Guardians of the Truth?

Yesterday afternoon I submitted my piece to the Partial Observer, where I say, among other things, that I don't think Flat Earthers should be arrested. Last night, Tracy Twyman posted the same thought. Her post appeared, and I read it, a day before mine appeared, though I submitted mine hours before her post appeared. If I had borrowed the example from Twyman, I would have provided the link. I wonder if other bloggers and writers have had similar brushes with the appearence of plagiarism.

Related to the theme of this week's Partial Observer column is Kevin Carson's post on The Trained Dog Ethic:

[A] genuinely educated person should instinctively distrust anything that those in authority are trying to get him to believe. The automatic response to any slick ad campaign, aimed at promoting "pro-social" values, should be to critique the agenda behind it. Unfortunately, the product the schools package as "education" is aimed at creating just the opposite tendency. From kindergarten on up, the central lesson learned in schools is to find out what is necessary to please those in authority, and then do it, in order to get that gold star or new line on one's resume. Information is something one gets from those officially qualified to dispense it. School is the beginning of a lifetime habit of only accepting knowledge filtered through the institutional culture of a large organization.

So, the big story of the day is that the government of Dubai has purchased control of six major American ports from a British company. A blogger is supposed to manufacture an opinion about this, but I confess I know nothing about the operation of ports, including how inspections take place, tariffs collected, etc. But I have developed a rule (which I may discuss in a future post if I remember): Always assume that Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and James Sensenbrenner are always wrong on everything. I don't know about McCain and Sensenbrenner, but I do know that Clinton is opposed to this purchase. Therefore, it's probably a good idea. Then again, another rule to follow is that what the Bush Administration does is always evil, stupid, or both. So I'm conflicted.

I don't know how reliable Capitol Hill Blue is, but I tend to believe Doug Thompson when he says that Dick Cheney was drunk.

See Mark Johnson's very first editorial cartoon.

Steve Scott is reinterpreting the most abused and destructive chapter of the Bible.

And Blair Warren's second excerpt of the Forbidden Keys to Persuasion is up.
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