The Rise And Fall Of An Opportunist.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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This Sunday Sermon was inspired by a recent post on things I love recently. Thanks for the idea Alex.

al_gore_invent_global_warming

Cast your mind back to 2006, when failed presidential candidate and former Vice President Al Gore was searching for a new ’cause’.

He chose Global Warming and for a while he fooled a lot of people.

gore oscar arrest

He won an Oscar for a largely unproven ‘scientifically based’ documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” that made wildly exaggerated claims about man-made climate change. With hindsight perhaps “A Convenient Lie” would have been a better title. Then he was awarded the much discredited Nobel Peace Prize  –  although just what climate has to do with peace was never properly explained, after all people do fight wars in the rain!

He went on to found an ‘activist group’ and to create a new nonpartisan global movement around climate change that he misleadingly called the ‘Climate Reality Project’ –  misleading because it had very little to do with reality.

Yes, Gore was in the ascendency and was now the world’s leading advocate of Global Warming….brrrrrr …ooops… make that Climate Change would you.

Global-Change

As lately as last January Gore took his old college roomy Tommy Lee Jones and a contingent of other gullible celebrities, donors and scientists on a cruise to Antarctica. Ostensibly they were there to see for themselves the effects of Global Warming, but the real purpose was probably to try to attract more publicity for Gore’s Climate Change crusade. When I say he ‘took them’ of course I meant the multi millionaire Gore was kind enough to let them pay for their trip themselves!

al_gore_only_cares_about_money

But last gasp publicity stunts or not, things haven’t been going so well recently for the Gore crusade. In fact if you look at the numbers, which I always like to do, you will see that the downward spiral has been a steep one.

For example, at its zenith just a few years ago Gore’s organization could spend the best part of $30 million on PR, advertising and political lobbying. It had offices in over half the US States, sometimes more than one office per state, and employed over 300 people. 

al-gore-global-warming-inconvenienttruth

Today those 300 employees have become just 30 or so, and all its state offices have been shut. There are no more hefty advertising campaigns and no more highly paid lobbyists in Washington. Not surprisingly financial donations have also dropped, by around 80 percent. And so cold a political potato is Climate Change nowadays that in the 2012 Presidential election campaign question sessions it wasn’t even mentioned!

Now Gore is going to call it the “Alliance for Climate Protection”, probably a recognition that all the claptrap he was formerly spouting has been largely discredited  –  a bit like himself.

Al Gore Alliance for Climate Protection

The climate does change, Al, there’s no doubt about that. But the only climate man changes is the political climate where you can go from hero to zero when enough people catch on to the fact that you really don’t know what you are talking about!

Cheers Al

Or should that be Cheerio???

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Did You Know? Another Rummage Through The Fasab Fact Files

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hello again and welcome to another rummage through the fasab fact files.

As random as ever, this selection covers many centuries and many countries so you should find something of interest.

Enjoy.

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Did You Know 4

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1 in 5 of the world’s doctors are Russian.

RAMA

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The Nullarbor Plain of Australia covers

100,000 square miles (160,900 km) without a tree.

Nullarbor_plain

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In 1933, Mickey Mouse, an animated cartoon character,

received 800,000 fan letters.

Mickey Mouse

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Nerve impulses to and from the brain

travel as fast as 170 miles (274 km) per hour.

neurons-120208

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Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows

to mourn the deaths of their cats.

egypt

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Canadian researchers have found that

Einstein’s brain was 15% wider than normal.

brain_jar

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Isaac Asimov is the only author

to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

IsaacAsimov

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The shortest British monarch was Charles I,

who was 4 feet 9 inches.

King_Charles_I_by_Antoon_van_Dyck

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Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

(Something to do with his mother no doubt!)

sigmund-freud

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Camels chew in a figure 8 pattern.

camel-chewing-cud

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In space, astronauts cannot cry,

because there is no gravity,

so the tears can’t flow.

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There are 1,792 steps in the Eiffel Tower

 Eiffel Tower

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A silicon chip a quarter inch square

has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer,

which occupied a city block.

Silicon chip

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About a third of all Americans flush the toilet

while they’re still sitting on it.

 woman-sitting-on-toilet

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Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice president Al Gore

were freshman roommates at Harvard.

 Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore college shot

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In eighteenth century England,

women’s wigs were sometimes 4 feet high.

These remarkable headdresses were dusted with flour

and decorated with stuffed birds, replicas of gardens,

plates of fruit, or even model ships.

 18th Century hairstyles

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In 1976 a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift

officially married a 50 pound rock.

The ceremony was witnessed by more than 20 people.

Woman marries rock

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In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.

dogs-with-toupees

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John has a long moustache was the coded signal

used by the French Resistance in WWII

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