Californistan or Bust: And The Golden Dildo Goes To...

As if there was any doubt about THESE two:

In the biggest non-surprise of the night, Al Gore's film on global warming won the Academy Award for best documentary on Sunday, and the former vice president and his Hollywood friends used the opportunity to push their cause before a billion-strong global audience.

"An Inconvenient Truth" also walked away with a second Academy Award, for best original song -- Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up." Etheridge performed the song earlier in the evening, before a backdrop that flashed messages such as, "You can even reduce your carbon emissions to zero."

Would installing some eco-friendly storm shutters on this idiot's mouth help?

Never mind that the film is being challenged for ....well, for being a crock of polar bear shit, that's what:

"A new scientific study shows that for the first time they're finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances - up to sixty miles - to find the ice," Gore says in the movie.

John Berlau, author of a new book on the environmental movement entitled "Eco-Freaks," claims the polar bear scene alone should disqualify Gore's film from consideration for best documentary, because it departs from reality.

Berlau noted that while the movie's companion book says the bears were drowning in "significant numbers," the study Gore is most likely referring to only found four polar bear carcasses in the sea off Alaska.

That episode took place after a severe storm, he noted, but Gore makes no reference to a storm during the film's animated polar bear sequence.

Gore also never cites a source for his polar bear claim, Berlau points out, but scientists on both sides of the polar bear debate told Cybercast News Service he was probably referring to a recent report filed by the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

Researchers with the service in 2004 found four dead polar bears floating in the sea off Alaska but said in a report that the bears "are believed to have drowned as a result of the storm."

Never mind the preternatural speed with which the Academy dropped trou and spread 'em for their new hero...

Hmm....anyone else sensing a pattern here?

Dan Gifford, an Academy Award nominee himself, has called on the academy to investigate whether Moore "fabricated scenes and video of real people that has been edited to manufacture a fictional reality intended to mislead viewers."

If it is determined those accusations are true, Gifford, the producer of "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," wrote to Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy, Moore should be stripped of the Oscar and it should be awarded to the runner-up.

"Failure to conduct such an investigation and act according to its findings will diminish the stature of the Oscar, establish an exploitable precedent for future rule violators and be grossly unfair to the other nominees who did follow the rules," Gifford wrote. "That unfairness will be particularly bitter to those whose film would have been nominated in place of 'Bowling for Columbine.'

"Even the accusation of such rule violations taints the Academy Award with implications of politics and favoritism that are most damaging," he continued. "So, I again respectfully ask that you not delay your attention to this matter."

That letter was written April 21. Repeated attempts to reach Davis by telephone were unsuccessful.

Never mind that a goodly chunk of the great unwashed lost interest in Melissa Etheridge long before her beloved partner did. (I wonder what it took to get ol' Wooden-head to let her climb aboard his coattails?)

A fading lesbian rocker and a BDS-suffering Earth-monkey in the same movie, at the Oscars? Please. This was a phone-in.

UPDATE: How 'bout THIS for an inconvenient truth?

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.

Yet another example of the Democratic mantra: "Do as I say, not as I do."