As IF Times

link Al Gore stands to gain about $70 million after selling Current TV to al-Jazeera – Washington Post.

I actually applaud Al Gore for making the wise business decision; he sold out.  Hmm, maybe that didn’t come out right.  Apart from his political career, Albert Gore is at heart a businessman and a very good one if you look at the record.  Despite an undistinguished political career, he wound up being invited to the boards of Google and Apple, both gigs that soothed the hurt of not being elected President.  I don’t think we can begrudge somebody who starts humbly and then and builds himself a business empire worth hundreds of millions.  Well that’s not true, Mitt Romney was begrudged.   If you acquire you wealth through fortuitous marriages like John Kerry or Nancy Pelosi, there’s much less stigma attached to your wealth,  there’s more dignity to it.

I’m sure it must have galled Al that he didn’t receive perpetual lifetime royalties  for inventing the Internet.   Despite this setback, he was still able to get into the film business, made an eco fantasy movie and received a Nobel prize for doing so.  Heck, if Michael Moore can make money off fantasy films, so can he.  But Nobel money only goes so far when you have expenses such as private planes, limos and beach houses to upkeep.  You can’t spread the gospel about wasting resources and global calamity in a dogsled living in a two-wide trailer.   A guy starts an enterprise which, from the beginning was predicated on a ridiculous premise, makes no money at it and then sells it off for $500 million dollars?  That’s sheer genius.

In the wake of this recent successful business coup, staffers at the soon to be renamed Current TV are bewildered at what they perceive as the blatant hypocrisy and mercenary actions taken by their fearless leader.  Selling eco sensitive Current TV to Al Jazeera is akin to selling  a veggie restaurant to KFC.  Dennis Miller said it best when he noted that Gore profited greatly from the prophet business.   Staffers should have gotten a clue that something was up when the Christmas bonus included some free gas cards and prayer mats.

Keen business school students should stay tuned for Al’s next great adventure.  We don’t know what calamity will soon befall all earthlings, but you can bet it will be lucrative.

link How Al Gore Offered Keith Olbermann a Job – The Hollywood Reporter.

A stretch of credibility already.  It says in the article that:

“…Current averaged 18,000 homes in primetime for fourth quarter 2010, lower than any other network measured by Nielsen…”

Current TV is the network founded by the inventor of the Internet,  Al, we’re all gonna die, Gore.  The curious statistic of 18,000 viewers can possibly be attributed to:

a) a computer glitch which added two too many zeroes to the count

b) tv’s left on when people have died

c) the handful of zealots in San Francisco who think continents will be submerged on any upcoming day that ends in a ‘y’

d) the Gore family owning 17,946 tv’s.

It really is a tribute to America that the Nobel prize winner still commands an audience, no matter how nominal, even when his entire life’s work has been soundly discredited.  Except of course the Internet thing.   That may still have legs.   The whole Global warming kabuki reminds me of the scene in the classic 1983 movie, Trading Places, starring Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy.  In one of the final scenes, the evil Duke brothers are begging and pleading with people to come back to the trading pits after being ruined by bad trades.  

So now, Keith Olbermann is being added to the lineup in order to bolster ratings.  That would be like making the cast of The Golden Girls put on miniskirts to attract viewers.  Mr. Olbermann is touted as once the cornerstone of ESPN sports, a claim that is as laughable as saying the TV series Baywatch was popular because of David Hasselhoff.  I’m not sure how much you could pay Olbermann given that he’s used to multi million dollar paychecks from MSNBC, which is under new management.  MSNBC of course stood for, Mainstream News By Coercion, or Mainly Silly News Bashing Conservatives.   If current TV has only 18,000 (claimed) viewers, what is the revenue model that would allow them to pay Olbermann more than free sandwiches and Starbucks to offer his talents?  It’s possible that he’s doing it gratis in order to have a soapbox for his insightful soliloquies.

In any case, he will have found his kindred spirit at Current TV with Al Gore since no one listens to him anymore.  But if the Gore clan sells any of the TV sets in their 900,000 square foot home, ratings will crater.