Ext User(Bonzo)
19-07-2007, 04:33 PM
Al Gore's Whine: What Really Happened on the Mall
By John Berlau
Now it's official. Global warming alarmism has indeed "jumped the
shark", as revealed by the dismal failure of the Live Earth concerts
to galvanize the general public. In particular, the puny turnout in
Washington, DC, where Gore himself personally showed up, has proved an
acute embarrassment.
But although Al Gore's Live Earth concerts have failed in the ratings,
he appears to have partially succeeded at doing what does best:
shifting blame for his woes to his political opponents and getting the
media to go along. Since last weekend, the Net has been abuzz with
stories of how Gore overcame Republicans who allegedly did everything
they could to stop the concert from being performed on Washington's
National Mall.
"Al Gore foils opponents," proclaimed Associated Press, after Gore had
just announced a "surprise" Live Earth concert in Washington, D.C.,
the next day. "Global warming naysayers in the political world have
not been able to have their way, because this will - despite their
best efforts - be held on the Mall," Gore was quoted in the story as
saying.
The next day, Gore again took a shot at the opponents who he said
denied him the use of Washington's famous Mall - the area surrounding
the Smithsonian Institution museums between the Capitol and the
Washington Monument - and the press again largely parroted his claim.
In his speech at National Museum of the American Indian last Saturday,
which the Paris-based wire service AFP called "a thinly veiled hit on
members of President George W. Bush's Republican party," Gore
declared, "Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to
stop this event on the Mall."
And "some" media outlets, who don't understand or don't care that Gore
is spinning them, allowed him to peddle the biggest set of urban myths
to appear on the Internet since Gore "took the initiative in creating"
it.
To start with, the Washington "show" consisted of country stars Garth
Brooks and Tricia Yearwood added to preexisting events with Indian
artists. As Carter Wood observed at the National Association of
Manufacturers' blog ShopFloor.org:
"The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian had already
scheduled a day of events -- including the Indian Summer Showcase
2007, which appeared to be absorbed into 'Mother Earth - In the Spirit
of the Live Earth Concerts.' There were already going to be
performances, drum circles and spiritual/environmental speeches by
tribal leaders. Al Gore and the Smithsonian's organizers just figured
a way to add Gore's overtly political address and the Garth Brooks/
Trisha Yearwood performance to an existing event."
But Gore's most blatant falsehood - as phony as a three-dollar carbon
credit - is his claim that Republican lawmakers or global warming
"deniers" prevented him from holding the concert on the Mall. This
spread through the left-wing blogosphere like the proverbial wild
fire, with entries on ThinkProgress claiming that Republicans "had
tried to block the event from happening in DC" and on Daily Kos
declaring that "[d]espite Republican efforts ...to deny this, Friday
Al Gore announced LiveEarthDC."
In truth, the only thing some GOP lawmakers objected to was an unusual
last-minute effort to hold the concert on the grounds of the U.S.
Capitol, after its organizers discovered that Mall had already been
booked for other events. Use of the Mall had been denied to Gore and
his colleagues for one reason: they failed to apply for the proper
permits before other parties had. And one of the groups "blocking"
Live Earth's use of the Mall happened to be the Smithsonian
Institution itself.
The truth is that Gore's desires for a huge concert on the Mall were
actually thwarted not by Republicans, but by a very talented group of
Irish Riverdance cloggers, Vietnamese folk artists, and African-
American gospel singers. They were performing as scheduled at the
acclaimed annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival and at a gospel show
sponsored by the predominantly black Christian organization Together
One Unity. It seems the "nefarious right-wingers" who organized these
folk and gospel fests had the temerity to schedule their events with
the National Park Service, which runs the Mall, weeks and months
before Live Earth's organizers ever contacted the agency, and then not
call them off when Gore let out a sneeze.
I attended these events on the Mall that weekend and found them to be
a wonderful antidote to the green hype of Live Earth and, in truth, a
better example of true conservation and simple living then the giant
rock concerts were. They were a sort of anti-rock festival, with
informal singing and craftsmanship taking precedence. And for bizarre
reasons, the Folklife Festival itself has itself actually come under
attack from the greens. I will share my impressions and get into the
controversy later. In the meantime, back to Gore's lies.
