Interweb...EXPLODES!

The trailer for the Watchmen movie is up.

I've watched it once so far.

I'm not sure what to make of it yet. I mean, it looks cool...but that's also my concern. The fact that it looks cool. Based on interviews, it seems like Zach Snyder wants to be as faithful as possible to the source material, but I don't know if it looks like Watchmen to me. That feeling could be because this is Watchmen as filtered through Zach Snyder, it looks very similar to 300 and Dawn of the Dead(2004). It could also be that the slickness, the coolness of it, is part of a commentary on the modern superhero film. 

I don't know yet.

It's just a trailer. I'm not bounce off the walls excited like when I saw the trailer for X2, or Iron Man, or The Dark Knight. But there's a little part of me that's excited. A little part that's just itching to go back to the Apple site and watch it again. And a slightly larger part of me that wants to go see if I can watch it through the internet connection on my PS3 in HD. 

But I am excited.

A little bit.

In Defense of the All-Star Game

The "Midsummer Classic" is less than a week away. So, inevitably, the rumblings have begun as to whether the All-Star game is irrelevant. In theory, most of the charges against it are correct but upon further reflection I think it has its place.

In recent years, MLB has made some tweaks to the game so that it has an impact on games that count, such as home field advantage in the World Series. Considering that the National League has not won an All-Star game in decades, I'm not a huge fan of that rule. Of course, the Designated Hitter is by far the dumber decision made by MLB,* so I'm not going to hold that one against the American League.

For me, its the inequity of the whole thing. The game doesn't feature the actual "All-Stars" per se, but rather, the most popular players. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are the best team in baseball right now yet they only have two players on the team, neither of which are in the starting lineup. On the AL team, if you play decent ball for New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox, big market teams with long histories, you're virtually guaranteed a starting spot regardless of your comparative value against other players in the league. (They have a combined ten representaives, which is actually a weaker showing than recent years.) This year its the same deal with the Chicago Cubs, another big market team with a long history, on the NL team, with seven representatives. The Cubbies, at least, are leading their division; the same cannot be said for the Yanks and Sox.

Of course, the All-Star game is for the fans who want to see their favorite players compete against one another; the starting lineups are elected democratically, through ballots at the game and online. Its a popularity contest more than a reward for demonstrating skill on the diamond. So that's a legitmate criticism of the game but an excusable one. If you really want to stand on this point, it could be said that the popularity contest should be kept to the Home Run Derby--let the rubes see 'em hit some dingers!--but its ultimately a losing argument.

One-inning maximums on pitchers fall into the same category of excusable conduct. You don't watch your ace injuring himself in a glorfied pick-up game, right?

On the plus side, whatever you have against the All-Star game, at the very least it gives teams a well-deserved break in the middle of the season. Tired players get a few days off to rest and relax, compose themeselves for the rest of the long grind into October. Managers and pitching coaches get the opportunity to shuffle their starting rotation, since the pitchers' arms get a few more days rest.

On the balance, I suppose the best that can be said is this: the All-Star game is dumb and oftentimes boring but it has its benefits. High praise indeed.

* Don't bother to argue this. Sure, it increases run production, but it also removes a huge element of strategy from the game. NL managers have a much more difficult job because they need to consider whether to keep a pitcher going another inning when his slot in the lineup comes up and they're in a rally versus AL managers being able to do so whenever they please. Sure, pitchers rarely hit for shit but a well-placed bunt is one of the great pleasures of the game. If you like the DH, you're a moron who shouldn't bother to watch actual baseball games and should just stick to watching the highlights reel on SportsCenter.

A Beautiful Film, An Ugly World

[May Contain Spoilers]

On July 4th, after returning rather burned out from a long conference in California, I enjoyed a calm day of sleeping until noon, and seeing “Wall-E.” Little did I know how un-American that decision truly was...

“Wall-E” is a movie about a lonely and in love robot that’s also really curious and adorable. He follows the girlbot he loves into outer space, meets some devolving humans, and helps bring humankind back to Earth, which had been barren of any organic life for 700 or so years. This story, combined with the wonderful score, amazing animation, and lack of dialogue (ok, and the fact that “Wall-E” is so freakin adorable) made it a unique movie going experience. After the movie, I shared with Pauly (of 822 fame) my feelings of the movie, to which he replied, “It’s a really beautiful film.” For the first time, I could really tell the difference between a great movie and a beautiful film.

Not that it’s a surprise, but this plot was grabbed on by both sides of the political aisle and analyzed and then over-analyzed. As The Village Voice’s “Runnin’ Scared” reports, there is a large backlash against the movie coming from the right-wing, claiming, “‘The plot was something only Al Gore could love,’ wrote Say Anything. ‘And your average soy latte-sipping, Obama-voting, Che-flat-waving liberal.’” Of course, also according to “Runnin’ Scared*,” there wasn’t only hatred from that side, but a love: “Crunchy Conservative Rod Dreher said Wall-E ‘argues that rampant consumerism, technopoly and the exaltation of comfort is causing us to weaken our souls and bodies, and sell out our birthright of political freedom.’” Inject your politics as you will I suppose.

