On this old rockpile

Here's another one for the If You Want A Friend, Get A Dog contest.

Sorry, no. "Around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday" will be three or four minutes after sunrise, and the forecast calls for isolated thunderstorms with a 30% chance of rain. How much did you say you wanted to bet on "sunshine and balmy weather"?

But that gets us into quibbling -- whether what you see at 6:30 in the morning a few days hence counts as "sunshine" or not. And we need to be looking at a bigger concern. What do the predicted meteorological conditions have to do with this story?

Giant shock alert, kids. It's cold around here in February! That's a much safer prediction than declaring sunshine around dawn five days in advance. But random weather fabrications aren't the point. This seems to be a story about the former mayor's impending exit from jail. Shouldn't we be writing about that, rather than about what the reporter thinks will be happening in the clouds next week?

While we're here? I've grown deeply tired of heds and cutlines of this form:

Prisoner #702408, aka Kwame Kilpatrick, was jailed 14 months

I propose a ban on any and all text and/or display type that calls 'em by a number, not a name. That's for tabloids and country songs. Grownup newspapers don't do it.*

* Though if you don't like Lester 'n' Earl, you have deeply and seriously come to the wrong blog.