Jason gives an important update on...the lack of updates here

My regular readers...if there are any left...may have noticed I haven't posted anything here since around last June.

Yeah, I've been busy, both personally and in my day job, and I don't care to elaborate. So I decided to scale back. At least for this year, I'm only guaranteeing coverage when I'm accredited press at a film festival. When I'm a paying customer, I get to sit back and enjoy the movies without worrying what I'll write about them. Even when something really impresses me--like Peter Jackson's THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD--if the muse doesn't strike, I'll keep my thoughts to myself...and to my personal friends (remember having actual conversations in person, not just shouting into the online void?)

So the next time I guarantee I'll be writing regularly will be Cinequest, March 5-17. Before that, you can see me in person at Noir City and SF Indiefest, where I'll be reprising my starring role of "guy who sits in front row center for damn near every movie." And occasionally, if the muse strikes, I might write about a movie here or there.

Speaking of...I've gotta tell you about this amazing movie I saw at Noir City last weekend. THE WELL (1951) is a simple story of a little girl trapped in a well. And it's inspired by a true story of a child who was trapped in a well in a small Northern California town (the movie was shot in Marysville and Yuba City.) But the movie takes a daring approach, by making it a story of a little black girl trapped in the well, and the racial suspicions that boil over when she goes missing. A white guy (Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H back when he was still going by Henry Morgan) who was just passing through town was spotted talking to her and buying her flowers. But without evidence of wrongdoing, the sheriff doesn't want word getting out. But it gets out anyway. And people talk, and suspicions grow into outright violence. I don't think I've ever seen a film that deals with race issues in quite this way, and it couldn't be done today (and not just because of the off-putting casual use of the N-word.) It's important that this is a peaceful, liberal town where races have gotten along so far. It's not the deep south with a history of slavery and lynchings, this is good, liberal Northern California. But while the races get along fine when everything is good, put in some fear and suspicions run wild on both sides until it's a full blown race riot.

Just as importantly, when the truth is discovered, the whole town comes together to rescue her, in a final reel that features heavy machinery and amazing camera work by Ernest Laszlo. But there's still the way everyone is side-eyeing each other. You can tell that in some ways this town will never fully recover. Not from a child trapped in a well, but from what they all did to each other.

Frightened parents and the town sheriff look to rescue a little girl

Oh, and I've still been keeping up my tally of total minutes spent watching movies. The total is now up to 493,419 minutes.

Jason...reboots

Well, I managed to go nearly a decade writing about every movie I saw. 2016 finally broke me. It's been 4 months since I've blogged. And that was after habitually falling behind by months and then delivering a massive dump of reviews. I just don't have it in me to catch up this time.

So instead I apologize to the remainder of Docfest, to the Niles Essanay Film Museum's Broncho Billy Film Festival, and the the smattering of general release films I've seen. I won't be writing about them.

Holehead starts tonight. With luck I'll be able to write about everything I see there.

Oh, and I have still been keeping track of the minutes I've spent watching movies. The count is up to 433,923.

36 (Alleged) Signs the Media Is Lying to You about How Radiation from Fukushima Is Affecting the West Coast—and why I’m Not Concerned.

This is quite a departure for this blog. But as someone who works with radiation I've been asked about this by a few friends, soI spent a bit of my free time putting this together. And I don't have a better forum for posting it. So enjoy (or ignore, if you come here to read about movies.)

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This is in response to this article I’ve been seeing popping up on my Facebook page recently: http://thetruthwins.com/archives/36-signs-the-media-is-lying-to-you-about-how-radiation-from-fukushima-is-affecting-the-west-coast

Author Michael Snyder has compiled an impressive list of scary headlines about Fukushima. And social media has done a great job of passing it around.

Now some background information about me. I’ve been working with radiation (as an engineer for medical device companies) for the past 13 years. I do not believe that makes me an expert in nuclear power plants or safe exposure levels. But it does inform my attitude towards radiation (in small doses)—respect, but don’t fear. I know, for example that if I stand next to a 1 mCi (37 MBq) gamma-emitting source for a few minutes, that will…do nothing to me. So when I see paranoiacs hyperventilating over 1000 Bq (0.001 MBq) per cubic meter of seawater, I don’t worry about it. I’d swim in that water. If it wasn’t so damn salty, I’d drink it (no coincidence, 1000 Bq/cubic meter is lower than the EPA limit for safe drinking water.) A lot of this comes down to detectable levels vs. dangerous levels of radiation (i.e., similar to chemical toxicity, the dose makes the poison.) That’s a huge, important distinction.

Given that, I will stipulate that the rule with radiation is ALARA—As Low As Reasonably Achievable. Despite some theories that micro-levels of radiation might actually be beneficial (and of course, there are medical applications of radiation) the rule is that you want to have as little radiation exposure as possible. In that context, it would obviously be better if Fukushima had never happened. The question isn’t whether Fukushima released any radiation, it’s whether the extra radiation is tiny enough to ignore or if (as the opening line of the linked article states) we’re “being absolutely fried” with Fukushima radiation.

I will reiterate that I don’t consider myself an expert. I think my background and critical thinking skills give me tools to ask pointed questions of each of the 36 points in the article, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I can answer them (although many times it will look like I do.) So think of this more as an exercise in thinking critically about what you read (a skill equally applicable to articles downplaying the dangers from Fukushima) than a thorough debunking of the linked article.

1. “Independent researchers have measured alarmingly high levels of radiation…” this shows a video of a man walking along Pacifica State Beach and showing his radiation detector sounding an alarm when he approaches the ocean. I guess it’s literally true that it’s an “alarmingly high” level, but perhaps that’s because he set his alarm too low? They breathlessly announce that “radiation levels near the water are up to five times higher than normal background radiation” but provide no context. Background levels are typically low. Is five times background still low, or is it dangerously high? Remember the difference between detectable and dangerous. Or to put it another way, if the ocean levels are dangerous and the background levels are only one-fifth of that, wouldn’t the normal background levels also be dangerously high? I don’t know the specs on his detector, so I don’t know how sensitive it is, so I don’t actually know if either the ocean or the background registers dangerous levels. I do know that when I watched it I was thinking ‘100 counts per second, that’s practically nothing.’ Then I saw elsewhere where they were claiming it was counts per minute, not counts per second (I can’t tell in the video) so that’s practically nothing divided by sixty.

There are also measurements confirming the spike in radiation but identifying the cause as naturally occurring.

