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The Almighty Buck Businesses Apple

Al Gore Joins Apple's Board Of Directors 944

zzxc writes "News.com.com reports that Al Gore has been chosen to be on Apple's board of directors. Apple has a press release with more information. According to the press release, 'Al brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and wisdom to Apple from having helped run the largest organization in the world--the United States government' and 'He has remained an active leader in technology--launching a public/private effort to wire every classroom and library in America to the Internet.' The inventor of the internet should be a valuable asset to Apple."
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Al Gore Joins Apple's Board Of Directors

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  • by Kallahar ( 227430 ) <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:00PM (#5547970) Homepage
    During a March 1999 CNN interview, while trying to differentiate himself from rival Bill Bradley, Gore boasted: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. ... The terrible irony in this exchange is that while Gore certainly didn't create the Internet, he was one of the first politicians to realize that those bearded, bespectacled researchers were busy crafting something that could, just maybe, become pretty important." - Wired News [wired.com]

    Al Gore never claimed he invented the internet, and anyone who jokes about it is just showing their ignorance. (sorry timothy)

    Kallahar

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:03PM (#5548002)
    Gore's words in a CNN interview, as quoted by Wired News, were as follows:

    "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

    Gore meaning, obvious to anyone who knew the record, was that he did the political work and articulated the public vision that made the Internet possible. No reasonable person could conclude that Gore was claiming to have invented the Internet in any technical sense. The first half of his sentence makes this clear: he is talking about work he did in the context of his service in the Congress. The creation of the Internet was a process that had several phases and took several years, and Gore is claiming the principal credit for the political side of that effort. It is a substantial claim, but an accurate one.
  • by kevin lyda ( 4803 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:03PM (#5548008) Homepage
    he didn't say [snopes.com] he'd invented the internet.
  • by fgodfrey ( 116175 ) <fgodfrey@bigw.org> on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:07PM (#5548053) Homepage
    Actually, the comment he made was, in fact, correct. The media misquoted it and for inexplicable reasons, Gore never challenged it. The direct quote was "As a member of the Senate I introduced the legislation that created the Internet" which, while maybe a bit self promoting, was what happened. He was one of the sponsorors (sp?) of the bill that opened ARPAnet to the public which created the internet as we know it. So, really, he never claimed to have invented anything...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:12PM (#5548109)
    Oh puhleeze guys. He never claimed to. [snopes.com]
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:14PM (#5548127)
    He won in 2000, after all...

    No, he didn't. [nytimes.com] Twit.

  • by Gryphn ( 513900 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:16PM (#5548157)
    ISH == Information Superhighway

    Snipped from;
    [google.com]
    Google Link

    "3. THE "INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY" SHOWS A BIG INCREASE IN FY 92.
    The President's budget proposes $638M for the High Performance
    Computing and Communications program, an increase of $149M, or
    30%. This initiative was generated by the Federal Coordinating
    Council on Science and Engineering Technology (FCCSET, which is
    pronounced "fix it") and involves eight Federal agencies. The
    project has been pushed both by Bromley and Sen. Gore (D-TN),
    whose father launched the superhighway program. The High Perform-
    ance Computing program includes the National Research and Educa-
    tion Network which will connect the Nation's educational and
    research organizations to Federal libraries, databases, super-
    computers and such facilities as telescopes and accelerators."
  • by Chibi ( 232518 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:21PM (#5548205) Journal


    Well, maybe he didn't invent it, but he actually was one of a few politicians actively promoting the internet.

    Therefore we should be thankful instead of always making fun of that one statement he once made.




    I think it's probably more realistic to say that virtually ALL politicians have said stupid things.

    Here's some proof for Mr. Gore.:

    http://www.gargaro.com/algore.html [gargaro.com]

    I'm not sure how many of these are true, as the site is a bit dated, and some of the reference links no longer work, but I do know the comments he made about Malaysia are accurate because I saw it on a news program (and could hardly believe what I was hearing).

    Anyway, a lot of it is media perception. If the media keeps stressing a certain aspect of someone in the spotlight, eventually everyone will think it's true.

    And let's not forget the true king of political quotes, Dan Quayle [xmission.com]!

