This is my response, showing just how badly the Thai authorities are overreacting to videos that poke fun at and deface their king.

My message to the Thai Government?

Try leaving the middle ages behind and join the twenty-first century!

Edit: A number of YouTube users have pointed out that I used the United Kingdom and Japanese Prime Ministers as opposed to the monarchs. This new video includes Queen Elizabeth II and Emperor Akihito to further prove my point.

Edit - 5/19/2007: The above videos will no longer work. I have deleted them due to the fact that many people have been sending very rude messages and even a few threats to me as a result. If you really want to see them, e-mail me and we can talk thai_video[AT]newsvc[dot]us

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s military-appointed government blocked access to on-line video-sharing Web site YouTube on Wednesday after its owner, Google Inc., declined to withdraw a video clip mocking the country’s revered monarch.

Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom told Reuters he had ordered a block of the entire site, www.youtube.com, from Thailand after the ministry’s attempts to get the offending page removed last week failed.

“Since Google has rejected our repeated requests to withdraw the clip, we can’t help blocking the entire site in Thailand,” said Sitthichai, a telecoms professor who said he had spent most of his academic life researching eavesdropping devices.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSBKK17066320070404

I really don’t know what to say at this point; first Turkey blocked YouTube over the videos making fun of Atatürk, and now Thailand is blocking the site over a 44 second clip making fun of it’s king. I guess both nations have decided that they do not support freedom, and I guess that’s fine - it’s there decision, but I heavily denounce both nations for it.

An image from the offending video.

I am aware of the fact that the Thai people have a great respect and reverence for there king, but at the same time, I find it hard to believe that they find it so offensive that they must block an entire site to prevent it’s viewing. The clip, which I’ve included at the end of this post, is nothing more than a childish attempt (and really very poorly executed) at drawing faces on the King and editing photos to make him look funny. I’ll be entirely honest, the clip made me chuckle, but at the stupidity and pointlessness more than anything.

Perhaps being an American and never really leaving the country (except for a vacation in Canada ), I’ve developed extremely warped views on Freedom of Expression. Whatever the cause, I find myself almost entirely incapable of comprehending why a nation would block a video like this, let alone an entire site for hosting it. What’s more, I find a law that allows people to be jailed for 15 years simply for disrespecting the royal family beyond insane - such a law is a sign of a totalitarian dictatorship that needs to be overthrown and replaced with a democracy. This may have been acceptable three or four hundred years ago, but in this day and age, such laws are objects of antiquity and unenlightened times.

I also need to applaud Google on their decision to maintain free speech of their users and not cave to the laws of a foreign nation. Hopefully this action will set a precedent and show the world that American companies aren’t going to give in to the demands of foreign dictatorships. One can only hope.

Edit: The video has since been removed.

As you all likely know by now, time has selected ‘You’ as it’s 2006 Person of the Year. By you they mean everyone who uses the internet. As the describe in the article:

This seems all well and good on the surface, especially with the way that blogs and the social media revolution have spread across the internet like wildfire and impacted our everyday lives in recent years. There are, however, some suspicious choices in Time’s profile of 15 influential web personalities.

As Michelle Malkin points out over at Hotair.com, the people profiled are not exactly representative of the entire internet community. Those profiled include a number of liberal bloggers and assorted MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube personalities. Noticeably missing are major conservative bloggers, including those who debunked the now infamous Reuters photos during the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Something seems a bit strange, doesn’t it?

I encourage you to head on over to Hotair.com to see Malkin’s full report on the controversy. And while you’re at it, think twice before basking in the glory of your Person of the Year award.

News:

Views:
The story broke on the Associated Press website less than 30 minutes ago. I?m really not sure how to look at this. Yes, it is big news and a major accomplishment for them, but I have no idea what the impact on the rest of the world will be.

I guess there are no longer any questions whatsoever as to the status of the North Korean nuclear program, provided this claim turns out to be true.

Common Sense:
If the tests truly did turn out to be successful, I?d hope our government takes a real look at this and takes whatever actions (hopefully sanctions and not military action) are needed to stop them.

Also, I would not want to be caught dead in South Korea (and China ? which seems to me a likely target after the less than stellar long-range rocket test back in July.

News:
By now, everyone knows of last week?s thwarted terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives on trans-Atlantic flights from Great Britain to the United States. Most people also recall the claims of Homeland Security officials that there is not feasible technology for detecting liquid explosives and that those which do exist are plagued with false alarms. Apparently these DHS officials were not aware of work going on elsewhere in our government. Read the rest of this entry »