Today we witness a new kind of totalitarianism. This time implemented by men unknown in the corporate offices of the American corporations Google and Apple. Behind closed doors executives of these two corporations have decided that American moral standards must be imposed all over the globe. Rarely, if ever, have we witnessed more self-righteous and cultural imperialist corporate decisions than these.

Apple has decided to block what it considers “objectionable content” from being shown on iPhone. And “objectionable content” here refers to nudity. Completely ignoring the fact that moral standards differ considerably from country to country in the world, it is, of course, American moral standards that are the ones being implemented – standards which most Europeans consider completely silly. No nude legs, breasts, bodies, or – heaven forbid – female nipples can be shown on an iPhone. Despite the fact that European newspapers and magazines – Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, French, and so on and so forth – bring such photos all the time and nobody raises even an eyebrow.

And Google has actually done the same thing for a long time without being explicit about it. If you look at some of the posts in this blog that contains beautiful pictures of women – perhaps even showing their nipples – you will notice that the content of the Google ads disappear (as a matter of fact, all images shown on this site have also been published in European newspapers and magazines). It is the same on millions of websites all over the world. And what defines what is appropriate and what is not? The views predominant in the country where the website is located? The views common in the country of the person looking at the blog or magazine article? No! You guessed it! The American puritan moral standards!

I don’t know why corporations feel they ought to use technology this way. And I certainly don’t know how to stop it. I do know that I am appalled by it. And I hope the EU or some international organization will put an end to corporate censorship and cultural imperialism. We don’t need it. We don’t want it.

PS: See also:

• The excellent article about this in New York Times: In Germany, a Nude IS No Big Deal, Except on an iPhone, in today’s paper, page B4.
• Gizmodo.com: It is time to declare war against Apple’s censorship
• Apple discussion forum about “Is censorship really needed” – which has strangely been closed for comments
• Cult of Mac: Apple censorship reaches new levels of stupidity
• Seth Finkelstein: Google Censorship – how it works
• See the censored version of “Nudity in Art” at YouTube

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To me this sounds pretty bad. It raises a lot of questions, even if – as is the case with Denmark – everybody are provided for economically. To me, participation in the labor market is an important thing – that 50% is outside the labor market does not sound so good.

Also – how fair is this? How does it feel for the half that provides the goods? Not my kind of welfare state!

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The two curling players below certainly are beautiful. They are from a calendar full of similar curling players. Female, that is. And good looking!

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“We believe this is a result of environmental factors – hormone disrupting substances that have a strength to develop breasts despite the fact that the girls do not enter puberty. These substances are everywhere – in cosmetics, foodstuffs, paint – everywhere,” says Sr. Lise Aksglæde one of the authors of the report, naming parabenes and phthalates as two of the substances under suspicion.

More than 2,000 Copenhagen girls between five and a half and 20 years of age have taken part in the puberty survey. Half were surveyed in 1992 and 1993 and the rest between 2006 and 2008. Results have been published in the American scientific journal Pediatrics.

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Starring in this movie are Antti Reini and Göran Forsmark. It is directed by Leif Lindblom. It received rave reviews in Scandinavia.

• Actors: Antti Reini, Göran Forsmark, Henrik Gustafsson, Izabella Scorupco, Jakob Eklund and Leif Lindblom
• Format: Import, PAL, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Subtitles: English, Swedish, Danish
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 1
• Run Time: 100 minutes

This movie it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD players. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: Swedish with Danish, English, Finnish and Norwegian subtitles.ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Alternative Footage, Deleted Scenes, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s).

SYNOPSIS: On the floor of a church in northern Sweden, the body of a man lies mutilated and defiled – and in the night sky, the aurora borealis dances as the snow begins to fall.

Links: Sunstorm at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon DE.

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As it turned out, the young lady was sitting in the man’s lap, and they were in the middle of an intercourse. The man lost his driver’s license, while the young lady kept hers and was allowed to drive the car home after the little incident!

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The results show clearly that foreign-born graduates of Swedish universities have less chance of finding a job that equates to their qualifications than their Sweden-born counterparts. Those that do find work, are often over qualified and have to work harder to find it.

The study was performed by integration researcher Lena Schröder based on Statistics Sweden (SCB) data compiled on all those graduating from a Swedish university in 2003 and their employment situation in 2006. The Local writes:

The report does however show that education pays, for all. But a Swedish university education pays less for those born in eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and especially for those arriving in Sweden after age of seven (when primary education begins).

These findings raise questions about the Scandinavian welfare states’ integration policies. In the US, companies are forced to monitor their hiring and promotion decisions closely in order to avoid very costly law suits. So to a large extent, non-discriminatory policies are enforced by the legal system. In Scandinavia much softer methods have been used to promote integration, relying to a large extent on labor unions and voluntary compliance.

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Car sales are generally a good indicator of whether people are hanging on to their money; In the fourth quarter of 2008 car sales dropped no less than 23.8 percent. Other goods dropped 1.1 percent.
The new figures come the day after new unemployment figures showed an increase for the fourth month in a row. January jobless figures showed an increase of 5,000 with unemployment now at 2.3 percent.

The Danish GDP for the year 2008 as a whole is negative. And, as yet, there a few signs that the drop in the Danish economy is declining.

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And now the Swedes have almost finished the first movie based on these fabulous books! Here is a teaser from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

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The 23-year-old world class skater is extremely professional, and kept smiling, but with the next move, which required her partner to hold her hand above her head, the inevitable happened. And here is the result:

PS: You can see more beautiful pictures of world class athletes in this article from Bild!

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