2. “…the total amount of cesium-137 that has been released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima is 10,000 to 100,000 times greater than the amount released into the oceans by the Chernobyl disaster…” Snyder links to an article that blatantly contradicts this. The article shows dangerous levels right next to the power plant immediately after the disaster. Then describes how once a major leak was plugged it dropped dramatically (to 1,000 Bq per cubic meter, according to the EPA, below the safe level for drinking water) but expressed concerns that it wasn’t dropping further, indicating there were other, smaller leaks. The article was from Spring of 2013, so I don’t know about further progress along these lines…but I’m getting off topic. The claim was 10,000 to 100,000 times more Cs-137 released in Fukushima than in Chernobyl. Scan to the end of the article and you find this: “…a total cesium-137 release of between 15 and 30 petabequerels (10¹⁵ Bq). In comparative terms, he said, this is slightly more than the amount put into the sea by Chernobyl—although the total environmental release from that accident, at 85 PBq, was much higher.” I have no idea how that equates to 10,000 to 100,000 times greater.
3. This boils down to noting that there’s another (high profile, if you consider being on MSNBC high profile) person who is also paranoid about this—Cenk Uygur. Nothing about his qualifications to evaluate the dangers, just that someone else is afraid. Colleagues reminded him that the “official government position is that it’s safe” which is supposed to be damning evidence of a cover-up, and not the fact that the official government position was that it’s safe. As for the specter of lying to avoid a panic—Cenk was the one who brought it up (at least in the excerpted text.)
4. The 71 sailors of the USS Ronald Reagan. I have massive sympathy for them and wish them as great a chance at recovery as possible (along with winning their lawsuit against TEPCO.) They were at Fukushima, assisting in the cleanup in the immediate aftermath. But that’s a long way from being on the west coast of America almost 3 years later.
5. Starfish wasting disease. Fukushima radiation is one hypothesis, but far from proven (far from even the leading theory.) By the way, there’s a similar (smaller and isolated) outbreak on the Atlantic coast, too. So are they getting “absolutely fried” too?
6. Bald eagle deaths. Again, radiation is one theory but not the leading theory, as they “aren’t ruling out anything.”
7. Dead birds in Alaska (actually to quote Snyder “dead birds are dropping dead”) Okay, now the article stops linking to external sources and links to another breathless story from Snyder’s website. Following the links again to the original source we get a radio program that identifies the unseasonably warm autumn as the most likely culprit. Fukushima or radiation is never even mentioned.
8. Dead birds in Oregon. The headline of the linked article again points to weather. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be “absolutely baffling scientists” as Snyder claims. Again, there is no mention of Fukushima or radiation.
9. Seals and walruses in Alaska are losing their hair and developing oozing sores. At least the linked article for this one uses the word “radiation” once—in context of many hypotheses. Radiation and viruses have been studied, and “no tests have linked these origins to the illness.” Other theories include harmful algae blooms, thermal burns, allergy, hormone or nutritional problems. But clearly it must be the radiation.
10. Polar bears in Alaska are suffering from fur loss and open sores. It kinda sucks to be an animal in Alaska right now, doesn’t it? The linked article at least mentions both radiation and Fukushima, in this quote: “Reuters noted that preliminary studies do not support a theory that the disease is due to contamination from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.”
11. Sea lion deaths in California. The linked article…is really difficult to read. No flow to the writing at all, it’s just a series of statements, separated by trios of asterisks, amounting to the longest run-on paragraph I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also pocked by several hyperlinks, many of which are broken. Analyzing the claims and sources in this article alone would be as big of a task as what I’m doing for Snyder’s article, but about 50 times more annoying. So instead (and I apologize for this, I googled “sea lion deaths in California” and saw what I could see. And I saw…well, a lot sites similar to Snyder’s making unsubstantiated claims (or at best “asking questions”) that radiation was to blame. I found NOAA’s official site on it (not a lot of information, but the FAQ does include that they plan to test for radiation…that was a year ago.) And a number of mainstream news sites that include mentions of radiation in the context of not-ruling-anything-out but not as the likeliest cause. What was interesting is that there does look to be widespread agreement that the sea lions are undernourished. That is, the primary cause is starvation (including the pups being left to fend for themselves while the mother looks for farther away.) If that’s the case, then the question is what is disrupting their food chain, and that might point back to radiation (anchovies being killed off by Fukushima radiation is one theory here, I haven’t looked at how likely that is) but it’s important to make the distinction between this and deaths from radiation exposure—either from the contaminated water or from eating contaminated food.
12. Sockeye salmon on the Alaskan coast are at a historic low. Neither radiation nor Fukushima is mentioned in the linked article. In fact, the article is about native British Columbians who rely on subsistence fishing, and blame commercial fishing (having lived in Alaska for some time, I know this is a constant issue there.) “Conservation groups have sounded the alarm, saying Alaskan commercial fishermen are contributing to the problem as Skeena River sockeye get caught in the nets of Americans fishing for pink and chum sockeye.”
13. Pacific herring are bleeding from the gills, bellies, and eyeballs. Neither radiation nor Fukushima is mentioned in the linked article. “Dr. Gary Marty, fish pathologist with the animal health centre for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said VHSV [viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus] and a second disease, viral erythrocytic necrosis, or VEN, are the two most likely suspects.”
14. Cs-137 in mushrooms and berries. Oh, excuse me, “Dangerous levels” (according to Snyder) in mushrooms and berries. The linked article didn’t mention the level (or even if it was dangerous), only that some has been found. Googling revealed a UC Berkeley report. The highest levels of radionuclides were actually I-131. But I-131 has a half-life of 8 days, so there’s no way that came from Fukushima. Worst case reading was in the topsoil at 12.5 Bq/kg of I-131. Worst case for Cs-137 was 6.9 Bq/kg in grass. Worst case for an actual food product was mushrooms at 8.4 Bq/kg of I-131. Worst case food product for Cs-137 was 0.67 Bq/kg in strawberries. The FDA sets the level of concern at 55 Bq/kg of I-131…for infants. So the “dangerous levels” are well below the FDA limits for infant food. Remember the distinction between detectable and dangerous.
15. Pacific Bluefin tuna have transported radioactive material across the entire North Pacific Ocean. It’s an “absolutely shocking report!” Actually, given a 2 year half-life for Cs-134 and a 30 year half-life for Cs-137, it would be shocking if fish that cross the Pacific from Japan don’t carry it with them all the way. To put it another way, there’s detectable levels of radiation in Bluefin tuna, but it isn’t harming them enough to keep them from crossing the ocean. Sure enough, looking at the measurements in the linked paper, we see about 4 Bq/kg of Cs-134, about 6 Bq/kg of Cs-137, and…holy shit, 367 Bq/kg of K-40!? That’s the real story, Fukushima released massive amounts of K-40…oh, wait, K-40 is naturally occurring and was found in pre-Fukushima tuna. So…the story here is that there’s measureable amounts of radioactive Cesium in Bluefin tuna, but it’s orders of magnitude lower than naturally occurring radioactive isotopes. Detectable, but not dangerous.
16. Killer whales are dying off the coast of British Columbia. Once again, the linked article says nothing about radiation or Fukushima. I’m getting kinda tired of this crap. Are we going to blame every animal death on Fukushima?
17. High levels of Cs-137 in plankton. Excuse me “very high levels.” But the linked article shows they instead measured Cs-134 (a minor point, but Cs-134 has a half-life of 2 years, Cs-137 is 30 years, so Cs-137 is a bigger long-term concern.) The highest level was “8.2 to 10.5 becquerels per kilogram.” Remember the difference between dangerous and detectable, remember the limit that the FDA places on baby food (55 Bq/kg,) and ask if 10.5 Bq/kg is dangerous.
18. All (15 out of 15) Bluefin tuna tested in California contaminated with radiation. “…all contained reactor byproducts cesium-134 and cesium-137 at levels that produced radiation about 3% higher than natural background sources.” I stopped reading there. 3% above background might as well be background.
19. Practically all the fish tested in Japan and shipped to Canada had Cs-137. And the linked article says it was at low levels, well below the levels of concern Canada has set. Japan set a level of 100 Bq/kg in their fish (remember, the Bluefin tuna in the previous point exceeded that limit with naturally occurring K-40 before Fukushima, so I’m inclined to think Japan is being extra cautious here) but Canada has a level ten times that, at 1,000 Bq/kg. This is for fish caught in Japan and exported to Canada, and the article describes how Japan is actually being very aggressive and comprehensive in testing their fish. As for fish actually caught in the Pacific coast of Canada, “In August [2011], CFIA also tested a dozen samples of fish caught in B.C. coastal and inland waters. None of those tests found any radiation.” Of course, that was just 5 months after Fukushima, so perhaps the radiation hadn’t reached Canada yet. My favorite quote in the article: "Is it something we need to be terrified of? No. Is it something we need to monitor? Yes.”
20. Up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of Cs-137 released into the atmosphere, according to an EU study. Well, 210 quadrillion is certainly a big number, even if we ignore the fact that this is an upper bound (the lower bound is 12 quadrillion.) I certainly wouldn't want to be exposed to 210 (or 12) quadrillion becquerels! But it's also a number without context. This is the amount released into the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is a huge place, so there's lots of potential to dilute it to concentrations where the health risks are negligible. The important question is what the absorbed dose to people is. Luckily the linked study calculated just that, and determined that people living in Japan (excluding occupational exposure of cleanup workers) were exposed to 10-20 mSv (the Sievert being the unit of absorbed dose) through inhalation from the time of the incident (March 2011) until May 2011. This is about the equivalent of...one full-body CT scan. Not insignificant (I wouldn’t want to get a CT scan for no reason) but not panic-inducing (I wouldn’t expect to drop dead of radiation sickness after getting a CT scan.) Over a 50 year timespan, the maximum accumulated dose due to ground contamination is about 125 mSv. For context, the occupational dose limit (for people who work with radiation on a regular basis) in the U.S. Is 50 mSv/year. So over 50 years, the people of Japan near Fukushima may receive as much dose as U.S. Radiation workers are allowed in 2.5 years. Not great, but not panic inducing. And this study is all about dose in Japan, so I'm really at a loss to how this translates into panic in America.
21. An Australian adventurer felt like “the ocean itself was dead.” However, in the linked article the lack of fish (and hence lack of seabirds) is attributed first to overfishing. Then in the Osaka-to-San Francisco there's a lot about the debris and garbage washed into the ocean. The only mention of radiation in the whole article is mentioning how he's involved (and enlisting help from other yachties) with U.S. academics' efforts to fill out surveys and collect samples for testing. My favorite quote from the article, when he asked the academics why there wasn't an effort to clean up all the debris: “But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris there.”
22. The radioactivity of U.S. west coast waters could double over the next 5-6 years. In fact, the linked article says German researchers predict radiation from Fukushima could reach the U.S. west coast within 5 years. But I thought the radiation was already here! And, of course, the article also has those same researchers explaining that “these levels are still lower than those permitted for drinking water.”
23. A Russian official said that seafood in the northwest coast of the U.S. is a “danger for mankind.” Even allowing for the possibility of the Russian-English translation missing some nuance (imagine if “danger” was replaced by “hazard” or “risk”) my initial response was ‘so what?’ Not that I doubt his sincerity or his qualifications, it’s that I care more about the data backing up his statement than the statement itself. But then I took another look and compared Snyder’s summary to his:

