BuzzMachine

Former American idol
: Best Week Ever reports rumors that Bob Dylan will be a guest judge on American Idol. Oh how the times a-change.

Effing wonderful
: A census of the number of Fs on Deadwood. [via David Weinberger]

Next, the FCC will censor the President’s name
: I’m not sure I buy this because it’s just too perfect but…

The International Broadcasting Bureau set up an anonymizing service to let Iranian web users view sites around the mullahs and their censors but the F filter built in to prevent it being used for porn (why?) allegedly blocks any site mentioning “bush.” [via Lost Remote]

Core
: I’m on the floor of the Soho Apple store after the Denton-Calacanis panel. I won’t blog it live. When Anil Dash asked how many people here — and it’s quite crowded — have blogs, a forest of hands went up. Welcome to our echo chamber and we love it. But there’s nothing wrong with this. Bloggers get together at every opportunity. Accountants don’t. Funeral directors don’t. We like doing this and like the other people doing it. And we also love to blather. So here we are.

Nick and Jason weren’t quite as sparky as some may have hoped, but there were moments with flash. I’ll look at others’ blogs to find them.

: The panel with Choire, Lockhart, Jen, and Felix is by far the most entertaining and charming.

: And here (thanks to a Technorati link) is a blog report on the blog event.

News is a conversation, redux
: Ken Sands, blogging master of the Spokesman-Review, sends me a great story of news as a conversation — before the news is published. Here’s a case of an editor consulting his audience and asking them what he should do before he does it. Chris Cobler, editor of the Greeley Tribune, writes Ken:

I thought you’d be interested to know we used our e-board and my editor’s blog to survey readers before deciding whether to publish the latest disturbing images from Iraq. I sent a query to the 565 members of our e-board shortly after 2 p.m. today. By tonight, we have received more than two dozen e-mail responses and a half-dozen more comments posted to my blog. In the mall e-mail we sent, I referred readers to my

blog at www.greeleytrib.com/triblog to see the three photos distributed by AP.

After listening to our readers, we decided to publish the photo of the human pyramid on an inside page with the jump from a front-page story. With the A1 story, we published an advisory warning readers of the disturbing nature of the image inside and also referred them to my blog for more discussion of the images….

We have benefited greatly from this new conversation with our readers.

Now that is respecting your audience. Better, it’s looking upon the audience as the editors. Good work.

Worldwide domination
: Heiko Hebig, leading German blogger, joins the Loic Le Meur’s European team for Movable Type/Typepad.

Conservatives cut in line, liberals wait in line
: Wonkette Ana Marie Cox continues her sociological and sexual-scatological study of the White House correspondents dinner. From the Bloomberg after-party:

Line is not quite around the block. Jeff Bezos is behind us. Franken about five places behind us, swaying just slightly. Much discussion on whether or not IDs are being checked and whether or not everyone is being forced to stand in line or just those of us who may be famous-for-DC but who are not legitimately famous. Question answered:

The Daily Stern

: Just got to the op-ed page in the NY Times and found a defense of the First Amendment and, thus, Howard Stern:

It is Mr. Stern’s offensiveness that makes his cause so important. The F.C.C. is using his unpopularity as cover for a whole new approach that throws out decades of free-speech law. The talk right now is over the colorful battles between Mr. Stern and Michael Powell, the head of the F.C.C. But when the headlines fade, the censorious new regime will apply to everyone. The danger it poses to the culture is real….

This new legal landscape will stifle important artistic expression, since broadcasters will be afraid of wandering too close to an essentially undefined line. It also raises a real danger that indecency will be used to stifle political dissent….