Perhaps the tables have been turned! I have received one report that Pharyngula has been blocked on government computers in Kentucky — can anyone confirm that? Apparently, you can read Ann Coulter, Focus on the Family, the Drudge Report, and Rush Limbaugh when you’re supposed to be pushing those government forms around on your desk, but you can’t read PZ Myers. I think I’m flattered. I suspect I annoyed some fan of Ken Ham.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Nice to see that the Kentucky government shows no bias whatsoever …
Do like Maddox and block the filtering agency from your website. :P
Whathefuck? Maybe the Creation Science Museum has legislative ties? All the more reason for a southern tour.
Does this mean I have to start boycotting their fried chicken? Because if there ever was a case for intelligent design, it’s their delicious fried chicken.
Whatever happened to “banned in Boston?” Oh, well, Kentucky, it seems they’re a lost cause with the Creation Museum. (Shouldn’t creationism belong in the Museum of Obsolete Myths?)
It’s my opinion that your 1st amendment rights are being violated, you really should consider looking into any possible legal recourse. But, thats just me, I’m no lawyer, so I don’t know if thats the case or not. Just seems like they are blocking dissenting views. Love the blog, thanks for posting!
http://www.thenewatheist.com
Randy> I don’t think PZ’s 1st amendment rights are in question, as he hasn’t been asked to stop posting. There is a censorship/freedom of the press issue for Kentucky citizens here, however. Does the KY gov’t give reasons for the ban? Do gov’t computers include those in public libraries? on public college campuses? If this is solely a workplace ban, one might presume that Pharyngula was taking up too much bandwidth when people chose to visit. (If so, KY needs to find something for its employees to do.)
Kudos! Do you think if I ask them nicely they’ll ban me?
Can’t some incredibly wise techno nerd mirror the Pharyngula blog so that it slips past the ban?
Could be due to, or simply rationalized by, the fact that “bad language” is not infrequent on this blog.
If so, it doesn’t speak well for Kentucky’s conception of how adult its employees are. Assuming that this blog is banned in the blue grass state, of course.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
It is all part of their retention program. Watching “Ann Coulter, Focus on the Family, the Drudge Report, and Rush Limbaugh” keeps their brains numbed, stunned and compliant.
Reading Pharyngula would cause too much enlightenment. They would realize that they are wasting their time pushing useless papers and quit to become artists, or engineers, or scientists. State employees must be kept away from enlightenment and too much metal stimulation.
I’ve got a friend that works a gov’t job in Kentucky. I can ask her on Monday. As of now, the offices should be closed there. So unless someone who comments here works for the Kentucky gov’t, we may have to wait till Monday to test the truth of this.
I teach at Western Kentucky University. I had no problem reaching your site this morning. That’s not to say that the allegations aren’t true, but WKU is a state college, so technically my office computer is a “government computer,” and I’m not blocked. Maybe universities are exempt. Our faculty would throw a goddamn fit.
Nauvoo Expositor! Nauvoo Expositor!
Our new motto here in Oklahoma is:At least we’re better than Kentucky
j/k
Perhaps they are in need of some KY… to ease Pharyngula in. Gawd knows we have been pushing Pharyngula down their throat…
Jes’ sayin’… :D
shouldn’t we wait for some evidence before we jump to conclusions?
;)
Load the Pharyngula RSS feed into Google Reader, and Robert’s your mother’s brother.
Dan@17: Yeah. I would suggest waiting for confirmation. Even if Pharyngula is blocked it could be just collateral damage.
Nonetheless, it would be amusing and the source of many future lolz if it proves to be the case.
you’re still showing up on Alaska state computers. i can sense your relief already …
Pharyngula’s blocked at my (public) high school in KY, but that’s by our local web filter (blogs, discussion forums, etc. are mostly blocked, regardless of content). I usually just remote into my computer at home to get around that, though.
Not all of KY’s gene pool is quite so shallow. There are quite a few of us here that support the evil Darwinist plot. If this is real, I have a feeling that it will be fixed pretty quickly.
I can confirm that when connecting to a state level government network, your website is restricted.
Kentucky has internet?
If you check to see if you can connect to PZ’s blog, check out the other science blogs as well and also the right wingers too.
