Thank you, Patrick.

The strange side effect for we innocuous commenters who were inexplicably rejected: we experienced the alternate reality into which the Relgious Right is attempting to project us. I self-edited through wave after wave of self-censorship, baffled that I was offending, reading offense into increasingly innocent words.

The most insidious form of censorship is self-censorship.

When the former Attorney General draped a cloth over the breasty statue of Justice, that was the last time that Justice was seen in Washington.

Posted May 17, 2005 10:37 AM by Jonathan Vos Post

No problem...although for a few minutes there on Sunday morning I kept wondering, jeez...I didn't think my comments about James Blish were that offensive! :)

Posted May 17, 2005 10:43 AM by John Farrell

Hmmm. I accidently omitted an "i" from "Relgious Right" above.

If thine i offends thee, pluck it out.

Posted May 17, 2005 10:45 AM by Jonathan Vos Post

Speaking of technical glitches, from time to time when I try to load a comment thread, it will start rendering and then inexplicably switch to a blank white screen with only the words "Buy text ads on nielsenhayden.com" in blue. It seems to be more likely the longer the thread is. Turning off Javascript makes it not happen.

Posted May 17, 2005 11:06 AM by Zack

When the former Attorney General draped a cloth over the breasty statue of Justice, that was the last time that Justice was seen in Washington.

I would say rather just before he did so...which I assume is what you meant.

Posted May 17, 2005 11:16 AM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

Patrick -- can you spell out what you found and changed? I had a comment rejected for that same reason on a friend's photoblog this morning and I'll drop him a note if it applies...

Posted May 17, 2005 11:28 AM by JOH

JVP: The strange side effect for we innocuous commenters

Inspired by Paula Lieberman on another current thread, I ask if you would defend that use of "we", when the syntax police would insist on "us". (If your we offends you ...)

Posted May 17, 2005 4:53 PM by Jonathan Shaw

Zack, I'm on Mozilla 1.7.2 and I can just click Back and get the right page.

Posted May 17, 2005 8:35 PM by Marilee

Jonathan Shaw:

Thank you. I stand corrected. "The strange side effect for we, who are innocuous commenters" sounds right to me, instinctively, yet "The strange side effect for us" is clearly right.

Now that I'm confused, how about: "The strange side effect for us. We are innocuous commenters."

Well, at least I think that "innocuous" is correctly spelled. It is not easy.

The timestamp prevents me from claiming that I made my mistake in the wee-wee hours of the morning.

"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of the syntax police."

Posted May 17, 2005 8:59 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Marilee, for me that works about half the time; when it doesn't work, the browser shows the proper page briefly and then goes right back to the white screen with the blue commercial message.

Posted May 18, 2005 12:48 AM by Zack

Marilee's fix usually works for me,too, but last night it took about 10 tries.

--Mary Aileen

Posted May 18, 2005 10:19 AM by Mary Aileen Buss

I find it's more likely to work if you wait for the adverts to load completely before pressing back. Don't know why.

"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of the syntax police."

"As he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he misused the serial comma, I slew him."

Posted May 18, 2005 2:10 PM by Jules

Jonathan Vos Post:

At the risk of seeming ridiculous (in a teaching how to suck eggs way): the "us" is governed by the preposition "for" and so is (what in my school days we called) objective case; the "who"has "us" as its antecedent, but functions as the subject of the verb "are". In my mind the maths of it is straightforward.

Posted May 18, 2005 5:01 PM by Jonathan Shaw

And isn't it "If thine i offend [not offends] thee"? Subjunctive, I believe.

mistake in the wee-wee hours of the morning

Those are things you write when you get up to pee, right?

In my mind the maths of it is straightforward.

Now THAT is interesting. I was aware that in UK and Australian usage 'maths', not 'math' is short for 'mathematics'. But I'd have thought it would take a plural verb agreement.

But that's stupid. 'Mathematics' doesn't. I'm just jerking my linguistic knee at the sight of something that looks plural.

Posted May 18, 2005 5:21 PM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

If you turn off CSS (in Opera) you can avoid the problem with the page turning up blank (except for the ads). Unfortunately, that also removes formatting and decreases readablity.

I've only found this bug on Making Light, not on Electrolite, so I suspect it's something in Teresa's CSS.

Posted May 18, 2005 10:21 PM by James D. Macdonald

In my professional life as a web application programmer, I've never seen a problem like this caused by CSS.

I would suspect that Blog-ads' strange javascript, which contains a statement that writes more javascript into the page, is a more likely culprit. Its placement on the page is a possible source of the problem; it might be worth noting that it is at the start of Electrolite's source while at the end of Making Light's. If it were my site, I'd experiment by changing the placement of it on Making Light to match that of Electrolite and see if it solves the problem.

I'd guess disabling CSS works only by coincidence. Browsers can be finicky like that. I used to have a page where part of it didn't display in Internet Explorer unless you switched Javascript off. Even though there was no Javascript on the page...

Posted May 23, 2005 9:41 AM by Jules