Apple has posted a link on its website to a video of the company’s memorial services for its employees to celebrate the life of its founder Steve Jobs.

The event, held last Wednesday in an outdoor amphitheater at Apple campus, was closed to the public. Reporters were even asked to stay away from the Apple premises during that time. The company also closed all its retail stores so that employees could view the memorial service via webcast.

The video which runs 81 minutes is Apple’s way of sharing to the public the company as they mourn the death of Jobs at the age of 56 on October 5 due to a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the past two weeks had been the saddest of his life:

“But I know Steve. Steve would have wanted this cloud to lift for Apple and our focus to return to the work that he loved so much.”

Cook also revealed that the last piece of advice that Jobs gave him was “to never ask what he would do, just do what’s right.”

Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell and former Vice President and Apple board member Al Gore were also present during the event.

Despite not being involved with Apple, how do you celebrate Steve’s life? Or is this just another passing of a great mind?

Apple Posts A Celebration of Steve’s Life Online is a post from: The Inquisitr

Oh, Al Gore.

The previously relatively quiet second in command to Former Pimp Daddy Commander in Chief Bill Clinton has gone a bit wild since he left office and experienced his own unsuccessful bid for the White House more than ten years ago. He has since split with Tipper, and now spends the majority of his time in the public eye making increasingly dire predictions about the fate of Earth’s residents if we don’t get super-cereal about Climate Change.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, scientific consensus indicates that climate change over the past half a century is likely due to human activities. Folks with a specific financial interest in maintaining the environmental protection status quo have done everything in their power to get you to believe otherwise, often appealing to a dislike or distaste of what they portray as snooty “intellectualism” or elitism among environmentalists- Gore being a prominent target thanks to his propensity for speaking out on the issue.

The former Veep is probably not going to win over many in the uncertain-about-climate-change camp by comparing deniers- who prefer the term “global warming”- to pre-civil rights era racists. During a recent Ustream interview with Alex Bogusky, Gore sniffed:

“I remember, again going back to my early years in the South, when the Civil Rights revolution was unfolding, there were two things that really made an impression on me… My generation watched Bull Connor turning the hose on civil rights demonstrators and we went, ‘Whoa! How gross and evil is that?’ My generation asked old people, ‘Explain to me again why it is okay to discriminate against people because their skin color is different?’ And when they couldn’t really answer that question with integrity, the change really started.”

Gore recalled the tipping points in the South when racism shifted from socially acceptable to awkward and unwelcome. He explained:

“There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”

He added:

“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money.”

Watch a clip of Gore’s commentary below- do you agree that the arguments against the existence of climate change are indefensible?

Al Gore Compares Climate Change Deniers to Racists is a post from: The Inquisitr

Environmental rights crusader and former Vice President Al Gore got on the defensive at a recent talk, decrying astroturfing measures and pseudoscience aimed at preventing the spread of information about climate change.

At the Aspen Institute’s “Networks and Citizenship” media panel last week, Gore angrily struck out at climate change deniers in a profanity-laden rant against a small group of people he says are “washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again” and who have made it unacceptable “to use the goddamn word ‘climate.’”

Drawing comparisons between climate change deniers and tobacco lobbyists decades ago who claimed smoking was not as harmful as we know it to be today, Gore fumed:

And some of the exact same people — I can go down a list of their names — are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: ‘This climate thing, it’s nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn’t trap heat. It may be volcanoes.’ Bullshit! ‘It may be sun spots.’ Bullshit! ‘It’s not getting warmer.’ Bullshit!

Gore also got hella pissed about what he perceives as a need to act as if the science on climate change is still being settled- saying there is no longer a “shared reality” of accepted facts from which to draw. In addition to his frustration at the situation surrounding politics and the environent, Gore weighed in on partisan wrangling over the budget- calling the idea that the issue of the budget was related to spending and not revenue (meaning repealing Bush tax cuts on the uber-wealthy) is totally “insane.”

Watch the clip below:

[Video] Al Gore Rant: Ex-VP Gets Sweary About Climate Change is a post from: The Inquisitr

And he’s super cereal.

[via]

An inconvenient truth… is a post from: The Inquisitr

Star Magazine published a story claiming that the allegedly amicable breakup of Al and Tipper Gore’s 40 year marriage actually came due to a lengthy affair between Al Gore and Larry David’s wife, Laurie David.

Laurie David co-produced Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and the magazine quotes an unnamed source as saying the supposed long-term affair was “inevitable”:

“Al and Laurie went from friends to lovers,” an insider tells Star. “It couldn’t be avoided.”