  • bull shit. (Score:-1, Informative)

    by Erris ( 531066 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:23PM (#5548229) Homepage Journal
    ... Gore is claiming the principal credit for the political side of that effort. It is a substantial claim, but an accurate one.

    Prove it please. Show me some votes and correlate it to internet history. Statements made in the late 90s about something that hapened decades before deserve a grain of salt. Gore also took credit for solving Love Canal and that was a total lie. Plenty of reasonable people could imagine Gore taking more credit than he deserves.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:26PM (#5548258)
    I totally agree. And so does Vint Cerf, credited by most as being the "Father of the Internet".

    From http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html

    "Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet."
  • Re:I don't get it. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:26PM (#5548260)
    George Bush kills something like 100 people while he is governor of Texas and trashes 50 years worth of international diplomacy to get a two-bit dictator

    Wow. I don't get how something so idiotic gets modded up.

    Won't even answer the killed 100 people slant, but two bit dictator? Tell that to the witnesses who saw Saddam do this: "There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."" Saddam is a mass murderer [timesonline.co.uk]

  • by Adam9 ( 93947 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:31PM (#5548303) Journal
    The editors' comments aren't in italics and aren't within double quotation marks. The poster's comments are. Look at the article asbtract again to see what I mean.
  • No shit, really. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Behrooz ( 302401 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:35PM (#5548335)
    Gore co-sponsored the bill which funded the extension of ARPANET to non-military entities, which was a rather major political stumbling block for the early internet.

    I'm too lazy to go hit up LoC for the dates and numbers, but it's there.
  • Re:bull shit. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:37PM (#5548351) Homepage
    Here's the link [ietf.org] to the post where Vint Cerf says that Al Gore is pretty much right. Thanks AC.
  • by dbrutus ( 71639 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:38PM (#5548363) Homepage
    Sure. Ask him about Congress' responsibilities under the copyright clause to advance the arts and sciences. Is keeping things locked up and out of the public domain for so long the optimal way to do it?
  • Re:DMCA? (Score:4, Informative)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland@yah o o .com> on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:44PM (#5548417) Homepage Journal
    actually, he is not for censorship, only approprietly labeling 'offensice' material.
    there is a big difference.

    If the government said "no adult material is allowed, and will be removed" I would be angry

    If the government says adult magazines must be behnd the counter, I don't mind.
  • by Aexia ( 517457 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:44PM (#5548418)
    Gore also took credit for solving Love Canal and that was a total lie.

    The claim that Gore took credit for solving Love Canal? Yes, that was a lie since Gore claimed no such thing. [washingtonmonthly.com] The RNC, with the help of the media, quote Gore out of context and actually changed words to make appear he said something different.

    "The Love Canal controversy began on Nov. 30 when Gore was speaking to a group of high school students in Concord, N.H. He was exhorting the students to reject cynicism and to recognize that individual citizens can effect important changes. As an example, he cited a high school girl from Toone, Tenn., a town that had experienced problems with toxic waste. She brought the issue to the attention of Gore's congressional office in the late 1970s. "I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing," Gore told the students. "I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee---that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all." After the hearings, Gore said, "We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites. And we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around the country. We've still got work to do. But we made a huge difference. And it all happened because one high school student got involved."

    ---

    The next day, The Washington Post stripped Gore's comments of their context and gave them a negative twist. "Gore boasted about his efforts in Congress 20 years ago to publicize the dangers of toxic waste," the Post reported. "OEI found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal,' he said, referring to the Niagara homes evacuated in August 1978 because of chemical contamination. OEI had the first hearing on this issue.'... Gore said his efforts made a lasting impact. OEI was the one that started it all,' he said." [WP, Dec. 1, 1999]

    The New York Times ran a slightly less contentious story with the same false quote: "I was the one that started it all."

    The Republican National Committee spotted Gore's alleged boast and was quick to fax around its own take. "Al Gore is simply unbelievable---in the most literal sense of that term," declared Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson. "It's a pattern of phoniness---and it would be funny if it weren't also a little scary."

    The GOP release then doctored Gore's quote a bit more. After all, it would be grammatically incorrect to have said, "I was the one that started it all." So, the Republican handout fixed Gore's grammar to say, "I was the one who started it all."

