We watched the Three Burials of Melchiades Estrada and I have to say I'm terribly disappointed with it. I think they greatly messes up with the timeline/flashback scenes. The acting was good and the characters could have been more compelling had they been fleshed out a little more.

Barry Pepper was great towards the end.

The ending is just badly confusing.

Why did they screw with Lena's story so much??

Because they needed a romeo and juliet story, complete with the feud?

Lena's story served as the "typical teen movie romance" bit, I felt, which was okay with me since it freed them up make Carmen and Tibby's stories exactly as heartbreaking as they needed to be, and Bridget's almost as much. The main Lena thing I WISH they had kept in was her using her extra spending money to go to Mexico and pick Bridget up - the rest of Lena's story was always my least favorite part of the book, anyway.

But if you love Lena, I can see being pissed.

On the surface of it, that seems shocking. But I notice that they didn't include dates on those photos. Is it possible that it changes throughout the year?

I never studied it in detail, but I do know that glaciers take decades, often centuries, to form. To go from 2,000 ft thick to nonexistent is a LOT more than a seasonal cycle.

Many scientists have got very opposite views on global warming and I want to see if they give both sides a fair shake.

They don't look much at the other side, but they do tackle this sentence, pretty convincingly. They mention a recently taken random sample of 928 articles about global warming in peer-reviewed scientific journals, stating that 0 of these believe global warming to be anything less than proven to be happening and a significant threat. Contrarily, 58% of articles in the popular press are conflicted about the threat.

Certainly, in my experience at Caltech I never once met a biologist, geologist, or anything in between (believe it or not, I knew three biology/geology double majorns) who wasn't absolutely certain that global warming was happening and changing the face of the earth - a certainty I assume they gathered from their professors. In my opinion, the "scientific conflict" over global warming is much like the "scientific conflict" over evolution - it doesn't really exist in any serious numbers. It's all marketing.

But then, I'm pretty alarmist on this issue. Heh.

Yes, D. That's the part I missed the most. I liked Lena, but I think if they kept it as is, it would have been as impactful as the other stories.

Carmen broke me though.

Bailey broke me. Carmen did too, but Bailey broke me harder.

But then, I cried for about an hour and half when I first read that part of the book. I think I was having my man period that weekend - very moodswingy.

Bailey broke me, but...it got a little too much for me and it took me out of the moment. Carmen pushed a couple buttons of mine, so I was bawling with her.

And, I missed Effie. She needs to be around to balance out Lena.

I lived Carmen's story, although, surprise? Tibby is most like me. Gris, I have read that testosterone fluctuates about fifteen times a *day* so y'all should have the crazier rep than us...I'm not surprised. Only that you said so...very metrosexual of you.

The always nifty Joel Achenbach did a piece on Global Warming skeptics for the Post Magazine a couple weeks back. It's here. He sort of discusses the the problem of mixing politics/media with science. I liked this bit:

Scientists are argumentative by nature. They're supposed to be. They're supposed to attempt to disprove the hypotheses and claims of their fellow scientists. Theories are hazed unmercifully. And when they emerge from that trial-by-skepticism, they are all the more respected.

Certain skeptics -- really, they're optimists -- have scored debate points by noting that prophesies of doom have often slammed into a wall of human resourcefulness. But you can't solve a problem if you spend decades failing to perceive it. Humans adapt best when worried.

Or at least not in denial.

Gonna have to see Inconvenient Truth. I don't want to. I already believe, and it's just going to make me cry and get pissed off. Pissed-er off than I am.

Gris, I have read that testosterone fluctuates about fifteen times a *day* so y'all should have the crazier rep than us...I'm not surprised. Only that you said so...very metrosexual of you.

Yeah, but I actually work on a monthly cycle. Seriously. One out of every four weekends, my only desire is to sit in my room, read sappy teen girl novels, and cry.

I'm a weird, weird man.

I just saw The Lake House too, and I have to agree with Jessica. Once I got over Keanu no longer really looking (or sounding) like he used to, I really enjoyed it. It's a nice little movie, and everyone's very likeable, and just, yeah. I liked it.