Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Oh man, this really makes my day: Michael Moore's newest documentary "SiCKO" ("If people ask, we tell them SiCKO is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth.") got 'pirated' and is now out on the web via newsgroups and several torrent sites like The Pirate Bay before it will be released in the US on June 29th. So what's good about that? you might ask.
Well, the US government has been trying to come down on Moore and his producer the Weinstein Company and is attempting to impound the negative. If the film were impounded, there might be attempts to cut some footage, in particular the last 20 minutes, which related to a trip to Cuba. Moore travelled to the Caribbean island in March with a group of emergency workers from New York's Ground Zero to see whether they would receive better care under the Castro regime than they had under George Bush. He had applied for permission to travel in October 2006 and received no reply. In a letter dated May 2, the treasury department notified Moore that it was investigating him for unlicensed travel to Cuba, or, as the missive put it, engaging in "travel-related transactions involving Cuba."

On May 19th SiCKO already featured at the Cannes Film Festival; and producer Harvey Weinstein told the press about the situation with the US Treasury department:

"We had to fly the movie to another country. Let the secret service find that out - though this is the same country that thought there were weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq - edit), so they'll never find it."

Moore's underlying thesis in Sicko relates to the structure of American society. "It's important to have a safety net and free universal health care. In America, unfortunately, we're more focused on what's in it for me. It's every man for himself. If you're sick and have lost a job, it's not my problem. Don't bother me." The insurance companies are a negative force, he believes. "They get in the way of taking care of those who are ill. They make it worse. We don't need them," he said.

As usual Moore's documentary has some examples that blow your mind:

After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility - which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is "socialised medicine" - they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Off course piracy normally hurts studio's and in particular small, independent movie makers - like Michael Moore. But in this case I think it is a good thing that this happened before some three-letter agency impounds the movie. It's out there and there is nothing Bush can do about it.

Seriously: Michael you're my hero!

Michael Moore on David Letterman


P.s.: do visit Michael Moore's official Website as well!

Usually I have not that much sympathy for big companies that try to impose restrictions onto their customers/consumers. Especially not when they try to do so by using methods that are completely unethical. Like for example Sony who used a rootkit to impose copy protection in their CD's. But what I do not like is the kind of "company-bashing" that is now been done by a blogger from Engadget. Some editor called Ryan Block (no doubt he must be a single white caucasian asshole American nerd guy) is trying to make the international readers believe that "Sony is under fire for racist advertising" in Holland. Apparantly Sony is advertising for the fact that their is a new ceramic white PSP (Playstation Portable for the non-gamers) coming out. So they put a huge poster in Amsterdam of a fierce looking white woman grabbing a black woman's face. Wether the ad is tasteful or not remains debatable, but what is completely stupid is trying to make this into something it isn't; something racist.

Of course when you have a really guilty consience like, let's say the Americans have with their nice history of genocide (Native Americans) and slavery and racial segregation - then you might have some associations like 'white person - master, black person - slave' making this ad incredibly politically uncorrect. For us Dutch who see this add, these associations dont come at all, or maybe after long consideration. So for Dutch people this is just what it seems - an ad with a white person grabbing a black person. And - mind you - there are also images where the roles are reversed and the black woman is grabbing the white female.

After all: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So people who see some kind of racial thing in this ad are just projecting their own guilty consience and/or thoughts onto others. As I read in one of the comments on a forum regarding this hype:

As an ethnic minority in the Netherlands, I do not have a problem with this whatsoever.
I can imagine the uptight Americans having a problem with everything, so this one as well.
I watched the ads in amsterdam, and I did not see any riots in front of them, nor were people trying to damage it or tear it down.
I think the dutch people are somewhat sensible enough to see through such an ad.

Hear, hear, and shame on Engadget for trying to blow this out of proportions!

(see also: Ad Critic and Help I'm a Female Engineer)

Can SOMEONE please explain to me what the hell is going on here in Holland with all the damn political bullshit that's going on around Ayaan Hirsi Ali? After all the political debate about her (potentially) loosing her Dutch citizenship, because she lied about her name and montivation when asking asylum in The Netherlands, everything is taking a new twist. Minister Verdonk survided all the debates so far. Parliment forced her to find a way to let Ali keep her passport and so she did. According to Somalia law you can choose what last name (family name) you want to use: this can be your mother's maiden name, fathers name and even your grandparents name. Well, in this case Hirsi choose the name Ali (her grandfathers last name). So now Verdonk says Hirsi Ali didn't acquire her passport illegally, because she did not lie about her last name.

