Comments on: Blogs Banned By Interior Department

By: Kent G. Budge

Kent G. Budge — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:30:33 +0000

Maybe someone realized that “Scientific Laboratory” was, you know, redundant?

Not at all. There are such things as engineering laboratories and economics laboratories. While all have some scientific flavor, I think the distinction is meaningful.

By: Bithead

Bithead — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:27:26 +0000

I am also in IT support. Have been for eighteen years, now. my normal response to this kind of thing, is to say don't attribute to malice what could be as easily attributed to stupidity. Most peple simply don't understand how this stuff works. My guess would be, that if they threw blocks on those particular sites, it's because those particular sites were giving the largest amount of, shall we say, unproductive traffic. With that in play, one might easily conclude that the reason Liberal sites were not being blocked, is because they were not being visited, in nearly the numbers. However; that said; there's been a large trend for this kind of thing lately, and not just within the government. Witness the business with YouTube banning Michelle Malkin for example. Or the Zuckers... and then claiming they don't know how that happened. I fully anticipate trends like this to continue as we get closer to the 08 election.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 22:13:46 +0000

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory ws renamed Los Alamos National Laboratory

Maybe someone realized that "Scientific Laboratory" was, you know, redundant?

By: Kent G. Budge

Kent G. Budge — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:13:46 +0000

The netnanny at my workplace, a DoE laboratory, blocked Wikipedia for about a week. The category under which it was blocked was "GPORN" which I think means "general pornography."

Now, there are some Wikipedia articles that are arguably pornographic. And Wikipedia as a whole is of very mixed reliability (as has been discussed here before.) But it can be a useful starting place for research on a technical topic -- the technical articles, in my experience, being better than average -- and blocking the whole of Wikipedia was just a flabbergasting move.

Access was restored in a few days, and no explanation was ever offered. Jim Jones presents an interesting hypothesis: It was blocked because it was accessed a lot.

It's no wonder Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory ws renamed Los Alamos National Laboratory (back under the Carter administration.) Science is secondary. [/bitter]

By: Jim Jones

Jim Jones — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:29:25 +0000

They don't block liberals sites because all the liberals have been purged. They're blocking sites that traffic logs show to be actual wastes of time.

By: Triumph

Triumph — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:06:21 +0000

I bet there are some holdovers from the Clinton administration who are responsible for this. They are likely getting money from Soros to derail Bush's interior policies.

By: legion

legion — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:50:31 +0000

Every year, for at least the last 3 or 4 years, I will come in one morning to find that all sports sites (ESPN, SI, NFL.com, etc.) are blocked. One assumes it's because theyre clearly not work-related.

Without exception, the sites are all unblocked within the week.

I reiterate, this happens _every year_.

So it may not be an IT snafu, it may just be someone (either in IT or an exec above IT) with their own work-time crusade to run...

By: Soa

Soa — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:02:59 +0000

What is blocking. Who wrote the program?

By: Anderson

Anderson — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:21:56 +0000

"Baron Bodissey" is such a great name for a blogger, kook or not.

By: madmatt

madmatt — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:18:53 +0000

maybe it is all the hate speech that other right wing sites produce that is getting them banned!