I’m not naïve enough to think that there would be no political backlash, but I’m certainly not happy about it. After the movie, Erin (also of 822 fame) said, “well, if that was the one movie that Earth beamed out and the aliens saw, it would make humans look terrible.” True. But it wouldn’t make conservatives or liberals look terrible—just humans—a group that conservatives and liberals alike cannot deny being a part of.

At this point in 2008, there’s a thick black line separating the right from the left, so there’s no surprise to see politics injected where it doesn’t belong. Kyle Smith, a columnist for the New York Post and self-proclaimed film critic had a negative review of the movie. Responses to his review ranged from agreement about the movie’s pacing (“what a yawnarama”) to the political (“Is this movie as blatantly liberal as ‘Happy Feat?’) to of course the backlash (“I’m quite ashamed with your review of ‘Wall-E’”). The biggest political issue seems to be with the environmentalist “message” of the movie, but thankfully Kyle tries to push that to the curb: “Well, I loved ‘Happy Feet,’ but if anything ‘Wall-E’ is even more of an environmental parable. (Not that I concede that to want a clean environment is a liberal idea. I hope we all want that)."

I may disagree with Smith’s review of the movie, but I think his sentiment about the environment is accurate. Hate the movie for it’s lack of dialogue, but leave the politics (or the politics you inject) out of it.

*This is a link to a different “Runnin’ Scared” post, so please click both.

The Idiot's Guide to Drinking Your Milkshake*

Sometimes its appropriate to give the devil his due. The recently announced oil contracts in Iraq are indeed such an occasion.

Now, without saying whether I personally believe this to be true or not, one need not don a tinfoil hat to speculate that the Iraq war was entered into partially or wholly on the basis of securing U.S. access to oil in that country. I would regard this as legitimate suspicion rather than pure conspiracy theory; certainly, the litany of news since 2003 detailing the way in which the Bush administration deliberately mis-characterized the case for going to war would provide ample support.

What would be in error would be to suggest that heavy U.S. involvement in advising the Iraqi government on the new oil contracts or that the oil contracts were awarded to the oil companies who previously held exclusive rights to the Iraqi oil fields conclusively demonstrates that indeed such a conspiracy existed. There are legitimate reasons why such circumstances would occur absent Dick Cheney's malignant and abandoned heart.

The business of oil is a far greater undertaking than merely digging some holes and pumping out black gold. For the most easily accessible oil fields, that's basically the case, and so the Jed Clampett scenario is somewhat plausible. It was certainly the case during the early years of U.S. oil drilling. However, examining the history of domestic U.S. oil production, its also fairly obvious that it proceeded in a manner that involved a great deal of waste. In oil production, efficiency is key. Failure to abide by this dictum can spoil an otherwise profitable well and make it prohibitably expensive to pump out the remaining crude. Specialized knowledge on procedures can make a huge difference. The massive inefficiencies of the nationalized Iraqi oil industry under Saddam Hussein's regime make this obvious.

Proper technique is not the only key. Oil production also requires a great deal of specialized knowledge on the specific geological conditions of a well; not all oil wells are the same. Failure to recognzie this fact, and conduct the proper surveys, will also spoil an otherwise profitable well. If Chevron et al are to be re-awarded the Iraqi contracts, the best basis to do so would be their prior knowledge of the specific conditions in question.

Finally, the huge variance in the clauses in an oil contract can have a huge impact on profit. While at the present point in history, there is only one basic type of oil contract, there are also a nearly infinite number of possibilities that arise from how that contract is structured. The specialized knowledge in this area can have as great an effect as either of the other two areas. Arbitration clauses, royalties, profit structuring and technology-sharing agreements will all produce a wide variance in how much money the Iraqi government will receive from these contracts. While I have not seen the contracts in question, nor do I believe they are at the moment publicly available in any form, I think it would be in error to assume that simply because the U.S. military conducted the war and also advised the government on the contracts that there is some sort of causal connection. Even in the absence of such a connection, for decades, the Iraqi oil industry has operated a nationalized industry and they have scant experience in structuring such contracts in a private market. I refuse to jump to the conclusion that the terms of the contracts were simply dictated to the Iraqi government; they absolutely needed some outside guidance. Whether the U.S. military was the best source of this advice is another matter, but is not determinative of the ultimate issue here.

In short, while its reasonable to be suspicion of what is occurring in the Iraqi oil industry, it does not prove a grand conspiracy. If such a conspiracy exists, in the coming years the public will not need to rely on this circumstantial evidence. I'm sure Rep. Henry Waxman is planning to launch an investigation into the matter the day after President Obama is inaugurated.

* I do not mean to be condescending with either the title or the contents of this post. If, in my analysis, I have omitted certain information or simply stated something as true without explaining it it's mostly because it involves a highly technical explanation or a long history. If you have doubts regarding any of my conclusions or statements of fact, feel free to leave a comment or email me & I'll point you towards my source information. Most of the knowledge I represent here comes from having studied international oil and gas law and I am open to being corrected if I am in error.