24 March 2007 @ 10:54AM >> In Canada, decisions about health care services are made by political appointees. So naturally, the provisioning of such services becomes politicized.

Few people know this more acutely than Janice Fraser. She needed a bladder operation but was told that, under Canada’s strictly regulated national health system, the hospital was only allowed to perform 12 such operations a year. At her position on the waiting list, she’d have to wait nearly three years. Janice wasn’t going to be able to wait that long; she was running the risk of wearing an external urine bag for the rest of her life.

So Janice hoped that she’d be able to make a personal appeal to Ontario’s Health Minister, a man named George Smitherman. Unfortunately for Janice, Smitherman didn’t have time to meet with her. He was too busy meeting with other constituents, including a man living as Susan Gapka. The time Gapka spent with the Health Minister helped convince him to support government coverage of sex change operations.

Two Women, a new short film by Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg (the executive producers of Indoctrinate U) shows how putting health care decision-making in the hands of politicians yields decisions that are politically motivated. Instead of serving individuals like Janice, politicians would rather pick up votes in blocks by catering to interest groups.

For Janice Fraser, who did not belong to a politically correct interest group, the results were tragic.

18 March 2007 >> I just got back home from taping Hannity’s America a little while ago. It airs tonight on Fox News.

Knowing the show airs tonight gave us a hard deadline for finally completing the Indoctrinate U website. So while a total lack of sleep over the last 3 days probably didn’t help my coherence with Sean Hannity (I don’t even really remember what I said, but hopefully it made sense), at least we were able to get everything working on the site, including the trailer and an innovative sign-up feature that gave me a chance to write some code for Google Maps. More on that later. For now, I’m going to start a belated St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

Update: Wouldn’t you know it, my cable is out. So I guess I won’t be taping it... Thanks, Time Warner!

27 January 2007 @ 5:38AM >> For some reason, most Manhattanites I know reflexively oppose Wal-Mart setting up shop in our slender island borough. However, there are at least three women here who don’t. And, as if by coincidence, they all managed to simultaneously occupy the same room.

16 January 2007 >> Britain’s Observer reports that “[a]n undercover investigation has revealed disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain’s leading mosques and Muslim institutions, including an organisation praised by the Prime Minister.”:

Secret video footage reveals Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a ’state within a state’. Many of the preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain’s leading Islamic institutions.

A forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers in some of Britain’s most moderate mosques are urging followers to reject British laws in favour of those of Islam. Leaders of the mosques have expressed concern at the preachers’ activities, saying they were unaware such views were being disseminated.

At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain and which Tony Blair has said ‘is extremely valued by the government for its multi-faith and multicultural activities’, a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: ‘The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.’

Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. ‘You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim],’ a preacher, Dr Ijaz Mian, tells a meeting held within the mosque. ‘We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.’

Britain’s Jihadists aren’t stupid. They know that the soft underbelly of the West is our blind support of multiculturalism. Assimilation is rejected in favor of each community maintaining its own separate oasis. And thanks to political correctness, anyone who questions the wisdom of this is immediately branded an insensitive bigot. So most Westerners, whose social behaviors have been molded by an educational system in which being labeled a racist is perhaps the worst human offense, keep quiet because the threat of Jihadists among them is not yet apparent. The question is, will the West wake up before it’s too late? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, the video taken from within the so-called moderate mosques is chilling. If this doesn’t serve as a wake-up call, I don’t know what will.

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Update: The entire Dispatches: Undercover Mosque program is now available on Google Video.

8 January 2007 >> Mine Your Own Business is a soon-to-be-released film documenting the detrimental effects that trendy environmentalists can have on underprivileged communities throughout the world. Not every society has yet been fortunate enough to reap the economic benefits of the industrial revolution, and some activists want to keep it that way, preferring to impose impoverishment on other cultures in the name of quaintness.

You can view the trailer for Mine Your Own Business on YouTube or read more about the film here.

The film debuts in New York on Friday, January 19th and in Washington, D.C. on January 24th. Both screenings start at 7PM. If you wish to attend either screening, you can sign up here.

Disclosure: Mine Your Own Business was created with the assistance of the Moving Picture Institute, which was also instrumental in enabling the completion of another soon-to-be-released film, Indoctrinate U.

6 December 2006 >> Filmmaking cohort Stuart Browning has posted a new short video over at the On The Fence Films. A Short Course in Brain Surgery looks at the plight of Canadians under their “single payer” health care system.

When things don’t work out so well under Canada’s government monopoly, you know what some Canadians do? They come here, to get treated in a matter of days for procedures that they wait months or years for just a few miles further north.

