Update (4/6/07): While I sympathize with the two commentators who were dismayed that they were unable to see the Thai king video, maybe if you had visited the site on the day the clip was posted, you would have gotten to see it. The site is called “Flumes-day,” not “Flumes-every few days.” For those of you who are wondering why the video is “no longer available,” there is an answer. The video and the account of “paddidda,” the user who posted the video, have mysteriously vanished from YouTube as of Thursday. Here is an article in Thursday’s Bangkok Post:

The offensive slideshow video of His Majesty the King that triggered the government ban on YouTube disappeared from the video-sharing website on Thursday afternoon, and the anonymous user who posted it was banned.
When trying to access the 44-second video on the King, a notice on YouTube said that, “This video has been removed by the user.”
Meanwhile, the video site said of the user who uploaded the video under an alias of “paddidda”: “This account is closed.”
The video could still be found in some YouTube searches, but could not be played. In less than five days, the video was played more than 66,000 times, almost all of them after the sensational publicity created by Information and Communication Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom and his order to ban YouTube inside Thailand.
It attracted at least 953 comments, almost all of them attacking the video, and most of them rude.
Presumably, full access to YouTube will be resumed, although most Thai users who wanted to see the video had seen it despite the occasionally effective “filtering” of the video site.

What’s with Google and censoring its international content? For a company whose slogan is “do no evil,” they sure do enable these governments around the world to censor the web. First, it was China with the censored search results on Google.cn and now they roll over when the Thai government doesn’t like a a few yuks at the king’s expense. Perhaps there is a new evil empire in the tech world.

Wednesday’s Post:
The Thai “government” has blocked access to YouTube in response to Google’s refusal to remove a clip mocking the country’s much loved monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Basically, the video is 44 seconds of pure ridicule– first it portrays the king as a clown, then with a beer bottle in his hand and then, the most offensive part: the king is shown with a pair of women’s feet above his head (gasp). Apparently, in Thailand, a pair of women’s feet is the lowest part of the human body, and for Thais, placing feet above the king’s head is like the equivalent of slapping a nun at the Vatican. Thailand’s communications minister told Reuters that YouTube had expressed to the Thai government that they didn’t find the clip offensive enough to remove it. And I must say, I’m with YouTube on this one. The clip is just foolish, not funny or offensive really, and not at all worth getting bent out of shape over. Luckily I live in China, where I am free to say what I want, when I want, where I want. About the Thai king anyway. Here’s the clip:

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