1. What recent movie features the House Energy and Commerce Commitee? It even shows a hearing. Who befriends the star? What state is the Committee chairman (in the movie) from?
2. In what movie does Steven Spielberg play a county clerk? What does he do in the movie?
3. After Steffi Graf, what German-born tennis player has won the most Grand Slam tournaments?
No googling.
Climate Audit 
33 Comments
boris becker, the day after (dono rest), stand by me (dono)
I had a very different movie in mind – does The Day After have a House Energy and Commerce Committee (with the committee specifically identified) hearing?
Not Stand By Me.
Not Boris Becker – I’m trickier than that.
Yeah I figured you were trickier and John Mckenroo or jimmy connrers or the like will have been born on an army base. had to do the obvious first… NEver saw the day after…complete guess. Hmmm how about Mr. Smith goes to Washington? THE GREEN MILE
Steven Spielberg plays a city tax clerk in the Blues Brothers. He issues Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi a receipt the moment before they’re arrested.
I don’t know if this is the right answer, but he is a gentleman who really deserves to be remembered : Baron Gottfried von Cramm.
Martina
1. No one’s close yet. The answer is quite amusing.
2. Jon, bingo – Blues Brothers. I saw the end of it last night and noticed Spielberg in the credits.
3. TCO, good reasoning: John McEnroe.
At a guess, Michael Stich, if it’s a man.
The Day After Tomorrow?
#9 – no. #8, see #7.
Good questions to ask if you want to know how people qualify uncertain answers. Some people actually know what they don’t know and will sit on the sidelines. Others will jump out with wrong answers which they are confident are correct, and some will get them right but say they are not sure. Finally, you Steve, sure of and correct in the answers to your own questions, will step in. 😉
I had nothing so ambitious in mind. The first question is somewhat topical and the answer is amusing; the others were to pad out the post. The third question is a favorite trivia question of mine.
For a short period, the following question had an interesting answer: which Canadian resident won the most Olympic medals? (Nadia Comaneci lived in Montreal for a while and I think that this was then a correct answer).
Speaking of Olympics, I should write a reminiscence about a geologist who worked for me for a while, who got to the semifinals in two Olympics running against Bob Hayes and Harry Jerome. He was from Uganda and had a remarkable life story. He died tragically from Guillain-Barre syndrome a few years ago.
Re #3 Some hospitals that served American military in West Germany had maternity wards designated as American soil, like our embassys. I don’t know the use of this. The birth certificate would still be German and you would be a US citizen. At the age of 16, I think, you could request dual citizenship.
Oh, I guess it would allow you to run for president.
OK — I haven’t seen the movie and don’t recall its name, but I will guess that the House Energy and Commerce Committee appears in the recent movie about the Enron disaster.
I just have to share some of my favorite trivia questions, nothing about climate science.
Who is the Statue of Liberty a statue of? (This one is easy)
Who designed the frame of the Statue of Liberty? (this one can be figured out!)
What is the official name of the Statue of Liberty?
Who holds the scales of justice? (don’t think too hard)
According to geographers, how many Great Lakes are there?
Every knows New York City has five boroughs, and many can name them, try naming five islands that are part of New York City?
Back in the sixties a young actress named “Patty Duke” got a TV show named after her, What movie made her famous and who did she play?
Answers:
http://www.geocities.com/poncedeleon_1/TriviastatueofLiberty.htm
RE #14 – I’ve got a different movie in mind.
Re #15: didn’t Patty Duke start off in a movie about Helen Keller?
I’ll bite: is it 5, is it 6 with Lake St Clair, 7 with Lake Champlain, 8 with Lake Nipigon, 9 with Lake Simcoe? The history of the Great Lakes interests me. About 4500 years ago (the time of the Pyramids), Lake Huron was mostly dry (there are submerged forests of this vintage); about 11,000 years ago, North Bay, Ontario was an Atlantic Ocean port due to depression of the Ottawa and St Lawrence valleys. Ottawa was then under water: the recovery from the ice age has obviously had mixed results. About 9,000 years ago, the Ottawa River discharged the same volume as the modern Amazon.
2. Eiffel?
Shell middens have been discovered far offshore and deep below the waves in the Atlantic. These show how much sea levels have changed since the last ice age. People have funny notions about a static climate and environment and they run into these things. Geoff Bailey has done work in this area.
If you include Champlain, would you include George?
Regarding sea levels, isn’t understood that around 3-4,000 year BP the sea level was approx 2 metres higher. From a geology text I noted that in an explanation of wave cut platforms. In that time there have been no appreciable continental movements and not a huge temperature change, so why did it drop so far after that ? Could the often accepted 2 mm per year be simply an extension of what ever is causing such larger movements on longer time scales, that is not particularly related to climate ?
In hte St Lawrence valley, there’s a lot of isostatic rebound and the valley is still being cut.
Someone should model the melting of the Antarctic ice cap and postmelt rebound of that landmass. Just as an exercise, not to terrorize the public. At one point much of the northern hemisphere was covered with ice to a comparable depth. Perhaps isostatic rebounding might cause magma to shift and contribute to volcanic activity. Was the retreat of the northern glaciers after the last ice age followed by increased volcanic activity? That would have had an impact on climate history.
Over 3-4,000 years isostatic rebound won’t make a 2 metre variation in sea levels everywhere. Related question, presumably Isostatic rebound on some portions of the globe means isostatic compensation elsewhere on the globe.
That would suck, eh? first new orleans and holland get crushed. Then, the air gets all polluted from volcanoes.
How about just a mild global warming. I want alligators in VA. Don’t need to go back to the Land of the Lost.
Trying not to cheat, seem to be a lot of islands…
(1) Staten Island (borough, but still an island)?
(2) Manhattan Island (borough, but still an island)?
(3) Ellis Island?
(4) Liberty Island?
(5) Rikers Island (or is it just the name of a prison)?
(6) Roosevelt Island?
(7) “Long Island?” – generally refers to Nassau and Suffolk counties, the land-mass of “Long Island” itself contains Brooklyn and Queens, which are boroughs of NY City.
(8) is there a Rockaway Island?
(9) “Coney Island?” – isn’t a true island, but does it count for trivia purposes?
Exactly how many are there?
Re #24 2CO, better go down to the pet store to get them. It might get tedious waiting. If the sun really starts cooking, who knows. Luboà…⟠Motl had some numbers on what it would take to melt polar ice.
http://motls.blogspot.com/
It is right under the bit about the Martians. 🙂
Can’t anyone get the answer to question #1? Googling is now allowed.
I want to know the answer to number 3!
Re#28: see #7: John McEnroe
Well it is a relief McEnroe can’t run for president. I was born in the hospital elevator and they had to massage the paper work. I’m in with a bit of luck in 08. McEnroe must have had his first tantrum under similar circumstances but lost the argument. Not for the last time.
For question #1, although they’re stretching “recent”: maybe “the American President” or “Bulworth?”
Am I the only one that could care less?
It’s hard to find a trivia question that you can’t google. The answer is Legally Blond II with Reese Witherspoon.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is featured all through the movie. The Chairman of the Committee is from Alabama; the befriender is Bob Newhart.