My sister and I went to see wall·e this afternoon.

After the extraordinary success of Ratatouille, I had high expectations for Pixar. Pixar has consistently offered excellent films with lovable characters, engaging stories, and exquisite imagery. When Disney bought out the studio, I was seriously worried that their independence and creativity would suffer — Disney’s in-house animation projects had been famously bad up to that point. Home on the Range and Brother Bear come immediately to mind. I was worried. Ratatouille started production before the acquisition. I believe wall·e is the first Pixar film produced fully under Disney ownership.

When I saw the early wall·e trailers, I became more worried. The trailers disclose a lonely robot cleaning up the mess humans left on Earth. I worried the story would be saturated with oh-so-fashionable environmentalism.

But none of it was to be.

Yes, the Earth is a mess. Yes, it was run by a mega-corporation called “Buy ‘n’ Large.” Yes, the characters spend much of the movie running around after a plant. Yes, the humans are fat and lazy. But it is not an environmentalist movie. It is not an anti-consumerism movie. It is not an anti-technology movie. And it is not an anti-man movie.

Once again, Pixar creates instantly lovable characters, tells an engaging story with a positive message, and does it all with incomparable skill and beauty.

wall·e is, so far as we know, the last surviving member of a swarm of robots built to clean up all the trash that had accumulated on Earth. The humans left for a nice, leisurely, 5-year cruise on a great luxury starship called Axiom (I can’t tell if this is significant — would anyone care to theorize?) while the wall·e robots (built by the ever-present “Buy ‘n’ Large” corporation) stayed behind to manage the trash.

Well it seems there was too much trash, or something happened, and 700 years later, wall·e is the only robot still working, and the trash is still there, and the humans haven’t come back.

In the meantime, wall·e has developed a personality. He has a home where he collects interesting stuff from the trash. He has resilient little cockroach for a friend. He has a favorite movie — Hello, Dolly! — and dreams of putting on his Sunday shoes and dancing with a beautiful woman. Robot. Whatever — it’s endearing.

The Earth is, so far as we are shown at the beginning of the film, anyway, barren of plant-life. The beginning is dominated by reds and yellows and grays, except for glimpses of what used to be a great civilization, where there are faded blues. But no green. No plants in evidence. Until while working one day, wall·e comes across an old refrigerator. He cuts it open and inside discovers a tiny plant, which he takes home to add to his collection.

One day, a ship arrives. A probe ship, which deposits a new robot on Earth - eve. She is a sleek, powerful, advanced machine sent to search the Earth for plant life, as a sign that mankind can finally return. She and wall·e develop a friendship, and wall·e gives eve his most prized possession — the tiny plant. This triggers eve’s primary directive and she shuts down and waits for her ship to take her back to the Axiom. A distressed wall·e tries to wake her, but eventually resigns himself to a merely protective role. When her ship comes, wall·e hitches a ride.

The residents of the Axiom have, over the 700 years they’ve been in space, grown into fat, sedentary, creatures with stubby little legs and unable to move about under their own power. They whiz about the ship on hovering recliners that keep them permanently ensconced in their own little overstimulated electronic bubbles. They never take the time to look around themselves. And the only one who appears to do any work (such as it is) is the practically redundant ship’s captain, who takes a back seat to the robotic autopilot, auto.

Something has gone wrong with mankind, but it isn’t commercialism or individualism or egoism. It’s laziness. Laziness as a result of having around a huge workforce of sustaining robots willing to work for free. Laziness due to complacency — a lack of a desire to advance. Laziness due to a lack of ambition. Laziness, it turns out, enforced by the upper echelon of robots, lead by auto, who are confused (much like hal-9000 was in 2001: A Space Odyssey) by a classified directive issued by a frustrated President in the early days of the cleanup effort.

wall·e and eve work together, without sacrifice, to return the ship to Earth. The useless captain, having learned of human life and culture on Earth from the ship’s computer, cries out, “I don’t want to survive, I want to live!” He lunges from his recliner and takes down auto, allowing the ship to return to Earth. The humans are excited to start building a new home for themselves. And as it turns out, the bleak, barren Earth from the beginning of the film is only a small corner. While the Earth is still a bit of a mess, it is not barren — it is teeming with plant life, ready and waiting to one again serve as a perfect environment for man.

