Free Republic

Today we will learn whether Al Gore has won the Nobel peace prize. As someone who cares passionately about climate change, I'll be saying a little prayer. That he doesn't win, of course. The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like if the Norwegian Nobel committee gives him the prize? More to the point, can you imagine how enormous his already massive carbon footprint will become once he starts jetting around the world bragging about his new title? Just after Gore...

Are the stars aligning for another Al Gore moment in the presidential campaign? The former-vice-president-turned-climate-change-crusader long has hovered over the campaign despite his professed disinterest in becoming a candidate. Now, with rumors of a possible Nobel Peace Prize swirling, he's once again back in the conversation. The peace prize announcement is due on Friday, so he doesn't have long to wait to learn if he has pulled off a unique grand slam for 2007: an Oscar, an Emmy, a bestseller and a Nobel. It would vault him once again back into the center of speculation about whether he might jump...

Al Gore maintains that he won't seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 -- but his actions seem to belie his words. Gore has kept himself very much in the public eye as the White House races kicked into gear, providing plenty of evidence that he's eying another run for president: His award-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" brought him back into the limelight last year. His new book "An Assault on Reason" is a best seller, and when he launched his national book tour in May, one observer said the event seemed "more like a campaign stop...

Recently, The Sun — hardly the most erudite or sophisticated of Britain's newspapers, I grant you — published a feature article entitled "Why is TV more keen on Paris Hilton than on saving the planet?" Actually, it's not so much an article as a write-up of an interview with none other than Al Gore. "Al Gore is a man on a mission to save the planet — and is enraged that everyone else seems more interested in saving Paris Hilton," writes reporter Victoria Newton, who had a talk with the former Vice President. Now, I'm a little tired of Gore's...

Presidential hopeful John Edwards said Monday that Americans should speak out against the war in Iraq this Memorial Day weekend, renewing an anti-war call that has been criticized by the leader of the American Legion. Edwards also said all young people should serve their country, "not just poor kids who get sent to war." The former U.S. senator from North Carolina and 2004 vice presidential nominee said the most patriotic position now is to end the war, and the best way to honor veterans this Memorial Day weekend is to bring the troops home from Iraq. "There's another thing we...

This generation is one that thrives on media publicity, and right now global warming is in the spotlight. From melting icecaps to rising temperatures and sea levels, global warming seems to be the hot topic. With the help of Al Gore's Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," the issue of global warming has been projected from television screens worldwide, including those at Central York High School. Both Gregory Wimmer and Eric Webb, teachers of global studies and environmental sciences at Central, have used Gore's film as a teaching tool. "In a social studies classroom, "An Inconvenient Truth" allows for an...

Let us say right up front that it's terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity. We're also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator's spokesman, "John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he's had." While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just...

<p>The way Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel home to San Francisco and on official business is the latest tempest to hit the House of Representatives.</p> <p>But Putnam said Pelosi's bid for a bigger plane, which he dubbed "Air Force Three,'' shows "an arrogance of office that just defies common sense'' and constitutes a major deviation from the previous speaker's perks. He argued that Pelosi should settle for a smaller plane even if it means having to stop for refueling while traveling to and from California.</p>