    In just one day, the key quote had transformed from "that was the one that started it all" to "I was the one that started it all" to "I was the one who started it all."


    And someone's already posted what Vinton Cerf had to say about Gore's role in creating the Internet.

  • by Maelikai ( 118093 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:50PM (#5548481)
    http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

    On September 1, 2000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich addressed the American Political Science Association. His remarks were broadcast on C-SPAN:

    GINGRICH: In all fairness, it's something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is--and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a "futures group"--the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the '80s began to actually happen.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:57PM (#5548540)
    http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm [snopes.com]

    When you heard him make that exact statement, was that like the time you met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland?
  • Re:quotes, etc (Score:5, Informative)

    by davebo ( 11873 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @08:02PM (#5548603) Journal
    You can go here [cluebot.com] for Vin Cerf's take on it (he agrees with Al). There are a number of other links off of that site.

    An interesting article can also be found here [reason.com], discussing how Al Gore pushed what became the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 - which was a billion bucks, about 15% of which was "new money", to work on networking.

    Basically - he didn't do any of the techie stuff, obviously. He did push for more money in congress earlier than most people were. Was it essential? Probably not. But it helped.

    As for love canal: Al Gore NEVER EVER EVER said he either "discovered" the Love Canal problem or "solved" it. You're quite mistaken in that assertion.

    The story from CBS here. [cbsnews.com]

    Quick summary: Al Gore mentiones he had the first federal government hearings on Love Canal (true), and that Love Canal started the big hullaballo about companies polluting the crap out of land then selling it for housing developments (true).

    <rant>

    I swear to God, every time I read something like this I get pissed off. Doesn't anybody ever bother to fact check anymore? Wasn't anybody else ever told "don't believe all that you read/hear?"

    When you hear/read something like this - check it! Go into Google, type in a query, read a couple of different reports on the issue - that's the only way to get at a reasonable approximation of the truth. It takes 2 FREAKIN' MINUTES to do a search like this.

    People want to manipulate you. They will outright lie or at least twist the facts to do so. They rely on people like you too damn lazy to do the research.

    "Prove it, please." Jesus H. Christ! Don't you have an internet connection? Don't you know how to use Google? Do you need me to come over and spoon the applesauce into your mouth as soon as you've finished clicking on the links I've provided? (Presuming you live in a representative democracy/republic) IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to be educated about the world you live in and the behavior of its elected leaders. Get off your ass, type some stuff into Google, and find out for yourself.

    </rant>
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @08:05PM (#5548630)
    "He is also a visiting professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Fisk University and Middle Tennessee State University. Mr. Gore received his B.A. in Government with honors from Harvard University in 1969, and attended the Vanderbilt University School of Religion and the Vanderbilt University School of Law.


    Notice it said "attended," not "graduated from." He failed out.
  • Eisenhower and Gore (Score:3, Informative)

    by stevensweet ( 206786 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @08:12PM (#5548699)
    Excerpt:

    In 1957 Eisenhower created the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, a think tank charged with creating ideas to compete with the Soviet Union). To collaborate on these ideas, they created Internet?s predecessor Arpanet, first envisioned by the head of DARPA computer projects, J.C.R. Licklider of MIT.

    In the early days of computers, each of these research centers had a computer, but each was made to order and many were one-of-a-kind. Each computer had its own operating system, application languages, data structures, and protocols and that made data with users at other research center locations inaccessible.

    Arpanet overcame this limitation with the development by Vint Cerf from Stanford University, of TCP/IP, or Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is based upon packet switching, developed by Leonard Kleinrock at MIT in 1961.

    Story can be found here http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=200 2/9/25/100351
  • Re:I don't get it. (Score:3, Informative)

    by saddino ( 183491 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @08:45PM (#5548947)
    How does Rush do it?

    He does it by not trying to bullshit people into believing things that just aren't true.

    Purposely spreading unsubstantiated rumors and lies is "not trying to bullshit people into believing things that just aren't true?"