Friends of the Gores said the report was laughable and David released a statement denying claims that she’d ever been involved with the former Vice President:

“The story is completely untrue,” Laurie David said in a statement.

“It’s a total fabrication. I adore both Al and Tipper. I look at them both as family. And I have happily been in a serious relationship since my divorce.”

Reps for the Gores have declined comment on any possible causes for the split. The report isn’t the only one floating around about the surprising break up- Globe said the Gores separated because Al was “gay.”

[Image]

Report: Al & Tipper broke up over Larry David’s wife is a post from: The Inquisitr

The news last week that longtime Washington power couple Al and Tipper Gore have separated after just passing their 40th anniversary came as a surprise to many, as the couple always projected the image of a happy marriage and loving relationship.

It appears the elder Gores aren’t alone in their marital woes. It came to light today that Karenna, the 36-year-old daughter of the Gores, is also involved in a marital separation. Friends of the Gore family report that Karenna and husband Andrew Schiff, who have three small children, have been separated for a “couple of months.” Gore and Schiff have been married for 13 years, and the couple are reportedly in counseling.

A friend of the family who declined to be identified spoke to press about the nature of the split, saying:

“It’s amicable and they are in counseling. They are not divorced.”

Karenna Gore is a lawyer, and is currently working on a documentary about “inspirational women.” Reps for the Gores declined to comment on the separation.

[USA Today, MSNBC]

Gore daughter Karenna announces separation one week after Tipper and Al is a post from: The Inquisitr

Former Vice President Al Gore and wife of 40 years Tipper have decided to separate, the couple announced in an e-mail.

Politico obtained the email and posted a portion of it. Titled “Email from Al and Tipper Gore,” the announcement said:

“We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate.

“This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration. We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further.”

The couple, who live in Tennessee and have four children together, marked their 40th anniversary on May 19th of this year.

Al and Tipper Gore to separate after 40 years of marriage is a post from: The Inquisitr

As much as I hate to start a post quoting Ashton Kutcher, his sentiment sums up the outrage in the United States over the jail sentence handed down to two American journalists:

“This should be a national crisis… We have to demand that something be done. This is our country, it’s our military,” Ashton Tweeted on Monday. “I say it’s special ops time… If we can save that Captain from pirates we can save these journalists.”

I am sympathetic to the plight of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and that it is fair to argue that by western standards, the 12 year sentences doesn’t nearly fit the crime, but lets take a closer look.

Reports are saying that Ling and Lee were taken on the China/ North Korean border where they were “reporting about the trafficking of North Korean women.” But there’s a flaw in that statement: the proximity to the border is irrelevant, because they were arrested inside North Korea. If they had been taken inside China, the “international incident” wouldn’t just involve North Korea and the United States, it would most definitely involve China, who would be outraged about an incursion into its territory by North Korean troops.

So these two “journalists” were arrested inside North Korea, having crossed the border without permission or appropriate paperwork. What if the incident were the other way around: two North Korean “journalists” crossed into the United States, cameras at hand, without paperwork. Better still, substitute North Korean journalist for a muslim journalist.

We already know the answer, and despite the occasional travel brochure suggesting otherwise, Gitmo isn’t overly pleasant for those detained there.

It’s terribly rich for America to complain about two entirely stupid journalists who purposely put themselves in harms way, knowing to well what the consequences might be, while America routinely detains anyone remotely suspected of being a threat, and holds them without trial nor natural justice.

To hold others to such high standards, you yourself practice those standards; when you do not, it can only be considered hypocrisy.

I do hope that Ling and Lee are released, and the issue is resolved. But the incident should be cause to reflect that America is long since dropped the flame when it comes to justice. President Obama promises hope, but every day prisoners at Gitmo do not face trial, nothing really changes.

North Korea journalist case highlights American hypocrisy is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Central Court of North Korea have found two U.S. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, guilty of illegal border crossing and have sentenced them both to 12 years in North Korean labor camp. The only statement out of the U.S. State Department is that they have seen reports of the convictions and are trying to confirm them with the North Koreans.

"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," said spokesman Ian Kelley in a statement. "We once again urge North Korea to grant the immediate release of the two American citizen journalists on humanitarian grounds."

Source: CNN

Ling and Lee, reporters for Al Gore’s media venture CurrentTV, were taken into custody back on March 17th who has been advised apparently by his lawyers not to say anything in public about the matter. To this point only a Swedish ambassador has been allowed to see them , other than that any contact has been severely limited.

[picture via CNN]

Euna Lee and Laura Ling convicted and sentenced to North Korean labor camp is a post from: The Inquisitr