SOMEBODY IN THE COMMENTS over at Ed Cone’s blog asked how I do corrections:

When Glenn gets something wrong, how does he handle the situation: Leave the post as is? Silently rewrite/delete it? Rewrite/delete, marking it as Updated? explaining why it was updated?

How does his approach to error handling compare to rowback and other means by which mainstream media sets the record straight?

Minor errors on spelling, phrasing, etc., will just be fixed. (I often correct typos, etc., in reader email, too, as they bug the hell out of me.) For more substantive errors, my basic rule is that I always put in an update correcting the post where the original error was, so that anyone who follows a link to it (or finds it on Google) will see the correction. If the item has scrolled down, and the correction seems significant, I’ll note it again in a separate post so that the correction’s at the top of the page. And I’ll link the new post to the old one so that people can see clearly what was being corrected. I’ll even do that when I’m not certain that the original item was in error, but think the issue has been made significant enough to make sure people hear both versions. (A recent example implicating most of these considerations is here.) On the other hand, your belief that a particular set of facts supports a different conclusion than the conclusion that I draw from those facts doesn’t constitute a factual error on my part, but rather a difference in interpretation. I might indicate it, if I think it’s interesting or possibly persuasive, but I don’t generally treat that as a correction.

Other bloggers are, of course, free to do it their way. But once or twice I’ve been fooled when they posted a later correction but didn’t update the original post. Also, posting corrections in comments rather than as an update to the post itself is probably a bad idea, as lots of people don’t read comments. Those are my thoughts, anyway. Others may feel differently. As to how this compares with Big Media, well, I leave that comparison to the reader.

UPDATE: Here are some thoughts from Rebecca Blood that are worth reading.

BLOGGER SCHEDULED TO argue before the Supreme Court. I’ll bet he won’t wear pajamas.

MORE SPACE-BLOGGING, over at GlennReynolds.com.

HERE’S MORE BLOGGING from the Liberty Film Festival in Los Angeles.

X-PRIZE UPDATE: Another SpaceShipOne launch is scheduled for tomorrow. Burt Rutan seems unconcerned about the rolls on the last flight. I certainly hope he’s right, and that everything goes well.

DEBATE CHEATING? Drudge has video.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, this ought to be against the rules.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I should note that the cheating story was originally broken by INDCJournal and The Daily Recycler.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh.

MORE: Jim Geraghty doesn’t think it matters: “The predictable explosion of enthusiasm for Kerry and the optimism about his chances in the mainstream media will not be interrupted by a mere breaking of the debate rules.”

Not just predictable, I should note, but predicted. Meanwhile, reader Barry Dauphin sends a list. Click “read more” to read it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a report that it was just a pen.

MORE: INDCJournal says it’s a pen, too, and adds: “The debate rules were violated in letter, but not intent, and any charges of cheating against the Kerry campaign are undeserved and inaccurate.”

(more…)

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS ENDED THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR: Just a few weeks ago it was a massive humanitarian disaster. Then the United States condemned it, called it genocide, and threatened to act.

Result: There’s really no problem in Darfur at all! It’s all a fiction! The people in the camps are happy, and healthy, and grateful! Next we’ll hear that it’s all about oil, no doubt.

UPDATE: Rajan Rishyakaran is still posting the Sudan genocide roundup. Guess he hasn’t gotten the word that the whole thing’s just another neocon BushLied^TM plot.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On this turnabout, Inoperable Terran observes: “That would be hilarious if it weren’t so predictable.”

Er, yeah, and if people weren’t dying, and stuff. But I take the point.

TOM MAGUIRE HAS QUESTIONS about the “Global Test” approach and Israel.

UPDATE: Plus, Cheney-Edwards debate prep!

SISSY WILLIS:

The issues don’t change much from decade to decade, and it’s fascinating to watch how arguments pro or con a particular point go back and forth between parties depending upon the current occupant of the White House. One thing that has changed between those halcyon pre-chad, pre-9/11 days and our Fahrenheit 911/527’s/MoveOn, campaign-finance-reform-loophole era is the tenor of the debate. C-Span rebroadcast Cheney’s and Lieberman’s oh-so-civilized and — in Donald Rumsfeld’s term — helpful debate last night. Low key, measured and rational.

