Pakistani guys on the Deira docks in Dubai

Pakistani guys on the Deira docks in Dubai, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

A look back at some nice friendly Paksitanis I met in Dubai earlier in the year. Pakistan has made the news today by banning Facebook and You Tube and, I think, they have a good point.

My very good friend Afraz referenced the current issue on his Fb site before it was closed. Some idiot somewhere thought it would be a good idea to provoke and insult Muslims by getting people to draw and submit images of The Prophet Mohammed in the name of freedom of speech.

I consider myself to be a full supporter of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and find any attempts to block communication between people to be abhorrent.

I do think it is terrible when people use their freedom of speech to deliberately insult other people. Sure they have that freedom, but why debase such freedom for such negative and destructive ends?

As for You Tube, I very much enjoy the opportunity of watching old (and new) pop videos, but I am constantly amazed and disgusted about how much racial and religious nad homophobic hatred gets submitted as comments to any particular video.

Without trying to suck up too much to the folks here at flickr, I must say that they do a very good job at keeping this site clear of that filth, even though their methods may sometimes be a bit questionable.