kimmy

You can be as mad as you want about the G20 security, but I strongly doubt many Canadians care enough to make it a voting priority. If the opposition parties want to run on that platform, they will lose. It's that simple. -k

The real cause of the earthquake has been unearthed! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program Yes, the kind of morons and imbeciles who've made have Alex Jones a rich man have figured it all out: the US government's giant earthquake gun in the sky was set in motion to shut down Japan's industry. Why? To reduce the demand for oil! Oil prices have dropped below $100 a barrel again, thanks to the giant space cannon known as HAARP. Believe it! 3/11/11 was an inside job!!! -k

I've read enough of your political views to know that you're completely sincere when you say that it is the existence of the "bicycle room" barrier itself that is offensive to you. I'm not sure most people feel the same. I think that a lot of people *think* they feel that way, when in fact what they resent isn't the existence of the barrier themselves, but rather the fact that they're on the *wrong side* of the barrier. I think that most people, upon gaining admission to such an environment, would rationalize it as a reflection of their merits in some way or another. I certainly can't tell you that I'd be any different. I personally believe that private clubs have a right to exist, with whatever admission criteria they wish, regardless of how arbitrary or unfair. In the face of societies that wouldn't accept me as a member, like the Augusta Golf and Country Club, or the federal civil service, I just tell myself that any club that wouldn't want me as a member doesn't actually deserve me as a member and is much the poorer for it. Movie-Zuckerberg is squarely onside with those who support the existence of that barrier. He's just bent about being on the wrong side of it. I was thinking about what purpose the regatta scene actually served in the film. It was , but what purpose did it actually serve in the film? I'd decided that it's somewhat important as the point where the gentler Winklevoss finally gives in to his twin and to Divya, and agrees to the lawsuit. (was it the sting of defeat that made him give in, or was he just tired of being berated by the other two?) But after thinking about it, it seemed to be that there must be more to it than that. It's not foreshadowing, as they did ultimately get a big settlement in the lawsuit... When I was watching, I was pretty surprised that they lost. Were you? As the race went along and the Harvard boat got closer and closer, it seemed like the inevitable result was a movie-cliche come-from-behind victory. Instead, you get defeated Winklevi and Divya fuming in the audience. A complete contrast to the earlier rowing scene where the Winklevosses discuss whether they should do something to give their opponents a chance, like rowing in opposite directions or jumping out and swimming. Seeing them lose was maybe something the audience wasn't expecting, and something Fincher decided was important. -k

rofl -k

I don't think the changes August is anticipating relate to separatism. I think he's talking about changes where Quebec grows up, quits crying victim, and joins the 21st century. -k

Finally, somebody asks the magic question. Good for you, Shakey! Valuable kimmy-points will be credited to your account! Should they make it about Harper? No. Making the election about Harper will just remind the voter of what the alternatives to Harper are... and most voters find the alternatives about as appealing as a case of genital warts. Should they make it about Afghan detainees? I don't think Canadian voters actually care about Afghan detainees. I don't think there's many votes to win on that issue. (Ditto with Li'l Omar.) Thumbing their nose at Parliamentary committees? I think most voters will just view that as typical partisan politics. Not something that's going to win votes. Elections Canada and the "in-and-out" scheme? Can't hurt, but I don't think it's a major vote-getter either. That's not your major ammunition. Jet fighters? For the Liberals that's a little risky because it will remind voters of the time we spent hundreds of millions of dollars cancelling helicopter contracts and didn't end up with any helicopters at all. You can raise the question of whether we're spending too much. You can ask why we didn't look at other suppliers. But don't even consider promising that you're going to scrap the purchase or you'll remind voters of the EH-101 fiasco. Should they make it about the G20 "police state"? I actually find that idea pretty funny. I think most Canadians feel that the G20 protesters were a bunch of morons who went looking for trouble. I think that Canadian voters will recall images of burning police cars and smashed storefronts and feel not an ounce of sympathy for the protesters. What will resonate with voters: "Fake Lake". The $1 billion plus price-tag for G20. Remind voters how much that fiasco cost. Tell voters what could have been done with all that money instead. Then remind the voters about the budget deficit. (If you're the Liberals, also remind the voters that the last time you were in charge we had an annual budget surplus that was paying down the national debt and reducing our annual interest payments.) Point out some of the other Conservative financial decisions that have resulted in questionable results for Canada. Dig into the "stimulus package" and show Canadians what all that money really bought for us (and regardless of whether it was actually well spent or not, you can find a way to make it look like it was wasted. It's a winning strategy.) That's where the Conservatives are really vulnerable. That's what the opposition should make the election about. -k