Things aren’t really that way now. Campaign finance “reform” has been enormously destructive to civil society, in my opinion.

IF YOU’RE NOT READING THE BELMONT CLUB, well, you should be.

UNSCAM UPDATE: The Times of London reports:

A LEAKED report has exposed the extent of alleged corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food scheme in Iraq, identifying up to 200 individuals and companies that made profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds from it. The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action.

A senior UN official responsible for the scheme is identified as a major beneficiary. The report, marked “highly confidential”, also finds that the private office of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, profited from the cheap oil. Saddam’s regime awarded this oil during the run-up to the war when military action was being discussed at the UN.

The report was drawn up on behalf of the interim Iraqi government in preparation for a possible legal action against those who may have illicitly profited under Saddam. The Iraqis hired the London-based accountants KPMG and lawyers Freshfields to advise on future action.

It details a catalogue of alleged bribery and corruption perpetrated by Saddam under the UN programme, revealing how the regime lined its pockets and those of influential politicians, journalists and UN officials.

Not shocking to blogosphereans, of course, but still news. And certainly more support for this thesis.

And, of course, there’s more evidence here.

UPDATE: Thoughts on what this means for Kerry’s “global test” approach to diplomacy here.

I don’t think the “Global Test” approach is going to help him. Maybe he can fall back on Richard Holbrooke’s statement:

Asked what the Kerry Doctrine actually is, Holbrooke, in a conference call with reporters, replied: “There is no Kerry Doctrine.”

Or maybe not. . . .

THE GLOBAL TEST business seems to be catching on.

This one is still funnier, though.

AN INTERESTING ARTICLE IN WIRED NEWS on space warfare. And here’s a link to the Air Force paper on “counterspace warfare” that it references. (And read this article and this earlier Air Force paper too, if you’re really interested.)

Contrary to uninformed opinions expressed elsewhere, there’s nothing about space militarization or even warfare in space as such that violates international law. Whether these particular plans are good ones, however, is something I can’t venture an opinion on at this point. However, I’m writing an article on new developments in space law for the Chicago Journal of International Law later this fall, and I’m sure I’ll arrive at an opinion before I’m done.

UPDATE: Here’s a very recent Congressional Research Service report on military space issues.

SOME OBSERVATIONS on allies and military spending. More here.

AN INTERESTING REPORT FROM AFGHANISTAN, by Radek Sikorski.

TOM BROKAW defends Dan Rather, compares bloggers to jihadists, and observes: “I don’t think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career.”

Yeah, I’ve noticed Brokaw, et al., not doing that.

UPDATE: D’oh! It was Peter Jennings with the quoted statement — Brokaw was the one making the jihad comparison. Sorry. I think the point still holds, though.

WATERGATE WEST? It seems to be a season of dirty tricks.

HUGH HEWITT is conducting a virtual symposium on bunker-busting nukes.

THUNE 50, DASCHLE 46: This can’t be making the Daschle camp happy.

UPDATE: RealClearPolitics shows Kerry up in several polls. This can’t be making the Bush camp happy.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some thoughts on the Bush / Kerry polls at Power Line. “We knew this was coming; the media story line for the next 30 days is Kerry’s comeback, which has the effect of wiping the slate clean and avoiding discussion of how he got behind in the first place. Is the comeback real? Rasmussen shows the President continuing to enjoy a three-point lead. Among his respondents, 6% say they changed their vote as a result of the debate–3% now voting for Kerry, 2% for Bush, and one percent now undecided.”

I await comments from the poll experts.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More here and here.

MARK STEYN:

The silliest thing Dick Cheney has ever said was a couple of weeks after 9/11: ‘One of the things that’s changed so much since September 11 is the extent to which people do trust the government — big shift — and value it, and have high expectations for what we can do.’