Snyder: The deputy chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee for Natural Resources, Maxim Shingarkin, says that seafood captured off the northwest coast of the United States is so radioactive [emphasis added] that it represents a “danger for mankind”

Shingarkin: Currents in the World Ocean are so structured that the areas of seafood capture near the US north-west coast are more likely to contain radioactive nuclides than even the Sea of Okhotsk which is much closer to Japan. These products are the main danger for mankind because they can find their way to people’s tables on a massive scale.

Shingarkin does not actually mention the levels of radiation, so I think Snyder got those words “is so radioactive” from…deep within his body cavity. How I read Shingarkin’s statement is that the biggest source of radiation contamination for humans is from eating contaminated fish. But that’s also the easiest to avoid, simply by choosing to not eat fish or by taking care to know the source and avoiding fish from the Pacific Ocean. This is particularly easy in the U.S., where we don’t traditionally have a diet high in fish. I want to be clear, even though I’m not particularly afraid of eating fish caught in the Pacific, if you want to avoid it be my guest.

24. A report predicts the radiation could affect our seafood for “many generations” and kill more than a million people. The report itself is mostly a critique of standard models of estimating the impact of nuclear disasters. I’m not qualified to say whether their methods are correct or not (e.g., they include not just those alive at the time of the accident but those born subsequently. And they include death from infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and genetic diseases as well as cancer. And they project over an 80-year timeline instead of 50 years.) And in the end they conclude “within 80 years the number of victims of the Fukushima disaster can be expected to be AT LEAST in the range of 10,000 to 300,000 people in terms of deaths…” That’s 10,000 to 300,000 deaths over 80 years on a planet where about 56 million people die every year. I don’t want to diminish those deaths, but statistically they are a drop in the bucket.

So where does Snyder’s line of “kill more than a million people” come from? This line: “This cycle will last for many generations, because of the food chain of fish and other marine fauna, and the radioactivity will be recycled and in fact the meat content will increase rather than decreasing by decay. Even if only one one-hundredth of the radioactivity (more than 1e15 Bq of CS137) were to enter this recirculation pattern, the collective whole body ingestion dose over many generations would exceed 1e7 Sv, sufficient to kill more than 1,000,000 people.” This isn’t a prediction that 1,000,000 people will die; it’s a description of the scale of the whole dose in all the contaminated fish in the Pacific Ocean. It would be more accurate to say that if all the contaminated fish in the entire Pacific Ocean were eaten by just 1 million people, then those 1 million people would surely die from radiation. But I don’t think that’s a very realistic consumption model. I think more than a million people eat fish, and I don’t think they eat every last fish in the ocean.

By the way, the same report predicts the health risks from I-131 are nearly non-existent and in fact taking potassium iodine pills may have worse effects than the radiation itself. So where’s your panic now?

25. 300 tons of radioactive water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean every day. Well, 300 tons sounds like a big number, but what’s the context? The linked article (an NPR interview) does very little in providing context, although it does point out “the Pacific Ocean is a big place, so this gets diluted very quickly.” So how big is 300 tons of water? It would be a cube about 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) on a side. Suddenly comparing that to the size of the Pacific Ocean it seems miniscule. And it is. The Pacific Ocean contains 707.5 million cubic kilometers of water (or to put it in the same panic-inducing units, 7.78x10¹⁷ tons.) At 300 tons per day, it would take 7.1 trillion years to fill the Pacific Ocean. Or, given the best estimate is the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, it would take about 1,565 ages of the Earth (putting huge numbers in context is fun!) This all obscures the fact that it’s not the volume of water but the amount of radioactive material that is important, and this article contains nothing about that, so on to the next one…
26. “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released every day. Now we’re talking! Real radiation measurements instead of just raw tonnage of water. And again, 30 billion sound like a lot (and 60 billion is even more) but the ocean is a big place. The question is how much is the concentration of radiation increasing, and the answer is…it’s not. In fact, the 60 billion becquerels isn’t measured, it’s an estimate to explain why the waters right outside of Fukushima aren’t showing any drop in radioactivity (after the initial large drop.) My favorite quote (and the one relevant to the west coast of the U.S. rather than the waters neighboring Fukushima): “But experts said levels of seaborne radioactive substances stay mostly below detection limits in the outer ocean because the substances have simply become diluted.”
27. 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began. Snyder again links to his own article, but following it to the original story we find…well, a lot of criticism of Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Co, the owner and operator of the power plant) but also a claim (by Tepco) that the discharge of tritium “was within legal limits.” And we have this statement: “Tritium is far less harmful than cesium and strontium, which have also been released from the plant. Tepco is scheduled to test strontium levels next.” We also have this line from an EPA spokesman in the U.S.: “With the amount of dilution that would occur, any kind of release in Japan would be non-detectable here.” And this one from a UC Berkeley professor: “The Pacific Ocean is an enormous place… There's a lot of material between us and Japan. No matter what happens in Fukushima, it's not going to be a problem over here.”
28. 3 gigabecquerels of cesium-137 are flowing into the port at Fukushima Daiichi every day. Okay, one gigabecquerel is 1 billion becquerels. If I wasn’t worried about the 60 billion (combined cesium and strontium) becquerels just two points up, why would I be worried about one twentieth of that? Turns out in reading the story the point isn’t that 3 gigabecquerels is a lot (even factoring in that the number he intended to say was 10 gigabecquerels) it’s that given the measured concentrations in groundwater runoff, those 300 tons/day doesn’t account for it all. This is important because finding the other sources is required to finish the containment/cleanup efforts, but not because the levels are too high to be diluted by the ocean (remember, the ocean is really, really big.) Snyder seems to have a pattern of picking out the most panic-inducing headline but missing the valid points of concern in his linked articles.
29. “Significant” levels of cesium-137 will reach every corner of the Pacific Ocean by the year 2020. “Significant” is a wonderful weasel-word, meant to put fear in your mind but actually meaning very little (one might say the word “significant” is pretty insignificant.) Interestingly, the linked article doesn’t use “significant” it just says, “the dispersion of Cesium-137, a radioactive byproduct, will reach every corner of the Pacific by the year 2020.” It also does a piss-poor job of linking to its source, linking to GEOMAR’s main page instead. But a little search reveals this article with a link to the full story here. Wait a minute, that’s the same story linked in point 22, above! And those researchers conclude that while there will be detectable radiation, those so-called “significant” levels “are still lower than those permitted for drinking water.” And come to think of it, if we’re relying on dilution in the Pacific Ocean, isn’t it better if it gets dispersed into the whole ocean? Wouldn’t it be worse if the radiation remained concentrated (say if it stayed within a major current instead of spreading to the whole ocean?)
30. The Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than during the era of atomic testing many decades ago. I’m actually surprised that Snyder didn’t make more out of the claim that Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State at the time) made assurances to Japan that the U.S. would still buy their fish and not test them for radiation. I might not be paranoid about radiation, but I still think testing is a good idea. In any case, responding to their claim, much like many of these points, they provide no context. Is “5 to 10 times higher” a horribly dangerous level? Somewhat dangerous? Barely dangerous? Negligible? And the actual claim is “The net effect is the Pacific near Japan, and likely the whole Pacific, over the next 5 years will have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher…” Claiming that the sea near Japan will have elevated levels, and then extending that to claiming the entire ocean will have the same elevated levels seems to ignore the element of ocean dilution, which we repeatedly see is what brings large amounts of total radiation down to concentrations of minimal concern.
31. Environmental activist Joe Martino says “Your days of eating Pacific Ocean fish are over.” Hey, that’s the same linked story as point 29! (Which if you recall, ended up being a rehash of the study linked in point 22.) Rather than dissect the claims that I’ve dissected twice already, I’ll just make this pithy response: Mr. Martino, your days of eating Pacific Ocean fish might be over, but mine aren’t.
32. The Iodine-131, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 that are constantly being released from Fukushima are going to affect the health of those living in the northern hemisphere for a very, very long time, according to Harvey Wasserman. Since this was one of the rare times when Snyder mentioned someone by name (instead of saying “experts” or “researchers”) I decided to find out who Mr. Wasserman is. Turns out he’s been an anti-nuke activist for about 40 years. Now I want to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It influences how I consider his leanings, but just because you’re an advocate on an issue does not mean you’re not trustworthy. And although his formal education is in history and not science, I assume working on an issue for 40 years he’d naturally learn some things. So I started reading his article. He starts out by mocking the media coverage for focusing on “mere” tritium (his scare-quotes, not mine.) Most of what I’ve read has been about Cs-137, not tritium, but fair enough, maybe the articles he reads are different from mine (I’d even accept that he reads more mainstream articles than I do.) But then I get to this doozy: “Tritium is a relatively simple isotope with an 8-day half-life.” (emphasis added) Tritium has a half-life of 12.32 years! He has his facts blatantly wrong. Not that that means everything in his article is wrong, I just want to pause and marvel at the fact that someone who has been advocating on an issue for 40 years could screw up such a basic fact. I suspect he got it confused with I-131, which does have an 8 day half-life. I-131 is, of course, one of the isotopes he is afraid of; maybe he wouldn’t be if he knew it had an 8 day half-life (remember, the report linked in point 24 actually showed nearly no impact on health from I-131, and in fact questioned if health risks from potassium iodide pills meant to protect against radiation might be worse than the radioactive I-131 itself.) He does correctly identify that I-131 goes to the thyroid where it emits beta particles that can damage the thyroid (I-131 is used in radiation therapy for just that reason.) And he correctly identifies that Cs-137 has been found in fish and accumulates in muscles. And he correctly identifies that Sr-90 accumulates in bones (he ignores that fact that it also accumulates in fish bones so it’s commonly assumed that people eat fish flesh and throw away the bones, so doses from eating fish are assumed to be mostly Cs-137 and not Sr-90.) What he doesn’t identify is how much of any of those isotopes are found (or modeled) to be in the environment (e.g., in fish we eat.) As the old saying goes, the dose makes the poison, and he’s talked 100% about poison and 0% about dose.
33. “Outdoor radiation levels at Fukushima recently hit a new all-time high.” I put that whole line in quotes because that’s exactly how Snyder worded it. It’s an interesting teaser, because “Fukushima” could refer to something as large as the entire Fukushima prefecture, while only areas up to 30 km away from the power plant were evacuated and most of them have had their no-go zone designation lifted as of April of 2013 (the linked article is from December of 2013.) And “outdoors,” could be everywhere (everywhere that isn’t indoors, that is.) But if the headline had revealed that the readings were “in an area near a steel pipe that connects reactor buildings” then maybe it wouldn’t be quite as frightening. You’d expect a catastrophically destroyed nuclear power plant to have pretty high readings until the cleanup and containment is completed. The question is whether areas where they’re letting people return to live is safe. Or actually, since this whole list is supposed to be about dangers to the U.S. west coast, how about these lines from the linked article:

Meanwhile, the chairwoman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured that the radioactive water will reach the US West coast at safe levels.

“The highest amount of radiation that will reach the U.S. is two orders of magnitude - 100 times - less than the drinking water standard,” Allison Macfarlane said in Tokyo on Friday as cited by Bloomberg. “So, if you could drink the salt water, which you won’t be able to do, it’s still fairly low.”

34. Cleanup of Fukushima could take up to 40 years to complete. The linked article is about how there’s finally an approved plan for the cleanup, instead of the disorganized ad hoc efforts. This is…good (it’s bad that it took this long, but the fact they have a plan now is good.) I hope they stick to it. I hope they update it as more information is available. As for the 40 years…given Cs-137 has a 30 year half-life, I would assume it would be much longer (although much of that time would be monitoring the stored radioactive material to check for leaks.) And the 40 years is just given as a number that “experts expect.” No context is given on how much of an effect that will have on the public (especially the public of the U.S. west coast) in that time…or after, for that matter.
35. If the cleanup is done badly, humanity could be threatened for “thousands of years.” Well, damn! Then they better do it carefully, even if it takes 40 years! Actually, the linked article is very interesting and well worth a read. As an Emeritus Professor at Yale, the author Charles Perrow certainly has some impressive credentials (googling him further, I see he is an expert in complex risky systems, starting with his work analyzing the Three Mile Island disaster.) As a professor of sociology, I wouldn’t initially trust him as an expert in the physics of nuclear fission, but he seems to know what he’s talking about, and I can’t find any glaring errors like I did with Wasserman’s article back in point 32. The bulk of the article isn’t about this specific danger from Fukushima, but about the pattern of governments and compliant media denying or downplaying dangers from radiation. That’s an interesting point and should give everyone pause about everything they read (including this.) Snyder again ignores this important point to go after the most panic-inducing headline (and adds a “if the cleanup…is not handled with 100% precision” scare line that isn’t in the actual article,) but I actually have nothing but praise for the article itself.
36. Unexplained plumes of radioactive steam are rising at Fukushima. This is interesting. The linked article presents three theories, ranging from another catastrophic meltdown (which they do say is “relatively improbable”) to rainwater coming in contact with hot fuel pellets, which is relatively benign. But there’s not enough information to know exactly what’s going on, so file this under ‘possible future concerns.’ Although this site claiming to debunk Fukushima alarmism has its own article. At which point I’ll step back and let the reader decide.

So where does that leave us? What do I expect or hope will happen from writing this? Well, I expect…that nobody will read this. Of those who do, if they’re already afraid of Fukushima radiation, I don’t expect this to convince them. I might even get some nasty comments about it. If they’re already unconcerned about it, they might like this and forward it to friends, but again I won’t have changed any minds. If you aren’t convinced either way…I don’t know what to expect your reaction to be. But I know what I hope—I hope I haven’t convinced you. At least, I hope you don’t replace your own judgment with mine. I hope I have convinced you to think critically about what you read. If you’re reading this online, you have the same access to information as I do, so it’s only a question of critical thinking and reaching your own conclusions. And you are perfectly free to reach a different conclusion than I do.

Jason wades into the Seth MacFarlane Oscar's kerfuffle

Really, I just want to stick my toe in. Normally I'm happy to leave all the commentary to people who actually give a crap, but there's been something missing in all the criticism. On one side, the critics have pointed out that he was sexist, racist, and demeaning. On the other side his defenders want you all to lighten up and learn to take a joke. But what nobody put forward is that--at least in part--he was also trying to make fun of sexism, racism, anti-semitism, etc.

Making a cheap 'all black people look alike to me' joke (as he "confused" Denzel Washington for Eddie Murphy) can be demeaning to black people, but isn't it way more demeaning to the white guy who's too stupid to tell them apart? Maybe...maybe not. Similarly, the "We saw your boobs!" song was demeaning to women, but isn't it also saying men are too stupid and single-minded to look at a woman and care about anything but boobs? (heh, heh, I said "Butt boobs".)

Maybe...maybe not. It depends on what happens next. We can all have a good laugh at "Heh, heh, you have boobs! And I'm so stupid I don't care about anything else!" if afterwards, we walk off into a world where we have equal opportunities and women are valued for much more than their physical appearance. But if the real-life follow-up is more along the lines of "Now I'll go off and dominate the world--especially your chosen industry. You keep being pretty and showing your boobs until I don't care to look at them anymore." Well...that's less appropriate.

Equal opportunity offense is not equally damaging, especially when it's aimed at the exploited. Like the excellent metaphor (and I don't remember where I originally read it) goes, "I offend everyone equally" is a lot like saying, "I punch everyone equally hard, whether they're a prize fighter or a newborn baby." Yeah, but one situation ends with you having a sore fist, the other ends with a dead baby.

Objectively, Hollywood is run by men (even more than it's run by Jews) and so it's absolutely right to be offended by Seth's sexism. So why are so many of my young friends--particularly on Facebook and Twitter--defending him? And why do I know so many young women who defend him? Well, I've twice hinted at it--it's an age thing. Or, I hope, a generational thing--there's a difference.

