Last Tuesday at Town Hall, Al Gore explained that 99 percent of his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, is about solutions. He then proceeded to outline each chapter—in too-great detail—for the audience. This was a mistake, because Our Choice speaks eloquently for itself; it's a brightly illustrated, easy-to-follow textbook about the importance of environmental responsibility and energy independence.
Our Choice is even more impressive than An Inconvenient Truth, because it's all about improvement, with very little of what conservatives would dub "liberal whining." It also reframes political issues as moral imperatives; Gore advocates the education of young girls worldwide as a population-control issue, for instance, and he has rock-solid figures to prove the importance of that education. If the United Nations were to use Our Choice as an agenda for the next decade, the world would be much better off—cleaner, more peaceful, more prosperous—than it is now.
Stranger Personals
Gore is a great communicator—he speaks thoughtfully and with great exactitude—but he is not a charismatic one. His lecture was most interesting when he spoke about himself, as when he apologized for being a "nuclear pit bull" when he was a senator representing a part of Tennessee that was economically dependent on a nuclear reactor.
You won't find those kinds of canny, self-aware statements in Going Rogue, Sarah Palin's memoir (published, coincidentally, on the same day as Gore's appearance at Town Hall). Many bloggers have devoted themselves to uncovering all the factual inaccuracies in the book, and there are far too many to list here. Fewer critics have commented on Rogue's nasty tone. This book, ghost-written by a best-selling evangelical Christian author named Lynn Vincent, is a score settler and a blame passer.
A more hateful book won't be published in 2009. Palin spends the bulk of Rogue smearing her critics—an opponent is dismissed as a crazy woman obsessed with falafel, and Katie Couric is an opportunist who manipulated Palin's interviews into incoherence. She twice accuses the Obama campaign of stealing its "change" theme from her early Alaskan campaigns (unsurprisingly, she doesn't mention hope). When she discovers that her last son has Down syndrome, she seems most thrilled that she has a personal object lesson against pro-choicers. (Palin also proudly, and literally, uses her daughter Piper as a pro-life poster child.)
There is not one shred of that great conservative ideal, personal
responsibility, in Going Rogue. When she's not wielding her
children as clubs to prove political points (or complaining that the
media can't stop writing about her children), Palin whines about her
victimhood—at the hands of the press, McCain campaign manager
Steve Schmidt (who, she passive-aggressively notes, couldn't refrain
from swearing in front of her children), and liberals—until the
very end. 
5
Well, not curious enough to read the book.
6
I'll read the book myself if I can get a hold of it by a means that doesn't contribute to her bank account.
10
Constant is right, too: there will never be a more hateful book published this year. Maybe even in the next five years -- that is, unless Michelle Bachmann writes one.
12
I agree with Gore's suggestion of educating young girls throughout the planet, if fact, I think everyone should be educated on this planet.
You said he apologized for his support for nukes, but how about his ardent support for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and every freakin' "free trade" agreement (preferential trade agreements with China, etc.) to come his way?
You said Gore is down with the environment, right, dood?
Here's my problem with Gore: He strongly supports cap-and-trade (first strongly espoused by Enron stooges and George H.W. Bush, dig?) and has created a super-sized hedge fund with some of his buds from Goldman Sachs (Generation Asset Management, based in London).
Now there's a valid reason why Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Greenpeace (D-Everywhere) are against this, as are those two EPA attorneys (husband and wife, based in San Francisco, carbonfees.org) who broke ranks recently with the EPA: it is gamed to be simply another financial fraud, profiting Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the oil cartel (as in securitized financial instruments of carbon derivatives, carbon offsets, etc.).
Gore will profit nicely on this artificial market creation, while, according to both GAO reports and those two EPA attorneys (and considerable research on the part of many of us), cap-and-trade will have no effect on cleaning up pollution.
You get the picture, dood????
InterContinental Exchange (ICE)
ICE US Trust (clearinghouse to be involved)
Markit Group
DTCC
Climate Exchange PLC (holding company which owns other climate exchanges worldwide which are, and will be further involved in this)
If the government is instituting a policy, it's because corporations will profit from it.
Is this still the part of our history where we haven't figured out whose side they are on yet?
Jeez peeps.
What's wrong with the world !>!>!???
Can't you see how the politicians are using us to get more power - and they don't want people like Palin in office because she believes the constitution and that politicians are servants' of the people rather than the people are the servants of the government?
You need to read her book and others like it with and open mind rather than hell bent on trying to hang your hat on silly little diatribes.
I hate that most people don't even vote and the majority of the ones that do only vote based on popularity rather than substance.
Look at Obama - I don't know any company that would hire him to run their company, let alone the world.
Palin has a successful proven track record and has run an entire state. Obama - NOTHING.
And he can't communicate without his writers and teleprompters.
Look who he surrounds himself with. Crooks, thieves and communists.
You don't agree with me? Look at the proof.
History will show it.
Of course, the microwaved brains from near-cellphone-usage certainly doesn't help the situation any.
@16: jsk---are you for real, or commenting out of a MAD magazine?!?
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