Fri, 31 October 2008
The Show Notes Upcoming gigs- PFA Halloween Party Geo at Wired Gallery and Café Geo in Savannah Geo in Texas Intro Cool YES jacket Photos up on Flickr Halloween Costumes Minoishe Interroberg's To Make with the Good English - adaption vs. adaptation from Mike Oliver
Canada's 1st endoscopic sphincterotomy- apostrophes and change from Jason Guilford Cool science question from David Happy Birthday Victoria Huge Hitchcockian stab-like Thanks to John McKee Religious Moron of the Week - Tower of London Crow Keepers from Damian Handzy
- Afghani Court System from Damian H. and Jason Guilford - Fire Setting Uncle from Lauren Cocilova - James Dobson from Lauren Cocilova
Show Close..................................... Sign up for the mailing list: Write to Geo! Mentioned in the show: PFA Halloween Gig; Geo at Wired; Geo in Savannah; Geo at the Church of Free Thought in Texas; Geo in Austin, Texas; new images at flickr; Star Wars figures prepare to decamp; Death from the Skies by the good Dr. Plait. Score more data from the Geologic Universe! Get George's music at CD Baby and iTunes, and Non-Coloring Book at Lulu, both as download and print editions. Have a comment on the show, a Religious Moron tip, or a question for Ask George? Drop George a line and write to Geo's Mom, too! Ms. Information says Boo! Let's be careful out there and don't take any razor blades with apples wrapped around them. Comments[7]
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- Geo and David - SPOT SPOT SPOT on! Totally SPOT ON. Sometimes I wish that in order to take advantage of everything science has to offer that you somehow have to vow to agree with the scientific method and everything it\'s taught us, or you don\'t get to use the device. Like, to board a plane, you had to publicly say \"I believe in engineering.\" Or to get medicine in a hospital, you had to say \"I believe in germs and evolution.\"
But then I calm down and realize that it\'s actually better the way it really is. Again, SPOT SPOT SPOT ON! I was in the car with the kids listening to that piece and I was literally screaming YES! YES! - Dobson's mention of "equal protection" as the fictional Supreme Court's justification for the legalization of gay marriage is actually somewhat based on legal reality. It's in the 14th Amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This clause was used quite often in the 1960s, especially to the end of segregation. The real fallacy here is that the Supreme Court\'s recognition of 5th and 14th Amendment rights of gay couples is the result of an Obama presidency, rather than a legal inevitability. Which it is. - Oy! Minoishe!
It troubles me that you took such a hard line on the use of the apostrophe in cases like CD\'s versus CDs. Back when I was just a phleglym in Mrs. Goot\'s class, we were taught all sorts of rules about the use of the apostrophe, and the most interesting one was that the plural of a single letter or an acronym should be formed using an apostrophe before the \"s\". It\'s not possessive - it\'s plural. CD\'s was considered the correct form of the plural of CD. You dot your i\'s and cross your t\'s. You don\'t dot your is and cross your ts. You can clearly see why that\'s confusing. I was also taught that you do that same with numbers and with acronyms: it\'s the 1990\'s rather than that 1990s. I bought 5 CD\'s to put into my 2 PC\'s rather than I bought 200 of Geo\'s CDs to put into my PCs. Many universities still teach that as correct usage of the apostrophe.
But not everyone agrees with all those. Many groups consider CDs correct and 1990s correct because there\'s no good reason to add the apostrophe: it doesn\'t take the place of a missing letter, like in a contraction and it doesn\'t clarify the meaning: if anything, it ads confusion to when you should or shouldn\'t use it. So I agree that proper USAGE should CHANGE so that the plural of numbers and acronyms doesn\'t use the apostrophe, but you shouldn\'t take such a hard line since many people were taught it the other way. This is an example of the change of usage within our own lifetimes (kinda like watching transitional forms in evolution!) As for the plural of single letters, I don\'t see much alternative than keeping the apostrophe: as, es, is, os, us, and ys are clearly not plural forms of the vowels we all know and love. ts, ms and rs don\'t look right either.
But I applaud your hard line, and your right to hit your head against a giant stone wall in a far off land, in that tomato\'s is NOT the plural of tomato, and new\'s is NOT what you read in the paper! AAAAAAHH - I wonder if Dobson\'s noticed that Canadian society has not collapsed in the manner he describes. We\'ve had gay marriage up here for three years, and the only major impact it\'s had is it\'s meant that Fred Phelps yowls about us more than he used to.
And anything that makes Fred Phelps yowl is bound to be good!
(Curiously, most of the married gay couples I know are recent American immigrants...)
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