I think younger people (and I consider myself on the cusp of young) tend to believe that not now, but someday really soon there will be enough equality of the sexes (and races, and religions, etc.) that such jokes will be okay--nobody will get hurt and people will be laughing at the mockery of the neanderthal behavior of yesteryear. Maybe they believe it just because they're naive. They haven't been beaten down by the realities of life--including that sexism, racism, and bigotry of all forms are still alive and well. Maybe it's just an age thing. Or maybe they really know something that the older, uptight generation doesn't know. Maybe the verbal barbs have no power to hurt them because they really are the first generation that has this bigotry thing licked. Maybe it's a generational thing.

And that's my optimistic(-ish) take on it. I have much more pessimistic opinions on the young generation, but I'll keep those to myself for now.

Jason goes to Burning Man...and returns safely

Yup, despite my earlier post, I did get a ticket and found myself back on the Playa by Monday night.

The thing is, I still believe everything from my previous post, except for the obvious factual inconsistency of me going. I packed up an SUV with my friend and we headed out, joking I'd decide whether or not I was really going when we got to the gate. Thing is, I'm not so sure we were joking.

Gate was easy. I had a physical ticket I got from someone on Craigslist, my friend had to stop at will call. But near sundown on Monday night, there wasn't much of a wait at all. That is, until we got to the greeters.

Pardon my jaded old-timer rant, but screw you, greeters. I know where I'm going, I don't want or need a hug, and fuck you if you think I should make a playa angel. I don't even want to get out of the car. The only thing more frustrating than all that bullshit is watching the greeters go through that with a car-full of virgins for a half an hour as the last rays of daylight dip behind the mountains. Screw you even harder and in extra holes for that.

Fortunately, I had augmented my costume from previous years. Traditionally, I wear an orange prison jumpsuit with "Psycho" written across the back matched with a belt made out of a wire coat hanger with little plastic fetus dolls strung on it. This year, I added a hockey mask, and apparently that was enough to put it over the top (more people wanted my picture this year than any other.) When we finally got to the greeter, she took one look at me and said, "You look scary." I stared out of my mask for a few seconds, then said, "Just give us our shit and let us go." She did with no further word. Success! (of a sort.)

Within minutes, we were at our camp at 5:00 and E (technically "Edelweiss" but nobody cared about what the letters stood for this year--even less than other years.) I jumped out of the moving vehicle and let out my traditional Burning Man greeting--"Hello, Black Rock City! Who wants to have my abortion?"

I discovered I have friends who will cry with joy if I show up unannounced after telling them I won't show up. We all started drinking scotch. Then I went to the porta-potties and drank some hand sanitizer. Because that's just the year I was determined to have. I even took up smoking--or rather, bumming cigarettes from friends.

I broke a guy's hand, and he gave me the finger. For the rest of the week, Unnecessarily High Five camp sported a high four on their lowest hand. I hear there's some discussion of leaving it that way next year. So find them and see if I made a permanent impact on their camp.

I even got a playa wife! Actually, just a playa fiance, because she slept through the wedding. But the important thing we engaged in some sexy rumpus. Contrary to common belief, this is not unheard of for me. But this time I cared about her pleasure above my own, and that is unheard of. And we got applause from my friends in the neighboring camp, so that was cool. Now I don't know anything about true love, but when she was away I drank heavily, and...actually this does not indicate anything.

I walked out to the edge of the universe (trash fence) twice. Once under the heat of the mid-day sun, once in the middle of the night during a near white-out. This is kind of tradition for me. During the walk back to camp in a midnight white-out, I simply had to trust that the prevailing winds come from ~6:00, and march directly into the blinding wind. I ended up reaching the city at 2:00 and A, which is honestly closer than I expected. In such situations, hitting the Esplanade is a sort of miracle trick-shot, and I came within a short block of it.

A good friend had to be ambulanced to Reno. He came out just after being diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and was planning to start treatment (yanking out a bit of necrotic intestine and stitching the good parts back together) when he got back. Seems he had to start the treatment a little early. He's recovering now and hope is good. Just an extra bit of playa drama.

And finally, the burn. I was high as hell. For some context, a friend of mine has a medical marijuana card for his insomnia. He used it to get some pot chocolate, which comes in regular strength and high strength, which is 18 times stronger. Of course he got the latter. Each square of chocolate is supposed to be one dose, and I took one and a half. So I had approximately 27 regular "doses" of marijuana in me. For some extra context, another friend of mine took one square and said he felt nothing. Maybe I'm a lightweight, or maybe he's a hopeless addict, but I think someone just spiked the hand sanitizer.

I walked out with my campmates and some kids we met and hung out with all week. The idea was to find a nice place to watch the man burn in the distance, but before we knew it we were past the art cars and up near the front of the audience. We even had to sit down (damn my old bones, getting back up was an ordeal!) I don't think I've actually felt the heat of the Man burning in about five years. Not sure if I liked it. Not sure if the high helped or not. I do know it felt like someone was totally tweaking my contrast and brightness knobs to their max. On the walk back, my blotto-pilot totally failed. I mistook the art car circle for the Esplanade (rookie fucking mistake) and had to rely on my traditionally far more wasted/less reliable friend to be blotto-pilot. And he was perfect. Then I sat in camp for hours afraid to go to bed (which was really the passenger seat of our car, since we had mostly broken camp) because I knew I was going to throw up. And sure enough, I did. Three times. Lost all the steak I had eaten at our big steak feast at steak o'clock earlier that evening. But I survived, and once we were on the road and back in cell phone range, I even tweeted a snarky comment about myself.

Maybe the weirdest thing--exodus was extremely easy and quick. No stopping at all, around 11 am on Sunday. Very weird. But we made up for that by getting stuck in an awful traffic jam over Donner Pass the next day.

A common refrain of the week was, "the playa will provide (whatever you need.)" Perhaps it provided me with what I most needed--a lesson in humility. I'm tempted to call it my best burn ever and declare myself Burn Again. But then I remember all my friends who couldn't make it because of the ticket fiasco (despite the fact that the BLM cap was raised, peak attendance was actually down from what I heard.) By a rough count, of the veteran burners I personally know and consistently hang out with only about 2/3 of the ones who wanted to go actually went, entirely due to the ticket situation (usually some combination of they couldn't get tickets so they made other plans or by the time tickets were available they couldn't get time off work.) So I'm still bitter about that. I guess at this point, this year could serve as a re-invigoration of my burning spirit, or a final fanfare. And I think that will entirely depend on what the powers that be do to learn from this year's ticket fiasco.

Oh, and one final note. There's not a lot of outside news that gets into Burning Man, and what there is ends up getting mixed into weird rumors. I remember four years ago John McCain nominated Sarah Palin during Burning Man week, and it was hard to convince people (like me) that this wasn't just a crazy playa rumor. In 2005, Katrina struck during Burning Man and we first heard rumors of over 100,000 dead. So when we got back and heard the real death toll was only a couple of thousand, it was good news to us. If someone had arrived on the playa on the final weekend and told me that Clint Eastwood did a long, rambling bit with an empty chair representing Obama on stage at the RNC, I would've praised them on coming up with the best playa rumor ever, but there's no fucking way I would've believed him.

Jason updates his total minutes, again.

This is an update on the process I explained here.

You might have noticed in the last couple of posts, my total minutes number has gone up more than it should have. In particular, between my post on BATTLESHIP and THE BRIDGE BUILDERS, I saw 26 minutes worth of movies but added nearly 1,000 minutes to my total. Well, there's a simple explanation--I've finally gone through all my movies of 2006, looked up the running times for all, and entered them into my records (I had previously updated for 2007 and included that in my calculations without comment.) And it turns out 2006 is the current record holder for the highest average minutes per movie. My average time per movie in 2006 was 100.264 minutes. 2007 was actually pretty close with 99.666 minutes/movie. 2008-2012 (so far) is significantly lower, fluctuating between 96.25 and 97.63 minutes/movie. My gut feeling is I'm watching more film festival screenings instead of mainstream blockbusters, and they tend to be a bit shorter.

Anyway, updating my actual minutes and my estimate of the average running time for the movies I haven't updated yet explains that jump in total minutes. Also, 2005 is the first year I started keeping records of what movies I saw, so once I finish that I'll have a real* count of my total minutes. There is a bit of a problem with that, though.  Turns out my records from 2005 are pretty lousy. For the regularly theatrically released movies I saw, I recorded the titles. But for film festivals I only recorded the festival name. I.e., I have records that say I say N movies at Cinequest, or the SF International, of the SF Jewish Film Festival, etc. but no titles. So I'm going to do my best to reconstruct what I saw, but worst case I might just drop 2005 from the count. In which case, my total minutes would go way, way down.