I have no doubt that the new Democratic majority will eventually try to bring Canada’s system here. Before they do, every American should see A Short Course in Brain Surgery and the earlier companion film, Dead Meat.

(Next on the plate for On The Fence Films: a trailer for Indoctrinate U. Finally!)

28 November 2006 >> How much longer must women endure the suffrage?

8 November 2006 @ 10:53AM >> “I need some help. I need some mental help is what I need.” Video >>

8 November 2006 >> Reporting for Pajamas Media: I bumped into actor Ron Silver at the victory party for Senator Joseph Lieberman.

7 November 2006 >> Reporting for Pajamas Media: Earlier this afternoon, Andrew Marcus and I visited a polling place in Hartford, CT and met a few Lamont campaigners.

25 October 2006 @ 9:13AM >> David Zucker, the writer and director of Airplane! and a number of other comedies, has recently been releasing humorous political ads online. Political involvement among Hollywood insiders is nothing new, but what makes Zucker’s recent work a man-bites-dog story is that he’s been doing ads for those evil Republicans, something which is sure to make him an anathema in his industry.

One of his recent ads, a send-up of the Clinton Administration’s foreign policy—complete with a Madeleine Albright stand-in who looks a little too accurate to be flattering—was deemed too hot for establishment Republicans, who declined to air it. No matter; these days, you can reach audiences online without expensive media buys.

Zucker’s latest piece looks at what life might be like if Democrats captured Congress and dictated the nation’s tax policy.

Has David Zucker stumbled onto a new model in political advertising? I think so.

25 October 2006 @ 8:15AM >> Imagine The View (but with younger women) combined with The Daily Show (but with a more right-of-center sensibility), and the result might look something like The America Show.

27 September 2006 >> In the wake of the controversy that erupted over the Pope’s citation of a centuries-old quote, one thing that seems absent from all the reporting is the historical context of the quote. This short video from the folks at The People’s Cube fills in some of the blanks.

5 September 2006 >> On a remarkably clear morning five years ago, New York City came under attack. This video memorial, taken from footage shot by eyewitness David Vogler, shows New Yorkers waking up to that grim reality. Crystal Morning tells the story of September 11th, 2001 through fire and ambulance radio calls, the 911 call of a trapped World Trade Center worker, and the lens of local resident who saw an explosion while walking to work. Video >>

4 May 2006 >> Stuart Browning, one of my business partners in On The Fence Films, stopped by the May Day protest in San Francisco to gather some footage. He also noticed signs and banners from the various extremist groups that backed the protest, and wonders why the establishment media is glossing over the radical nature of the organizers.

El Uno de Mayo, his two-city report (which incorporates some of my footage from New York), is now available for free online viewing.

4 May 2006 >> Earlier today, Power Line posted an in-depth video report of the May Day protests held around the country this past Monday. The effort was coordinated by documentary filmmaker Andrew Marcus, who edited and narrated the report

I shot some of the New York City footage, and contributed a few comments to the report via phone interview. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to dedicate enough time to creating a short video for Brain Terminal, but with the work on Indoctrinate U winding down this summer, I hope to be able to post some new videos of my own in the not-too-distant future.

2 May 2006 @ 4:07PM >> Stuart Browning, one of my partners in On The Fence Films, took his video camera to the May Day protest in San Francisco yesterday. For now, he’s got a series of stills from the rally; in a few days, he’ll be posting a video covering multiple cities.

Also, documentarian Andrew Marcus leads a multi-city team in covering the protests in conjunction with PowerLine and Pajamas Media. He’s got a few scenes from the protests, and will also be following up with more footage later this week.

3 April 2006 >> The website Power Line, which achieved international fame for its role in the downfall of Dan Rather, has launched an online video news service.

In addition to providing video reports from established news sources, Power Line News Video is also soliciting contributions from independent videographers wishing to find distribution for their own work. Power Line, as one of the most-visited sites in the blog world, would undoubtedly provide an impressive platform for video reporters seeking a sizable audience.

24 February 2006 @ 1:51PM >> Here’s a funny and endearing 15-minute video that has nothing to do with politics but is not at all politically correct: Yellow Fever. Enjoy!

2 February 2006 @ 10:39AM >> Some protesters in Chicago’s Daley Plaza seem to think so. Documentarian Andrew Marcus has the video.

The patriots protesting are still calling for revolution, it seems. Wake me up when it starts.