If Gore had really wanted a big event on the Mall, all he would have
had to do was pick another weekend. The big bad Bush Administration
and the mean old Republican-controlled Congress placed no obstacles in
the way of antiwar rallies and Earth Day events held on the Mall in
the past few years that bashed the President and the party. The Park
Service issues permits in a professional manner without regard to an
event's ideological content. But it will not let an event jump in
front of the line, even if the organizer is a former vice president
and Academy Award winner. As the Washington political newspaper The
Hill explained, "Getting access to the Mall comes on a strict first-
come, first-serve basis."
Gore's friends in Congress, namely Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
D-NV, then tried to bail out Gore's lack of planning with a thoroughly
impractical alternative: putting the concert on the Capitol building's
West Lawn. With rare exceptions, the only large public gatherings
there are the National Symphony Orchestra concerts on the 4th of July
and Memorial Day. Much attention was paid to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK,
who regularly challenges Gore's views on humans role in global warming
and the effects of climate change, calling the concert a "partisan
political event" that shouldn't be held on Capitol grounds. Gore shot
back, with his oft-repeated claim that climate change is a "moral
issue."
But even Democrats reportedly chafed at some of the practical
impediments to holding Gore's extravaganza on the West Lawn. An all-
day concert drawing huge crowds on the grounds of the Capitol, as
opposed to a three-hour symphony performance there at night, could
have posed formidable security challenges for those guarding the
Capitol building. Plus, in the holiday concerts, the Mall is utilized
to pick up the overflow in the crowds from the West Lawn. But, in this
case, of course, the Mall would be hosting its own events and would be
unable to absorb as much of the overflow.
These concerns may be part of the reason Democrats on the Hill backed
off as soon as practical questions about the event were being raised.
Unlike Inhofe, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, merely
refused to let Reid's bill on Gore's concerts clear the Senate with
"unanimous consent." According to The Hill, McConell wasn't
necessarily opposed to hosting the concert at the Capitol, but "wanted
more time for his side to look at the resolution." Reid soon backed
off, and Gore announced that the concert would be in New Jersey. The
fact that Reid and Gore didn't push harder suggests that they may
never have wanted an actual concert on the Capitol grounds, but merely
an issue to beat-up Republicans with.
In the meantime, out of the media spotlight, thousands of people
gathered on the Mall for the festivals that had been properly booked.
As Ludacris and Madonna crooned (if you can call it that) in the bask
of media attention, the Folklife Festival was abuzz with the sounds
of Southeast Asian flute music, folk songs and dances from Northern
Ireland, and the bluegrass tunes of rural Virginia.
In contrast to the Live Earth entertainment extravaganza, the Folklife
Festival was a venue that really celebrated our rural roots and the so-
called simple life. And the attendees practiced conservation in
action, as I saw barely a scrap of trash on the grounds of the Mall.
(There were also lots of recycling bins, but whether recycling is
always beneficial is another story.) One would think this would be an
event a good Green would love.
Alas, not so for some of the major environmental groups. This is
because due to its hosting a folk "life" festival, the Smithsonian
presents all aspects of rural living, including (gasp!) cars and
(horrors!) machinery used for resource extraction. The technology that
has improved rural life greatly doesn't fit today's enviros'
definition of an idyllic rural culture. Last year, green groups such
as the Natural Resources Defense Council actually protested the
Folklife Festival because of one exhibit that focused on oil
exploration in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.
So Gore and company present an interesting new environmental ethic.
It's okay, as long as you're "environmentally correct," to burn up
tons of fuel jetting off to concerts around the world. But it's a sin
to even present the exploration for this oil in a positive light. Talk
about an "offset" in priorities.
John Berlau is director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute and the author of Eco-Freaks.
Page Printed from:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/al_gores_whine_and_what_really.html
at July 18, 2007 - 10:17:01 PM EDT
Regards
Bonzo
"...and I think future generations are not going to blame us for anything except
for being silly, for letting a few tenths of a degree panic us"
Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology MIT and Member of the National
Academy of Sciences
"What most commentators-and many scientists-seem to miss is that the only thing
we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes" Dr. Richard Lindzen,
Professor of Meteorology MIT and Member of the National Academy of Sciences
[most of the current alarm over climate change is based on] "inherently
untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast
the weather a week from now." Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology MIT
and Member of the National Academy of Sciences
By John Berlau
Now it's official. Global warming alarmism has indeed "jumped the
shark", as revealed by the dismal failure of the Live Earth concerts
to galvanize the general public. In particular, the puny turnout in
Washington, DC, where Gore himself personally showed up, has proved an
acute embarrassment.
But although Al Gore's Live Earth concerts have failed in the ratings,
he appears to have partially succeeded at doing what does best:
shifting blame for his woes to his political opponents and getting the
media to go along. Since last weekend, the Net has been abuzz with
stories of how Gore overcame Republicans who allegedly did everything
they could to stop the concert from being performed on Washington's
National Mall.
"Al Gore foils opponents," proclaimed Associated Press, after Gore had
just announced a "surprise" Live Earth concert in Washington, D.C.,
the next day. "Global warming naysayers in the political world have
not been able to have their way, because this will - despite their
best efforts - be held on the Mall," Gore was quoted in the story as
saying.
The next day, Gore again took a shot at the opponents who he said
denied him the use of Washington's famous Mall - the area surrounding
the Smithsonian Institution museums between the Capitol and the
Washington Monument - and the press again largely parroted his claim.
In his speech at National Museum of the American Indian last Saturday,
which the Paris-based wire service AFP called "a thinly veiled hit on
members of President George W. Bush's Republican party," Gore
declared, "Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to
stop this event on the Mall."
And "some" media outlets, who don't understand or don't care that Gore
is spinning them, allowed him to peddle the biggest set of urban myths
to appear on the Internet since Gore "took the initiative in creating"
it.
To start with, the Washington "show" consisted of country stars Garth
Brooks and Tricia Yearwood added to preexisting events with Indian
artists. As Carter Wood observed at the National Association of
Manufacturers' blog ShopFloor.org:
"The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian had already
scheduled a day of events -- including the Indian Summer Showcase
2007, which appeared to be absorbed into 'Mother Earth - In the Spirit
of the Live Earth Concerts.' There were already going to be
performances, drum circles and spiritual/environmental speeches by
tribal leaders. Al Gore and the Smithsonian's organizers just figured
a way to add Gore's overtly political address and the Garth Brooks/
Trisha Yearwood performance to an existing event."
But Gore's most blatant falsehood - as phony as a three-dollar carbon
credit - is his claim that Republican lawmakers or global warming
"deniers" prevented him from holding the concert on the Mall. This
spread through the left-wing blogosphere like the proverbial wild
fire, with entries on ThinkProgress claiming that Republicans "had
tried to block the event from happening in DC" and on Daily Kos
declaring that "[d]espite Republican efforts ...to deny this, Friday
Al Gore announced LiveEarthDC."
In truth, the only thing some GOP lawmakers objected to was an unusual
last-minute effort to hold the concert on the grounds of the U.S.
Capitol, after its organizers discovered that Mall had already been
booked for other events. Use of the Mall had been denied to Gore and
his colleagues for one reason: they failed to apply for the proper
permits before other parties had. And one of the groups "blocking"
Live Earth's use of the Mall happened to be the Smithsonian
Institution itself.
The truth is that Gore's desires for a huge concert on the Mall were
actually thwarted not by Republicans, but by a very talented group of
Irish Riverdance cloggers, Vietnamese folk artists, and African-
American gospel singers. They were performing as scheduled at the
acclaimed annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival and at a gospel show
sponsored by the predominantly black Christian organization Together
One Unity. It seems the "nefarious right-wingers" who organized these
folk and gospel fests had the temerity to schedule their events with
the National Park Service, which runs the Mall, weeks and months
before Live Earth's organizers ever contacted the agency, and then not
call them off when Gore let out a sneeze.
I attended these events on the Mall that weekend and found them to be
a wonderful antidote to the green hype of Live Earth and, in truth, a
better example of true conservation and simple living then the giant
rock concerts were. They were a sort of anti-rock festival, with
informal singing and craftsmanship taking precedence. And for bizarre
reasons, the Folklife Festival itself has itself actually come under
attack from the greens. I will share my impressions and get into the
controversy later. In the meantime, back to Gore's lies.
