The inconvenient truths about Al Gore’s house ...

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:41 pm

Gore’s Tennessee house versus George W. Bush’s Texas house wrote:Gore’s home is 10,000 square feet, has 20 rooms and 8 bathrooms. It’s located in an upscale area near Nashville and uses about 12 times the average amount of electricity his neighbors consume – 191,00 kwhs versus 15,600 kwhs. Gore’s home is approximately 4 times bigger than the average American’s. Gore’s house uses over $2,400 a month in gas and electric; 20 times the national average.

Bush’s house in Texas is 4,000 square feet has 4 bedrooms and sits on a prairie.

It has a central closet that holds geothermal heat-pumps connected to pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground drawing water that is naturally maintained at 67 degrees year round.

The 67 degree water works to both heat and cool the Bush’s house. A small amount of electricity is used to pump and distribute the water throughout the house to heat and cool it as required. The house uses rain water collected in a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. All waste water is recycled and reused for family consumption and to water the plants surrounding the house.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 6:44 pm

Snopes lists that one as a mixture. I remembered reading about it several years ago.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:03 pm

What the hell does he need eight bathrooms for?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:06 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:What the hell does he need eight bathrooms for?

Most people build things with a bathroom to bedroom ratio. If you have a 13 room house, you probably have 8 bathrooms.

But since it's a home/office, maybe the secretaries need it.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:32 pm

Wait, does "20 rooms and 8 bathrooms" mean that his house has 20 rooms or 28 rooms?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:00 pm

Bathrooms do not count as rooms in American Realestate.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:08 am

This should probably just go into the political news thread. And yes, everyone knows that Al "Manbearpig" Gore is a turd.

K · Post by K » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:47 am

Who cares? Seriously. Is there anyone that cares?

He's a rich guy who believes in addressing environmentalism on a global scale. He doesn't have to live in a yurt to prove that.

Any more ad hominem fallacies?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 1:12 pm

The updated story from FactCheck.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/al-gores-mansion/

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:29 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:This should probably just go into the political news thread. And yes, everyone knows that Al "Manbearpig" Gore is a turd.

This sort of explains PR's twisted logic. How can the question of whether one person has or has not a green house (and the one who does not is the one who touts green and the one who does is toutedas being the enemy of green) involve politics of any sort?

Blissfully ironic, perhaps, but certainly not political.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 3:46 pm

Yeah, and Thomas Jefferson spoke against slavery while keeping a lot of slaves himself.

Which is frankly a lot worse than what you're accusing Gore of.

But I don't see you stating any criticism of Jefferson; in fact, I'm pretty sure you've praised him before.

So, there's a pretty good chance you're a hypocrite.

And so are most politicians; I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that.

So, as K said, who cares?

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:11 pm

I already am aware that rich people think that rules don't apply to them (in fact, it's been supported with research in the past that it doesn't take anyone long to start acting like a completel douche upon getting money). This is not particularly surprising.

I will 3rd what K says, as it's pretty common knowledge that wealth makes people morally bankrupt.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:24 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Yeah, and Thomas Jefferson spoke against slavery while keeping a lot of slaves himself.

Jefferson had some 130+ slaves at the time of his death (compare that to George Washington who at his death had three times as many slaves). Jefferson, unlike Gore or even Washington was also in debt well above his head.

Jefferson's biggest fear was that in the south the slave population outnumbered the white population. Freeing these slaves all at once could, in his mind, lead to rebellion. He would frequently write about this problem comparing it to a tiger.

Al Gore doesn't have that problem. He could live in a green house if he wanted to, he chooses not to. Ironically, the one guy that is known as being so anti-enviromental lives in a totally green house. Go figure.

Just like me, you know that crazy person who drives a Prius?

Darth Rabbitt wrote:But I don't see you stating any criticism of Jefferson; in fact, I'm pretty sure you've praised him before.

Actually, I'm willing to discuss him at great length, if you want.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:25 pm

tzor wrote:Al Gore doesn't have that problem. He could live in a green house if he wanted to, he chooses not to. Ironically, the one guy that is known as being so anti-enviromental lives in a totally green house. Go figure.

He does live in a green house. He lives in a house that is four times the size of the average home (probably more, because that's just area) and he and his wife both work there with staff. He consumes 12 times the electricity of an average house, and he pays a premium to make sure that most of that electricity is drawn from renewable sources.

Bush doesn't live in his house much, lives elsewhere often, both when President, and not, and so uses less than the average house in electricity. So? I bet McCains seventh house uses 1/200th the energy of an average house, because he doesn't live in it.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:27 pm

I'm well aware of that; my point was just that he did say one thing while doing another.

And I'm not going to deny that Jefferson did a lot of good for the country; he did far more good for us than bad.

Although, I have absolutely no clue why freeing people would cause a rebellion; generally it prevents them, but at the time that kind of thought (that giving an oppressed group more power would lead to chaos) was fairly common (look at Hamilton's views on voting rights for the common man).

But I think that any further discussion of Jefferson would just be a thread derail.

So, back to Gore...

Him being environmentalist seems to be a fairly recent development.

Certainly, his platform when he ran for President in 2000 didn't show much in that regard; Zinn (who was generally quite concerned about the environment) criticized him heavily for that, others probably did as well, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

It's also documented in the links provided by Robby and Angel that he has attempted to address these problems.

People change their minds, and it would seem that Gore has.

And there are reasons that have nothing to do with the environment that people go green.

As oil prices go up, it becomes a better and better idea to use alternative fuel and/or power sources.

Of course, I have no way of knowing why you drive a Prius.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:47 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:It's also documented in the links provided by Robby and Angel that he has attempted to address these problems.

People change their minds, and it would seem that Gore has.

Yeah. The original material used in the piece Tzor linked is between 3 and 4 years old. For some reason, that author deliberately mentioned that it's important to bring these facts back to mind, while linking to Snopes*, and acted like the info was still accurate to date.

* I notice that he referred to it as "Snoops"

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:49 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Of course, I have no way of knowing why you drive a Prius.

You mean I haven't spammed this forum with the Tzormobile.

Tzormobile in SNOW!

(It has to be my car ... who else would have TZOR as their licence plate?)

By the way, here is a photo of the original Tzormobile, the generation I Prius.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:51 pm

RobbyPants wrote:* I notice that he referred to it as "Snoops"

Hey you young whippersnapper; I've been typing badly longer than you have been living, and don't you forget that!

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:07 pm

tzor wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:* I notice that he referred to it as "Snoops"
Hey you young whippersnapper; I've been typing badly longer than you have been living, and don't you forget that!

I'm pretty sure that "Snopes" is intended to sound like "snoops".

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:00 pm

tzor wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:* I notice that he referred to it as "Snoops"
Hey you young whippersnapper; I've been typing badly longer than you have been living, and don't you forget that!

I was talking about the author of the article, not you. BTW, I like your license plate. Now I just have to see if I can get ROBBYPANTS to fit on mine...

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm pretty sure that "Snopes" is intended to sound like "snoops".

I was pretty sure it was intentional.

Edit: Or are you saying that Snopes named themselves that way?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:48 pm

RobbyPants wrote:Edit: Or are you saying that Snopes named themselves that way?

That's correct.