those darn liberals, they're everywhere.
I think it's a conspiracy.
I can bunk down with you in your bunker when they try to cuddle us all to death though, right?
Posted by: Snowrunner | 2007-10-13 6:40:25 PM
A conspiracy? You mean like Shrillery's accusations of a vast right-wing conspiracy accusing her of all sorts of lies - like investing $1,000 and making $100,000 in a few months' time - to name just one?
Posted by: obc | 2007-10-13 6:43:06 PM
The prize has turned into, not something that stood for peace, but rather who can get the crowds going the most!
Posted by: Lady | 2007-10-15 12:16:43 AM
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