He's trying to enforce House rules with the intention to censor. He could have written a letter asking to relax these rules, but he didn't. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Good read, thanks Mark. - Veronica

Heh. Thanks, Veronica. I tried to clearly mark the "boring" and "interesting" parts so that I'd have a better shot at folks making it to the end of the article. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

I don't get it. Currently the making of official posts (including videos) can only be on the government site. The letter proposes ways to allow posting elsewhere, but with care to avoid association with advertising and political material. So there is no addition of restrictions. They are proposing ways to relax the current ones for posting of videos. So yes, that is a knee-jerk post. - Dennis E. Hamilton via twhirl

I also believe that the blogosphere and especially Twitter were "played" by repetitious tweets that kept making the same mis-statement. - Dennis E. Hamilton via twhirl

Masnick has also replied, Mark. - Eric Eldon

Kevin, either see it in the theater or don't bother. It's one of those, I think. - Veronica

I just finished watching it and if you have a nice big TV and a blu-ray player than NetFlix it since it has some cool scenes but overall wasn't something I would watch twice. - Trevor Bardon

in other news, wall-e was freaking awesome - Kevin Rose

Evvaaa..... - Grant Gochnauer

saw 3 movies this weekend, Hancock was the best of 3 (wall-e & get smart) - clarke thomas

Hancock was definitely just so-so. I'm really hoping that Wall-E is still in theaters when I get back from Paris, because I've heard nothing but great things. - Harrison Hoffman

This movie sucked absolute ass. Do NOT see this movie. The storyline was horrible and it came off as a movie trying to cash in on the comic book movie craze. - Sam

It didn't beat Aquaman :P - Andrea Baker

ok so this one is going to be free for me so ill let you know what i think in 6 hrs. hope it doesnt suck like everyone says - nick

'Wanted' was badass. - fijidaddy

Wall-E and Get Smart were great, Hancock I thought was pretty good (got worse towards the end), still need to see Wanted. Great summer for movies so far. - Jake Jarvis

Long thread on this over here: http://friendfeed.com/e/708f2a... - Ken Sheppardson

He was obviously joking - Bjorn Tipling

How do you link to a discussion Ken? - Bjorn Tipling

Oh, I see, the more dropdown - Bjorn Tipling

These kids today with their blargs! Off my lawn, ya darn kids! - Leon

Bjorn - so? in this day and age where anything a candidate says can be used against them or taken out of context, they need to watch what they say. - Veronica

One short clip taken out of context. Good fuel for the haters in the world. - William Beem

Considering the half-laugh after he said it and the laugh he got from the crowd, the only ones who seem to be taking this comment seriously are people who probably hated him long before this anyway. - Vinny

I don't hate McCain, actually. There are worse options out there than McCain. But saying you hate an extremely vocal community isn't good campaigning. - Veronica

If he said it seriously, I'd 100% agree with you, but I just don't think he was saying it seriously. And just for the record, I do hate McCain ;-) - Vinny

Veronica, true, but still I think it's an important thing for us to look at things critically and not be mislead by headlines that don't tell the whole story - Bjorn Tipling

Why would he, even jokingly, say he "hates the bloggers" if he didn't in some way believe that to be true? It's like an offhand comment, like he thinks no one would even care enough to be bothered by it. So flippant. - Veronica

@Veronica It's impossible to "watch what you say". Everything and anything can be taken out of context to be used against you. - Shey

It should be noted that the clip apparently goes on after the editor cut it. Kinda makes ya wonder what he said after that... - Vinny

"I hate such and such" is not a statement that can be taken out of context, imho. - Veronica

It's a short clip designed to highlight ONE comment. What was the context for the conversation? It doesn't matter to the people who are trying to find ways to hate on a man. My guess it's people who do stuff like that who were the topic of his conversation. - William Beem

It was definitely a joke, but bloggers are very easily irritated, so maybe it wasn't the best move. I don't think it will hurt him too bad though. - Harrison Hoffman

We're ornery like that. - Veronica

Just being a devils advocate here, but what if I was recorded saying "I am about to say something I don't mean: 'I hate such and such" and the only thing you saw was the last part of the statement. Don't get me wrong, I am going to vote for Obama, but it seems like he said something trying to be funny that was meant to be taken lighthearted. No reason to see everything the guy says as pure evil. - Bjorn Tipling

Now that you have me looking, I started digging and I can not find one single source that bothered to find out what the rest of his statement was because, to me, it looks like he went on to explain things a bit. They all point back to Crooks & Liars, whose partiality is, at the very least, questionable. Has anyone found the rest of his remarks? - Vinny

