Clearly, you are not someone who values 'superior writing skills.'

You're doing it wrong . . . .

My sister was affected by this a few weeks ago, and I wondered that there was nothing on the news about it at the time.

She got a call saying that her account might have been compromised, and that a new card was on the way. Early on the day after she received the replacement card, and before she had even activated it, there was another call telling her that the new account number had already been used to make several purchases.

Clearly this was a serious breach that continued over at least several days, and was not the fault of a merchant, as they tried to claim.

'Wan' is a word. It means 'pale.'

I immediately thought of auto-formatting in Word, which often leaves me swearing at my computer when it algorithmically decides to deviate from something I just explicitly told it to do. In a car, this could be really dangerous.

If I buy a brand new car, of a model whose current design is based on one initially released ten years ago, I absolutely still get a standard warranty with it. Indeed, this happens all the time, as refinements and superficial changes are added to an existing frame.

Populace. The word you want is populace.

I object to your assumption that credentials are more important than competence. He does not misrepresent his background, and his clear, simple, and dispassionate explanation justifies itself. It's not as if the facts are really in question.

I don't understand the part about 'the plugs didn't fit.' These guys are nuclear engineers, with access to the emergency response capabilities of an entire technologically sophisticated nation. Surely someone could rewire the connectors?

Oops, I did intend to refer to Rule 11, not Rule 6. So Grammar Book, Purdue, Wikipedia, and the books Eats, Shoots & Leaves and The Well-Tempered Sentence (currently on my desk) all agree with using the apostrophe with lower-case letters to indicate plurals. For upper-case letters, and numerals, usage is currently mixed: formerly, the apostrophe was considered correct; now, it is usually omitted except when this would cause confusion. However, the New York Times, for one example, still uses the apostrophe when pluralizing upper-case letters.

Rule 6 from your Grammar Book explicitly uses the apostrophe to show the plural of a lower case letter (i's). Your own references refute you.

I have had direct personal experience with this. Some guy committed a 'lewd act' in my neighborhood (he left fluids behind; you figure it out) and the police went door to door. I lived a couple of blocks away, was vaguely the right age, and was home alone. Bingo: prime suspect! They wanted a DNA sample, but I refused, which convinced them that I was guilty. I was definitely a suspect, but it was based on the flimsiest of evidence.

(I was able to prove my innocence - an intolerable concept - but it involved public humiliation, and the police didn't bother to communicate that information to my neighbors, some of whom were convinced I was a sex offender because of all the fuss. Good times.)

Err - I was referring to the latter part of the comment, where spun suggests differences in what an audience wants based on the economic (and political) climate.

But well-played, Raven.

If I may step in here: a corporation is granted a charter by the state, allowing it certain extraordinary benefits in exchange for the presumed advantage to the state (and society at large) of such economic activities. Although this process has become routine, we shouldn't forget that this give and take underlies the essential concept of the corporation. A corporation which does not benefit the larger culture, or which actively plunders and undermines the economy (as has become increasingly the norm), deserves to have its charter revoked.

At some point, I would like to believe this might start happening. Wishful thinking, I know, but one can always dream.