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Category Archives: Al Gore
Happy Birthday C-SPAN!

C-SPAN and Congress are celebrating their 30th anniversary! C-SPAN first aired from the House on March 19, 1979, and according to Roll Call, “Tennessee Democratic Rep. Al Gore was first to speak live on the House floor.”
C-SPAN 2 went on the air on June 2, 1986, and the two channels have been vital in giving the public greater access to their government.
Posted in Al Gore, Blog, Congress, The Media
Tagged Al Gore, C-SPAN, flapjacks, john conyers
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Star Gores by Rebecca Egler
There once was a heat wavering all over space-
Too balmy, so sweaty, plus increasing pace!
But maybe this grey, evil ship
Is truly green after sip
And thus Lord Vader has shown some community grace.
Posted in Al Gore, Blog, Energy, Environment, Limerick, Torture
Tagged Al Gore, darth vader, death star, energry, Environment, intergalactic issues, Limerick, Star Wars
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Shocker Poll – Arizona in Play?
Two polls today show Obama within either a 5 or 4 points deficit of McCain… Remember how much it sucked that Al Gore lost his home state?
I do.
It sucked.
From the NY Times: A Devastating Look at "Conservatives"
The Mask Slips
The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot.

Bob Herbert
For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.
Posted in Al Gore, Blog, George W. Bush, The Media
Tagged Al Gore, Bob Herbert, Conservatives, George W. Bush, new york times, William Buckley
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Complicit Solicit by Rebecca Egler
You would think in light of this East Coast heat wave,
We’d all settle down, listen to Al Gore, and behave.
But instead I watch smog spitting cars,
Bottled water and other eco-flesh scars.
Yet I can’t even chide when canned seltzer’s what I crave.
Fairness and the Electoral College
I read an article that made me rather angry here: here. I disagreed with him on the merits, that the electoral college favored Kerry, but also on the level of analysis he did on the electoral college.
There is an argument to be made about the merits of the electoral college against the popular vote. In general, I lean towards the popular vote side for reasons that will soon become apparent. I will readily concede Mellman’s point that in this one case, Kerry could have lost the popular vote and won the electoral college. It took a set of unique circumstances with a Democratic candidate who did not have the broadest appeal and a Republican president who played almost solely to his base. I accept what his computer said, but in my mind, Kerry should have lost the election by 12 votes. To understand this, we must first look at and criticize the electoral college.
The electoral college is rather simple. Each state is entitled to its total number of senators and representatives in electors who assemble to elect the president. An absolute majority of 270 of a grand total of 538 is needed to elect somebody president without throwing the election into the House of Representatives. It was designed like this for two main reasons:
a. They didn’t trust the people. This was a way to remove selection of the presidency from direct election of the people and put it in the hands of people who were removed from the rabble.
b. It reflects the Connecticut Compromise which struck a balance between the House and Senate and representation based on the states and based on population.
Both of these have intense problems. A. has led to the idea of “faithless electors”. Out of many stupid ideas that have been come up with in the Constitution, this is probably top 5. The people selected as electors are not obligated to vote for the candidate for whom they have been selected. Though it has not affected the ultimate outcome of any election, it is an absolutely ludicrous and unjustifiable process with the potential to. For instance, both John Kerry and Al Gore did not receive all the electoral votes that they were entitled to because electors in DC and Minnesota respectively decided to not vote for them for some petty reason.
That having been said, that provision, though immeasurably stupid, has not had an impact upon American history. The other provision has. The point of including the amount of senators for each team was to provide a body for equal representation for all states. This is something profoundly undemocratic. There is something to be said for giving states a voice within a federal legislative body. However, when looking at the presidency, it becomes something different all together. The president represents the entire nation. The electoral college has the effect of making the votes of voters in smaller states far more valuable than those in larger states like California. To see it, let’s go to the numbers.
Posted in Al Gore, Blog, Elections, George W. Bush
Tagged Al Gore, Elections, electoral college
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