Tuesday, June 17, 2008

And Cheney Has Shot More People While Under The Influence of Alcohol Than the Average American

Maybe I'm too easily distracted. But get a load of this!

Energy Guzzled by Al Gore’s Home in Past Year Could Power 232 U.S. Homes for a Month 
Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient” home renovations 

Look, it's our good friends at The Tennessee Center for Policy Research! They're back again. You may recall last year they put out a similar press release that I took issue with. I questioned the numbers they were publishing, but in fact those were accurate numbers. It's the analysis which was slanted and stuffed with lies like a falsehood burrito. 

This biggest lie, of course, is the comparison. An average US home may consume X amount of electricity, but the average US citizen is neither a former vice president, board member of Apple, Nobel Prize Winner nor millionaire. Gore's house is A LOT BIGGER than the average American home. 

Furthermore, the average home in TENNESSEE uses 1.5 times the national average, so they're not even comparing Gore's house to others in the same climate. And their source, this table by the EIA, appears to calculate energy consumption by PERSON, not household. So let's do the math based on average people per average home, versus people in Gore's mansion. This includes live-in domestics and aides, if he uses some rooms as offices.

Now they say he's using 10% more energy than before the renovations. 17,768 khw a month, to be precise. The press release from last year? 22,619 kwh. I'm kinda having a problem with that math. See, I'm almost certain 17 is LESS than 22. I think 12%, but like I say math and I aren't best friends. My guess is they're comparing the numbers now to the months before the renovations were complete, which would make sense because things would be shut down for rewiring.

I know, if you're conservative you already stopped reading, because you like the simple cheap shot rather than the fair comparison. "Press 1 For English, 2 For Deportation" is all you need to know. Tell you what though - Clinton was a detail guy and he balanced the budget. Bush legendarily "doesn't do nuance" and he calls anything he doesn't understand Fuzzy Math. This math is so fuzzy, you might as well stick a couple of ping pong balls in it and call it a Muppet.

4 comments:

  1. This spreadsheet puts into perspectie just how much energy Al and Tipper are using:

    100,000 Chernobyl-type Nuclear Reactors Required to Sustain Gore Lifestyle [XLS]

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  2. I find those numbers suspicious as well.

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  3. Of course, you would. They don't fit in oyur arguement.

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  4. I apologize; I didn't read the chart thoroughly. Judging from the headline I assumed it suggested that Al Gore himself used the equivalent of 100,000 nuclear power plants. However given the premise is if we all lived Al Gore's lifestyle, that is if everybody in the world was a multi-millionaire globe-trotting media figure - every single person in the world, including Sri Lankan babies and those illegal immigrants you guys fear so much, then yes, the chart may be accurate.

    Sorry, how does this relate to anything?

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