Oscar Gold

[vovat]

So, I watched Bender's Big Score last weekend, and An Inconvenient Truth last night. Since I can't vote for Al Gore, I might as well watch movies that he's in, right? {g} It's also appropriate viewing considering the unseasonable warmth we've been having recently. I mean, that's not necessarily proof of overall climate change, but in light of all the other evidence, it seems like it's at least partially a result of that. Anyway, I thought the film did a good job at presenting its subject matter. I could see critics being bothered by the personal tragedies that Gore mentioned, though. I mean, he did a reasonable job at fitting them in, and I didn't object to them, but if someone were to say, "Hey, those things have nothing to do with global warming and were just in there to elicit sympathy!", they'd have a point. I have no idea whether any critics actually DID object to those parts, though. Most of the criticism I've heard of was more along the lines of, "Grrr, we're Exxon Mobil, and we'd rather attack Al Gore than adjust our business strategy to incorporate more environmentally sound policies!" and "The Earth going to crap is a GOOD thing, because that means Jesus is coming back!" I don't believe in taking Gore's numbers at face value any more than I do anyone else's, but it seems that a fair number of attacks on his findings aren't particularly grounded in science, but rather in the "Why should we listen to you? You're a fat liberal nerd!" way of thinking.

The first new Family Guy episode in a while aired last night, and while it wasn't particularly great, it was far from the worst of the recent ones. Peter's plot shifted focus quite a bit, but that's good in a way, because it means we didn't have to see an entire episode's worth of jokes about his stroke. Stewie becoming the most popular kid in high school was amusing, and different enough from when Peter did the same thing (although they both ended up briefly dating Connie). And the Will Smith joke was really funny.

As for American Dad, was this the first out-of-continuity episode they've done? Really, James Bond parodies are so old hat that the mockeries of the clichés have pretty much become clichés themselves. I've only ever seen one actual Bond film (Goldfinger), but I've seen a lot of spoofs that made a fair number of the same jokes. I still liked the episode, though, primarily due to the over-the-top nature of Roger/Tearjerker's movie. So yeah, not a bad showing for an abbreviated Sunday night animated lineup.

My car is currently at the dealer's for service. I have a feeling it's going to end up costing me a lot of money. What's more, one of my headlights apparently burned out, even though I'd just replaced them both a few months ago. I'm just having them fix it there, even though I'm sure they'll overcharge me. At least I managed to get a ride home, so I don't have to wait there and read magazines for hours. During the brief time I was there, though, I DID learn from Esquire that Elizabeth Kucinich has a pierced tongue. Who knew? Okay, I'm sure a lot of people knew, but I wasn't one of them until today. I also saw a woman dancing with a dachshund on Good Morning America. I'm not sure how she managed to teach the routine to the dog, since dachshunds aren't big on following orders. Ah, people and the demeaning things they make their pets do. I think it's rivaled only by the demeaning things that parents make children do.

Comments

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

StrokePeter scared the hell out of me. It was scarring.

And the Will Smith joke was really funny.

Someone needs to make an mp3 of that posthaste. Wait, I think I can with vixy.net as long as somebody puts the clip on youtube first.

American Dad gets worse and worse and worse every week it seems. I believe I mentioned this before though.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

StrokePeter scared the hell out of me. It was scarring.

I think I can see that. FG has done a lot of tasteless jokes in the past, but they've rarely come up with anything that looked that disturbing. As I mentioned in the post, I'm glad he didn't stay that way for much of the episode.

As for American Dad getting worse, I don't know. I thought last week's was pretty good. They're not all winners, but I think the show is better overall than it was when it first started.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

if someone were to say, "Hey, those things have nothing to do with global warming and were just in there to elicit sympathy!", they'd have a point. I have no idea whether any critics actually DID object to those parts, though. Most of the criticism I've heard of was more along the lines of, "Grrr, we're Exxon Mobil, and we'd rather attack Al Gore than adjust our business strategy to incorporate more environmentally sound policies!" and "The Earth going to crap is a GOOD thing, because that means Jesus is coming back!" I don't believe in taking Gore's numbers at face value any more than I do anyone else's, but it seems that a fair number of attacks on his findings aren't particularly grounded in science, but rather in the "Why should we listen to you? You're a fat liberal nerd!" way of thinking.