On a slightly related fundie/retard note, today at lunch I was absolutely furious after hearing this story: My buddy’s wife got pulled over for speeding along I-75 by a KY State Highway Patrol Officer. Her record was clean, and apparently he was going to let her off with a warning. Before returning her license and registration, he asked her “Are you saved?” Luckily, she was quick on her feet, and rattled off when and where she had been baptized. Who knows what would’ve happened if she had answered “incorrectly.” If I were in that position, I would’ve been ticketed for sure, because I would’ve told the officer that a) it’s none of his business and b)it is inappropriate for him to abuse a state funded position to proselytize on the highway. I couldn’t enjoy my lunch after hearing this tale. I only hope no one has been at the wrong end of this Officer’s proselytizing, receiving an egregious ticket.
Government’s normally have blocking software that restricts access to certain sites. This is normally done through key words (p*orn, n*ked, etc.) or function (chatroom, blog, download site, off-site email (yahoo, gmail) etc.).
Our system has two stages – restricted and blocked. Restricted sites can be accessed, but a log is kept. blocked sites cannot be accessed.
You should get a message telling you if the site is restricted or blocked, with a reason why listed in the message.
Maybe someone could check to see:
what the blocking message says and does it detail a reason for the block;
if the http://www.sciencblogs.com site is being blocked, or if it is http://www.sciencblogs.com/pharyngula;
I will try to get a screen shot of the blocked website message on Monday.
Oh gawd,
I’m in Texas, at a mall food court (Don’t ask, but this could be Hell) and a couple just thanked the Invisible Sky Daddy for blessing them with Chik-Fil-A. These a-here Christers have extremely low standards.
Jes’ following standard biblical usage, wouldn’t the more appropriate response to being afflicted with Chik-Fil-A be to throw yourself into the dust (or the food court floor, either way), rend your garment, and let loose with a hearty Eli Eli lamma sabacthani*?
*Lit. ‘Eli, who was that lamma I saw you with?’ Or so I’m told…
Some years ago I was at a relative’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. One kid was tasked with “saying grace” and stumbled out a prayer that ended with “and please let it be good [pause for breath] for us.” The amen was drowned out by laughter.
PZ,
Very off topic but I came across this on the Slashfood website. Either you or your trophy wife could use this in the kitchen or some other place if your into alternate uses of food.
http://www.pylones-usa.com/pylones/product.php?product=53&category=1
@ 17, 19
So, what’s the evidence? My wife works for the state here in the bluegrass and they restrict a lot of stuff. Hard to know if any site is being singled out.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
The whole Creation Museum Cincinnati Zoo fiasco Raised a lot of hackles over here. It was a hell of a dust up.
I came close to losing customers at my business over that one.
Congratulations. You have arrived. Next, Alabama then Mississippi.
Not the first time they’ve done something like this. The republicans tried censoring left leaning blogs a couple of years ago here in Ky. They failed.
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/06/20/kentucky-settles-internet-censorship-suit-agrees-to-lift-ban-on-blogs/
Not banned here (University of Louisville).
Yeah, but it’s coal fired.
From their FAQs:
’nuff read. Why I don’t go there or In-n-Out Burger. Too bad, as they are tasty.
@11
Um, isn’t PZ technically a “state employee” as he works for the University of Minnesota? Or were you trying to insult the employees of the State of Kentucky specifically?
Sign me up for some of that metal stimulation!
Not likely to have been a fan of Ken Ham, since Ken would have advertised the fact as an example of his awesome, cosmic powers.
I think the likeliest explanation is that some old high school friend of John Kwok has been at work – helping out an alumnus and all.
Who is Ken Ham?
Ken Ham: ex-Australian, head of the American branch of Answers in Genesis, builder of the Creation “Museum” in Kentucky.
In other words, Ken Ham is no one important.
Very strange!
I went to Chick-fil-A this evening for a chicken sandwich and some fries. I placed my order and then the clean-shaven youth at the cash register asked my for my name.
I told him “If I wanted everybody to know my name, I would wear a name tag like you, Christian!”
Oddly enough, the name on his tag was Christian.
I live in Australia, and work on a state govt computer on which many sites are blocked. They are generally blocked by category though (real estate, social networking, auctions and religion etc). If your site is blocked then fair enough i guess – we should be working at work anyway – but shouldn’t the others be blocked as well?
This is surely the work of John Kwok and his Facebook Minions.
Does anyone know if Ken Ham studied legal apologetics with John Warwick Montgomery in Strassbourg?
