Goldberg and Guthrie

Jesus Fucking Christ. I don't know why I let this get me so fucking mad every time I think about it - BUT AL GORE CREATED THE FUCKING INTERNET. In fact, he probably deserves a monument or something in his honor, as the man who made the transfer of massive amounts of information accessible to people around the world. When he said that he "took the initiative in creating the internet," the press should have said, "holy shit, he's right. Governor Bush, have you done anything in your life that demonstrated such amazing wisdom and foresight, anything at all that compares to Al Gore's making the internet a possibility?" (Possible answer - he was smart enough to destroy his National Guard records in the 1970s.)

Fuck people. Fuck the press. Fuck myself for believing during 2000 that Al Gore said he invented the internet. Fuck Republicans for distorting a quote about a man to the point where they are simply lying - but most of all fuck the press and the Democrats who let them get away with it. While were at it, fuck Al Gore for not stepping up as soon as this scandal broke, and not demanding that the press acknowledge the role he played in creating the internet. And fuck the stupid Electoral College system for keeping Gore out of the White House.

This rant was inspired by this Daily Howler, especially this part from a James Brosnan article (which the Howler has rehashed over and over again - but which fucking idiots still don't seem to understand):

BROSNAN: In 1973, Kahn and Vinton Cerf, a Stanford researcher, sketched out a design for the Internet. Cerf would later design the Internet protocol TCP (Transmission Control Program).
Gore, who chaired the Senate Commerce science subcommittee, passed the legislation that created five super-computer centers in 1986. That in turn led to National Science Foundation grant money to link the centers to other universities through NSFNET.

Doug Van Howeling, who ran NSFNET and who now heads the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, said Gore tracked the advances. "He would invite a leading scientist and just spend a good part of the day talking to him," said Van Howeling.

In 1990, Gore made speeches about taking the Internet beyond scientific research [i.e., to make it what it is now].

"If we had the information superhighways we need, a schoolchild could plug into the Library of Congress every afternoon and explore a universe of knowledge jumping from one subject to another, according to the curiosity of the moment," said Gore. [This was a novel idea at the time.]

In 1991, Gore helped pass legislation to create a high-speed National Research and Education Network, but it took two other developments to make the Internet what it is today...

Is this so hard to understand? Maybe we should put Al Gore on the dime - he basically changed the whole world, and the whole way we interact with information.