February 26th, 2007
POWER: GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD; CONSUMPTION INCREASE AFTER 'TRUTH'
Mon Feb 26 2007 17:16:14 ET
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions, issued a press release late Monday:
Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.
Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.
Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.
For Further Information, Contact:
Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431
editor@tennesseepolicy.org
What Color Is Pi? Ask Savant Who Memorized It to 22,514th Place
By Jeffrey Tannenbaum
Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Daniel Tammet has peculiar skills. He sees numerals and words as ``shapes, colors, textures and motions,'' and that ability makes him a whiz at doing arithmetic and memorizing numbers and phrases.
The young Englishman -- he's 28 now -- set a European record in 2004 by publicly reciting the first 22,514 digits of pi from memory. To prove he can learn foreign tongues rapidly, he conversed in Icelandic with a TV interviewer after just a week of exposure to the language.
But, as Tammet makes clear in his memoir ``Born on a Blue Day,'' there's a tradeoff for these skills: His differently wired brain also makes him awkward in social settings and obsessive about following routines. He uses an electronic scale to make sure he eats exactly 45 grams of porridge each morning -- a gram too much or too little would ruin his day.
People like him used to be called idiot savants, though the medical community of today uses ``savant syndrome'' for this rare combination of disability and genius. Tammet, who calls himself an autistic savant, has a neurological condition known as synesthesia, meaning that his senses of color and shape are triggered by numbers and words.
Given the public's fascination with extrasensory perception, it's important to note that Tammet's talents have been proved. He isn't a crackpot plugging the paranormal; he has been studied by brain scientists at Cambridge University and elsewhere.
Loving Pi
His take on life reflects his abilities, as when he describes pi, the irrational number representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as ``an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing.... Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it.''
The author was born on a Wednesday, to him a ``blue'' day because his synesthesia prompts him to associate Wednesdays with blue. Growing up in East London he suffered from epilepsy, which he got over only to be diagnosed, at 25, with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.
``Numbers are my first language, one I often think and feel in,'' Tammet writes, adding that he has trouble understanding emotions and being empathetic. Nonetheless, he has a successful Internet-based business offering language tutorials and a stable relationship at home in Kent with a man he loves.
Though Tammet focuses mostly on his own case, he also writes about Kim Peek, the American who inspired the 1988 movie ``Rain Man,'' in which Dustin Hoffman played a savant. For Tammet, the fact that Peek is missing the membrane that normally separates the brain's hemispheres makes him ``a miracle'': ``He can read two pages of a book simultaneously, one with each eye, with near perfect retention.''
New Language
Tammet's own achievements have been recognized in the TV documentary ``Brainman'' and he has been a guest on David Letterman's show.
While words rank behind numbers in his universe, he loves them enough to be developing a new language -- he calls it Manti -- for which he has invented a grammar and coined more than 1,000 words (such as ``puhekello'' for ``telephone'').
``Each word, shining with color and texture, to me is like a piece of art,'' he writes. ``When I think or speak in Manti, I feel as though I am painting in words.'' Tammet's English isn't bad, either, and with it he paints a startlingly memorable portrait of himself.
``Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant -- A Memoir,'' is published by the Free Press (226 pages, $24).
(Jeffrey Tannenbaum is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeffrey Tannenbaum in New York at jtannenbaum@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: February 21, 2007 00:02 ESTProfile
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