Every year someone starts moaning about the Academy Award voting procedures, saying they're unfair. This year it's the Wall Street Journal. They imagine a terrible alternate past in which Ishtar wins Best Picture.

Their basic argument is that because of the byzantine way the nominees for these most-prestigious-awards-in-the-world are decided (it basically works like the Iowa Caucus does), undeserving films can sneak in and steal the trophy. New systems have been proposed but, the Journal cautions, those could backfire as well. Well at least they could in a scenario where we 1) have a time machine and 2) everyone in the Academy is a complete simpering idiot:

Brace yourselves for "Ishtar" defeating "The Godfather." Suppose 49 voters award "The Godfather" six points and "Ishtar" only four. One voter grants the desert debacle four points and the mafia masterpiece three, and the remaining 49 award "The Godfather" three points and "Ishtar" only one point. "Ishtar" actually wins with a median score of four points compared to "The Godfather's" three points.

Brace yourselves! This is a very important debate to be having—these horrible flaws are why Rocky beat Taxi Driver and Network and the world was never a good place again!—because the Oscars keep movies from descending into complete muddles like, say, a pile of a million Ishtars. I mean that's the idea right?

We say, though, that if the current system is good enough for a few thousand white folks in the midwest to decide our presidential candidates with, then it's good enough for the motion picture industry.

Here's how it all works: