kimmy

Geological events can turn sea-level stuff into mountain tops... but even the world's youngest mountain ranges are millions of years old... not relevant to this ark question. As for glaciers... the information I have on hand indicates that even at the peak of the ice-age, Turkey remained a toasty warm location, free from the sort of glaciation that would be required to put a boat on top of a mountain, if such a thing were possible. (the only way we can have massive glaciers covering large portions of the earth is if warmer climates remain warm enough for water to evaporate and be precipitated in colder regions, yes? If it's cold enough to form glaciers in Turkey, then the atmosphere isn't going to be carrying enough water to actually form glaciers in Turkey.) Glaciers move... but I am of the belief that they move due to gravity. It might be possible for a glacier to move up one peak if it is being pushed by ice coming down a taller peak elsewhere... but Ararat is the tallest thing in the entire region. I'm aware of one Biblical-type deluge, which took place in the ice age in Washington state. Glacial movement created a dam that resulted in a huge lake forming high in the mountains in western Montana. Eventually the weight of the water broke the glacial dam and the lake drained, all at once, dramatically changing the landscape as it did. (and this repeated dozens of times during the ice age.) Those flood waters filled the Columbia valley to heights of hundreds of meters, briefly. But again, the water still came from someplace higher... and Mount Ararat is the highest thing in the entire region, so this doesn't suggest a possibility either. -k

Well, there's been suggestion here that since many myths are just jazzed up versions of actual events, maybe there's some historical, natural event behind the Noah's Ark story. But if it ended at a site 4000m above sea level, there's only a couple of natural explanations: it got carried there, or it was built there (or higher up the same mountain). Beyond that, we're left with 3 possibilities. Either the ark flew there (an ancient counterpart to the flying canoe of French Canadian folklore!), or God literally created a vast volume of water and then destroyed it later, or what's on that mountain just isn't the Ark. There's no way to rationalize the boat being that high up a mountain in terms of a natural event. Either God did it and it's a miracle, or these guys are looking in the wrong place. -k

To put it in perspective, raising the sea level 4000m in 13 months would require over 30 feet of rain every day at every location on earth. (More, actually, since the volume of water required to raise the sea level increases as the sea level itself increases.) This website indicates that if the polar ice caps and all the glaciers on earth melted, sea level would rise somewhere between 63 meters to 75 meters. And this website indicates that the amount of water in the atmosphere is tiny (3095 cubic miles worth, compared to over 5.7 million cubic miles worth) compared to the amount of water in glaciers and ice-caps. So if you took all the water that exists as ice, and all the water that exists on vapor and added it to the oceans, it's still a tiny fraction of what would be required to put that boat on top of the mountain. So ...if God didn't flush, he must have done something else with it, because it is not anywhere on this planet. -k

Is there enough water on the entire planet to create a flood that could carry a boat to a mountain and deposit it on a site 4000 meters above sea level? If all that water existed, where has it gone? Did God flush? -k

There's apparently no need for the CBC to add people like Kate or Steyn to its variety of opinions because (and this surprised me too) the CBC is already bending over backwards to accommodate conservatives! G&M TV critic John Doyle: hmmmm.™ -k

Can the Bank of Canada lending rate ever be at zero percent? Your family and friends might lend you money with no expectation of receiving interest, but no institution would. -k

Specifically: if you're white, avoid north-end transit stations after dark. -k

Kate would be an interesting choice. I don't actually know whether she would be a good broadcaster, I've only familiar with her in textual form... but interesting in the sense that she has basically been elected by people voting with their feet. Somebody like Tremonti (or Coyne or Hebert or whoever else) has their time-slot on the radio, or their column in the newspaper, because their employer likes their work and thinks it appeals to a segment of their audience. Kate has her blog because she decided to write one. The difference between Kate and millions of other bloggers is that Kate has a huge following. She wasn't selected by an employer to appeal to a segment of an audience... she was selected by the audience itself. So in that sense, her being on CBC would be sort of an exercise in interactive programming. Rather than showing us what their vision for public broadcasting is, getting a popular blogger would be more like asking us what our vision is. -k

hmmmm.™ I remember it being something starting with a "Z"... but sadly I can't recall any more than that. I only saw it the one time, but I was entertained and impressed at the idea. This is actually something that CBC could do, and do cheaply, and actually kind of fits in with the idea that CBC should be helping Canadians communicate with each other. It's what CBC could be, but isn't. I have been told to "check out CBC Radio 3" before, and have declined. To me, if they are going to call it "radio", then I should be able to listen to it using a "radio". I mean, they do call it "Canada's national broadcaster", not "Canada's national podcaster." If I am sitting at my computer streaming audio, there is a whole world full of radio stations for me to listen to, and all of them have to compete with videos of cats flushing toilets and so-on. Do I need to listen to Toronto indie bands when I could be listening to indie bands from Seattle and San Francisco, or watching LOLcats? Just seems typical of the CBC, paying lip-service to the idea but not actually committing to it. It used to be that CBC would play music I would to listen to ...if I was in the mood to listen to radio at 3am. Now I can listen to it any time I want, but they're competing in an arena when I can listen to anything else I want too, any time I want to. -k

