By Nathan Barton

Good afternoon.  The news this week is almost a repeat of last week, or so it seems.  But here goes on a few things of interest.  This will be a short commentary today, but hopefully a lot more will come later today or tomorrow.  As always, though I don’t say it often, I appreciate those reading this and all feedback.

One of the big problems with some parts of the Internet these days is NOT new, but far easier to do today than in the past.  For centuries (since the invention of printing, especially), it has been common for advocates of various political or religious positions, AND the opponents of those positions, to write, edit, translate, and sometimes outright forge documents favoring their view.  With sites and ideas like Wikipedia, it is a constant battle. Don’t like the facts stated?  Sign up as one (or more) contributors and edit every time someone ELSE puts something in that you don’t like.  For other sites that are NOT crowd-written and edited, you just need some basic hacker skills to go change – sometimes subtly, the content to reflect your love or hate.  We have an example of that this week, when “haters” of homeschooling hacked the Dictionary.com site to spew some bile. The challenge for homeschoolers and their supporters is to NOT respond in the same way.  Just as it is with ANY propaganda, especially that coming from the State.

Mama’s Note: Hackers and indiscriminate editing are certainly problems, but hardly the worst. The internet is a vast pool of information, some good, some bad, and much of it irrelevant. From the beginning of civilization, the wise person searched for the truth, verified it and then was open to reexamine it if necessary. Neither the advent of printing or the internet changed that. Trust, but verify.

Amel Shimoun Nona, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, who is now living in exile, warned that his diocese is now run by radical Muslims and that “liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here,” adding that “Islam does not say that all men are equal.”  He is right, of course: the Quran and Haditha make it clear that their God IS a “respecter of persons.”  Even Muslims are not equal:  again, the concept of “submission” that is central to Islam makes this plain.  For too many people raised in the Bible and some form of christian religion, it is very hard to understand this, and so we make mistakes in dealing with Muslims and especially Islamists.

Texas Governor Perry says that Indictments are ‘Not the Way That We Settle…Political Differences in This Country’ and I can understand him saying that.  But perhaps he’d prefer the old Texan way?  Pistols at 50 yards on Main Street at high noon?  I’ll bet that he would, even if he’s taken to wearing loafers instead of cowboy boots to “soften” his image.

Mama’s Note: Fifty yards? I didn’t think those old pistols had that kind of accurate range. 🙂  Someone could make a bundle selling tickets to those matches.