Greed and corruption on a Green scale

Al Gore was already pretty fucking insufferable, frankly, and this Nobel Peace Prize is only going to make the fucker even worse (and, incidentally, I utterly condemn Apple for praising the fucker to the extent that they gave over their homepage to him the other day).

But Al ain't finished yet.

Al Gore says his Nobel Peace Prize is an "honour" and a chance to "elevate global consciousness" about the threat posed by climate change.
...

"This is the most dangerous challenge we've ever faced," he said, speaking in Palo Alto, California.

"I will be doing everything I can to try to understand how to best use the honour and recognition of this award as a way of speeding up the change in awareness, and the change in urgency.

In other words, Al wants to speed up the chucking away of trillions of dollars in order to fund his pet project.

The White House congratulated Mr Gore but said it would not change its policies on global warming.

Now, I know that this is going to be controversial, but I would like to congratulate George Bush and the White House is refusing to be pressured into a pointless waste of money on this issue. From his refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty to his warning that he was "not going to sign anything that will wreck the American economy" at the Edinburgh G8 some time ago, Bush has played this entirely correctly, i.e. he has effectively told the Green lobby to fuck the fuck off.

And no wonder. Just consider Gore's chutzpah; a couple of days after his emotional, melodramatic concoction of lies is found to be flawed in nine points by the British High Court, Gore has still not issued an apology or a retraction or even acknowledged that he is a lying fuck who should die painfully and soon.

And, now, via Timmy—writing at The Business—we find an interesting political reason why Gore should have been awarded this prize.

This is an excellent, thoroughly cynical and warped, dissection of how Al Gore came to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Those awarding said prize are actually members of Norway's Parliament (no, not a committee of experts, as with the others) and it's thus a highly political exercise.

OK, well, politicians will do what is good for politicians, this is the basis of public choice theory. And what would be good for the politicians of a country like Norway? A country that floats on vast reservoirs of oil and gas, all extracted by a State owned company? That would be higher taxation on coal, their fossil fuel rival, would it not?

Investing $750,000 in Al's power to pontificate on behalf of his carbon trading business could pay Norway and OPEC handsomely indeed.The return could exceed a million to one, since Al's crusade to double coal's cost by taxation should translate into nicely higher prices for that lower carbon mainstay of the Norwegian economy, North Sea oil and gas. Oslo stands to gain hundreds of billions of Euros on its multi- billion barrel reserves, a most extraordinary return on a one kilogram disc of gold.

So I congratulate Gore on finding an income alternative to his lead-zinc mining leases, and the Oslo committee, who may deserve the Nobel Prize in Economics for awarding the Peace Prize to Gore.

Their decision wisely reflects the best Viking fiscal tradition, while avoiding the recrimination that so often attends rapine, pillage,looting and burning. Especially the last--nowadays the Viking's loot might scarcely cover their carbon offsets.

A quite masterly (if not dastardly) plan don't you think? And is there anyone insufficiently cycnical about the motivations of politicians to think that it might not be true?

Fucking hell, my poor bloody ringpiece appears to have been roughly shafted again...