[Update: I've gone through what was easy to reconstruct in 2005, and that actually gives me another few ~300 minutes. My estimated total is now 286,536. I still have 72 movies from 2005 left to reconstruct, 50 from Cinequest (man, I went all out that year, and that's not counting opening and closing night films, which of course I know,) 15 from the SF International (I took it kind of light that year) and 7 from the SF Jewish Film Festival (I saw more, but I couldn't quite figure out what I saw on a few of the days.) I'll do my best to figure it out soon.]

*Except that sometimes the running times are estimates, especially when I see silent films that can and often are projected at different speeds. Or when I'm not sure which version of a movie I saw (an edited theatrical cut, director's cut, etc.) For these I've tried to at best underestimate the running time so as not to give myself undeserved minutes.

Jason revises his total movie minutes

My few readers who actually care might notice in my last post my total minutes actually went down. Allow me to explain.

See, I've been tracking the total number of movies I've seen since 2005, but I've only been tracking the number of minutes since the start of 2010 (when I saw UP IN THE AIR and decided the movie watching equivalent of 10 million miles is 1 million minutes). But rather than start at zero I allowed myself to start with the time I've spent watching movies since I started tracking them.

At first, I estimated 90 minutes per movie (feature length program, be it a feature, a program of shorts, or a short + feature). I figured that was low, and I was okay with underestimating my total minutes.

But always, in my free time, I would look back at my records and calculate the totals for previous years. Some time back I finished finding the running time for everything I saw in 2009. It turned out my average time/movie in 2009 was just over 97.5 minutes. So I did two things to adjust my estimate of the total minutes. First, I included the actual running time instead of an estimated time for 2009. Second, for the movies prior to 2009 I used my 2009 average of 97.51126 as the estimated time/movie.

Well, I've just finished calculating the total running time for 2008. And I've updated my calculation in a few ways:

First, of course, I'm using actual values for everything from 2008 on. As of today, that's 1663 movies (feature length programs) with a total running time of 160,804 minutes, for an average of 96.69512928 minutes/movie.

Second, I've updated my estimate for pre-2008 movies using this average. That's 995 movies for a total estimated running time of 96,212 minutes (rounded off).

Third, and most importantly, I've automated the calculation of a new average time/movie based on every new running time I enter into my records. This is the most important part because it means when I add a movie and a running time, it doesn't just add to my total minutes. It also recalculates my estimate of pre-2008 movies. So if I see a film with a higher than average running time, not only are those minutes added to the total but the average goes up and adds even more to my total. The converse, of course, if I see something below the average running time.

In the meantime, I will, of course, continue to find more accurate records of the minutes I've spent watching movies pre-2008.

I'm posting this because I'm sure you all really come to my movie review blog to read about math.

A few side notes:

• 2009 actually had my highest average running time of any year I've calculated so far
• 2011 is pretty far below average, currently at just 96.092. That might not seem like much, but a half minute over the course of 400 movies is quite a bit. Especially odd since I've had some 4+ hour epics in there.
• Even with looking up the running times for everything, there is still some guesswork. Occasionally movies have different versions in different festivals or different countries, and vary by a few minutes. More importantly, a lot of silent films don't have set running times, since the projection speed was variable. I do my best to estimate and have noted the ones which I haven't found a listed running time. In general, my rule of thumb if I don't know is to give a silent film 10 minutes per reel. I think this is actually a pretty drastic underestimate, and that is intentional. I'd rather undercount than overcount.

Jason analyzes the box office returns of THE UNDEFEATED

I don't know why I'm doing this. I generally try to keep politics out of my blog, and there is little that bores me more than talking about box office totals. But I read this analysis, and my love of correcting people took over.

Let me first acknowledge that getting a film in theaters at all, let alone 10 screens, is a huge accomplishment. I know enough independent filmmakers that I know most of them get a screening at a few film festivals and maybe go to DVD (often self-distributed), so kudos for getting in theaters at all.

Second, let's acknowledge that Breitbart.com, Big Hollywood, and the author of the article, John Nolte are right wing--at least compared to the "mainstream media" (as much as I hate that term). Whether you believe that they're on the fringe or it's really the rest of the media that's radically left-wing and their centrism just looks right-wing in comparison, it doesn't matter. The important thing is I want to acknowledge that they have at least an emotional interest in making THE UNDEFEATED look as good as possible. Nothing wrong with that, as long as their analysis is factual and relevant. So let's look at their claims.

Claim 1:

“The Undefeated” ranks as #15 in the all-time highest grossing debut category (and this includes Michael Moore’s unique hold on this category). However — and this is a mighty important however – nine of the films ranked above the Palin doc opened on more screens — in some cases, hundreds more.

They are correct about the #15 rank, at least based on the chart from Box Office Mojo. That's kind of hard to mess up, since BOM did the work for them. I will point out that while the article shows the top 30, the BOM chart shows 93 movies in the category of political documentary. That actually makes the #15 showing a little more impressive.

As for the rest of the commentary on this claim, I'm not sure what "Michael Moore's unique hold on this category" is supposed to mean. Because he makes popular, wildly successful movies (two of which--ROGER AND ME and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE--made more on opening weekend than THE UNDEFEATED while playing on fewer screens) his shouldn't be counted? And while 9 of the films opened on more screens (and I don't know why they didn't point out that not just some, but 8 of those 9 opened on > 100 screens), it's just as true that 5 of those films opened on fewer screens. Of those 5, I haven't seen THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON, so I don't exactly know it's political bent, but the other 4 are clearly left-leaning or hard left-wing (depending on your point of view) films. Judging by the title alone, I suspect the John Lennon movie is as well.

Upshot, for this narrow category, in which films generally don't make much money, THE UNDEFEATED had a respectably successful opening overall.

Claim #2:

On a comparative number of screens (less than 10), “The Undefeated” enjoyed the fifth highest-grossing debut in the history of political documentaries.

Well, first off, if you're looking at less than 10 screens, THE UNDEFEATED doesn't show up at all. You see, it opened on 10 screens, and 10 is not less than 10. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant less than or equal to 10. But there's a bigger problem with this claim, as seen in this chart (click for bigger):

I've double and triple-checked with BOM's chart, and I'm sure this is right. This is the top of the list of political documentaries that opened on 10 screens or less, ordered by opening weekend total. THE UNDEFEATED is sixth, not fifth. This is a really puzzling error. Counting to 6 is not hard. So we've determined that Mr. Nolte is either sloppy or:

• He doesn't know the difference between "less than" and "less than or equal to." And...
• He doesn't know how to count to 6.

BTW, it's worth noting that the full list of political documentaries opening on 10 screens or less (from BOM's chart) contains 78 films. Granted, many of those were on 1, 2, or 3 screens so 10 screens is a bit of an advantage, but 6th place is still bragging rights. Which makes it odd to claim 5th place when it's clearly not true.

So let's move on to his claim #3:

Opening on a comparative number of screens (5 to 25), “The Undefeated” enjoyed the sixth highest per-screen average in the history of political documentaries.

Well, given the previous claim, I didn't know if "5 to 25" was inclusive or not. None of the films opened on exactly 25 screens, but 2 opened on exactly 5. I've chosen to include them. The full list is below:

Surprise, surprise, it's seventh, not sixth. Now I'm beginning to think Nolte really doesn't know how to count. Or perhaps he counts the number of films above THE UNDEFEATED and uses that as the place. Only six films did better, it's in sixth place! Of course, this is as wrong as saying, "Only one person beat me in this race, so I'm first!" (If this is the math used, then suddenly calling it THE UNDEFEATED makes sense).

BTW, this is not a shortened list, this is the total list, from BOM's chart, of political documentaries that opened on 5-25 theaters. There are 20 total, THE UNDEFEATED was number 7. Above average, but hardly the top. You could reasonable call it the high end of the middle of the pack or the bottom of the top tier. Nothing to be ashamed of, but hardly indicative of a runaway success. Nor is it "kicking all kinds of box-office ass when compared to its counterparts" as Nolte claims.

The other numerical claim, in the ADDED paragraph:

In the comments someone compares the per screen of “The Undefeated” to EVERY political documentary released on fewer than 10 screens, all the way down to one, two, and three screens. This is not apples-to-apples when you’re talking about a film released on ten screens. But even with that apples-to-oranges comparison, the Palin doc comes in at #11 ALL-TIME.

