So far Gore is more than holding his own with poise and at-the-ready talking points, he's pushing back against the Denialist Gang and it is they who are losing ground.

(What you missed with Barton was a discussion re a child's fever, 5 degrees over 98.6 is afever of 103.6; as to carbon lagging temperature rise that has to do with Earth's orbit over millions of years, not the recent 50 years)

I've been looking forward to this for some time. The liveblogging is great for me, as I cannot watch streaming video from work.  Thanks David!

Al Gore provided some great testimony, entirely sincere, genial, knowledgeable and authoritative. It's like he's been preparing for this day for the past 30 years.

"It's about cars, coal and buildings." That's a fine bumper sticker summary, I'll have to remember that & repeat often.

After having read this, I have little problem labeling you a blog dork. If you need a therapist for repetitive motion disorder, I can send you the number of my specialist.

Benny Big Eye

One square meter of sunlight is worth one barrel of oil per year.  Our mission is to discover and disclose the cost of one square meter of sunlight.  

The US needs 30,000 km2.  That is a lot of economic activity and millions of jobs.

Thanks to you, DR, I was able to follow Al Gore before the House committees live.  But I did not see your running commentary till later.  (Nor did I have time to watch Gore's Senate visit, and had to satisfy myself with seeing Barbara Boxer's brilliant gavel-brandishing replayed later.)

I would not go so far as to say that "Gore knocked this out of the park."  True, he spoke calmly and clearly, and was not embarrassed by hostile questioners.  But did he persuade anybody of anything?  Did he change anyone's mind on anything?  Unclear so far.  Similarly unclear is what fate his ten recommendations will have.

Also, I am not quite sure I follow your reasoning, which you made in a related post, that his proposing those recommendations is a sign that he sincerely does not intend to run for president.

The Democrats were fine.  Gordon was sweet, and Waxman and Roz's friend (oops!, or was it Ana Unruh Cohen who worked for him?) Markey were helpful.  Hopefully Markey will get an even more constructive conversation going, when Gore visits his special committee.

The Republicans were rather more interesting, for other reasons.  Two especially noteworthy moments were, first, when Inglis of SC, that snake, in the bad sense of the word, said, "We conservatives teach our children to do the right thing even when no one is looking" -- as though liberals teach their children to lie, cheat, steal, plagiarize, seduce, sell heroin, run guns and set up Al-Qaeda cells.  I wish Gore had shot back that Inglis's words of praise for conservative morality fail to explain a great deal of Republican conduct during the past seven years; and I wish he had sent Tipper up with a pot of coffee to dump over his head.

At least there was one consolation while Inglis was talking: that bit of eye candy sitting behind him on the right.

And then, by contrast, Hall of Texas was a hoot.  I liked how, mentioning that he was older even than Dingell, he said that there are some who believe he remembers not only Sam Raeburn, but Sam Houston.  And that opened up the Tennessee/Texas connexion, leading to that cute witticism, that whenever somebody moves from Tennessee to Texas, the quality of the citizenry in both states is much improved.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!