comma splice: you're absolutely right. I should have thought about it

[mpriestley -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM]

longer before posting.  I must have seemed like a bit of an idiot....

However, I do stand by the point that "grammar-picking" doesn't belong on the
internet.  It takes up too much bandwidth, and distracts from the issues by
concentrating on form rather than content.  Even on techwr-l.

At IBM, there are several internal forums for technical writing issues.  One
of them not only allows grammar picks, but exists for them.  Any time someone
gets picky about the grammar or spelling in a post in another forum, they
are referred to NITPICK FORUM (scary music swells), where purists wait with
gleaming unsheathed claws, ready to pounce on the unwary.  Maybe the internet
needs a similar forum (newsgroup, digest...).

As for the same rules applying to all forms of text, I don't think that's
strictly true either.  And for legal purposes, I intend to assert that the
content of any post from this address is strictly fiction, and I call upon
poetic license to allow me nit-free passage.  See, this weird character
Michael Priestley actually writes like this!  :-)

Later,

Michael Priestley
mpriestley -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com
Disclaimer: the characters and events in this post are creations of the
author's imagination.  What likeness they may bear to persons or events,
living or dead, present or past, is the likeness of coincidence.
Attribution: okay, so I copied the disclaimer from Chaim Potok's _The
Chosen_; it was the first disclaimer I could find, and I wanted it to be
official-like.