November 25, 2005

Kazakhstan versus Borat.

Has there ever been a funnier idea for a lawsuit than Kazakhstan suing Sacha Baron Cohen for playing the character Borat?
Responding in character as Borat, Cohen, who is Jewish, said: ``I like to state, I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government's position to sue this Jew.''

``Since 2003 ... Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world,'' he said on his website, www.borat.kz.

``Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.''
I love Borat's website. Very retro-web.

Are you nostalgic for old-fashioned web design? Or is it still so horrible that it isn't funny yet? You know the day will come when big corporations will tap this look to create that rebellious, indie feel that's so sought after.

UPDATE, December 14, 2005: Kazakhstan asserts its power over the "kz":
Yesterday, the government-appointed organization that regulates Web sites ending in the .kz domain name for Kazakhstan confirmed that Mr. Cohen's site had been suspended. Nurlan Isin, president of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies, said: "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name. He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."

8 comments:

Simon said...

I'm nostalgic for the days when a painfully high percentage of websites didn't use flash at all, or at least, had the common decency to use it only for the stuff that actually required flash. I fear that most modern web design has become increasingly dominated by people who think of themselves as artists and a website as their canvas.

. . . That having been said, Borat's site isn't much better. ;)

Meade said...

"this is me and
my old wifes
in a car"

Bookmarked! Thanks, Ann.

Anonymous said...

Borat's a funny guy, but he stole his website from the original I Kiss You!

Anonymous said...

And do you have any doubt that if it weren't for www.borat.KZ, that the UN would not be engaged in what Drudge and other wackos perceive as a UN powergrab for countries to own their own domains?

Unknown said...

Can you imagine voir dire?

"Juror No. 7, do you think this joke is funny....?"

Bruce Hayden said...

Isn't Sacha the brother of Simon, the author of "The Essential Difference" that we discussed here a couple of months ago?

Buck said...

OMG! TOO funny! I especially loved the "pleese to send me your elektronik maling adress and I wil rite :-))"

Thank you, Ann!

Buck said...

quxxo: ...the UN would not be engaged in what Drudge and other wackos perceive as a UN powergrab...

Drudge, and the other "wackos," including the WSJ, among others, are absolutely correct. It IS a power grab. Can you even imagine the 'net being managed by the same folks who brought you Oil-For-Food, driven by the likes of the Chinese, the Cubans, and the Iranians?

ICANN ain't broke. Don't "fix" it!