I'll get to the "apples-to-apples" comparison in a moment, but the numerical claim is #11 all time. I have no idea where he gets this. Here are all 78 political docs released on 10 screens or less, ordered by per-screen average, according to BOM (click to see big):

THE UNDEFEATED is not #11, it's #32. 11 ≠ 32. That's 32 out of 78, again above average, nothing to be ashamed of, but not kicking all kinds of ass.

Another claim:

Had the film’s roll-out been scheduled in just a few targeted markets instead of ten, obviously this would’ve resulted in a higher per screen average.

That claim is impossible to know for sure. There are plenty of movies on that list that opened in 1, 2, or 3 theaters and flopped. Of course, if THE UNDEFEATED had opened only on the highest grossing screens last weekend, it would've had a better per screen average. But in the same vein if it had only opened on the worst screens, it would've done worse. The claim that fewer screens = higher average seems to imply that screens were cannibalizing each other's business--people didn't see it on one screen because it was playing on another screen instead. I don't have the breakdown of exactly where all the screens were, but with 10 screens spread across the country (I've heard Georgia and California), I find it unlikely there was much audience cannibalization.

More importantly, the claim implies--nay, practically states, that the release markets were not "targeted." Baloney! When I see the traditional big markets of L.A. and N.Y. eschewed in favor of highly conservative Orange, CA, I'm pretty sure they did target conservative, Palin-loving markets. They hardly threw darts at the map and decided to open there.

And in that case, this release is fairly similar to a one screen release in a targeted market. Maybe not identical--nothing is--but comparing all releases of 10 screens or less is closer to apples-to-apples than apples-to-rhinoceroses. It's a common dilemma of balancing a desire for a large sample size with the need for the samples to be relevant. If you choose any two movies on BOM's list, I'm sure you could find reasons why comparing their box office take is not valid. But we compare anyway, because without comparison we just have the raw numbers and no context on if they're good or bad. So acknowledging that no comparison is completely valid, what does changing the sample size do?

When changing from 5-25 screens to 10 screens or less, the breakdown changes like this:

• 6 films (all with lower per-screen average than THE UNDEFEATED) are dropped from the list.
• 25 films with higher per-screen average are added to the list.
• 39 films with lower per-screen average are added to the list.

End result, as explained above, we go from 7th out of 20 (~top 35%) to 32nd out of 78 (~top 41%). Not a huge difference. I'd say it's a reasonable comparison. Better than comparing against all releases, certainly. Claiming you should narrow the sample size and then pointing out it has a higher rank on a smaller list is intellectually dishonest.

BTW, at the opposite extreme you could compare only those releases on exactly 10 screens. In that case, there are only 2 and THE UNDEFEATED is number 1! (by < $400 per screen, but still...). Obviously that would be a case of narrowing the samples too low to be relevant, and to Nolte's credit he didn't do anything that ridiculous.

Another (frankly, odd) claim:

“The Undefeated” has no cinematic hook whatsoever.

I disagree, Sarah Palin attracts attention wherever she goes and whatever she does. Some attention from fans, some from detractors, and I'm not in the business (nor am I interested) in judging whether the attention is fair or not. But I think she is definitely a "hook." In fact, for a film opening in only 10 theaters, it has received an inordinate amount of attention in both traditional media and online. Saying it has not hook is baloney.

Final analysis: THE UNDEFEATED was targeted to its audience, and generally found it. Its performance--for a film of its kind--was pretty good (in the top 35-40% of films of its kind), but claiming it's kicking box office ass is at least as dishonest as the MSM calling it "tepid" or a "flop."

Now maybe there's more details someone could dig into. Did THE UNDEFEATED open on screens with lower-than-average capacity? Maybe the box office take vs. theoretical maximum possible (if everything was a sellout) looks great (if that measure is even relevant)? On the other hand, perhaps if you compare its box office vs. the amount of media coverage it got pre-release, it might look worse (or better, I don't know, and I don't have the tools to get those numbers).

Oh yeah, and so far (12 reviews) it still has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Jason shares his thoughts on the aborted MoviePass beta

A little background: earlier this week the movie-watching community in general and the SF Bay Area movie-watching community was all atwitter (pun intended) on a brand new "Netflix-for-theaters" service launching called MoviePass. It was supposed to go live (bay area only, invite only) yesterday, but today after protests by exhibitors and distributors they pulled the plug. I have to stress, I don't know what happened. This is not meant to be some definitive story or sage judgement on the situation (of course, judgement will be made, I'm just too ignorant to be sage). More than anything, I'm writing in hopes that people more in the know (or at least with different insights) will respond.

Let me start by saying I more or less like the MoviePass idea, as far as I understand it, and I'm pretty much the target customer cinephile. I have some quibbles (limit 1 movie per day, no repeats viewings), but no deal breakers. And now let me explain the service as best as I can understand. For $49.99 per month, you get a subscription that allows you to see as many movies as you like. There are some restrictions--it's subject to availability, and as I mentioned above you can only see one movie per day and you can't see the same movie twice. Although I can understand the last two restrictions, particularly from a fraud prevention standpoint, I experience plenty of legitimate situations where I would want to violate one of those rules--particularly the more than one movie a day rule (heck, I've averaged over one movie a day for the last four years, and seen as many as 10 a day). They announced a rather limited selection of theaters at first, but since it included Landmark Theatres and Camera Cinemas, it would include a pretty good selection of "indie" movies.

Some other technical features. In order to use the service, you must have an Iphone or Android-powered smartphone. The tickets are only delivered to your phone (I don't know if you can order through a web browser or only your phone). There are no tickets you can print at home. When you get near the theater (presumably as determined by your phones position tracking?) the ticket you ordered appears and is scanned at the theater.

Too bad the theaters apparently didn't know about this. Apparently they used a third party ticket service to act as a "broker." Specifically, they used MovieTickets.com. And it strikes me that if they just treated all the MoviePass tickets as ordinary MovieTickets.com tickets (i.e., process the order with no charge as if you had won a free ticket) then it would've been practically invisible to the theaters and things may have gone rather smoothly. It seems (again, from the outside looking in) like they were so much in love with the "tickets on your smartphone" model that they passed up an easier implementation.

So now let me look at the exhibitors complaints, and address them. As far as I can tell, there are two main complaints. First, we just don't like this ticketing model. Second, they didn't consult with us so we can't make sure it's done well.

As for the first complaint,...well I do like this model--and I'm your customer. Not that the customer is always right or anything (heck, the model I'd really prefer is "free movies for me all the time"), but I definitely see how this can work. Although I'd also point out that I'm more likely to buy concessions if I'm staying for more than one movie, so I think it would be in your best interest to actually allow multiple movies in the same day. In any case, I implore you to work with MoviePass (or frankly, someone else) to implement this model--or something similar--the right way. Most importantly, I don't understand the overall objection to this model. I know I'm not in your shoes and there's probably something important I don't understand, but can you answer me a couple of questions:

1. Is the model of a monthly subscription based, all-you-can-watch movie service inherently unworkable?

2. Perhaps this is the same question, but are the obstacles/objections to such a service insurmountable? I've been told they use this system in France, so what keeps us from using it here? What would it take?

And that gets me to the second point. I agree, MoviePass trying to do this without the exhibitors on board seems rude and unprofessional. Now, according the the article I read (and I reiterate I have now special knowledge of this), "MoviePass coordinated its ticketing with online ticket sellers, instead of cinemas, after not being able to get exhibitors to sign on." If they really tried to sell you on this and you rebuffed them, maybe some of the blame goes on you. Whatever happened, I still implore you--now that they have your attention--work with them (or someone else) to get this model right.

Now, let me address MoviePass. I like your idea, but it seems to me you have pathologically weak communication skills. As I've said, I don't know what went on in your attempts to get buy-in from exhibitors, but I'm already biased against you. Mostly that's because I spent a good portion of this morning reading the terms and conditions on your website. Although that page is now down (currently redirects to the splash screen), I managed to save the page and convert it to PDF while it was up. And I've posted it here. My personal favorite part is under the cancellation policy (bottom half of the third page), where your office phone number is listed as "###-###-####". There's also a whole section on DVD purchases, which I saw nowhere in any press articles about your service. And finally, although news articles (and a tweet you sent me--BTW, I love the white text on white background in your twitter pattern. Highlight to read it) mentioned the 1 movie per day rule, I couldn't find that anywhere in terms and conditions. Maybe I just have poor reading comprehension, and I love for anyone to point out where it says that. And while we're at it, what does this mean (two lines before the Cancellation Policy)?

MoviePass® is only valid for one movie at any one time and cannot be used to obtain a ticket for another movie before the film presentation for which it has been used comes to an end.

