Peter’s Blog

BBC NEWS | UK | UK troops in huge turbine mission

Two thousand British troops in southern Afghanistan have successfully transported a huge hydroelectric power turbine through Taleban territory.

In one of their biggest operations in Helmand, a convoy of 100 vehicles took five days to move the massive sections of the turbine 180km (112 miles).

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British forces were helped by 2,000 Nato and Afghan troops.

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The convoy travelled the length of the Helmand river valley - through areas insurgents have controlled for more than two years - carrying seven 20-30 tonne sections.

Oh, and did you see the BBC reporter there in his baby blue polo shirt? An American reporter would probably be wearing 2 flak jackets and a helmet…

A.O. Scott likes Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

But they’re not stupid, and to the extent that the movie is, its idiocy serves the cause of good sense and intelligence. And no, I’m not smoking anything.

Apple sizes up Europe’s movie-rental market - International Herald Tribune:

After introducing a new online film rental service for American consumers last week, Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, said he was “dying” to expand the program to international markets, adding that this would happen later this year.

Such an extreme sacrifice will probably not be necessary; but in trying to establish European versions of the iTunes movie rental service, which allows users to rent films over the Internet and stream them to their computers or televisions, Jobs at times might feel as though he were banging his head against a brick wall.

Apple will have to confront legal and regulatory hurdles, copyright challenges, scheduling conflicts and technological issues that demonstrate that the European media landscape remains a patchwork of several dozen individual countries - not the single “internal market” that the European Commission envisions.

It might be a funny question to ask, but will Apple (and Commission push-back) be the one responsible for creating a true single market in media in the EU?

The New York Times has a nice photoshoot mixing together many of the actors and actresses and characters from many films by the Cohen brothers.

I just watched this spontaneous discussion about fair use with Brian de Palma’s latest film and was struck by one man’s comment that fair users laws are bad and this is something that will hopefully be eventually fixed in the courts. What happened to Congress passing laws and fixing bad situations? There seems to be a common assumption in significant parts of the (left-liberal) population that the courts are the ones that will give us rights while Congress will just take them away. The sad part is, this is often how things are playing out. Just look at the Democrats craven surrender on domestic wire-tapping the other day with the House’s bill authorizing NSA wiretapping. Can you name a major development in American politics since the New Deal that was not really founded in court rulings? The Clean Air Act is the only thing that comes to mind. Can you think of any?

I just saw SiCKO and was quite impressed by it. Moore has been criticized for his stunts in the film, especially the Cuba trip, and for painting an overly-rosy view of other countries, but I don’t think he’s really off the mark. Having lived now in four countries with universal health care (UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, for those keeping track), I do agree that universal health care systems are better than the American system. Why I don’t have much experience with these other countries (having been pretty healthy), I can saw that my experiences with the French and British systems were very good. It was very cool being given an NHS number when I was living the London just because I was living there legally for over six months. No fuss, no muss.

Ironically, one of the difficulties our family had in moving to France was showing we had health insurance in order to get our visas. We were required to show health insurance covering our entire stay. Like most Americans, our health insurance was from my father’s employer. Thus, the insurer was unwilling to certify that the insurance was valid for our entire stay. In the end my father’s boss had to write a letter promising that my father would be employed for the entire period and thus ensuring health insurance!

To be honest, what disappointed me about the film was the befuddled everyman perspective Moore takes: “But I thought Americans took care of each other.” I kept wanting to yell, “Of course we don’t! We’re heartless assholes that would rather destroy ourselves than do anything remotely socialistic!” I’ll give him that appealing to people’s better instincts is probably more effective in changing things than berating them for their narrow-minded and selfish attitudes. Being one more prone to calm dialog than arguments and accusations (which is why I don’t support Greenpeace, but that’s another story…), it perhaps ironic for me to say it, but in this case I subscribe to the Henry Rollins school of rage for civic good (watch the entire video, it’s very moving). Sure Moore takes some pot-shots at HMOs, but he really doesn’t indite American society the way I would have liked. In that sense I would consider Bowling for Columbine a more critical film.

You know there’s something sick in American society when not one but two movies are released about vigilantes tracking down and killing the people that hurt them.

I really enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum last night. Looking at Rotten Tomatoes I see that it has a collective score of 94%, so I’m not the only one. However, most reviewers seem to have missed perhaps one of the most interesting things with the film (the Onion AV Club being an exception): in this movie the CIA kidnaps people in broad daylight in London and assassinates American citzens and a British journalist. Such cynicism and paranoia about the government should be particularly noteworthy and have everyone talking. Except no one is (the NY Time’s good review focuses on the film’s emotional landscape), because the CIA has done all the things the CIA does in this movie, from kidnapping people in Italy to holding American citizens without trial to unethical psychological experiments. To my knowledge the CIA hasn’t deliberately killed American citizens in the last few decades, but I’m sure that’s just because we don’t know about it.

So why the silence? Why are not viewers outraged at this movie CIA? I don’t think people are blind, but rather, they are all too aware of that the details of what they are seeing is fiction but the fundamental reality is not. In the last seven years people have become inured to all these horrible actions, accepting the soothing lies that seek to defend them and afraid to stand up for principles. The movie ends on a high note that I’m sure we’ll never see in real life, with a senior official blowing the wistle and the high level officers responsible (including the head of the CIA) carted off to jail. What does it say about our country when there’s more justice in the movies?

Did you know that John Malkovich (yes, the John Malkovich), has his own mensware label, Uncle Kimono?

I just saw Children of Men last night with my friend Nicole and the movie is really something. It’s quite bleak but at the same time it moves very quickly and I never found myself wondering when it will end (unlike The Good Sheppard). I thought everyone gave terrific performances and the cinematography is top-notch (All Things Considered has a great interview with director Alfonso Cuaron about a fantastic six minute un-cut shot). The film juts hits you really hard–Nicole and I just sat there for minutes after the movie ended just digesting it.