Recently, online media giants Google and Yahoo have come under fire for censoring the Chinese versions of their sites. The media titans argue that the Chinese market is too big to ignore, and to get a piece of that market, they need to observe Chinese law.

Here at the Far-Flung Ryan-Silva Media Empire, we have also realized we need to make some changes in order to get access to the Chinese market. We have long known that the site is banned in Vietnam, and while so far this month we've had 12 hits from Iceland and 21 from India, there has been not a single one from China. As you well know, our content is very compelling, so the only possible explanation is that the Chinese government is blocking our vast potential Chinese audience from accessing the site.

What raises the censors' ire? My best guess is that my write-up of a long-ago trip to Aswan is the problem. There are two things in this piece in particular they might take issue with:

• I say of a monument to Egyptian-Soviet cooperation on the Aswan Dam: "This large, rather unattractive edifice still stands, though both Nasser's revolutionary anti-Western rhetoric and the Soviet Union itself are consigned to the dustbin of history." The phrase "consigned to the dustbin of history" is so cliched as to be unforgiveable. I have to agree with them on this.
  
• I take a couple of shots at socialism, including: "One is supposed to have a special security permit in order to visit the observation ring, because the vantage point is such that one can take militarily significant photographs like the one below. But because of the centrally-planned economy's inability to provide for the population, the caretaker will take you up for about 75 cents."

We are pleased to announce that we will be revising the offending passages, replacing them with:

• "This bold monument will stand forever, just as Taiwan will always be an integral part of China."
  
• "However, because the caretaker is an unscrupulous traitor, like the Dalai Lama, he will take you up for about 75 cents."

We will go ahead and upgrade our web hosting account now, to better handle the traffic we will be getting from now on.