The heat is rising, the air vibrating and thick with smog. A week of around 37 degrees Celsius and I’m having erotic fantasies about cool lakes, beaches, anything with water really. Instead I got a cold shower hearing about the most recent internet crackdown. 

Had a coffee with one of the Beijing Likemind founders who informed me that one of the latest sites to be blocked by Chinese authorities is Flickr. Since a few days back it seems like it’s not possible to view any pictures at all from China. Got home and tried. All that turns up on a search on "Beijing" are black frames filled with white, like this:

Scary. How do they DO these things? How many guys do they have working on this enormous censoring system? Other blogs links this to recent enviromental protests against the building of a big chemical plant. Some of the protesters published pictures of the event on Flickr and it’s Chinese version, bullog.cn, and since then the two sites have been blocked or filtered.

Citizen journalism is apparently not appreciated here.