It will be interesting to know what Kentucky has done.
Whatever it is, I would object to any state imposing a ban that would prevent their state-employed scientists from accessing ANY ScienceBlog.
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to complain about censorship whilst holding a contest to ban someone from your comment section?
I work for a local authority in England. At work our web access is variously blocked, blogs in particular.
Fortunately scienceblogs.com and therefore pharyngula have snuck past the list of the damned and the banned, meaning that I sometimes find time to induldge a lunchtime top up of ungodly, cephalopod goodness :-)
I am SOOO glad I do not live there any more.
JC
@Monsieur413 (#50)
Not quite. PZ runs his site how he sees fit as he is a private citizen with an arrangement with Scienceblogs (and Seed). The state of KY is… a state. The state gov’t offices have the legal right to block any content they want on their networks, sure, but IF (and that’s a big IF) they block PZ and not conservative bloggers, that’s a little shady and likely motivated by politics.
Plus, PZ is doing his contest to block comments, not readership, right? Granted I think it’s a little silly, but it’s still more justified than a state blocking one blogger for all of their employees.
I’d take it as a complement;
It might be a good thing. The dumbness might somehow seep up through the internet and infect your users otherwise.
True Bob @#138- I knew about Chik-fil-A’s godsoaked, fast food goodness (and avoid them, besides everybody knows the Colonel is the one true cluck) but I had never heard aspersions about In-N-Out before. So I looked it up on Snopes-
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/inandout.asp
Sure enough, they do put tiny citations to bible verses (not the verses themselves) on some of their cups and wrappers.
Hmmm. This seems about the most passively unobtrusive form of proselytization imaginable (and still deserve the term ‘proselytization’).
So I’ve decided to give em a pass. Besides, the double double with fries almost proves the existence of god.
Right guys, time to lawyer-up.
Won’t do any good. Condition of employment, and the state will win. The state controls the state computers, just like my company can control where I visit. (Scienceblogs is on the white list, so I don’t have any problem.)
RickR @ 58
It’s easy for me to avoid In-n-Out Burger, since I live in Virginia*. I suppose I’d give them the occasional pass, but every time I see that sort of thing, my eyes spontaneously roll.
*You can’t swing a dead cat around here without knocking someone’s cheeses fish off their car.
Billy (#53) I understand but I wasn’t talking about legal intricacies there, merely pointing out that censorship goes both ways.
Yes, the owners of Chik-Fil-A are crazy Christers. They are closed Sundays, because nothing angers the Invisible Sky Daddy more than hawking atherosclerotic, over-processed yardbird on the day that’s not really the Sabbath.
PZ, honestly KY is such small potatoes. You need to be banned in more progressive states like Alabama, or even Mississippi. That would be the pinnacle.
Chick-Fil-A’s mission is to glorify God? Would an omnipotent, all-knowing creator of the universe be flattered by a chicken sandwich?
Mark Nickolas (www.bluegrassreport.org) keeps close tabs on the Kentucky state government, and reported the government’s blocking of certain websites under the administration of Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher. I sent him the link to this post. Maybe he can find out something definitive.
Say what you like about KY, their jelly is great!
Perhaps John Kwok is really Ken Ham and he’s upset you blocked him? Just a guess.
Not a bit. “Censorship” is the gub’mint shutting you up. “PZ blocking trolls” is him kicking someone out of his living room. They’re still free to spout off on their own blogs.
@Tony #62
No, but he loves the waffle frys!
I dunno, it doesn’t make a very good PB&J.
We have no In N Out Burger vendors in this neck of the woods, but whenever their name comes up, I remember their bumper stickers I used to see with the “B” and the “r” scissored off.
So it would read “In N out urge”.
You might think that would’ve led them to re-think their sticker design, but I saw those altered stickers on VW bumpers for years. I can only hope the tradition continues.
Banned in Kentucky?
A badge of honour man. Wear it like a badge of honour. I wish I could be banned in US states I keep forgetting about.
I wanna get banned in kentucky…
As a supporter of free speech – no matter how ludicrous most of this blog is – I would like to offer my condolences to you for being expelled.
KY? PB and J? Chik-Fil-A? In-and-Out Burger? Ken……..Ham?
Seems to be a theme. I’m just sayin’. And (guilty expression) salivatin’.