@Veronica ??? What? It doesn't matter what he said. They took it out of the original context. Even then it was obvious he was making a joke. - Shey

the head of the library association said this like 2 years ago and it did not go well for him. - Stefan Hayden

ty shey - it was a joke people - I realize that given his previous regrettable statements about his tech illiteracy that this is the worst joke he could have made in the eyes of this community but for goodness sakes. Between rising energy costs, our economy, the war, Iran, N Korea - we have PLENTY of things that need serious debate right now - do we really need to take a joke and accuse McCain (as I saw on another thread) of jking this way bcause he is agnst the rights of indviuals to freely exprss thmslvs? - Marco

Stefan, I remember that and I haven't renewed my ALA membership since (I have a library science degree). - Bjorn Tipling

[Posted this in the parallel conversation over on Scoble's link to the same story. Sigh. I hate FriendFeed] Just dug up this from his Liberty University commencement address back in 2006. Summary: He really does hate bloggers ;-) http://kshep.posterous.com/mcc... - Ken Sheppardson

Well, do you expect anything less from John McCain? Does he know what a blog or blogger is? I mean, he doesn't use a computer much (but then again neither does Richard Branson - so maybe we should not hold that against McCain).... hmm ... But then ... Richard Branson isn't running for US President.... it's OK if he doesn't use a computer - he prob doesn't need to ... but McCain ... he doesn't need a computer either .. but he does need to understand people who do - because a lot of people do. - Marshall Sponder

I'm not particularly fond of McCain, but it sounds like he was just making a joke. He did the melodramatic, exasperated sign when he said it. I'm sure there's some grain of truth to it, but people are acting he's brought out legislation to ban blogging or something. Blogging is protected speech. McCain can't do anything about that. - Jason Huebel

It's a rotten thing to say, but he seemed to connect with those people when he said it. There's a large group of people who are actively shunning new media. Afraid of change, as usual. - David Van Vickle

Has he started up an enemies list yet? - Harry Myhre

He probably thinks bloggers are people from Holland who wear wodden shoes. - Harry Myhre

McCain hates bloggers and Obama hates America. It's lose-lose. - Jim the Tolerable

I had forgotten - Paul Newman was on Nixon's enemies list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... - Harry Myhre

Does John McCain even know what a blogger is or does? - Soso Sazesh

i hate to defend the old man, but doesn't it seem like he was trying to get a laugh? albeit a cheap one. - robert steburg

thats ok, I hate McCain so we're equal - Danilo da Silva via twhirl

I'm heartbroken. - Trish Robinson

jeez, Bush doesn't even use the "hate" word. - Andy Sternberg

So he hates commentators based on their favoured medium? Does he also hate artists who sculture (as opposed to paint) - Craig Thomler

Nice to know that hate is still part of his platform. - Douglas E. Welch via twhirl

me not know use computer, me hate computer people. - Amit Morson

You'll hate as more as we get closer to November. Keep saying stupid stuff. - Chris Baskind

The feeling's mutual. - Bryce

I'm sure " - Michael McGimpsey via twhirl

I actually watched the video -- it was obviously a joke. I take anything I read on C&L with a grain of salt anyway. - Shey

Seemed like he was joking to me - Bjorn Tipling

is this the kind of un-web 2.0 kind of guy we want running our country as we attempt to build our information worker dominance? ... I think not. - Shawn Smith via Alert Thingy

The things said in jest are often the most truthful things we utter, Sort of like In Vino Veritas. - Douglas E. Welch via twhirl

what a dumbass - Susan Beebe

hmm maybe he cannot find them on Internets? - Fred Grott

After seeing McCain with Jon Stewart 13 or so times, watching him back in 2002 on SNL as a hippie high school teacher, and seeing him on SNL in the last few months making fun of his age, I sorta get the impression he has... well... a sense of humor. He can be a funny guy. Hasn't anybody else noticed? - Ken Sheppardson

The company we keep. - Warner Crocker

A great divide in contemporary American culture: crony capitalists vs. creative capitalists. Crony capitalists hate creative capitalists and feel threatened by them. That's the subtext here if you dig deeply. The Bush 43 administration (of which McCain is a part) is the last angry gasp of a particular class of crony capitalists who want to annihilate everything that they can't understand or control. The Internet is full-throttle creative capitalism -- it drives these people nuts. - Sean McBride

