wth...

about a month ago, i found that i couldnt open my own blogger page after i edited or updated my posts... i always thought it was because "connection timed out" due to the slow network here in PKU... but unfortunately that's not the case...

yesterday lawrence told me that he couldnt open xanga pages or blogger pages because the china education authorities decided to block all blog pages cuz they serve as a platform for students to discuss or express their political views or opinions on the current society... i really DONT understand it...

they let us access the posting pages, meaning we can register accounts and post updates and say whatever we want, but we cant check back on what we wrote or what others commented on our blogs?! i think that's really lame cuz there are subscription email services provided by those blogging sites so we can read what others wrote anyways... and why would u block people's blogs only and not block them from updating instead? the internet is so vast and full of re-posting im sure people will get to see those aforementioned "non-healthy and extreme" political views on other sites and bbs and forums and message boards and news groups if they're eager to look for it... not to get political here, but if the government and authorities are trying to suppress opposition ideas and free speech, why don't government officials try to do their jobs better so people would stop criticizing them instead?! and why would they only block blogger (which is a branch of google which is actually the"do-no-evil" company that already compromised so much of its content to enter the chinese market) and xanga (which is not very popular among mainlanders)? why not block msn space and sina blog or sohu blog which are the sites the majority of chinese people read or blog at (which means a bigger impact on the society and more susceptible to become a media tool to spread some "unhealthy" ideas and morals and "extreme" political views)?! or are they just trying to help microsoft beat google in the current blogging market by supporting msn space?

i seriously doubt the education network service (the CCERNET if im not mistaken)'s policies on this matter will work... they already blocked wikipedia, and now they block blogs... what is next? all bbs and message boards? and seriously, an ordinary non-genius computer user like me had already found a way to solve these problems and read the mentioned restricted sites... why bother blocking? there are so many smarter ordinary people and computer major students out there, im sure restrictions on website access really doesn't mean anything to them (aside from a little trouble to route around this network)... try stopping those very very annoying "anti-government" phone calls (which play recorded messages rambling over and over how many people have stood up to the communist party or being massacred in camps by the officials) or sms messages instead? blogs dont annoy cuz they dont go looking for u... phone calls and sms do!!

actually im not very frustrated because i cant open my friends blogs because i receive subscription emails and i can read their posts... i am just very frustrated because i cant leave a comment and i cant check back on what i myself wrote if i don't do my little trick... it just makes blogging a little more complicated than it should be...

anyways, i shouldnt bullshit anymore about it... i'll just resolve to reading my own posts on facebook (oh please don't block facebook or i will go mad), and maybe try to look for other blog services which doesnt require that much of work to read and update... i have a myspace account but don't make me use that...

on another note: as far as i know, people blog about computer products, music, cooking, gardening skills, restaurant reviews, their own pictures (with or without clothes on), travels, their hobbies, or maybe a little about what they study and research in if they are professionals or college professors... how often do people blog about how anti-government they are or how much they reap off from their criminal ventures? hm...

EDIT: AFTER 2 OR 3 WEEKS OF FAILING TO OPEN MY OWN BLOG PAGE OR OTHER BLOG PAGES, I CAN OPEN MY OWN PAGE AFTER THIS BULLSHIT... IS THE NETWORK PLAYING ON ME? OR THEY FINALLY DISCOVER BLOCKING MY PAGE DOESNT WORK AT ALL?