Agree. People sometimes see geeks as (dont have a good english word for it, in german we say "Fachidioten", maybe One-subject-idiots) One-Subject-Idiots.
I think its awesome that HN somethims gets into other subjects, the community holds a nice balance without to much regulation.
First of all, it's intellectually dishonest, if done the way you were doing it. It'd be more correct to simply say "no, it's about current events/politics, and that interests me".
However, there's something about that in the guidelines:
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime".
Also, "anything that interests the group" is a terrible way to run a site like this, because eventually the group grows, and if you don't place limits, you'll start getting Ron Paul stories, taser stories, etc... etc...
