Give us this day our daily blog. And lead us NOT!

Perry de Havilland at Samizdata linked to this story about blogging, something "professional" journalists consider "an epidemic of vanity publishing rather than the glorious outbreak of free expression it actually represents."

No doubt the writings of Tom Paine, John "the Devil" Wilkes, and even the Federalist Papers were also considered "an epidemic of vanity publishing" by their betters at the time.

But blogging IS a "glorious outbreak of free expression!" -- something the attacks only prove.

Likewise, Glenn Reynolds linked to this wonderfully optimistic piece praising the blog invasion as "a new way to trade ideas."

It sure is! Where else can you suppressed inside reports like this one from Salam Pax inside Iraq. Or (again from Glenn Reynolds) there's this more optimistic account

What right have we to read freely about events that the forces of quasi-governmental media censorship don't want us reading? And what's next? A blogger crackdown by the FBI? Read this damning story, the third-in-a-row from Instapundit, but I didn't see 'em anywhere else. (Certainly not on the ever more mainstream Drudge.)

Right now, they're only picking on high school students.

But I am not a high school student, so I need not worry….