Ok, now. Just contemplate this: it means Hirsi Ali lied about lying about her name? Uhm? Are you following this? So, in other words: nothing was wrong and all the political hoopla was for nothing? I do not understand (Dutch) politics anymore I guess.

The whole situation is too ridiculous for words. It was just a big stunt by Verdonk to get more publicity in her battle against Mark Rutte for the leadership of her political party, the VVD, which she lost anyway! Futhermore, as it turns out Verdonk put some considerable pressure on Ali to sign a statement in which Ali takes more or less responsibility for the whole affair, just to cover her ass (the fact Ali signed this statement even though she always claims to be so principled is another story). Also, this ruling by Verdonk might set a precendent: other asylum seekers that 'lied' about their names might have been expelled even though they should not have. All in all it has just turned into a political scandal - or farce if you like - of the biggest magnitude.

Trying to explain this affair to a foreigner is just about impossible, just like it is impossible to explain to a tourist what the mechanism is behind our so called 'strippenkaarten' we use with our public transport.

Later today Verdonk will have explain all this before parliment. I pray she gets booted out the governement this time.

Say someone comes to your country to ask for political asylum. In order to get it there a few criteria provided by law that you need to meet. These criteria are pretty straightforward and leave no room for discussion. Among them: your real name, real date of birth, the country you come from is on a list of countries that are known to violate human rights and you should apply for political asylum in the first country in which you arrived when you fled your own country. These are the rules and they are pretty simple, right? So on the premises of the information you give you are recognized as an asylum seeker and after a while you apply for citizenship, get a job and even become an outspoken politician and highly public figure.

Then, you admit - in public, on TV and in magazines - that you lied about your real name, age, and the fact that this was not the first country you came too and that in fact you didn't even came from a country that was on any list as being dangerous. All in all very big lies.

Under normal circumstances this would have been political suicide and your citizenship would have been revoked and you would have been put on the first plain out of the country since you came here under false pretences. The law applies to you just as it does to all others. Right?

Well, no. Not in the case of (Ex-)Dutch (ex-)politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali - or as her real name is: Ayaan Hirsi Magan. Controversial from the second she entered the Dutch political area, now her role in Dutch politics is over.
Continue reading ""Ayaan Hirsi ... »

The last few years I have turned into an Apple fan. Not that I have bought any Apple gear (I simply think they are way overpriced), but I do use their products (Powerbook G4) and I do like(d) the way they conduct business and how innovative they are when it comes to marketing their products. So when I read about the darker sides of Apple's business ethics I was actualy a bit upset. ZDnet reports about this case where Apple is sueing the proprietor of an online Blog for exposing 'trade secrets'. Blog owner Jason D. O'Grady posted a series of stories in October 2004 about an upcoming Apple product in development: a FireWire breakout box for GarageBand, code-named "Asteroid." Apparantly this struck a nerve at Apple and they decided to sue the messenger and demand he reveals his sources as well. Now here is the bottomline: Apple feels that independent online journalists are not protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that a journalists confidential communications and sources should be exposed to them. Lucky for O'Grady, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) stepped in and has been defending him pro bono, arguing that the anonymity of his sources are protected by the same laws that protect sources who leak information to journalists.

However, A Santa Clara County judge decided that journalists and their sources lose constitutional protection when they publish information that a business classifies as a "trade secret." Off course the EFF filed a petition to have that decision overturned. This petition will be heard on April 20, 2006 by the California Court of Appeal. The purpose of the hearing is, that a judge can decide whether the Santa Clara County court made a mistake when it refused to protect O'Grady's rights under the First Amendment.

Now, the reason that I am blogging about this is, that we have various discussions here in Holland as well about the (legal) status of bloggers. The question boils down to this: are bloggers journalists? If so, are they protected in the same way journalists are? And if not, what is their legal status then? An interesting discussion - especially since I happen to have a degree in journalism myself. Continue reading "Apple vs freedom of blogging" »