A piece I submitted a few months back. Rejected, probably wisely.

“Nick Shultz, our saintly editor had some good clean fun with Al Gore a few days ago (http://www.techcentralstation.com/011504G.html) and his decision to make a speech on Global Warming on the coldest day in a decade.
Now that the speech is available to be read ( http://www.moveon.org/gore3/speech.html ) it’s time to have some good dirty fun with what the fortunately ex-VP actually had to say.
There’s a few minor things like Joan Blades coming all the way from California for the speech, when one would expect a Silicon Valley entrepreneur to be able to watch a web cast and save the CO2. Apparently it’s 3 tonnes of CO2 for a round trip from W to East Coast by plane, more if she drove, and less if she took the train. Oops, since Congress set up Amtrack I don’t think you can actually do that journey can you ? But never mind, we all know that emissions by environmentalists so they can be clapped at are different from capitalist ones that keep incubators going, to say nothing of the hot air produced by the rest of the conference.
Then there’s the straight lie : “Consider Mercury, an extremely toxic pollutant causing severe developmental and neurological defects in fetuses. We know its principal unregulated source is coal-fired power plants. “
We might try and pick apart the grammar and ask whether he means “ unregulated coal-fired power plants “ ( which most certainly do not exist in the US ) but fortunately we don’t have to for Willie Soon ( http://www.techcentralstation.com/050803F.html) has shown us quite clearly that such plants account for 1 % of mercury emissions. Such things as forest fires produce a great deal more and Al is vehement that the thinning which would reduce these should not happen : sort of against regulating that source of mercury if you will. “

There’s more :

Yet it would not be fair to lambast the ex-Senator for these trifles. They are part of the normal cut and thrust of extremist politics the world over, lie and dissemble to gain power.
Where we should be less forgiving is in the subtext of his speech. Everything that is evil is the work of greedy corporations, bent on nothing but their own profits, and the populace must be saved from such. He completely ignores the flip side of such private enterprise, from the moolah that Joan made to enable the conference, the website we can all laugh at this speech on to the medical care that saved his son’s life those years ago.
It may seem odd to go off and talk about lighting systems now but bear with me. We’re in the middle of a step change, a paradigm shift to use a current buzzword, in the way in which we light our homes and offices. Red LED’s have been known for decades, but it was only recently that a Japanese researcher worked out how to make blue ones ( using Gallium Nitride rather than the previous Gallium Arsenide ). This led the way not only to the DVD but also to LED based lighting systems. All privately funded, just big business getting on with its rapacious pursuit of profit, and to hell with the environment as the ex-Congressman would have it. These aren’t the sort of things that you might be able to buy in 20 years after the bugs have been worked out. No, they’re in the stores today, and the largest players in the light bulb market are building, expanding and running at top speed the factories from which they come.
No doubt Mr Gore will wonder what this has to do with pollution, him or the environment. Well, it’s all about joined up thinking, something which androids are notoriously bad at. Lighting currently takes 19 % of the US electricity supply. That’s 7 % of all energy use in the US. These new LED systems use 10 % or less of the power to provide the same number of lumens as regular light bulbs. So what we’re going to see over the next five years or so, as the technology becomes fully deployed, is a drop in US electricty consumption of some 17 % , or total energy usage down by 6.3 %.
And guess what Albert ? No subsidies, no plans, no regulation and no need for interfering busybodies. Just those evil corporations out to make a buck out of the poor misguided and unprotected public, leading to a far greater reduction in pollution than your desired regulations, and even helping to reduce your fancied global warming in the process.
That’s what’s wrong with what’s his name and his ilk, that their world view requires some personification of evil upon which all woes can be blamed. For them it is corporations and private profit. For others in more disgusting episodes in recent history it’s been the Jews, or the N___s ( can I say that ? ) or in my own country the Papists. Replace “ corporation “ in his speech with “ Freemasons “ and change the grammar accordingly. You’ll see what I mean.
I must apologise about one thing. As a foreigner I’m not really sure how to refer to the Digital Veep. Apparently in the US people keep their title after they have finished their job or something. But then I’m not the only one similarly confused : Al Gore seems to have claimed to be a pre-incarnation of Sir Tim Berners-Lee and at another point to have been Oliver Barrett. Just because your roomate plays a roomate in a movie does not mean you are the major character : it’s called fiction, something the late Senator Gore’s son seems to have trouble distinguishing from reality. I suppose that is at least better than the recent UK rediscovery of the feudal practice of falconeration : under these principles Tommy Lee Jones would now be a senator for life and have William Rhenquist’s job.
To really impress upon you my view of Albert Gore, I shall have to turn to the Master, PJ O’Rourke, from 1994 :
“Sorry, Al, for repeatedly calling you a fascist twinkie and intellectual dolt. It’s nothing personal. I just think you have repulsive totalitarian inclinations and the brains of a King Charles Spaniel.”