Can Kentuck view the Digital Cuttlefish? Cos if necessary, all we need to do is translate pharyngula to iambic pentameter… and hell, if I can, a lobotomized chimp can do that.
(My parents used to live in KY. I’ve paid my dues.)
Yep, the only things missing are mint juleps, Bourbon, and Bacon.
Scott, before you make a disasterous mistake, I’d like to share a song of wisdom.
“One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.”
Unless, of course, you’re using that thing with bacon and a lesbian.
Congrats PZ. Kentucky. Oh boy.
Deliverance.
Kentuckian here, and I have no difficulty accessing Pharyngula, nor have I heard any rumblings to that effect (I live in Louisville and know many dozens of anti-creationism-as-science Kentuckians located all around our state). If indeed the State of Kentucky (or anyone else) is blocking the access of any Kentuckians to Pharyngula, they are keeping it a secret and/or only blocking a tiny number of Kentuckians.
Scott, before you make a disasterous mistake, I’d like to share a song of wisdom.
“One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.”
(mischievously) I actually didn’t specify why I was salivating. One of these days a certain creationist may look out into the pews and find that one of the faithful has been ‘sharpening his beak and claws in readiness.’
you’re still showing up on Alaska state computers. i can sense your relief already …
Both of them?
Scott, I fully support the eating of a certain Australian. I would suggest using something other than KY as a condiment. It leaves such a slimy taste in the mouth, and that gentleman is already nothing if not slimy.
On a related note, I looked and discovered that KY has instructions for use on the bottle. A full paragraph in fact, far more text than my shampoo’s “Wash, rinse. Repeat as necessary.” But since the sellers of personal lubricant are apparently too bashful to say what their product is for on the label, these instructions deal primarily with the necessity of opening the bottle in order to dispense “product” and closing it once you’re done.
I’m not going to make a joke about Kentucky education.
Kudos Dr. Myers, you have given KY the opportunity to transcend OK. You are becoming a political force.
Though I support you in all respects, I think it is also approriate to say, beware of the backlash. You are only one against many nutheads. By all means, continue to speak freely
and honestly.
As an atheist having worked at the God-glorifying fast food chicken place, I have to admit that it wasn’t overtly annoying. Yes, to the average consumer, being closed on Sundays seems ludicrous, but to the average teenager working there, it’s a huge perk.
At least there aren’t any prayer services or anything else religion related in the workplace, other than the slogan. All in all, for a fast food chain, it wasn’t such a bad gig for a high school job, Christian or not. If nothing else, it’s a good place for an child to learn to be discreet about religion in the workplace.
China, Iran, Kentucky.
I have an alternative theory.
PZ is blocked in Kentucky Gov’t work spaces, and not those other sites, because too many employees religiously read his blog and the lost productivity was getting to be too much. I’ll go further. ALL Gov’t lack of productivity can be blamed on PZ’s presence in the blogosphere as evidenced by the phrase: “Locked in the TENTACLED morass of red tape and SUCKER-punched by the INKY black hearted bureaucrat.”
I’d expect a nationwide ban soon.
Of course, I could be deluded and it’s all just part of John Kwok’s retaliation plan.
Damn, I’m really starting to think that we from down under (Australia and New Zealand) owe you guys an apology. It wasn’t that long ago that I found out that Ray Comfort was from New Zealand. Might help explain this though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NewZealandReligionsGraph.png
The simplest way is to use an anonymous web proxy. Rather than connecting to the website, you connect to the proxy over an encrypted connection, and it’s the server that goes and gets all the content. All the network administrator sees is you connecting to one site and getting encrypted junk. There are several famous ones which have been used to defeat the Chinese gov’t filters.
Mind you, if they are smart, they can just block whatever proxy you’re using, since it looks incredibly suspicious. However, if they’re too busy reading Rush Limbaugh, those poor state employees might have a shot at it.
The simplest one with a very long list (which rotates servers to try and cut down blocks) is Freegate. Unfortunately, it requires installing their client, which might not be possible on an administered system.
I’m assuming those poor employees can read this from home and get the software onto their work computers somehow. If you can, good luck, and don’t blame me if the admins are smarter than they look!
Whoops, actually, freegate is here.
@Redmond
Right from the landing of the Pligrim Fathers America has functioned as a religious asylum where the rest of the world may send their huddled masses oppressed for being too rabidly religious. How do you think Europe became so secular? Besides Ken Ham and Ray Comfort are small recompense for all those missionaries.
