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Monday, February 20, 2006

Does Michael Moore Realize What He Has Done? 

Via Salon.com's gossip and entertainment column The Fix:

Populist firebrand Michael Moore is at work on his next film, to be called 'Sicko,' about the U.S. healthcare industry. And now he's asking for your stories: 'Have you ever found yourself getting ready to file for bankruptcy because you can't pay your kid's hospital bill, and then you say to yourself, 'Boy, I sure would like to be in Michael Moore's health care movie!'?' If so, he'd like you to e-mail him at michael@michaelmoore.com, and promises, 'I will read every single one' of the e-mails sent. (MichaelMoore.com)
So let me get this straight. Michael Moore, man of his word, has promised -- PROMISED -- to read every email that is sent to him on this topic? I've long suspected he was a bit of an idiot, but I didn't realize I was being overly generous.

Let's do some math. According to Technorati, there are about 28.3 million blogs. Let's say that half of those bloggers either love Michael Moore or hate him, while the other half are just fronting for pharmaceutical spam. Still, that leaves 13.5 million blogs that might be interested in helping promote Michael Moore's desperate plea for email. That is ssuming of course that they were to find out about his published plea -- which seems likely to me given the magnitude of Mr. Moore's... fame, and how he attracts bloggers like flies.

Even if he could read emails at the rate of one per second with each eyeball, it would take him at least 82 days to clear his inbox -- and that's with both eyeballs operating independently. And assuming only blog writers respond, not blog readers. And of course no sleeping.

Or time to eat.

Hmmm. He might never get to that next movie. What is this guy thinking?

He probably publicized this because he really only wanted one or two emails. Hopefully for Michael's sake, and the sake of his next movie, nobody else will find out about his request.

Seriously, don't just gratuitously spam Michael Moore's inbox, just because he invited you to. He's clearly looking for emails only from people who have health care stories, no matter how rambling, and who are interested in interjecting themselves into his movie making endeavour.

I was just doing the math that he probably should have, especially if the health care crisis is as deep as he obviously thinks it is, with nightmare emails idling in millions of sickly people's draft folders, just waiting for his invitation.

I'm just trying to point out that this guy is an idiot for posting his email and begging to be mail-bombed, all the while promising to read each email. Do not spam him. Ok?

UPDATE: Yael made a good point in the comments, reminding me to separate my opinion of Michael Moore from the issue of Health Care reform, which it was not my point to ridicule. I don't have a particularly well-informed opinion on Health Care reform either way -- it's a pretty complicated subject in which good intentions can produce bad results -- so please interpret this post only as teasing Michael Moore for publicly handing out his email address, and being an idiot in general, not as a vehicle of policy analysis.

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