It was an interesting conversation. But it was in no way an interview. It seemed more like two guys happily jumping up and down and agreeing with each other.

"'round the world"? never heard of him

must be the american "world"

Dude, Charles Johnson banned Iowahawk. Iowahawk! I've never seen anyone so humorlessly obsessed with ideological purity, often carrying it out to absurd lengths of guilty-by-association. Since Mark Frauenfelder links Iowahawk, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if Charlie took it into his head to denounce boingboing. Even many of his former sycophants have been banned.

The internet can be a nasty and contentious place, sure. But when absolutely everybody you encounter is out to get you? Maybe it's you.

Political wonk makes statement that attracts attention. Many agree, many disagree. Real world left unaffected. Film at 11.

I love all the loons on Richard's site trying to claim Charles had always been some sort of deranged leftist.

I swear, some people will stand right in front of a tree and insist it's a fire hydrant because Fox News told them so.

"The internet can be a nasty and contentious place..."

How dare you, sir!

You know, Metzger is becoming a better and better interviewer over the years. His performance here was great and made for a really engaging, interesting interview.

That said, I'm sorry to say Metzger is probably going to hell for not believing that fossils were put in the ground by the devil to trick us.

Everything else aside, it warms my heart to see people with traditionally conservative values (limited scope government, free enterprise) distance themselves from the increasingly wacko "Conservatives" in America that seem hell bent on sending us back into Dark Age mysticism.

On paper the "conservative" values seem very rational. But as a typically progessive voter, I see modern "conservatives" as the worst threat to the Future for My Children than any terrorist cell.

Take back your party. Get rid of the wackos and welcome to 2010.

Charles Johnson parted ways with some of the commenters he attracted to his site. Not one inch more than that. A firestorm. What blogperbole.

I never paid much attention to LGF, still don't, have no idea of Johnson's political beliefs. That said, I agree that there is a glorification of scientific ignorance on the right. But what I find more annoying is that politics has become a spectator sport, where each side roots for "their team", as if that is the way to a brighter future, as if one side has all the correct ideas and the other side is evil. Both sides do it, but I think the right is much much more brutal in that way-- if you listen to Limbaugh or Beck or Hannity, they will always find a way to forgive or rationalize GOP errors, whereas they will nitpick the tiniest DEM error and try to turn it into the next Watergate. Government is supposed to be about making a nation effective and efficient and prosperous, ideologies aside; I don't care what party my doctor or mechanic belongs to, I care whether he or she can improve my health or fix my car. But politicians will bend the truth and fudge statistics to defend their ideology-- seems to me that is the worst kind of scientific ignorance: if the numbers don't support your particular policy, why are you defending it?

I had no idea Charles Johnson was a jazz guitarist for 30 years.

First, thank you for the link to the interview, Boingers!

Now, to respond to this latest urban legend being circulated here -- yes, I banned Iowahawk. (gasp!)

But there's just a bit more to the story. LGF readers noticed one day last year that Iowahawk had suddenly delinked LGF, without a word to me about it, even though I had promoted his site for years and posted more than a hundred links to his satire pieces.

When some LGF readers contacted him (on their own, not at my suggestion) to ask why he had delinked me, he emailed back snarky sarcastic comments that made it pretty clear it was done with malice, as part of a general campaign to delink LGF on the right wing blogs because I just wasn't hatin' President Obama enough for them.

So sure, I banned Iowahawk -- after it was completely clear that he had turned on me.

And now it's become another smear story that these people circulate endlessly around the web, minus all of the context I posted above, to try to put around this idea that I'm banning these people for no reason at all.

The irony is almost painful; right wingers seem to believe they should have a right to post anything they want at the blog I run and pay for, and whine like little children when I enforce my own rules against extreme hate speech, violent comments, and abusive insults. These are the same people who complain about government forcing businesses to stop discriminating against minorities -- but when the shoe's on the other foot, oh how they sob about it.

Just setting the record straight -- I didn't expect to see this particular lie posted here, of all places. And no, I'm not about to "denounce Boing Boing," either. In fact, I enjoy Boing Boing a lot, and have added the site to my live RSS feeds at LGF.

Thanks again for the link!

So it's not a "lie", it's not a "legend", it's what actually happened. But you had a reason. He snarked at you! He's part of a vast, right wing conspiracy of snark. And you won't stand for it. It's your blog, and you can run it however you see fit.

Of course you can. It is your right to alienate and retaliate against anyone who doesn't show you absolute agreement and utmost deference on your own blog.

But if you recreate the atmosphere of a clique of high school cheerleaders, don't be surprised when it gets kinda' lonely.

Lonely? Believe me, that's not one of my problems. We're currently over 90,000 pageviews today at LGF, and nearly 3,000 comments. But keep on spreading the lies, dude. It's really working for you.

The long term trends speak for themselves. Maybe Quantcast is just a bunch of snarky, lying, fascist, racist, creationists too. And on an individual basis, even those who supported you most strongly after your "break with the right" are leaving. At least high school cliques are mercifully ended by graduation. If you want to see how that approach works beyond high school, pick up a biography of Ayn Rand.

@12
"But if you recreate the atmosphere of a clique of high school cheerleaders..."

Kind of like what you do when you post theoretical bullshit like pretending to know what someone will do next, like "denounce boingboing".
Perhaps you'd like to predict that I will handcuff a turkey to my neck. Sure, I don't have a blog to you can read to create that impression, but you clearly haven't let that stop you before.

OK, now I see where you're coming from; you went and dug up some links from one of the anti-LGF stalker blogs. Yawn.

Some people might think it's a good thing to take stands based on principle even if it's unpopular, instead of prostituting oneself to pump up traffic. But those would be the people we call "normal."

I've never done anything at LGF just to increase my traffic. The opinions I express are the opinions I believe. I could not possibly care less whether my traffic goes up or down by a few points as a result, and the fact is that LGF is still pulling in better traffic than most blogs.

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Wow. A creationist at Boing Boing. That's something you don't see every day.