To the extent that some people might look at your wall of words and not see the forest through the trees, yes. The premise, quite explicityly stated, is that Christy Clark is a bully because she is bullying bullies. The only "road to hell" you've offered is inane ideas like... Oppressing bullying could lead to some sort of holocaust or something? Refusing to tolerate bullying is intolerant to bullies? Stopping bullying is destructive because it seeks to destroy bullying? This stuff is just plain ridiculous. It's worth of ridicule. There's no other way to describe it. haha! Ok, I wasn't sure what you were saying. I was wondering if maybe you were criticizing me for not treating Pliny's magnum opus with the gravity it deserved ( ). Now I get where you're coming from. Cute video I will start following those! -k

Are they really? I think we as the audience are initially inclined to dislike the Winklevoss twins ("the Winklevi", as Zuckerberg refers to them at one point ) because they're rich guys who are used to getting everything they want in life, and we hate characters like that from lots of other movies. And I think Zuckerberg (the movie Zuckerberg, of course) is inclined to dislike them for exactly the same reason. He's clearly pretty conscious --and jealous-- of status. -his obsession with getting into the Phoenix Club. -ridiculing Erica for attending Boston College instead of Harvard, and feeling it was a social-climbing move for her family to have changed their name from Albrecht to Albright. -his reaction to Eduardo getting into the Phoenix Club ("it's probably a diversity thing" and "you can be proud of that. Even if you don't get any farther.") -his apparent envy of Sean Parker's rock-star-like status -later on at the trial, he boasts that he could buy the Phoenix Club and turn it into his ping-pong room, yet he's still burnt that when the twins took him there, he wasn't allowed to go past the bicycle room. -and he really does go out and get the business card that says "I'm the CEO, bitch." (I've heard that Zuckerberg really does have that business card.) Early on in the film when Eduardo asks Zuckerberg if the whole thing was just jealousy that he got tapped to join the Phoenix Club, we're inclined to think he's just bitter. But by the end of the film, you have to wonder if that did play a role in what happened. Do the Winkevoss twins actually do anything particularly bad in the film? Well, they sue Zuckerberg, eventually... and while it's pretty complicated, it seems like their lawsuit has at least a bit of merit behind it. Do they actually *do* anything douchebaggish in the film? I think we dislike the Winklevi because they're privileged in ways the rest of us can only dream about. And because instead of using skills of their own, they can build their enterprise by hiring some hapless schmuck to do it for them for a measly salary. Timberlake was really good, and Armie Hammer (does his birth certificate say that?! ) was great. He makes the twins really distinct, the one who is resistant to suing and concerned about acting like gentlemen, and the one who shouts "I'm 6'5, 220, and there's two of me!" -k

I was going to go with a "Cool story, bro", but it really wasn't that cool. You've gone on at novella length in a post based on a fundamentally stupid premise. To paraphrase, you're arguing that: Christy Clark is a bully because she supported Pink Shirt Day, which is actually a form of bullying itself because it promotes intolerance towards bullies. That's just stupid. It doesn't deserve a moment of consideration, let alone 5 pages worth. Did you think that if you hid it under enough verbiage people wouldn't notice how dumb the basic premise is? -k

Saw an excellent nature film the other day: Meet the Chuck Norris of the animal kingdom! -k {the honey badgers are just craazzy.}

That the hope of a federal alternative to the Liberals would be permanently destroyed by the selection of such an imbecile as leader. -k

Point of order; it was a Sea-Doo. Excellent thoughts. When I was younger I remembered him being the guy who (while Treasurer of Alberta) yanked his sons out of school and railed publicly against the evils of sex-education in school. When I heard that he had become the new leader of a federal party, I was just plain worried. -k

Progressive, Morris. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRecos7TcA0 -k

-k

Here's what happened: I clicked to open your link in a different tab and continued reading in the current page, so the music was playing but I wasn't looking at the video. And without the piocture, the music seemed so generic that it conveyed nothing at all to me. Violins whirring without any real melody. It could have accompanied a deer in a meadow, a boat setting sail, the sun setting on a little farmhouse, whatever . And only when I hear her choking do I start to suspect that the scene isn't any of those generic scenes at all. And then she delivers the famous "God as my witness!" speech. And I thought: wait, they've got sun setting on a farmhouse music for the "God as my witness!" speech? What a disconnect! The music just didn't match the emotion of the scene at all. To me, an effective musical score helps set the emotional tone for the scene. I honestly think that scene would have been better with no music at all than it would have been with the generic whirring violins. yep -k

