hey, i just wrote a post after reading a news report about obama's speech. then i found the text of the speech itself and discovered that the point highlighted in the news report that inspired my rant wasn't really in the speech. so i deleted the post.
i generally don't believe in deleting posts. in the normal course of things, if i post something that turns out to be wrong, i just will post an update or correction. or sometimes i'll do a follow-up post. my basic philosophy is that if i post something that's wrong, i should take responsibility for being wrong. and that's what i usually do.
but i've also developed an exception to that rule. sometimes i write a post, read it over, and realize it is deeply flawed. so i erase it rather than hitting the publish button. and sometimes i realize the problem right after i hit publish. in those cases, when i notice the problem just after i hit "publish", i'll cut myself some slack and delete the post. it's sort of like that five second rule for when you drop the food on the floor.
whenever you draw a line in the sand, there is eventually a hard case that is just over the line. lines are often arbitrary, so it's hard not to bend the rules when that happens. but if you start bending the rules, for all practical purposes, you've just creates a new line. the new line may only be five seconds over from the original line, but it becomes the new arbitrary border. and eventually something else is just five seconds over that new line, tugging at your conscience all over again.
that's essentially what happened today. the post i deleted was further out than what usually qualifies for deletion. but not by much and no one commented on the doomed post, so i deleted it. but now i feel guilty about it.
