Blogger Richard is deeply frustrated by the Chinese government's new anti-blog policy:

the big bad communist government of China has BLOCKED ACCESS TO ALL BLOGSPOT SITES. That, since yesterday afternoon, 36 hours ago. Well, I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. I live in Beijing, and as if the weather here isn't disgusting enough, we now have to live in a blog-free world.

If you don't all help and let the whole world know about this obscenity, I will hold my breath until I turn blue. I mean, have they nothing better to do, like maybe trying to talk their psycho-comrades in North Korea into pretending — painful and thoroughly out of character though it may be — to be human beings? (On state-controlled TV here, they refer to it reverentially as "The People's Democratic Republic of Korea." Barf.) Anyway, I just want to do what I can to alert the blogging community of this crime.

I write about it pompously and at lengths dreadful to contemplate at http://pekingduck.blogspot.com. At least I think I do — I have no idea if any of my posts are getting uploaded there! I can sign in to the Blogger page and the Edit Your Blog page, but if I then try to read my blog or ANY blogspot blogs the ominous Cannot Find Server screen materializes, icy and heartless — a telltale sign in the Peoples Republic of China that there is dirty work afoot! Anyway, please make sure the newspapers know that China is taking new steps to silence critical and free thought. Desperate dinosaurs. Okay, thanks for letting me vent and a good night to all of you from frigid, joyless, minimally interesting and at times downright disgusting Beijing. Yeck.

Apart from the shameless self-promotion on Richard's part - the more shameless the better as far as I'm concerned - this is a serious issue and should be publicized. China is going to have to get over that censorship thing before they will be trusted.