Someone already posted “freegate” good one. I would like to draw your attention to sites such as http://www.hidemyass.com
Just go there, and you’ll find a list of other sites which do the same thing. Spread the word to anyone you know in Kentucky.
Or China. :D
Peter Ashby @ #90
Aha, I knew the US was there for some reason.
(red nomad actually, redmond would be a bit wrong seeing as I use linux)
So, it appears censorship is alive and well!
Hello my leftist friends.
Vic @65
Like Jekyll and Hyde, you mean? By day, a stupid creationist, by night, a name dropping bore. Mmmh, you never see them together, do you!
That’s the trouble with the modern US- look what happens when you let your religeous loonies inter-breed for 400 years.
Oh, and the UK government blocks all my access to Pharyngula, TalkOrigins etc, and a Government employee monitors all my internet access…
At Work, because I am a government employee, and I don’t need to read them to do my job. It’s not a free speech issue- the same way as I doubt WalMart lets it’s employees watch telly all day.
And In-and-Out burger!?!?!- what a horrible name. Sounds like “No nutritional value- just goes in and comes out”.
I manage our corporate Web Filter software (websense) for a large business in Florida.
If it makes you feel better,I’ll let you in on my little secret…
I block Religious sites and allow PZ.
It’s been this way for over a year…with very few complaints.
I had an employee mention that he couldn’t get to some Christian Bookstore…on company time.
I held back my comments and said he should so that type of thing at home on his personal time..
Tables are turned…
#13I teach at Western Kentucky University. I had no problem reaching your site this morning.
Government computers outside Universities. Man, looks like they want government employees to work rather than get distracted…
My dad lives in Kin-tuck-uh. He is a very educated free thinking atheist. He has a very hard time with the fundagelicals.
He says there are many like him, and it’s been a real secret.
There is hope for Kin-tuck-uh. However small that maybe.
@#50 “Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to complain about censorship whilst holding a contest to ban someone from your comment section?”
Who is complaining?
PZ said he was flattered!
And scores of people here are jealous and also want to be banned in Kentucky.
I don’t see a single complaint here!
I’m reading and writing from Fort Knox in Kentucky, but that’s Federal government, not state government. I’ll ask my friend on Monday, he’s a state employee with the Labor Cabinet in Frankfort.
How can anyone tell the difference? Can people read there? Do they have ‘puters there?
I taught physics and math at a small college in KY in the Appalachian region in the dark and distant past long, long ago. One day I wanted to use a deck of cards for a demo in a probability class. I looked and looked in the bookstore and couldn’t find any cards. When I asked where they were, the lady who ran the store said, “We don’t sell cards here. This is a religious institution.”
There were all types of religious nuts–snake handlers, and baptists ranging from the half-pint to the 50 gallon variety. At the same time, there was a healthy skepticism of organized religion. A local saying says, “If you see a preacher leaving a woman’s house, he’s either picking his teeth or zipping his fly.” Interesting place.
John #69
IN-OUT BURGER bumper sticker editing reached high art on VW bumpers before the design was changed. My favorite local one read IN-OUT FUR BURN.
David Polish @32–
Very cool stuff here! In addition to the cephalopod food whisks, I found a bright orange octopus tape dispenser…
Wait a minute… They have computers in Kentucky?
Sure they have computers in Kentucky. The place has all the modern conveniences, hot and cold running water, indoor privies, window glass, all that sort of thing.
Perhaps the gov agency is doing you (and them) a favor by reducing the shear number of nutjobs posting on your site while improving performance in the office? On the other side of the coin, such unwarranted censorship deprives you of a potential market for your sanity and reason while enforcing a desired community behavior amongst its populace. Regardless, keep your privileged audience posted of future findings.
@15: That’s no joke. OK is better than KY.
I should know: I live in Cincinnati. As you can imagine, we get a lot of refugees from across the river. Based on my conversations with them, the fact that PZ was banned is not only not surprising, but it’s amazing it took the commonwealth that long to get around to blocking the site.
The situation at the border can get tense at times. Just last night three people were arrested at an OH/KY checkpoint trying to smuggle in books and shoes.
It was John Kwok!
