Ladies and Gentlemen:

I've noticed a recent decline in the level of civil discourse on this forum. I'm neither an old hand nor a newbie on this board, and I do my best to keep my posts civil, informative, factual and concise. I've also acknowledged my mistakes when information I posted was later found to be in error. Fortunately, most others do the same here, and this has become a nice community in an otherwise wild-and-wooly Internet. Self-policing allows moderators to spend their time making this forum a better one, not acting as a kindergarten cop. Pete has had to close threads, delete posts and ban members, and there seems to have been a lot more of that in the past week.

I don't know of a place in the physial world where people can peaceably exchange information and ideas as we do here. This is the best that I can find, and it is a labor of love by Pete and (I believe) a few other people. Let's make their jobs easier by making our remarks thoughtful ones.

You and I may not agree on an issue, but let's use this forum to exchange ideas, background and context. If we do that, we're both likely to come away better-informed and open-minded.