Duelling documentaries - An American Carol perspective.

Around 4th of July 2008, a producer named David Zucker brought out a parody called "An American Carol." It is now Christmas time, and I thought I would give his humorous title a temporal nod as I observed an application. There are two contemporary political scientists in America, one more famous than the other who have made documentaries. Al Gore [a man who saw the value of the idea of Arpanet before anyone else] made [apologies to all computer professionals for the rudeness of the music + can't skip the intro] the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. In it he addresses Global Warming as a concept in an award winning way. Not far away in a chronological sense Ben Stein made the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In this movie he addresses the constitutional concept of Freedom in an Academic Setting. They each had an agenda. Al Gore was a polished cinematographer, and stumbled on his agenda. Ben Stein was a mediocre cinematographer, and made headway in a difficult pursuit. I will editorialize on each as follows: Al Gore's documentary showed that Global Warming is occurring. As an individual, I concur rather than agree, because I do not know if Global Warming is man made. For rational reasons to question this, I would appeal to the catastrophic effects of recorded volcanoes. I'm not a chemist, but I think they spew Nitrogen compounds, Sulfur compounds and Carbon Dioxide all three. Environmentally, this didn't destroy the planet before now for "some reason." The documentary film maker, having established that Global Warming is occurring is obfuscating his agenda with his own film. The United States has exported its pollution generating factories [hitherto known as jobs] to China, politically moving them from Communism to Capitalism. All efficacious efforts to prevent polluting teach first world countries to enforce KYOTO etc. To be brutally honest, if we don't burn the oil, China will. In a catastrophic Catch 22 [Joseph Heller,] if China doesn't burn the oil, they will burn coal instead. 'nuff said. Ben Stein enjoyed less success. His documentary was multi-faceted; it addressed Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom and Darwinian Imperialism. To contemplate the latter first, consider the straw man theory that Hitler was a Political Darwinist. He saw that a super race was possible by natural selection, and made a ranking of desirable genetic traits. His consequential behavior met the test of rationalism, and failed the legal test of insanity - being responsible for your actions by knowing that they are wrong at the time. Many have made much of the conspiracy theory aspect of Expelled. Perhaps Stein failed to be objective by coming from a Jewish background. The First Amendment hasn't changed. His interest there is evident from his humble beginnings as a speech writer for the Nixon administration. I'll close with a confession and an observation: confession; I haven't personally viewed "An Inconvenient Truth." observation; If the Smithsonian is the only museum in the country with yet undated fossils in the back room that could be used to improve the understanding of the evolutionary time line, then they really shouldn't Bogart them.