Each blogger is the czar of his or her domain, the autocrat of the bits, keeper of the sacred opinion. There are varying degrees, of course, but everyone more or less wants to be right and not just most of the time, all the time. We want to be infallible, offering forth our wisdom on a heady brew of subjects that define who we are as people in this digital bouquet of interests and experiences.

At an appearance at Michigan State University in late January, Moore took questions after his two-hour talk. A student asked if rumors about him building on a wetland Up North were true.

Silence. Then: "Don't know what you're talking about."

According to state records, Moore partially filled in a wetland to improve his beach. He quickly fixed the problem and wasn't fined.

Why deny it?

"A pathological need to be right," Hamper said.

UPDATE: Chris pointed out that if a person admits he's wrong, people might actually pay more attention to what he says-- because they can feel confident that if he says something that turns out to be wrong, he'll set the record straight. Otherwise he just ends up looking really silly, and not very authoritative, when his listeners find out independently that he was wrong.