Etisalat, our local ISP, has done it again.

About 6 weeks ago, my beloved online knitting community (ravelry.com) was blocked for reasons which remain a mystery to me. I completed an online request form to unblock the site and after a couple of weeks they replied to me saying the site was blocked “due to the contents being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.” So knitting is against Islam? Hmm…I emailed them back naturally telling them what the site is all about but they must have brushed it under the carpet.

Today, having returned to the UAE after 5 weeks of holiday, I naturally wanted to catch up with my online friends and see what they have been up to since the last time I managed to go online two weeks ago. And what do you know Live Journal has been blocked!

Good thing that Blogspot is still accessible – let’s hope that the people responsible for monitoring these sites do not wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decide one day to block it too!

I notice that Facebook is still very much active in the UAE. Facebook, which is a blatant, in-your-face dating/flirting/porny/horny site and which does not violate the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE in any way, shape or form whatsoever.

This is just another item ticked off the “Reasons Why Dubai is No Longer an Ideal Place to Live In” list which includes insane traffic, unreasonable rents and cases of gazillion double standards. Perhaps it’s high time to take the Canadian immigration idea seriously.