Blog blockade

For once, that old windbag Thomas Friedman is right. The Indians really are smarter than us when it comes to technology.

The latest Indian government strategy toward blogs is pure genius. They've banned blogs. Yes, and they've used the corniest excuse of all: the threat of terrorism. This is how the New York Times is reporting it:

In an e-mail message sent early on Thursday, an official at the office of the Consulate General of India in New York said the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular Blogspot.com which plays host to thousands of personal blogs, had been prompted by the discovery of a site that contained what the official called “two impertinent pages” rife with material considered to be “extremely derogatory references to Islam.” In an effort to stave off potential sectarian violence, the official said, the government’s Department of Telecommunications instructed Internet service providers to block access to the two pages. “Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them, which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs,” the official explained.

It's brilliant, especially that bit about "impertinent pages." Those Indians know their stuff. Blocking blogs will make all Indians more productive. No more wasting time authoring or reading narcissistic crap. They've eliminated all that "impertinence." In one "technological error", they've pushed India into the 21st century. You watch now India soaring past us in GDP. It's the best thing that happened to the country since Independence.

If only Bush could read and knew how to operate a personal computer. Then he could go on the Internet and read all those "impertinent pages" about him and his idiot crew. That might encourage him to make a smart error for a change -- a real technological error.

Comments

[robert]

No not smart. Scared. And they are scared because you scared them on 15 Feb 2006 with your CBS article:
Web 2.0 Is Reminiscent Of Marx
WS: Second-Generation Internet Is Dangerously Seductive.

You scared me, so ergo, they too were frightened with all that talk of Orwell, 1984, Socrates, Mozart, Van Gogh, Hitchcock, Apple, Google, Craigslist,TiVo, iPod, Kafka and Web 2.0

However the clincher for bringing down blogging in India, the biggie blunder was to mention Bono.

Oh dear! That is surely more than any government can handle?!