The image you see on top is a standard ad for Mad Men, AMC's series about hard-paryting admen in the good old days that conveniently advertises itself everywhere. The image on the bottom is what you see when you visit iTunes to purchase the full season of Mad Men. The difference? On iTunes, the man has had his cigarette taken away. Steve Jobs does not understand the point of this show at all. Click to enlarge the Apple-approved scrubbing of our culture.

So much for indexing all the world's information: There are at least 51 places you can't see on Google Maps. One of them is the entire country of Bahrain. Allegedly, the Bahrain's Ministry of Information blocked Google Maps from its citizens because it didn't want the local poors to see the private jets and residences of the Gulf statelet's riches. This got us wondering what sights our government has blocked citizens from viewing. We list five, below.

The New York Times standards editor Craig Whitney recently saw something strange and terrible while out "on the road," as they say: "bumper stickers." These are like tiny billboards, affixed to automobiles, that feature sayings, jokes, or even brief political arguments. They're on display for everyone to see! And, according to a memo he sent out, they're inappropriate for Times staffers.

Did you hear? The Reverend Jesse Jackson made reference recently to the testicles of Barack Obama. Only he called them "nuts." Nuts! A funny, elementary school word, isn't it? Totally harmless. But of course you'd have no idea what the hell Jackson said if you only read the Times piece on the story. Because the New York Times apparently won't print the word "nuts." Which is ridiculous. We understand that the Times, like most major publications, has a self-censorship policy that almost always forbids it from using genuine expletives (unless the president says them!), but to elide the harmless word "nuts" actually misleads the reader into thinking Jesse Jackson said something far filthier and more obscene. This is not the first example of the Times censoring such harmless bullshit, either. The most egregious examples, after the jump.

Internet freedom advocates—a group that includes just about every blogger—are up in arms at the revelation that Boing Boing, the incredibly popular this-and-that blog, has purged its archives of all the works of Violet Blue, a blogger who also contributes to Gawker sex site Fleshbot. The reason for the disappearance is unclear; but whatever it is, it can't fit in well with Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow's free speech crusading. But you can file it under one of the great universal truths: Media People (of all stripes) Are Touchier Than Anybody.

Good news for the Associated Press! "In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006," an annual report from the University of Washington reveals. The majority of arrests since 2003 have taken place in Iran, China, and Egypt, though the US of A gets a mention: "The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US." Thats fine, fine company we're in, isn't it? Of course, the reported number could be deceptively low.

The NYPD and the Secret Service shut down an art exhibition across the street from the New York Times building earlier this morning. The show's title was "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama." This is today's "Thing most assured of getting in the tabloids tomorrow." The artist, Yazmany Arboleda, says his project is really about the media—he's definitely good at getting media attention, at least. He's even set up a website for each candidate's assassination (uh, in the media). Photos of his illegal work after the jump:

A young man in Saudi Arabia (he is delivering a kidney to his father—no joke!) reports that the site of Fouad al Farhan, the Saudi blogger jailed last year, is blocked. Along with Radar, Fleshbot, and Craigslist Casual Encounters. [Kidney and the Kingdom]

On Capitol Hill today, Google officials presented suggestions on how American lawmakers can make the Internet more free. The solution to get regimes that censor information and, more importantly, the ads that run alongside it? Foreign aid, an ambassador and treaties, treaties, treaties! I'm a little skeptical Google will accomplish what Amnesty International's decades of work fighting free-speech abuses worldwide has not. Especially given our own dubious record when it comes to enforcing the First Amendment. Yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) wrote an open letter to Google to pull down videos of "Islamist Extremist," which YouTube has now denied. First, they came for the Muslims, and I said nothing.

CEOs and founders feeling hounded by pesky profit-hating humanitarians could learn a lesson or two from Google cofounder Sergey Brin. At Google's annual shareholder meeting yesterday, Amnesty International presented two shareholder proposals on behalf of the New York State Pension Funds involving Google's difficulties with China, privacy and censorship. Brin handled the PR mess, no problem.

