Gore cleared in masseuse case

Future Masseurs prepare:
Wireless Web cam running, recording every bullying/manipulating tactic, she respectfully objects to being poodled. Then the demand: “Fix This!”
To which she seems to capitulate… ” okay, sir, just sit back, close your eyes, and I’ll try to “fix it” .
The camera observes the entrance of the Taser.
ZZZZZZZZZZT!
GAAAAAHGJKLK!
Youtube sensation.
Feel free to snip. 🙂

I read much of the first masseuse’s statement to the police (I read all of the section about Gore’s behavior). I found that it was lent credibility by its level of detail, the masseuse’s worries about how to get out of the room without getting into problems with Gore, his security people, etc. – her trying to get out without getting Gore angry and without leaving Gore angry. I can understand somebody’s trying to strike a balance between cooperation and resistance such that the balance seems overdone to others, though my experience with it involved my fear only of violence since no sex (potential or actual) was involved (the person involved was having an “episode” and later, along with apologies and explanations, told me that I had, thank goodness, behaved perfectly to defuse the situation). There were also a few things in the masseuse’s account that seemed odd (the song thing). And somebody said that it sounded like “VP groupie porn” and I can see that aspect, though sometimes in real life people behave in ways suitable for one or another kind of porn. The thing is, though, that it could be based on a real experience or experiences with a person or persons other than Gore, and then Gore’s name and some Gore-ish details are added.
There was a novelist named James Purdy who wrote a play which was performed somewhere in Greenwich Village decades ago. I attended a performance and spoke with him afterward. I told him that it was “the most beautiful version of that story” that I had heard. The story involved a kindly young man talking to his mother who turned out to be an apparition since, unbeknownst to the young man, had just died. I said that I didn’t believe that it actually happened. Purdy said that the real-life person on whom the character was based lacked the (creative) intelligence (or something like that) to make such a story up, and I didn’t argue with Purdy (well, geez, I didn’t want to get all critical on him, and besides he had just told me the true identity of a minor character whom he had dubbed “Tim Raisin” in some novel). It occurred to me later that I could have said, that the (real-life) young man didn’t make it up, but borrowed it, so to speak, since in fact it’s a common “experience,” and I had first learnt of it when I was quite young, reading it in some magazine containing reports of the (supposedly) occult and paranormal. That’s why I said “most beautiful version of that story” in the first place. My guess became that (in real life) the young man’s mother herself had, in the past, told him of such an experience.
I think that there’s a lot of falsehood in Gore and that, if the accusations be true, then they will be relevant in casting light on his cultish pushing for action against AGW – it will be not the same as, but still not so unlike, the scandals of those televangelists who turned out to be hypocrites. A politician with control issues, such is not incredible. And I have trouble making up my mind about whether the accusations “probably” true etc. But, in the absence of better evidence, there are just too many ways to have a reasonable doubt in Gore’s favor.

Um, I think about half of those commenting completely miss the point. This was posted as an exoneration of Gore, not a continuation of the accusations against him. Only in the comments do you find continuing accusations, not in the post.
The poster “EthicallyCivil” (living up to his screen name) said it best with: “The story of Mr. Gore belongs on the blog exactly because the accusations against him were also covered (either as a blog, or as thread comments).”
Posting this puts the site in the unbiased camp, in that both the accusation and the official exoneration were openly discussed. To cover only the accusation and not the exoneration would be evidence of bias.
As for whether anything concerning Al Gore belongs on a science site, obviously he is one of the prime movers of the global warming movement and his character is relevant. I don’t care how much he runs around on his wife, but if he had been found to be abusive to the woman, then we would justifiably wonder whether that character flaw was being extended to the rest of us.
As to whether or not one should buy the exoneration, that’s the personal matter that has no business on a science blog, and only the commenters have gone there, not the original post.

“Gareth Phillips says:
August 1, 2010 at 2:00 am
Can we now have some revelations about George Bush, Ronnie Reagan and Thatcher to even things up?”
Sorry, Gareth, I do not remember the hankey pankey of the nineteen-eighties, when these three were in power, but why not stories about the younger Bush? Was is not the Examiner, writing last year that Laura was getting a divorce because of that good-looking African-American piano player? Just check the literature when you are waiting in line at Walmart.
PS. In Germany a meteorogist has just been released from prison after 4 month; he was accused of rape by a former girlfriend. You could ask Gosselin for the details.

they should have polygraphed al gore on his climate views too, he might not have been so lucky

Ummm… why does this appear in a blog that claims to be about the truth about the climate?
Oh yes, exactly.