2 January 2006 >> A rap video spoof by a pair of Saturday Night Live veterans has become something of an Internet hit.

I can see why. It’s funny and different.

And it makes you wonder about the future of broadcast. Tivo and other DVRs give SNL an opportunity to be seen by people who are otherwise not in front of their TVs on a Saturday night, but the Internet got this video in front of people who aren’t in the habit of recording the show in the first place. That’s the way you build an audience.

It’s just another example of the increasingly blurred line between online and broadcast video. Can full-catalog video-on-demand via the Internet be far behind?

17 November 2005 >> The iTunes Music Store now features the video podcast for Brain Terminal. That means you can now access all the videos on this site without having to enter the podcast URL. If you have iTunes installed, this link will take you directly to the video podcast page. From there, you can download individual Brain Terminal videos for playback within iTunes or on your iPod. You can also find the podcast from within the iTunes Music Store by searching for “Evan Coyne Maloney.”

Once you find the video podcast page, you can click Subscribe to receive all future updates, or you can download individual videos by clicking Get Episode.

Assuming you have your iPod set to automatically copy all podcasts, the next time you sync your iPod, the videos that you’ve downloaded from the podcast will be copied to your iPod. Videos will appear in your iPod’s Video > Video Podcasts menu.

11 November 2005 @ 2:53PM >> Now you can watch all the Brain Terminal videos on your iPod! More >>

30 September 2005 >> Yesterday, for the first time, I watched an entire TV show online—and I wasn’t breaking the law!

Google Video, a new beta-test site from the search engine company, made available the premiere episode of Chris Rock’s new sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris.”

Not only was the show pretty damn funny—it has now earned a coveted spot on my TiVo—but the picture and sound quality were impressive. There was no skipping or stalling, the video window was large enough to make for enjoyable viewing, and the quality of the motion and resolution was impressive.

Hopefully, this isn’t just a one-time publicity stunt; I’d love to watch more shows this way. Of course, since the online episode was free and it contained no ads, I’m not expecting this service to be a permanent fixture without some sort of modification to the business model.

Now if only Google Video would add “The Office”...

15 September 2005 >> Pallywood is a short documentary, available online, that shows how freelance Palestinian cameramen are funneling staged “war footage” through major media outlets into homes throughout the world. Naturally, these staged shots are engineered for the highest emotional propaganda value, intended to get the viewer to sympathize with the Palestinian cause.

SecondDraft.org exposes how broadcast media are duped—perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not—into becoming unpaid assistants of the Palestinian media effort.

Update: This article in Commentary magazine, sent in by reader Bill Walsh, indicates that what you see in Pallywood is just the tip of the iceberg.

30 August 2005 @ 11:06AM >> Documentary filmmaker Andrew Marcus recently told me he’d be traveling to Crawford, Texas to cover the protesters and anti-protesters. That was a few days ago, and he has now posted some pictures and video from his visit.

18 July 2005 @ 3:08PM >> Until recently, the official seal of Los Angeles County bore three very small cross emblems recalling the county’s heritage and founding. A lawsuit by the ACLU ended that, and the religious symbols have since been scrubbed from the seal.

The Constitution’s establishment clause forms the legal basis of the ACLU’s argument:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

To me, it seems pretty extreme to argue that the presence of a religious symbol on a county seal is tantamount to the establishment of an official religion. If you’ve seen a supermarket tabloid in the last fifty years, you’d know that Los Angeles County isn’t exactly being run by fundamentalist Christians.

Nevertheless, enough judges agree with the ACLU that, bit by bit, different facets of our country’s history are being etched out if they contain any hint of the religious backgrounds of our founders. That’s as much a crime against history as pretending that Martin Luther King wasn’t black.

The controversy surrounding the Los Angeles County seal gave an opportunity for Anna of Liberty Belles to perform her own video investigation, complete with a guest appearance of Dennis Prager.

22 February 2005 @ 5:58PM >> Maybe you’ve heard about these billboards that will taunt Hollywood’s glitterati as they shuffle into the Oscars for their annual festival of self-congratulation.

Well, Anna of Liberty Belles decided to go out and ask some Hollywood residents what they thought of the signs. The resulting video, called Boomerang, shows that most people were a little confused. But one thing’s clear: Anna’s great on camera. I’m betting this won’t be her last video.

16 February 2005 >> Maybe I am overly sentimental, but I just watched a collection of political TV commercials from Iraq, and I found the whole experience to be very moving.

31 January 2005 @ 9:23PM >> Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution is now available on the Brain Terminal DVD.

Also included on the new DVD are three bonus tracks not available on the website.