I read that and was scratching my head. I was wondering if that meant once you've booked a movie you can't book another movie that starts before your first movie ends, or if it meant you can't even go through the process of booking your second movie until after the first one ends. E.g., Imaging you were seeing one movie at 1:00, and it was 2 hours long (i.e., it ends at 3:00). And say you had two choices of a second movie you wanted to see--one that started at 2:55 and one that started at 3:15. I took it to mean that under no circumstances could you see the 2:55 movie. Even though I could decide to run out during the end credits and I didn't care if I missed the trailers before the second film, if I want to see the 2:55 movie I'd have to buy a ticket normally, I couldn't MoviePass it. But I could see the 3:15 movie, since it starts after the 1:00 movie ended. It's just a question of whether I could book it earlier or if I had to book it in the 15 minute window between when the first movie ended and the second one started. Now I understand that's not true, I can only see one movie per day with MoviePass. But I'll be damned if I could figure that out from your terms and conditions.

So to summarize, MoviePass, you're not ready for prime time so please get your shit together and try again. And I do mean try again, don't give up. I want* this service! If you get it together, implement it right, have the exhibitors on board, and it works smoothly I will be your biggest customer and I'll proselytize you to the ends of the earth (or as far as your service covers).

*As an alternative, the service I really want is a "day pass" to a theater. Something allowing you to see as many (not sold out) movies as you want in the same theater on a single day. Priced maybe slightly above 2 regular tickets, so it would only be worth your money if you saw at least three movies in one day. Plus it would give you the freedom to check out the first part of a movie you're not sure of, and possibly walk out and see something better if it's not grabbing you. I figure there would be hassles with reporting box office receipts to distributors, but I don't see that as insurmountable. And it could be implemented by any single enterprising, adventurous exhibitor.

Jason donates to charity

But that's nothing, my bro-in-law is biking from Bellingham, WA to Roswell, NM to raise money for juvenile diabetes research (that's research in curing diabetes in juveniles, not juvenile research in diabetes). Information here: http://jdrfevents.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.eventDetails&eventID=680&destination=E

Anyway, I told him I'd match whatever he raises by the end of January, up to fulfilling his goal of $1,000. I.e., everything up to $500 I match. Everything he raises above $500 means less I have to pay to meet the $1,000 goal.

As of this writing, he's at $432. So if you hate me and want me to suffer a little more, donate to raise that to exactly $500 and take more money from my pocket. If you love me and want to put money back in my pocket, donate even more!

Oh yeah, and also think about those sick kids. Maybe it's not all about me.

Jason explains the tides

I'm not really that interested in piling on Bill O'Reilly's patently absurd argument that the tides can't be explained and therefore are proof of God's existence (or for that matter, his apparently odd observation that tides requires communication. Is he claiming that the only way water can move around in a regular, predictable manner is if someone is communicating with the water? Or was his "no miscommunication" statement an attempt at poetic language?) I can refute it pretty quickly:

1. Yes, science can explain the tides*
2. Even if science can't explain something, that doesn't mean God exists. Nor does it mean the existence of God is a satisfactory explanation. It just means science hasn't finished explaining everything it can, which is a natural result of humans being imperfect, and therefore having an imperfect understanding of our world. In fact, giving all the imperfection of humanity on display on a daily basis, it's pretty remarkable that science explains as much as it does.

But what I really want to talk about is the response. For all the 'Ha ha! BillO doesn't know the Moon exists, derp!' and 'High school science students know how tides work, LOL!' I haven't seen anyone respond (not that I've searched all that hard) with a satisfying explanation of why there are two tidal cycles every day (if you doubt that, spend 24 hours at the seashore watching the tide come in, go out, come in, and go out...or just peruse any tide table). A facile explanation like 'the Moon exerts a gravitational pull on the Earth, raising the water levels while the Earth rotates underneath' would only explain one tide a day. You see...because the Moon is only on one side of the Earth at a time...because there's only one Moon orbiting the Earth. Anyway, the typical high school science student probably can't explain two tides a day, but a typically weak "explanation" looks like this:

I don't know the original source, I plucked this off a Fark.com thread which, in typical fashion, immediately devolved into childish name-calling.

The problem is this diagram does a horrible job of explaining the two-tides-a-day phenomenon. The picture on the top seems to suggest either that there are two Moons (or the Moon revolves around the Earth twice a day?) or that the Moon is responsible for one high tide and the Sun is responsible for the other. I've already dismissed the possibility that there are actually two Moons. The Moon revolves around the Earth every ~27.3 days, not twice a day. And if the Sun were responsible for the second high tide, it would be at noon (Sun directly overhead) every day. It isn't, the assertion that the Sun causes the second high tide every day is absurd (the alignment of the Earth, Moon, and Sun does determine how high and low the tides are every day, though. The Sun has a very much secondary effect).

The text is not much more helpful either. I quote:

Roughly every 12 hours, the oceans on each side of the globe rise a little and then fall back. These tides are caused by the varying gravitational pull between the spinning Earth and the Moon and the Sun.

What the hell? Did this just bring the "gravitational pull [of] the spinning Earth" into this? Okay, the rotation of the Earth has nothing to do with it's gravitational field. Or at least, the Earth would continue to exert a gravitational pull even if it wasn't spinning. The rotation of the Earth is important in the tides, as the Earth rotates under the two tidal bulges once every day, leading to the two high tides per day at a given point on the Earth. But this seems to suggest that either the spinning of the Earth creates its gravity, or that the spinning of the Earth is somehow responsible (e.g., through a centrifugal force**) for the second tidal bulge. The problem with this is obvious--the Earth rotates around its axis, and the centrifugal force is roughly equal no matter which side of the Earth you're on. There's certainly nothing about the spinning of the Earth around its axis that would preferentially increase the centrifugal force on the side opposite the Moon.

However, centrifugal force is part of the answer. For the full answer, I have to refer back to a deliberate and probably undetected error. I have referred to the Moon either orbiting or revolving around the Earth at least three times so far. However, that's not absolutely correct. The Moon doesn't orbit the Earth--in fact, the Earth and the Moon both orbit the common center-of-mass of the Earth-Moon system (this is the classic two-body problem.) That center of mass is actually inside the earth, about a quarter of the way from the surface to the center of the Earth, and on the side facing the Moon. The Earth and Moon orbit this common center once every lunar period (~27.3 days). So while the Earth is rotating about its axis every ~24 hours (ignoring the small difference between sidereal and solar time, which is unimportant in this explanation), it's also wobbling about this center-of-mass point every ~27.3 days. This orbit also imparts a centrifugal force on the surface, and since the distance from the center-of-mass to the surface of the Earth opposite the Moon is greater than the distance to the surface nearer the Moon, the centrifugal force is greater on that side. And this centrifugal force creates a second tidal bulge on the side of the Earth opposite the Moon. Ta daaaaaa!

For anyone still reading this, I want to assure you that I didn't have a political reason to write this. Nor do I have a philosophical motivation to wade into the Atheism vs. Religion debate (I know what side I'm on, and am not all that interested in arguing about it). Nor am I trying to prove I'm smarter than everyone else (I'm lucky that this was covered in my physics classes at college, and that it stuck in my brain). My only point is that if you're going to mock someone for not knowing how something works, you better make damn sure you know how it works, or you're going to look mighty foolish when someone else corrects you.

No...that's not it, either. That's part of it, but my real point is "Isn't it cool that something you thought was so simple is actually kind of complex in a way you haven't thought about before?" So I guess if your answer is "No" then my work here was for nothing. Sorry for wasting your time.

*Science can explain the tides on some level, although of course if you dig deeper there are more fundamental questions. You can explain the tides if you accept as given concepts of gravity and inertia (as well as the rather remarkable fact that gravitational and inertial mass are exactly the same), but if you get down to what causes gravity, mass, momentum, inertia...well, pretty quickly you get into some of the hardest cutting edge areas of both theoretical and experimental physics. This aspect of science--rewarding the curious mind by uncovering three new questions in response to every answer--is the very aspect of scientific inquiry that antagonists use to "stump" science and prove how little we really know (as if abandoning scientific inquiry with a shrug and a "God did it" somehow means you "know" more).

**For you high school science students and teachers who just freaked out that I referred to the centrifugal "force" (which isn't a real force, but a pseudo-force) when I should have instead referred to centripetal acceleration...get a life. When you live in an accelerated reference frame, "pseudo-forces" have real effects, and the math works out the same whether or not you refer to centrifugal forces.