I’m sorry, but KY has bourbon, mutton bar-b-que (Owensboro), and grows more marijuana than California. All superior to OK, and even MN (I may be taken to task by the Prairie Home taskforce, for that one). If it weren’t for the religious moronity and the kudzu, I’d move there in a heartbeat.
I gather from what PZ said that Pharyngula is blocked but those right-wing sites are confirmed to not be blocked. However, that does not have to be reflective of bias. If state workers in Kentucky have been spending an inordinate amount of time going to Pharyngula then it would have come to the attention of the IT staff. I don’t think there is anything wrong with blocking certain sites from work. These are state resources they are using and the employees are surfing the web when they are supposed to be working. The other sites should be blocked too, but they might not have come up enough to attract IT wrath.
I just thinks it’s funny that the ID/Creationism crowd are crying “academic freedom” and being the first to censor or ban anything that they disagree with. Tu quoque!
While I dislike the Chik-Fil-A for the determined godbotting, I still like the food on occasion, and the kid meals tend to have stuff that’s actually interesting or informative (and, as a national brand, non-proselytizing). The had some little values books once that focused on manners and basically “how not to be a little bastard” without once mentioning the Jesus, and my kids loved them (not as good as the Arby’s books about different ecosystems, but not bad).
However, if there were really a god, you wouldn’t have to ask for extra pickle.
My personal belief is that we should support the death cultists in their fast food endeavors – it’s the one thing they seem to do really well!
PZ banned from public computers in KY = bad
posters banned from pharyngula = good.
Am I the ony one whose ironymeter just went off scale ??
I betcha Nisbet hasn’t been banned in Kentucky.
Now will you surrender to the superior power of Framing™?
The situations are the same, how?
rednomad @87:
Nah, just about every middle-of-the-bell-curve Australian or New Zealander I’ve met has been admirably rational. Nobody can blame you for the, um, outliars.
I work with many companies that use web filters and have reluctantly installed them myself for some companies. Sites can easily end up in blocked groups based on some arbitrary classification, so it’s premature to say that Kentucky Gov is specifically targeting Pharyngula.
Products like Web Sense block many sites automatically and others arbitrarily. At one time a Liza Minelli fan site and Jewish Teens were (wrongly) classified as porn sites. The Internet archive was classified as a proxy site.
There are no grounds for any law suits. Employers are not obligated to provide access to ANY internet sites.
Usually the web filter provides the reason why the site was blocked e.g. “Religious group” “Language” etc. Hell at one place the Wayback Machine was classified as a “Web Proxy”
Most companies have a process for removing sites from the locked list, but since in my experience, over 90% of all web browsing is not company business, people don’t often complain and IT often can’t be bothered to change things.
I was at a Chik-fil-A in GA a few years back, and after I ordered, the cashier asked me if I loved Jesus.
Dead-pan reply: I love dead chicken.
Rt
(note: My site has not been updated recently)
This is quite accurate
A friend of mine works at a certain contracted company in Upstate New York. Her own work computer’s internet access is not only subject to a filter (and it is the main computer she uses at home, so she tells me…) but, whenever she tries to access a blocked site, the company is notified.
There is a system the company can use to unblock websites, but the blocking system is controlled form a company location in West Virginia.
As for the Australia, I heard recently that they have been trying to make a national censorship system there, ostensibly to protect against child porn. See here.
Not blocked at Univ of KY
Before anyone goes out and starts using a proxy to access banned sites from work, check your terms of employment. Trying to get around the filters is usually grounds for discipline itself. Of course, at the moment, there’s a serious lack of evidence about.
I work for the Canadian federal government (until the advent of Stephen Harper’s Creationist Circus not especially prone to religiosity) and a great many blogs and game sites are blocked, including Pharyngula and Consimworld (a board wargame discussion site) and sites like flickr. The blogs at Discover, though, make it through as do most wordpress blogs, such as the wonderfully Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week (SV-POW!) blog. It’s for productivity reasons, and me being the very home of ill-discipline, I have to admit that makes sense. Since I seldom frequent right-wing or religious sites/blogs, I have no idea if there’s any singling out going on.
The only thing God likes more than a chicken nugget is being read prayers by a computer.
How come creotards suck so much regarding analogies and irony?