The virtues are hard work, tenacity, and selfish love. The vices are complacency and thoughtless obedience. The universe is a benevolent place full of wonders and opportunity. And at the end, the guy gets to dance with the girl.

wall·e is a delightful film, and completely upholds Pixar’s excellent reputation.

PS: I do have to say that there was one sour note, however. The Peter Gabriel song, “Down to Earth,” trampled on the movie by treating it like the environmentalist paean some people will likely mistake it for. The song played during the closing credits over images of mankind, helped by the robots, rebuilding the Earth into a home. It was awful. You can look up the lyrics yourself if you want, but basically they made it seem like the humans were returning to be stewards for nature, rather than live on Earth. It was disgusting.

Update: Jennifer Snow has an excellent review over at Literatrix.

1. Explain my position on the death penalty (including my analysis of Kennedy v. Louisiana)
2. Post my analysis of District of Columbia v. Heller
3. Finish my critique of “gay culture”
4. Write a formal review of Gattaca (I can’t believe I haven’t done this yet!)
5. Write big memo for Job #1
6. Write big memo for Job #2
7. Update my resume (Why does this always take so much work?)
8. Apply for Federal judicial clerkship
9. Continue research on Sundae Specials
10. Start research on the impact of gay marriage on the spousal privileges
11. Finish uploading latest Rosebush Watch videos to YouTube!

Gak indeed. I’ll get to it all eventually.

The Court has released the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), on whether the District’s firearms regulations – which bar the possession of handguns and require shotguns and rifles to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock – violate the Second Amendment. The ruling below, which struck down the provisions in question, is affirmed.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.

Today’s opinion by Justice Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290) is now available here.

The breakdown of the dissenting Justices is a bit more nuanced than SCOTUSBlog reported. The syllabus states:

Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined.

I will be reading the lengthy opinions and give you more details later today.

One of the cases announced today, Kennedy v. Louisiana, asked the court whether it was constitutional, under the 8th Amendment, to put a man to death for raping a young child. Louisiana had a statute that provided for death as a penalty for raping a child under the age of 12. Mr. Kennedy did so, and was sentenced to die. In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), the Court held that capital punishment was disproportionate to the crime of rape of an adult woman. In the opinion in Kennedy, (written, incidentally, by Justice Kennedy) the Court categorically rules the death penalty disproportionate to any crime other than an crime against a person which was intended to cause, and did in fact cause, that person’s death. The Court found that Mr. Kennedy had not been found to have intended to kill his victim, and that the victim had not died, and that therefore application of the death penalty in Mr. Kennedy’s case was disproportionate to his crimes and barred by the 8th Amendment.

In another of the cases announced today, Exxon v. Baker, the Court was asked to review the proportionality of punitive damages awarded against Exxon in the aftermath of the Exxon-Valdez oil tanker accident. A jury had initially awarded nearly $5B (yes, that’s a ‘B’ for billion) punitive damages verdict. That amount was cut in half by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court overturned the punitive damages award altogether and remanded the case to the District Court with instructions that Federal Maritime Common Law (one of the very few areas where Federal Common Law still exists after Erie) prohibits the imposition of punitive damages in excess of the amount of compensatory damages awarded, meaning that the trial court could only impose punitive damages up to approximately $500M.

Probably the most widely anticipated decision of the term, District of Columbia v. Heller, was not announced today. But C.J. Roberts did announce that all remaining cases would be announced tomorrow at 10:00am. Heller is the 2nd Amendment challenge to the District’s handgun ban, where the Court is expected to expressly state whether the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right or a collective right.

I think anyone who reads my blog knows my stand on all three of these issues. But for the record: rape is a heinous offense for which death is warranted, but only under an objective statute defining the crime of rape in objective terms, which we do not have; I disapprove of civil punitive damages generally, on the grounds that punishment is the province of the criminal statutes, not of civil suits; and there is no such thing as a “collective right” for the 2nd Amendment to protect, there are only individual rights, and a statute that forbids the mere possession of a handgun violates them.

So, more tomorrow, after the last few decisions are announced.

That is all.

Before

After

The person was who everyone expected. Because the person is a minor, I am not posting the video of the act.

This person came onto the porch, pulled the petals off the existing blooms, threw them in the air, and danced and twirled in them as they fell to the ground.

