Well, I’ve a weird problem : when I try to access the straightdope by just typying "www.straightdope.com in the adress bar, I find myself on a page with just an add. I tried several times with an identical result. I tried other sites : no problem.
Eventually, I could join by googling “straightdope” and following the link from google. How could such a thing happen. And why would following a link from google give a different result from typying the adress???
I tried calling up the Straight Dope front page in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.
In all three cases the advertisement at the top of the page was the first thing to display and then the rest of the page rendered fine.
We have no idea what’s going on with your browser, your operating system, your computer. I could not duplicate your results so I cannot tell you what happened over there.
Mon ami, vouz avez de malware. Téléchargez-vous AdAware.
Man, I’ve got to learn French. Everything sounds so sexy, even technical advice. 
I’m getting the same thing, using Firefox. The page that I have bookmarked for the SDMB is bringing up a page with a blocked ad and the ‘questions and comments’ email address blurb from the bottom of the page only. The url that I have bookmarked is http://www.straightdope.com/index.html and I get the same when typing www.straightdope.com in the address bar (only in Firefox, works normally in IE). I’ve changed the bookmark to the Forum menu page (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?) and that seems to be fine.
Clairobscur, are you using the NoScript Java blocker for firefox by any chance?
I use this and have straightdope.com allowed. But I just tried allowing http://127.0.01:2214 as well, and the front page then loaded normally.
Thanks for all the info and tips, folks.
For obvious reasons I have nothing on these pages blocked. 
Nope. I have this problem using IE. Apparently not using Firefox, I just tried.
And by the way, the add I get when I type www.straightdope.com is the straightdope add ( I now know since I just got the same when connecting with firefox). So, the problem seems to be that the rest of the page doesn’t load. Just the add.
Sorry if you already know this, but click your link/shortcut again and when it stops at the Ad hit F5 for refresh. It could be a cache problem.
Jim
Glad it’s not just me. I gave up and just changed my shortcut to point to the boards.
Does NoScript block Java or JavaScript? They aren’t at all the same thing.
I just checked this on my computer.
What seems to be happening is that the www.straightdope.com page is taking extremely long to load, because the advertisement on the top of the page is not loading correctly. I notice that the advertisement is being served by www.chicagoreader.com , and www.chicagoreader.com does not load at all in any of my browsers (Opera 9 beta and IE 7 beta).
So the problem seems to be with www.chicagoreader.com and, by dependance, www.straigthdope.com
Since the advertisement is not being served correctly, your browsers are probably timing out in attempting to load the ad, and not displaying anything at all as a result. In my case, it took a long time and then finally loaded the www.straightdope.com page without the advertisement (all I see is the text “advertisement:” on the top of www.straightdope.com page once it loads).
Can anyone else confirm whether they can load www.chicagoreader.com at all? Meanwhile, I’ll email this info up the chain.
Thanks for bringing it to our notice.
This very minute, http://www.chicagoreader.com/ fails to load in either Firefox or IE over Shaw cable, and similarly doesn’t work using Lynx or telnet over what IIRC is a Telus ADSL connection. So there does appear to be some problem!
I also had this problem, I had Straight Board on my favorites, then I got it through Google, and now have it on my favorites and get in with no trouble.
I can’t bring up chicagoreader.com either. I’m using FF 1.5
I have up to date IE over a T1 and http://www.chicagoreader.com/ will not display.
Jim
Loads fine for me. But I’m on a 10 megabit link.
The issue has been resolved. chicagoreader.com is back online, and straightdope.com is loading fine.
Thanks again for notifying us.
-xash
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