What sort of brain deficiency does it take for Umilik to imagine that forbidding public employees the opportunity to READ a Science Blog is akin to not allowing nutters to WRITE incoherent idiotic responses in the comment section of said blog? I think Umilik should be glad that his nuttery is allowed to stay. Nobody is stopping creotards from spewing their babblings at some creotardian blog where they belong… and no-one is forbidding government employees from reading the creotards.
Creotards are known to abuse laws and rules to silence those who speak the truth. What else are they going to do?–they certainly don’t have any facts on their side.
Ray Ladbury | March 21, 2009 14:54
Thanks. I’m adding this to my collection of Baptist quotes, which previously has consisted only of:
PZ wrote: I have received one report that Pharyngula has been blocked on government computers in Kentucky.
Note that was “one report” and all of a sudden stupid people were talking about all of Kentucky. No one yet knows why it was blocked or even if it was really blocked. Strange transient thing can happen in Internet name lookups or Internet routing. Several people from Kentucky reported no problems. Someone reported that they would post a screen shot on Monday. That would a real data point.
Perhaps PZ should get rid of some other stupids who post here.
George
My work’s web filter infrequently blocks you web site as a porn site because of the sheer amount of swear words that some of the comments contain.
I tend to avoid posts with over 200 comments while at work because it’s a guaranteed method for tripping the filter.
Fortunately for my lunch time reading our network admin is a fan.
Perhaps those in the US can have a set of prepared adlibs for Christian Junk Food shops.
“Do you love Jesus?”
“Just as it comes please”
“I dunno- whats it taste like?”
“No, I didn’t want a cheese burger”
“I had one once, but it came back on me after a few days”
I work in a public hospital in Australia and, although I’m sure there is a filter, I haven’t managed to trip it yet. Admittedly I have zero interest in porn but I did have to do some research on child abuse and was surprised to have no problems.
In the UK I tried to access a gardening site at work once and got a red screen with ‘Your attempt to access this site has been logged by IT’ in large black capitals. Never have I got off the net so fast, before or since.
The bizarre thing about the drive to censor the net in Australia is that government IT seems to have so little filtering.
As far as using the intertubes at work, I’m pretty relaxed about it. As long as staff pull their finger out when there’s work needs doing, I have no issue with them chatting on facebook when it’s quiet.
I was vaguely aware of the name “Ken Ham” as one of those ignoramuses, but I find that I often get him mixed up with Kent Hovind, Henry Morris and even occasionally John Woodmorappe. These young earth creationists all sound alike to me.
#105: yes we have computers in Ky. Infact I’ve come over from the dark side and use a Mac.
We are regressive here to be sure but their are bastions of hope and light in KY; me for one.
Considering that in the preamble to KY’s statement protection from terrorism they put in “first line of defense is god” that should tell you something. Thank goodness the ACLU has files a law suit to have it removed.
So, don’t stereotype us just because a high foreheaded, gap toothed, child molesting, goat fucking, drug addicted, functionally illiterate, jeezuz loving, lard eating, cigarrette smoking, big wheel truck driving—OK, I’m tired now—SIGH!
Haven’t read any of the comments, but had to chime in…
I work for an internet filtering company, and i can confirm that it is actually a common thing to block any site that might be thought of as “anti-religous”…
@#96
… heh… =]
First off, the hell with all of y’all that insulted the great state of Kentucky. Your low character and ignorance is showing. Low-lifed blackgaurds, scoundrels and carpetbaggers the lot of you.
On to serious business, I’m an IT guy for a semi-state agency and we block nothing. What exactly is a semi-state agency? I’m afraid I’m going to remain coy on that subject. I have no idea if I’m allowed to speak as an employee in public.
Pssst…..you have also been banned by the White House about 6 to 10-months ago (when you were banned by Birmingham). The rest of scienceblogs is okay as well as Dawkins and JREF, but no Pharyngula :(
Might I suggest that if your site is blocked on government comuters, it may be because you use the word “ejaculations” on your site. Their firewall may simply be blocking anything with a remote reference to sex.
While your use of that word certainly communicates your irreverant tone, is it really necessary?
Might I suggest that if your site is blocked on government comuters, it may be because you use the word “ejaculations” on your site. Their firewall may simply be blocking anything with a remote reference to sex.
While your use of that word certainly communicates your irreverant tone, is it really necessary?
Here’s the Blocked message.
I would agree with David Raikow, as I was able to access ERV fine. I’m sure the blocking software is picking up Ejaculations as the 6th word on your website and kicking it out.