I'm not a copy editor...

...but there are some things I can't overlook.

The paragraph I'm working on contains three different forms of the term "sub-report", which is not easy to do, especially since the dialog box the paragraph describes contains only one form.

The paragraph also correctly uses criterion as a singular form, but pluralizes it as criteria's. The form in the dialog box is criteria.

Damn it, I hate it when they make me think about things!

Strange grammatical phenomena

Twice today I've noticed uses of the future perfect tense: once in an interview broadcast by CNN (with a French lawyer), and once in one of our rather erratically written manuals.

What's next? Tmesis? The Container for the Thing Contained?

(While I have your ear, I only named those figures of speech because I like them, rather than because they're obscure or uncommon. But that's a whole nother discussion.)

Group suspends bomb threats against French railway

From MSNBC: "PARIS - A mysterious group that claimed to have planted bombs on the French railroad network announced Thursday it is suspending its terror threats while it improves its ability to carry them out."

The article goes on to quote letters addressed to French president Jacques Chirac and to the French interior minister: “There are currently no bombs capable of functioning on the French rail network.”

This is some kind of Monty Python bunch of terrorists? "Well, we don't actually have any bombs in the commonly accepted sense, but once we iron out these little technical wrinkles you're going to be in big trouble."

Aftermath of yesterday's big meeting

Okay, is everybody ready to totally manage some quality?

I thought so.

Thanks, I'll just have water...

Dan Goodman comments on ads served up by Google What's This?: "EatRaw - Living Foods � www.eatraw.com
Raw, Vegetarian, Live Foods & Info Crackers, Cookies, Olives, Books

I prefer my food to be dead when I eat it. On the other hand, Info Crackers sound interesting."

R.I.P, Julius Schwartz

From Ansible 200, March 2004: "Julius Schwartz (1915-2004), US fan, literary agent, influential comics editor, and in later life a DC Comics consultant and `goodwill ambassador' to conventions, died on 8 February aged 88. With Mort Weisinger he coedited what many regard as the first true sf fanzine, The Time Traveller (1932); his and Weisinger's agency Solar Sales Service was the first to specialize in sf. "

I knew Schwartz as an important, influential comic book editor; I hadn't heard of his unique importance in sf fandom.

Homosexual "Marriage" and Civilization

Orson Scott Card explains his opposition to gay marriage, at much, much greater length than quoted here: "So if my friends insist on calling what they do 'marriage,' they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is.

"Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.

"They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won't be married. They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes. "

I must say, if I accepted Card's premises (among them, that the whole purpose of marriage is procreation; that if I get married to another guy that the entire institution of marriage-for-child-nurturing is invalidated; and that the tyranny of the majority is a good thing) I would find this article quite persuasive.

As it is I find it well worth reading as a starting point for me to question things I've taken for granted in this debate. A lot of the debate on same-sex marriage seems to be founded in an assumption that the other side is so obviously wrong that their arguments are not to be taken seriously. This is not productive; where's the common ground?

This doesn't mean I don't resent Card saying, for instance, that RP and I are in effect just playing house. or that it's reasonable for me to consider marrying a woman for the benefits of marriage. (Somebody tell me how that's not fraud.)

A startling thing to find in the day's e-mail

Dear user of [ourdomainname].com gateway e-mail server,

Your e-mail account will be disabled because of improper using in next
three days, if you are still wishing to use it, please, resign your
account information.

Pay attention on attached file.

For security reasons attached file is password protected. The password is "23373".

Kind regards,
The [ourdomainname].com team

Needless to say, I didn't open the attached file.

Now who's going to buy this book?

Sorta makes my head hurt thinking about the implications: Homeschooling for Dummies.

Smile.

The best info I have yet on Brian Wilson's Smile concerts. Alas, no word on North American gigs.

Bush has lost this Republican's vote

Wow. And in the Houston Chronicle, too. (Cited by Pete Chvany in his blog.)