a dash of cynicism

You know how easy it is to report a blog as being a spam generator? Here. I have done so myself, on several obvious word-salad blogs. (I shan't provide any links to them, but no day passes by without at least one showing up in one of my daily alerts). Now this blog may be a lot of things: ill-kept, sub-par, irrelevant—but it is not spam in any sense of the word. However, it was apparently reported as such in early September, and I had to spend some time proving to Google that I am actually human (well, I am super-human, but one has to make some sacrifices occasionally) in order to have my blog and my email (!) unlocked. And then it happened again, three more times. It was not difficult, only annoying. To tell you the truth, I didn't even wonder what happened. Now, looking back, I realize that all of that brouhaha came within 24 hours of me publishing a mild (well, that is an exaggeration...) criticism of Sarah Palin on September 6th. A coincidence? Perhaps. The rational part of my brain insists that it is; the paranoid conspiracy circuit is naturally convinced that a typical action by some lil censorious Rethuglican was taken. Not that it would be something new for them. And I thought: it's amazing how they are the ones accusing us of suppressing free speech. Who moderates (read: censors) comments on their blogs? I have never seen any scientist/liberal/atheist do so, only theocrats/right wing crazies. Do you doubt it? It's hard to prove, but most of what I write as comments on religious blogs never makes it past moderation. What are they afraid of? Themselves? Reason? The very real possibility that their set of beliefs is utterly incorrect and will melt when exposed to the tiniest amount of logic, common sense and reality? Hmm. Food for thought.