A few of those are before my time, but for more recent examples I would add "North of 60" and "Little Mosque" to the list. (And, while not a CBC production, "Corner Gas" fits the trend as well.) Dramas set in Canada's big cities tend to come across as an imitation of American programming, and usually a poor imitation at best. -k

Chloe (the movie) is directed by a Canadian, and set in Toronto, but the story is by an American writer and it stars big name American actors Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Also American (though not nearly as big name yet) is Amanda Seyfried, who has been in all kinds of stuff lately, as the title character. Chloe (the character) a high-end call-girl. When we meet her she explains to us that she can be anything her client wants her to be, from a centerfold, to the teacher you hated, to the neighbor's daughter you wish you could screw. She can read people, she tells us, and she knows what people really want, as opposed to what they say they want... a distinction that's rather key in her dealings with Dr. Catherine Stewart. Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) is a successful gynecologist, but she's also insecure as a mother and a wife. Her husband David Neeson) is a college professor who is popular with his students, especially female ones, and women seem to find him charming and attractive, which grates on Catherine to no end. She's afraid she's lost touch with her 18 year old son, she's afraid she's become old and unattractive, and when a suspicious text message arrives on his cell phone, she's afraid he's cheating on her. A chance encounter with Chloe gives Catherine the idea to hire the prostitute to test her husband's fidelity. Julianne Moore is just awesome in this movie. Everything she's feeling, from anger to despair to frustration to arousal to shame, is so real that you can feel it yourself as you watch her. She actually seems to physically transform to fit the scene, seeming fragile and old at one moment but beautiful later on. I don't recall when I have ever felt so drawn in by an actress before. Neeson and Seyfried are very good as well, but it is Moore who makes what could have been a clunker into a compelling movie. Sadly, Moore's Oscar-calibre performance is countered by an Oscar Meyer ending. It is as if the writer and director are saying to us: "Well, we've built this dilemma and we really have no idea how to resolve it and we're an hour and 40 minutes into this thing, so we'll just borrow the ending from a B-grade thriller. Sorry, LOL!" Worth a mention is the role of modern communications technology in the intrigue in this movie. It's a world where everybody has a cell-phone with a camera in their pocket. You can send someone a text message quite secretly, but someone other than the recipient might get it. You might think twice about how much information you put on your Facebook page. -k

I don't get to listen to Anna Maria Tremonti often, but I love the part of her show when she asks a leading question and then follows the response with the disapproving "hmmmm."™ AMT: "And... all of this was done without the approval of the minister?" Interviewee: "yes... that's correct." AMT: "hmmmm."™ Always kills me. Indeed... some of the most interesting stuff I've seen on CBC wasn't productions of shows attempting to emulate and compete with American programming at all. One thing that I recall thinking was neat was a show that showcased short films made by amateurs... some of them were surprisingly good. I can't remember what the program was called, but it-- --wait, did you just call the Trailer Park Boys "smart"? I can't respond to that. I have no response to that at all. "hmmmm."™ -k

What "compromise" is being offered? Is there some suggestion that Quebecers will go back to the old-line parties if the old-line parties will agree to ... something? And what would that something be? And even if that offer were available, why should the rest of Canada be all that excited to see federal parties engage in any sort of barter to make the BQ go away? A federal party might be putting itself in considerable peril if it were to pursue some "compromise" with Quebec if that compromise were perceived poorly in the rest of Canada. We've had one for 4 years and people don't seem to mind at all... The only other province with the numbers to make a provincial party anything more than a curiosity is Ontario, and I doubt they'd actually go for it. Ontarians seem to identify first as Canadians, moreso than anywhere else in the country. The concept of regionalism is difficult for them to fathom. -k

Michigan probably couldn't chip in more than about $20 towards the bridge anyway. They were chronically broke and depressed even before the Global Economic Meltdown. -k

Since moving away from Edmonton to a much smaller city, I have noticed the sky a lot more. There's so much up there that you just can't see when you're near large cities. I don't have a telescope, but I've got this in my cell phone: http://www.google.com/sky/skymap/ It doesn't help see stuff any better, but it does help you figure out what you're looking at. -k

The Capitals are the world's highest-paid pond-hockey team. The Penguins are the defending champs. The way Halak is playing, the Canadiens have a chance... but things are about to get a lot tougher for them. -k

How is a teacher supposed to "work from home"? Sounds like code for "we wish we could fire you, but we'd get our asses kicked in court if we did that." -k