Or maybe he was making a joke. - Ken Sheppardson

I think he is THE joke - Susan Beebe

Ken - How can a guy this deadly serious, with that rictus grin and ever-present rage, ever make a joke? Does he look like he gets the Internet? - Sean McBride

Unfortunately his jokes tend to be about hating people and bombing countries. That bomb Iran song was a hoot. - Kevin Bondelli

Sean : http://www.thedailyshow.com/vi... - Ken Sheppardson

This was on December 7, and the clip leaves out a part where he is using a blog as an example, so it is tough to determine whether he was being playful or not. I think the selectiveness of the clip is unfortunate. Anybody know where the whole piece is? - Dennis E. Hamilton via twhirl

Ken: I watched the video. McCain can be charming and likable in spurts. He's also a very angry man who is going to push the same war agenda in the Middle East as Bush/Cheney, at the behest of his neoconservative and crony capitalist puppeteers. If you think "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" is funny, along with $200 to $400 a barrel oil prices, you'll be impressed by McCain's wit and brilliance. Joseph Lieberman, who knows McCain well, praised him as a "Maccabee" -- an Old Testament holy warrior. - Sean McBride

More evidence that McCain may, in fact, have a sense of humor: http://video.google.com/videop... - Ken Sheppardson

Sorry, I meant December 2007 (it was the 29th) - Dennis E. Hamilton via twhirl

@Robert Scoble: McCain's hatred of bloggers is evidence of blogger power. If a guy who can't use a computer feels the impact of bloggers, it's a cause for celebration, no? - Michael Markman

@Sean McBride: pedantic nit: Maccabee doesn't appear in the Old Testament. He appears in the Apocrypha. - Michael Markman

There's a massive lack of any kind of a sense of humor going on in this campaign, especially when it comes to McCain. He used a crack about beating his wife when he felt that a reporter asked him a "Have you stopped beating your wife yet, Senator?" question, and he got beat up about it. There have been many similar instances, and maybe this is one, too. I don't particularly like John McCain, but I think everyone needs to stop jumping his shit about trivial crap. - David Worrell

Michael: a man who attends to the details -- I like that. :) Let me rephrase: the Maccabean meme -- the archetype of the ethnic nationalist holy warrior -- is a product of the Old Testament mindset or culture. (And there are many fine things in the OT -- I am not using the term in an exclusively pejorative way.) In any case, Lieberman praising McCain as a Maccabee doesn't inspire confidence in me about McCain; nor is it a tribute to McCain's sense of humor (or even sanity). - Sean McBride

Note: Joseph Lieberman is also a big fan of Christian Armageddonist John Hagee, a fanatic who wants to set the world on fire, starting in the Middle East. Apparently Lieberman sees signficant similarities between Hagee and McCain. - Sean McBride

Sean: wow, that explains a lot! yikes - Susan Beebe

John McCain is definitely aware of the Internet. - Alexander Carlill

Sounds like he doesn't like people who express their opinions either - Judy Jones

November is going to be catastrophic for the GOP, I think. - Alexander Carlill

Susan: Lieberman, Hagee, neoconservatives and Christian Zionists/Armageddonists are counting on John McCain to expand the Iraq War to Iran and the rest of the Middle East -- that is why they are promoting him. Notice how many belligerent and threatening statements McCain has made on the subject. He's a fanatic, not a comedian. This entire political bloc also hates political dissent and often smears political opponents as "terrorists" -- hence their hatred of the free-wheeling and intellectually independent Internet. - Sean McBride

"I hate the bloggers." So, he hates the ability of people to express themselves without censorship? Seriously, even in jest, this is disconcerting. And remember the adage - never truer words spoken in jest. - AJ Kohn

AJ: One of John McCain's chief promoters, Joseph Lieberman, is also a sponsor of the Homegrown Terrorism Act, a piece of nasty legislation that is moving in the direction of censoring the Internet along neoconservative standards of political correctness. Make no mistake: these people really, really hate the Internet and diversity of opinion. "They hate our freedoms." :) - Sean McBride

And I hate the Interwebs, too! - David Gutelius

Ignore Lieberman. A few Senate victories and the Dems will kick him to the curb, he'll lose his seniority and the GOP won't take him either. He's a religious zealot and a total opportunist. Picking him as VP was possibly Al Gore's worst decision since he stole all of Vint Cerf's ideas and invented the Internet based on his unfinished plans... - Andrew Feinberg

Seriously folks - he was kidding. I'm not going to defend the man as a technology pioneer but I think we can all agree that "bloggers" in the most general sense are not beloved far and wide - I don't know where Yglesias gets off calling the laughter 'tepid' either. There are PLENTY of substantive issues to disagree over - I'm ignoring ridiculous "Obama doesn't wear a flag pin" memes - no need for anyone to grab their e-muskets over this one either... - Marco