I strongly believe this is the primary factor. In school we had guests from an organisation that was dedicated to promoting science, engineering, and technology as fields for women. We met a female engineer one week. A female computer programmer another time. A female PhD candidate who was doing research on plant DNA or something. It is really disheartening to think back and recall how my peers reacted after those sessions. "How LAME!" "What a nerd!" "LOL! As IF!" And most sadly, I was one of them, because peer pressure is pretty powerful. Not sure where it starts, but it seems like these ideas are pretty engraved before highschool. Then again, this was before Catherine Willows was on TV, so maybe the idea of women in lab coats is cooler now. I don't see womens' own apathy as a compelling reason for some sort of legislated intervention on their behalf. It seems to me that given the general state of voter apathy in Canada, a candidate or a platform that energized female voters would be the political equivalent of Thor's Hammer, and the failure of any party to find such a platform kind of suggests to me that most women aren't actually too upset about any particular issues. "Act like men" means to be ruthless? I don't think the values and priorities and attitudes of male CEOs are reflective of the male gender as a whole. I don't think that most men would make the kinds of decisions CEOs make or choose the priorities that CEOs have chosen. I think the men who rise to the rank of CEO have gotten their based on their ability to act like CEOs (for better or worse.) I think those rare women who achieve the rank of CEO are there because they act like CEOs. Again, I think the idea that women who succeed in business are "acting like men" is a big insult to everybody involved. I think they're acting like business-people, which is probably just insulting to business-people. -k

I can't stop giggling, because on the front page this displays as "Mayor Ford to nix Pride Fun..." -k

Scotty raised an important question. What about porn? Is that still allowed in The Pope's New Canada? What about alcohol? Will I still be allowed to work outside the home? Will I need to marry and start having offspring by a certain age? -k

WHO here supports Sharia law and Saudi Arabia?! The kindest thing most people here have to say about Muslims is that they're not all terrorists or fanatics. Are you seriously so dense that you don't understand the difference?? I've read some jaw-droppingly stupid things here on MLW, and this thread is right up there with the dumbest ideas William Ashley or PolyNewbie have ever presented. This is so spectacularly dumb that I might have to hit myself over the head with a baseball bat to fully appreciate how stupid all of this is. -k

So... time for the biannual game of "chicken" where we see which opposition leader blinks first in finding an excuse to support the Conservatives on confidence votes? -k

Yuck, that Gone With The Wind piece is among the most wretched things I have heard since the last time I stepped on Shadow's tail. Sappy violin schmaltz. And that dude with the banjo kinda made me want to kill something. John Williams, Ennio Morricone. Two composers whose music has transcended the films they're in and become parts of our culture in their own right. You can play a few bars of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" theme, and everyone (even people who haven't actually seen the movie) recognize the tune and know what's being referenced and understand what the music means. Likewise the theme from Jaws or the Imperial March from Star Wars. There are many other film scores that I think are extraordinary. The music from Requiem for a Dream is more widely recognized and admired than the movie itself. I was just mentioning the scores from Tron and The Social Network in other threads. Pan's Labyrinth has a haunting soundtrack. Hans Zimmer -- Black Hawk Down -- blends an alien, foreign sound with the discord of war. Music to knock stuff over to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2zmoXDBc_M Wojciech Kilar -- Bram Stoker's Dracula -- dark, brooding, menacing, sensuous, mysterious... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk7sjUfwGd8 -k

The other point that needs to be made: even if what they did isn't illegal, that doesn't mean it was appropriate or ethical. Just because somebody doesn't belong in jail doesn't mean they deserve to be in Parliament. -k

Indeed! A woman at the top adopts the characteristics of the men at the top? What does that actually mean? Is saying that successful women are acting like men kind of like saying that successful black people are "acting white"? Isn't it pretty much a gigantic insult to everyone involved? I'm highly skeptical. I don't believe there are figures to support this. I believe that the feminists have adopted "equal pay for work of equal value" because the numbers no longer support the claim that women aren't being paid the same money for doing the same job. Lack of mathematical ability may be one factor holding some women back. I think a large number of Canadians oppose quotas on philosophical grounds. I also think that many would interpret quotas to mean that women can't succeed on their own merits. But women's rights, including access to abortion, have been obtained and confirmed and protected in spite of male-dominated political and judicial systems. Perhaps women making up half the electorate gives them influence in the political process in spite of the relative scarcity of female politicians? Perhaps the male judges make decisions based on the intent of the law, rather than trying to stick it to women? (Wouldn't we hope that female judges likewise make decisions based on the law rather than on gender politics?) Who really puts women into roles? And what unearned privileges would you have women granted? -k

Nonsense. Nonsense. Sometimes I swear you must be posting stuff like this to get a rise out of people. -k

...and guess what popped up in the movie "The Social Network"? In the Hall of the Mountain King, reinterpreted NIN-style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwIPDpRuyNk Sounds great. -k