Everybody’s got their knickers in a twist over the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Prop 22 (a popular initiative to enact a statutory ban on same-sex marriages) was unconstitutional under the California State Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The court declined to reconsider, and also declined to issue a stay of its order directing state officials to stop denying marriage licenses to otherwise eligible same-sex couples. Apparently, same-sex couples started getting married a few days ago.

My position on gay marriage is that equal protection does not, in this case, justify expanding the welfare state, because all (or very nearly all, more on that below) the legitimate features of marriage are already available to same-sex couples as a function of private contract.

Both sides of the gay marriage debate have been irked by one thing or another in this mess. Pro gay marriage activists were upset when, in 2007, the California legislature passed legislation (AB 43) to overturn Prop 22, but Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it, saying he wanted to wait for a court ruling. Turns out, this was the right thing for him to do, because Prop 22 could not be repealed by an act of the legislature. The California State Constitution provides that statutes enacted by popular initiative can only be repealed by another popular initiative. Neither the legislature nor the Governor had the power to enact AB 43, so Schwarzenegger was quite right to defer the question to the court.

Californians have another popular initiative set for the November ballot to enact a constitutional ban. (Prop 22 was a statute, not a constitutional provision.) This would override the California Supreme Court’s decision and allow state officials to refuse to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

In the meanwhile, California’s liberal welfare-state benefits will be greatly expanded. If I were one of those people who had nothing better to do, I’d find it quite interesting to calculate up the actual cost to the California taxpayers in additional state entitlements.

Of course, the California same-sex marriages conducted between now and November are still not the same thing as straight marriages.

Federal

Because, of course, the biggest marriage-related welfare benefits come from the Federal government, which has the DOMA, which bans Federal recognition of same-sex marriages. So just because you’re gay and married in California (or Massachusetts) doesn’t mean you get the same stuff straight couples do.

But in an interesting twist, the Bush Administration (specifically the Office of Legal Counsel, who represent the Executive in legal matters) has taken a legal position recognizing (sort of) a civil partnership performed in Vermont for some Social Security purposes.

In a recent opinion letter, the Office of Legal Counsel determines that a child of a same-sex partnership formed under Vermont law may receive the non-biological parent’s Social Security Child’s Insurance Benefits, even when the parent-child relationship between the non-biological parent and the child was created by the civil union, not by adoption.

See, Child’s Insurance Benefits are paid regardless of the marital status of the parent. They are granted based on the child’s ability to inherit under state law. Vermont allows children of same-sex unions to inherit from both the biological parent (if any) and the non-biological parent. Once state law creates that relationship, it becomes a legal relationship independent of the one between the parents. So the Federal government ends up recognizing the parent-child relationship created under Vermont’s civil union law.

What this means now is that a married gay person’s Social Security benefits can go to his spouse’s child, but not to his spouse.

Of course, Social Security should go away. It is forced wealth redistribution. But it sure is interesting how these things work.

One Last Thing

My opposition to legislation specifically authorizing gay marriage is based on the fact that it is unnecessary - all the legitimate features of marriage can already be accomplished through private contract, and the illegitimate features of marriage aren’t something I’m willing to tolerate in the name of equal protection. However, I’ve been thinking about it, and I may have found one legitimate feature of marriage that cannot be achieved except through state-sanctioned marriage: the spousal evidentiary privilege. That’s the rule that says that no one may be compelled to testify against his spouse in court. I hope to write more about this after I’ve learned a bit more about it.

The Court explicitly held that MCA § 7 (the jurisdiction-stripping amendment) was within Congress’ power to enact as a matter of Article III (but not within Congress’ power to enact as a matter of the Suspension Clause).

I’ve said all along that this question, which the Court calls “a threshold matter” was more significant in the long run and from a separation-of-powers standpoint than any ruling on the much more popular and eagerly reported habeas issue.

I haven’t read the whole 134-page opinion yet (or even just the section on the jurisdiction-stripping question), but when I do, I will happily give you my analysis. Whether you want it or not!

This time, existing blooms were ripped off. The perpetrator demonstrated an inordinate amount of glee. When I get a second to catch up with posting the daily videos to the YouTube, I will also upload photos of the damage. It is too dark right now to take any.