"Video of the pie throwing incident was posted on YouTube, and received close to 70,000 views in 36 hours, making it one of the most popular videos on the site. Without notice, YouTube abruptly censored the video, removing it from the website. Hundreds of news outlets, blogs, and websites had linked to the video. The Greenwash Guerillas have reposted the clip at: www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org [...]This is the second time Friedman has been hit by a pie. In October 2002, he received a banana pie to his face while promoting his writings on free-market globalization in Boston."

Shanghaiist is reporting that CNN.com seems to be unreachable in China, or at least in Shanghai. "Nobody we've asked seems to be able to access CNN.com right now," the blog reports. The Chinese government is still criticizing comments by CNN's Jack Cafferty that ended with Cafferty saying, in response to a question about China's communist regime, "I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." Chinese officials argue that Cafferty was talking about the people of China, not just the government. In that case, it's easy to see how they'd feel insulted. Blocking the internet like some kind of goon is not something your average Chinese person engages in. That sort of work is a privilege. You earn it. Video of Cafferty's remarks after the jump. UPDATE: The problem also affects Hong Kong and may be the result of attacks by "nationalistic Chinese hackers" rather than the Great Firewall.

Can you imagine if every video posted online had to be reviewed for propriety by a human before it went live? Can you even wrap your mind around the amount of effort that would take, for very little benefit? The people at YouTube can, and they're telling the British Parliament it's an incredibly horrible idea. England called YouTube on the carpet after someone posted a video of London woman getting gang raped in February, and it wasn't promptly removed [Telegraph UK]. That's a serious tragedy, but sometimes the cure can be worse than the malady. Google's lawyer compared the pre-screening idea to posting a policeman on every corner of every city. Bankrupt the treasury in pursuit of justice! It's doubtful the UK would descend into a US-style "We are so tough on crime that we will destroy everything" overreaction. But there is a group who is allowed to post a video titled "Genisis19:4 Gang Rape" on YouTube: Gays4Jesus!

Datalounge, the famously bitchy gay message board, has apparently banned all political discussion. This race is tearing this nation apart! Many gays like Hillary Clinton because she is campy, but others like Barack Obama because he is attractive. Now no one can like either of them and that's final. Selections from the thread announcing the new policy, including the stunning revelation that the webmaster donated to Obama, attached.

GoDaddy writes in on our report of a customer fighting with the domain-name and Web-hosting service

While everyone agrees that GoDaddy.com shut down a police-rating site, the hosting service and the owner of RateMyCop.com can't agree on why. PR folk at Go Daddy say the site was a bandwidth hog, while the RateMyCoppers say they were shut down for "suspicious activity" — i.e. offending the police. In any case, RateMyCop is now moving to Rackspace.com and will live to rate another day. Back to those controversial posts, like the one calling Officer Michael Mannino of Phoenix, AZ "kind, caring and courteous."

Iran is going to shut off the Internet for the duration of the upcoming election. Unfortunately this only applies to the Iranian election, and only if you live in Iran. [IHT]

If there is any lingering doubt that Rupert Murdoch is going to change the Wall Street Journal, consider The Far Eastern Economic Review. The small monthly became part of the Australian uber-mogul's empire in December. The magazine was planning to run a review of a tell-some book about Murdoch's time in China. When editors realized that the book wasn't a Fox News-esque glowing portrait of Murdoch, they ditched the piece.

Type "dildo" into Wikipedia's search bar and what do you get? If you happen to be on a U.S. Air Force computer, a warning that the link you were about to view has been blocked. No big deal, right? At stateside bases, the Air Force justifies blocking Web pages as a productivity move. Similarly, crossword puzzles, Flash videogame sites, YouTube, and even eBay are now off-limits. Understandably. But blogs — some of the Web's most diverse sources for news and commentary, which we might translate into actionable intelligence? With each passing week, fewer and fewer remain available.