The Great Firewall of China

For reasons of my own I am currently in China and find that I simply must make a post about the internet here.

I'm sure that all of you are aware that in China the government blocks any websites that might speak agianst it and this includes personal websites such as bloggger (yes, I am using a bypass program to get this post posted...), facebook, youtube, and more. Instead of bitching and whining about how stupid this whole affair is, I think I will tell you all a story.

When George Bush was giving a speech one day he was hit in the head by a rather large shoe, I'm sure everone knows about this story, but there is another one behind it. Shortly after George Bush received his negative feedback from the crowd it was announced that the head programmer of the Chinese firewall was going to visit the US and give a short public press confrence. Little did he know, there was a feed setup on Twitter by Chinese intelectuals who have figured out how to bypass the wall full of people offering certain rewards for hitting the programmer with certain objects, hitting the guy with a shoe for example was worth a medal and a plane ticket to LA, the latter offered by a Chinese travel agent.

That little feed grew and sure enough, the guy was actually struck by a shoe on the day of his press confrence. After his bodyguards safely escorted him away from the steady stream of miscallaneous projectiles he stormed angrily into his office and immediately begin a video confrence with his subordinates, to whom he said something along the lines of "Why didnt you block the feed?". The response was simple, "Twitter was blocked, we had no idea the feed was there..."