Wow, that excerpt looks bigger cut-and-pasted into the response box. Well, anyway, I have about five different things to say about just that excerpt there.

First, and this isn't so much about the exerpt as the paragraph it came from, OH yeah DARN, Gore ISN'T in the running for president, is he? Which should have been obvious from his name not being among the millions of others who ARE. But it reminded me and made me pouty, because I voted for him last time and I'd totally vote for him again.

Second, which I suddenly remember that I might have discussed with you before, that is the thing that bugs me MOST about the environmental movement-- too much reliance on Emotional, oh whatsit, Heartstring-tugging. It doesn't have an effect on the people it NEEDS to. It's preaching to the choir. If people want to change the minds of the people who are making bad environmental decisions, they'd better start talking about money. Or religion:

Fourthly (skipping the third because the fourth ties in better with that last sentence), oh I SOOOO from the depths of my devout Christian soul hate that "The world's only MEANT to last until the end of it" argument. Do they never THINK at the Day of Judgment God's not going to look at them and say, "Hey, didn't I ask you folks to be STEWARDS OF CREATION? What the heck have you been DOING down here?!"

Third, did I ever mention that one of my parents' best friends is actually one of the vice presidents of Exxon? He's really a decent human being. Honest.

Fifthly, there actually is one other argument(s) against Gore's and other environmental science studies that show humans having a negative impact, though I suspect that in some cases (my husband's) your "fat liberal nerd!" argument may be coloring it as well -- the nitpicky scientific argument. The ones like, "well, these findings don't actually prove that global warming isn't a PERFECTLY NATURAL PHENOMENON," etc... arguments made by people who actually DO know something about science and use it to argue smaller points of the issue, which, in my opinion, is a sort of dangerous filibustering that brings me back to my second point, that environmentalists are using the wrong debate techniques: while THAT MAY BE SO, while it may be true that perhaps global warming MAY have been destined to happen geologically anyway, that DOESN'T CHANGE THE NEED for people to make changes, to find alternative fuel sources, to reduce waste, so on and so forth! I wish environmentalists would really LISTEN to the arguments against them so that they could tailor their responses better, rather than, I already used this cliche but it's the only one coming to me, preaching to the choir.

Wow, five points exactly. I really pulled that "five different things to say" out randomly when I first typed it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Do they never THINK at the Day of Judgment God's not going to look at them and say, "Hey, didn't I ask you folks to be STEWARDS OF CREATION? What the heck have you been DOING down here?!"

Yeah, I haven't read the whole Bible, but I kind of got the impression that we were supposed to take care of the world, not destroy it. Sure, Revelation and some other books say that there will be a lot of disasters in the end times, but I think they're supposed to be supernatural things, rather than ones resulting from pollution and such.

Third, did I ever mention that one of my parents' best friends is actually one of the vice presidents of Exxon? He's really a decent human being. Honest.

Just so long as he isn't Vice President of Gore-Bashing Propaganda, I can believe that. {g}

while THAT MAY BE SO, while it may be true that perhaps global warming MAY have been destined to happen geologically anyway, that DOESN'T CHANGE THE NEED for people to make changes, to find alternative fuel sources, to reduce waste, so on and so forth!

Yeah, that's the way I feel about it. I mean, if there were a meteor that looked like it was about to hit the Earth, that would be a totally natural thing that humans didn't have anything to do with, but I doubt very many people would be thinking, "Eh, whatever. It's none of our concern." I think the reason people tend to be so blasé about global warming and other long-term environmental crises is simply that they ARE long-term, and they think they can just let someone else deal with them when they get really bad.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I think most disasters, even the apocalyptic type, ARE humans' fault. I just want to be one of the GOOD humans instead.

Yeah, he's a geologist, not, like, a spin-doctor or anything. It's funny because my dad worked for the DEP, so they'd get together and jokingly take stabs at each other if anything in the news had them at odds (like, one get-together, Tim greeted my dad with "So what's this I hear about the DEP shutting down some gas stations in Washington County?") He and my dad were the two science nerds together in high school and college-- they just ended up hired by the polar opposite organizations.

I see what you mean about the long-term problems. It's like the temporal version of dumping your garbage in a landfill and forgetting about it-- dumping your garbage in a future generation and forgetting about it.