If Gore had really wanted a big event on the Mall, all he would have
had to do was pick another weekend. The big bad Bush Administration
and the mean old Republican-controlled Congress placed no obstacles in
the way of antiwar rallies and Earth Day events held on the Mall in
the past few years that bashed the President and the party. The Park
Service issues permits in a professional manner without regard to an
event's ideological content. But it will not let an event jump in
front of the line, even if the organizer is a former vice president
and Academy Award winner. As the Washington political newspaper The
Hill explained, "Getting access to the Mall comes on a strict first-
come, first-serve basis."
Gore's friends in Congress, namely Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
D-NV, then tried to bail out Gore's lack of planning with a thoroughly
impractical alternative: putting the concert on the Capitol building's
West Lawn. With rare exceptions, the only large public gatherings
there are the National Symphony Orchestra concerts on the 4th of July
and Memorial Day. Much attention was paid to Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK,
who regularly challenges Gore's views on humans role in global warming
and the effects of climate change, calling the concert a "partisan
political event" that shouldn't be held on Capitol grounds. Gore shot
back, with his oft-repeated claim that climate change is a "moral
issue."
But even Democrats reportedly chafed at some of the practical
impediments to holding Gore's extravaganza on the West Lawn. An all-
day concert drawing huge crowds on the grounds of the Capitol, as
opposed to a three-hour symphony performance there at night, could
have posed formidable security challenges for those guarding the
Capitol building. Plus, in the holiday concerts, the Mall is utilized
to pick up the overflow in the crowds from the West Lawn. But, in this
case, of course, the Mall would be hosting its own events and would be
unable to absorb as much of the overflow.
These concerns may be part of the reason Democrats on the Hill backed
off as soon as practical questions about the event were being raised.
Unlike Inhofe, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, merely
refused to let Reid's bill on Gore's concerts clear the Senate with
"unanimous consent." According to The Hill, McConell wasn't
necessarily opposed to hosting the concert at the Capitol, but "wanted
more time for his side to look at the resolution." Reid soon backed
off, and Gore announced that the concert would be in New Jersey. The
fact that Reid and Gore didn't push harder suggests that they may
never have wanted an actual concert on the Capitol grounds, but merely
an issue to beat-up Republicans with.
In the meantime, out of the media spotlight, thousands of people
gathered on the Mall for the festivals that had been properly booked.
As Ludacris and Madonna crooned (if you can call it that) in the bask
of media attention, the Folklife Festival was abuzz with the sounds
of Southeast Asian flute music, folk songs and dances from Northern
Ireland, and the bluegrass tunes of rural Virginia.
In contrast to the Live Earth entertainment extravaganza, the Folklife
Festival was a venue that really celebrated our rural roots and the so-
called simple life. And the attendees practiced conservation in
action, as I saw barely a scrap of trash on the grounds of the Mall.
(There were also lots of recycling bins, but whether recycling is
always beneficial is another story.) One would think this would be an
event a good Green would love.
Alas, not so for some of the major environmental groups. This is
because due to its hosting a folk "life" festival, the Smithsonian
presents all aspects of rural living, including (gasp!) cars and
(horrors!) machinery used for resource extraction. The technology that
has improved rural life greatly doesn't fit today's enviros'
definition of an idyllic rural culture. Last year, green groups such
as the Natural Resources Defense Council actually protested the
Folklife Festival because of one exhibit that focused on oil
exploration in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.
So Gore and company present an interesting new environmental ethic.
It's okay, as long as you're "environmentally correct," to burn up
tons of fuel jetting off to concerts around the world. But it's a sin
to even present the exploration for this oil in a positive light. Talk
about an "offset" in priorities.
John Berlau is director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute and the author of Eco-Freaks.
Page Printed from:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/al_gores_whine_and_what_really.html
at July 18, 2007 - 10:17:01 PM EDT
Regards
Bonzo
"...and I think future generations are not going to blame us for anything except
for being silly, for letting a few tenths of a degree panic us"
Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology MIT and Member of the National
Academy of Sciences
"What most commentators-and many scientists-seem to miss is that the only thing
we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes" Dr. Richard Lindzen,
Professor of Meteorology MIT and Member of the National Academy of Sciences
[most of the current alarm over climate change is based on] "inherently
untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast
the weather a week from now." Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology MIT
and Member of the National Academy of Sciences