I think a non-China post to end the day is forgivable. As an IP and technology lawyer, I have a passing interest in technology. I deal with lawyers and business guys on a regular basis who are clueless when it comes to new tech, and some of these folks are supposed to be experts. And then we have John McCain.

John McCain on the Internet (from the New York Times):

He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.

“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

Good God. I wonder what a President McCain's technology and health care policies would look like?

To add insult to injury, there is this nugget courtesy of Americablog:

Just saw John McCain being interviewed on the TODAY Show. He told us that he does know about the economy — boasting of his tenure as Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. In fact, McCain chaired that committee from 1997- 2001, then 2003- 2005. One area of the committee's jurisdiction is "Science, engineering, and technology research and development and policy." So, McCain was in charge of the committee with jurisdiction over technology issues — during a period of some amazing technological advances — but he doesn't know how to get online. That's classic.

No comments necessary, I guess. In China, Grandpa Wen gets into social networking. In the U.S., we have McCain, who explained his Vice Presidential vetting process with this:

"We're going through a process where you get a whole bunch of names, and ya … Well, basically, it's a Google," McCain said. "You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It's remarkable, you know."