I'd say the Democrats have pretty much kicked Lieberman to the curb already. - Ken Sheppardson

He's still Chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and the leadership has to kiss his ass lest he go Jim Jeffords on them. With 12 Republican Senate seats open, give the Dems a few victories and Joe gets the boot. - Andrew Feinberg

Hey, just dug up this from his Liberty University commencement address back in 2006. Summary: He really does hate bloggers ;-) http://kshep.posterous.com/mcc... - Ken Sheppardson

he also hates puppies, lollipops pigtails and sunlight - I mean ANY sunlight - if elected President he has a secret plan to detonate nuclear devices on the sun so that he may plunge the world into eternal darkness mwahahahahahaha Oh and he met my grandmother once (sweet, sweet lady) and he slapped her because she didn't get up when he entered the room (she was wheelchair bound at the time). - Marco

LOL at Marco. Need to be able to "Like" comments as well. - Robert Stribley

@ Shey, i think he's serious, but he just let it come across as being a joke - Gordon Swaby

@Gordon he's not despite whatever other problems people may have with him he genuinely enjoys a free and open exchange of ideas (simmer down - no flaming that comment folks) for well over a year now (and long before ANY other candidate followed suit I believe) he has hosted regular conference calls directly with bloggers where every two weeks or so he jumps on a conf call and takes their questions. It is undeniable that he provides journalists far more direct access than Obama - Marco

I couldn't help but comment more extensively on Sean McBride's "creative capitalism" comment on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/5sj5qf After looking further at Sean McBride's FriendFeed, I can see the delusions don't stop at "creative capitalism". - Jason Huebel

He was clearly joking during that clip. Senator McCain gives unprecedented access to bloggers and to all media types unlike Senator Obama. http://tinyurl.com/677vds The main benefit of web 2.0 is that it gives us a better view of how people think and what they are really like, but in this election Senator McCain is the only one with an open access policy. Senator Obama is restricting access to all but a few media outlets while Senator McCain is letting small town newspapers ride on the Straight Talk Express which gives them the opportunity to ask the candidate questions. - Michael Beach

Jason: I read your interesting blog entry. Let me clarify a bit: "creative capitalism" -- new successful and profitable businesses based on original intellectual property and fresh ideas, not necessarily restricted to the Internet or information technology. "Crony capitalism" -- businesses based on financial manipulation, no-bid contracts, oligopolies, monopolies and the like. See, for instance, Halliburton's Iraq War profiteering. Creative capitalists tend to gravitate to the Democratic Pary; crony capitalists to the Republican Party. Halliburton is a very different kind of enterprise (and culture) than Google. - Sean McBride

John McCain's script is being written by the same neoconservatives at the AEI, JINSA, WINEP and other neocon think tanks who have come close to destroying the Republican Party and the conservative movement. They are urging McCain to expand the Iraq War to Iran, thus McCain's "joke" -- "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" -- a little ditty that was also sung by neocon James Woolsey from the AEI. Is there anything funny about the prospect of $10 or $20 a gallon gas? Chaos in the Mideast? Try nightmare. - Sean McBride

Throughout the nineties I got the strong impression that old school crony and vulture capitalists were utterly baffled and enraged by the smart ass kids from MIT, Stanford and other hotbeds of radical imagineering who created the Internet revolution. They saw the entire cultural shift as mystifying, subversive and threatening. McCain is definitely old school in this kulturkampf. Ancient. - Sean McBride

How do you make the Apple Symbol? - Michael Narciso

A lot of Windows and Linux users won't have a clue what you're talking about: http://img65.imageshack.us/img... - Vincent X

Shift + Option + K - Aaron Brazell

@Michael Option-Shift-K  - Adam Turetzky

Does this work on the Windows side too? I'm guessing not. - Michael Narciso

nice...but only worked in OSX; not on my XP or Linux computer - Daniel Robitaille

Um, all I see is I <heart> and then three lines going in different directions. - possible248

It's an Apple logo when you're on a Mac. - Vincent X

Ah. Now I think I've got to make an ASCII Linux Penguin. - possible248

That's what it looks like on a Mac: http://img73.imageshack.us/img... - Vincent X

 - AJ Batac

I've been wondering for MONTHS what that has been - I've only seen what Vincent posted. Can anyone tell me what this is? http://friendfeed.com/e/9366b2... - Vince DeGeorge