Really? I’d say 9/11 vindicated perfectly a decentralised, federalist, conservative view of the state: what worked that day was municipal government, small government, core government — the firemen, the NYPD cops, rescue workers. What flopped — big-time, as the Vice-President would say — was federal government, the FBI, CIA, INS, FAA and all the other hotshot, money-no-object, fancypants acronyms. Under the system operating on that day, if one of the many Algerian terrorists living on welfare in Montreal attempted to cross the US border at Derby Line, Vermont, and got refused entry by an alert official, he would be able to drive a few miles east, attempt to cross at Beecher Falls, Vermont, and they had no way of knowing that he’d been refused entry just half an hour earlier. No compatible computers.

On the other hand, if that same Algerian terrorist went to order a book online, amazon.com would know that he’d bought The Dummy’s Guide to Martyrdom Operations two years ago and their ‘We have some suggestions for you!’ box would be proffering a 30 per cent discount on The A-Z of Infidel Slaying and 72 Hot Love Tips That Will Have Your Virgins Panting For More. Amazon is a more efficient miner of information than US Immigration.

Is it to do with their respective budgets? No. Amazon’s system is very cheap, but it’s in the nature of government to do things worse, and slower. To take another example from September 11, on three planes the crew and passengers followed Federal Aviation Administration procedures largely unchanged from the Seventies and they all died, along with thousands of other people; on the fourth plane, Flight 93, they used their cellphones, discovered that FAA regulations weren’t going to save them, and then acted as free-born citizens, rising up against the terrorists and, at the cost of their own lives, preventing that flight carrying on to its target in Washington. On a morning when big government failed, the only good news came from private citizens.

Don’t count on John Edwards making this point Tuesday night, though.

MR. SUN IS PAGING WONKETTE. Follow the link, look at the photo, and you’ll see why.

UPDATE: Someone else has noticed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A whole gallery of unfortunate football images.

THE OTHER DAY I linked to a column by Tim Chavez in the Nashville Tennessean calling attention to unreported successes in Iraq. Various letter-writers over at Romenesko disagree. (The absence of permalinks means you’ll have to scroll). Excerpt: “I can tell you firsthand that the report Tim Chavez supposedly received from a Marine lieutenant colonel claiming that ‘HUNDREDS of dead women and children were brought out after Sadr left’ the shrine of Imam Ali is entirely false.”

UPDATE: Chavez responds here. Read the whole thing.

THANKS TO RAND SIMBERG, we seem to have found the “Global Test.”

Take it yourself, today!

JONAH GOLDBERG says we need to be paying more attention to Iran. He’s right. Excerpt:

Tehran, the nation’s capital, as well as several other cities have been wracked in recent days with widespread anti-government protests and violent crackdowns by government forces. Buildings have been set ablaze, and exiles are calling for revolution. According to reports on Activistchat.com, a Web site dedicated to freeing Iran from the oppressive rule of the mullahs, numerous protestors have been killed. Ledeen – who has many sources inside Iran and out – reports that the roundups and executions of young men have picked up at a terrific pace. Iran has staged 120 public hangings since March alone, according to the government’s own news agency.

The unpopularity of the mullahs, primarily with the younger, Western-oriented generation, is causing panic inside the regime. The appeal of revolutionary theocracy has been bled dry. The Christian Science Monitor reported – some would say “reluctantly reported” – that discontent with the regime and a desire for “change” according to various “polls” equals 90 percent. And we all remember those famous soccer games where Iranian fans chanted “USA! USA!”

Even if this weren’t such a powerful human interest story, it would still be appalling how completely the mainstream media have downplayed what could be one of the most important news stories of our lives. If Iran were to throw off the shackles of the mullahocracy in favor of anything like a sane, decent and democratic regime, it would be the most significant advance for freedom and decency since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It would be a national security victory of staggering proportions.

I wonder why it’s not getting more attention?

THIS WEEK’S Carnival of the Recipes is up!