Adventureland has some similarities to last year's sensational Zombieland. The name, obviously. And it stars Jesse Eisenberg. And, much of the action is set at an amusement park. And, I enjoyed it. There are no zombies, although many of the staff and patrons of Adventureland bear more than passing resemblance. Brennan (Eisenberg) is a guy with big plans. He's just graduated from college, and he's planning a tour of Europe and then grad school at Columbia. Plans change... his family's financial troubles mean that instead of Europe, he's going to spend the summer trying to save enough cash for school. And with no actual skills, he ends up working at the local amusement park. There he meets Em (Kristen Stewart), a fellow carny who he's instantly enchanted by. She's got self-esteem issues. There's no real plot to the story, other than watching these two try to get past their baggage and connect. It's more fun than it sounds. Eisenberg is as likeable here as he was in Zombieland, though this is not nearly the comedy Zombieland was. Stewart is ... surprisingly good. Having only seen her in that crappy vampire movie, I was under the impression that she's pretty dismal, but this role fits her. Both of them create characters that have a ring of truth to them. -k

Pink ribbons is breast cancer (quick ribbon code reminder: pink- breast cancer. red- AIDS. yellow- support the troops. US flag- remember 9/11 victims. rainbow- gay rights awareness. burgundy - brain aneurysm, headaches, hemangioma, vascular malformation, hospice care, multiple myeloma, William's syndrome, Thrombophilia, Antiphospholid Antibody Syndrome, and adults with disabilities.) Pink t-shirts, however, is indeed bullying awareness. My landlord's charming young son explained it for me a couple of weeks ago: at one school there was a boy who liked to wear pink shirts, and some kids bullied him because he was different. Other kids decided to start wearing pink shirts too, so then the bullies were the ones who were different. It has since gone national. -k

Coles notes version: Pliny doesn't support the anti-bullying campaign because he still has to pay taxes? -k

I'm skeptical that highschool kids are that accepting of gay classmates. I suspect he's being optimistic. And, I'm sure his heart is in the right place. I am not old enough to know what things were like at the time when they introduced Archie's black friend Chuck. Perhaps it was unusual for a black kid to attend a mostly white high-school and hang out with the white kids, or perhaps it was not. However, whichever the case, it certainly could not have hurt to show it in the comic books as if it's just normal day to day life. And presenting a gay kid as just one of the crowd can't hurt anything either. On the down side, I don't recall Chuck as being anything other than "Archie's black friend". I gather that in the years since I outgrew Archie comics, Chuck has become a more significant character than "token minority", but that's where things stood at the time, and I gather for many years before as well. And I expect that it would be a long time before Kevin is anything other than "Archie's gay friend" as well. As I said, I'm sure their hearts are in the right place, but at the end of the day it's Archie comics. Like Barbie, Archie comics are noteworthy more as an institution than as a current influence. Like Barbie, it's probably great that Archie's group of friends is becoming more diverse as time goes by, but like Barbie, Archie's impact on present-day attitudes is probably pretty limited. -k

Another prophecy fulfilled! Kimmydamus vindicated again! -k

If they come out with something I like, I'll consider it. The new Camaros sure are pretty... -k

I think a lot of the stories we tell-- from ancient myths about fighting monsters to modern stories about soldiers and adventurers-- tend to be quite male in nature. Attempts to put female characters into these stories often seem forced and lack a sense of authenticity. A lot of attempts to create female characters that fit into this sort of arena result in a character that Alan Moore once called, "yet another Tough Bitch With A Disintegrator And An Extra 'Y' Chromosome". Mediocre action stories are littered with this sort of character. I think a lot of ensemble cast stories tend to be centered on a male character because the male character is the senior character and the leader (lots of things from CSI to Star Trek, really) and I think writers tend to feel most comfortable with a male character in that role... it jives with our experience, it seems authentic, and female leaders often come across as grating or unsympathetic or just not believable. As pertains to sit-coms and the male bumblers JerrySeinfeld was complaining about... I think that it's probably just much easier to create a flawed male character that people will like than a flawed female. The exceptions I can think of.. Roseanne Barr... Sara Rue... I guess being overweight is a key. Ugly Betty had braces and ridiculous glasses. hmm. -k

I bet Reggie is going to beat him up after school. Jughead is pretty laid back about things, but Reggie isn't going to stand for it. Not that long ago interracial dating was weird and scary, and now it barely raises an eyebrow. But I think Kevin is going to have a harder time. Highschool kids are pack animals, and look for any way to enhance their position in the pack, and picking on somebody who's perceived to be weaker or an outsider is one way to do it. Reggie is going to pick on Kevin mercilessly to show everybody who's the big dog at Riverdale, and Archie isn't going to help because he's relieved to have a break from ginger-kid bullying. Kevin needs Moose Mason on his side: somebody who is both beyond caring about the pack mentality, and strong enough to stand up to it. -k