    Here's just ONE [aol.com] example of the numerous false statements he has made in print and on the air:

    -----
    In Chapter 16 of "The Way Things Ought To Be" Rush talked about how Willie Horton brutally raped a woman after he was allowed out of a Massachusetts prison on a furlough program while Michael Dukakis was governor. Rush, of course, refers to this as the "Dukakis furlough program" and blames Dukakis for the whole affair.

    What Rush failed to mention was that the furlough law he is talking about was passed when Dukakis was not even governor of Massachusetts. It was signed into law by the REPUBLICAN governor who preceded Dukakis. Dukakis' biggest involvement with that law was that he repealed it. But you would never hear Rush mention this. He doesn't want you to hear the whole truth.
    -----

    I don't think Rush is an idiot, so he must know that he's lying to all of you.
  • Re:bull shit. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Nemi ( 627009 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @09:03PM (#5549078)
    Here is another view on what Al Gore claimed and even touches on the justification by Vint Cerf.
    www.snopes.com [snopes.com]
  • by davebo ( 11873 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @10:14PM (#5549484) Journal
    Here's [netsys.com]the e-mail I get from a google search on Lloyd Wood.

    The important quote from Lloyd's message (responding to Vincent Cerf): "Thanks; it's good to know that Al Gore's statement isn't completely without unsupported foundation - although it could do with clearer scope."

    So perhaps it would be more correct to say "he thought Gore was full of shit, UNTIL others pointed out the context in which Gore was speaking."

  • Re:DMCA? (Score:4, Informative)

    by sg3000 ( 87992 ) <sg_publicNO@SPAMmac.com> on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @10:27PM (#5549534)
    > Interesting side note, President Clinton and
    > Jobs were pretty tight, while Michael Dell was a
    > big supporter of Dubya. I think that says a lot

    It sure does. Plus Microsoft was a big supporter of Dubya as well. Back during the election, Microsoft hired one of Bush's consultants to help them lobby the Bush administration about the anti trust case:
    (from the NY Times article, Apr 11, 2000)

    The Microsoft Corporation has quietly hired Ralph Reed, a senior consultant to Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign, to lobby Mr. Bush in opposition to the government's antitrust case against the software giant.

    Microsoft's aim, the company says, is to curry favor with the apparent Republican presidential nominee, hoping he will speak out against the government's case -- and, perhaps, take a softer approach toward the company if he is elected president.

    Mr. Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, is well situated to take on the assignment since his firm, Century Strategies, is one of Mr. Bush's top consultants. During the primary campaign, Mr. Reed frequently appeared on television to talk on behalf of the campaign.


    According to a Mercury News article from 1999, Microsoft also helped finance his inaugural celebration for his second term as Texas governor, and their COO was one of GWB's chief fundraisers for the Northeast.

    One good thing you can say about Bush is that when he's bought, he stays bought!
  • by adzoox ( 615327 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @11:01PM (#5549730) Journal
    He said that he helped with the funding and creative force that became the internet and that Tennesee was one of the first universities to fully utilize it because he saw how great it would become. Therefore he recommended quick adoption (and providing funds for) internet "capabilities" in public institutions. He was inferring that he was a reason the internet got started so quickly. The question asked by Wolf Blitzer on CNN was, "What do you think has been your greatest contribution to education?"
  • Re:bull shit. (Score:2, Informative)

    by ArcticCelt ( 660351 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @11:19PM (#5549916)
    Gore did not invent the Internet and he knows it. Nevertheless, in 1986 at a time when "The IBM PC was only four years old and the Apple II computer was still in widespread use...." he was technologically highly educated and he already envision technological concepts that probably not a lot of senators would have think off.

    In fact I am not sure how many people on this board honestly knew more than him about the Internet in 1986.

    1986: Gore called for, in the context of funding for the NSF, support for basic research in computer networking
    1988: Gore argued for the creation of a high-capacity national data network
    1989: On a floor debate Gore continued his support for federally funded research in high-performance computing and networking. His words presage the Internet as we know it today.

    Gore's efforts in the mid to late 1980s to promote national networking initiatives eventually paid off, when the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 was passed by both houses of Congress. The Houston Chronicle ran an article under the headline "Data superhighway' for nation's computers approved by Congress" on November 30, 1991, crediting Gore's role

    Take a look at the sources and his exact words at that time. Senator Gore's Activities [firstmonday.dk]

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