But the main reason is that the British way simply makes more sense. Indeed, since at least the 1960s a common designation for that style has been "logical punctuation." The best way to grasp this is to look at an example, such as what Slate commenter Dean Hamer wrote under a recent article about PBS and NPR:

[I]ronically, given the anecdote about "Tales of the City", PBS is the ONLY widely available channel that has any serious LGBT content; e.g. documentaries such as "Ask Not" and "Out in the Silence".

"Tales of the City" and "Out in the Silence" are units—consisting of the words and the quotation marks. Insinuating a period or comma within the unit alters it in a rather underhanded manner. American style is inconsistent, moreover, because when it comes to other punctuation marks—semicolons, colons, exclamation points, question marks, dashes—we follow British/logical protocol. Dean Hamer would pass muster in any U.S. newspaper or magazine, for example, if he were to write: I am a big fan of "Tales of the City"; did anyone else see "Ask Not"?

I've always practiced the logical punctuation ever since it occurred to me that there's a difference between:

Have you seen "Apocalypse Now?"

and...

Have you seen "Apocalypse Now"?

Very recently, news organizations have bannered Catholic Church holdings in at least two big corporations —Philex Mining Corporation and the Bank of the Philippine Islands.

Chamber of Mines head Jerry Brimo said that as of March 31, Catholic entities owned a substantial number of shares in Philex. The Archbishop of Manila owned 3,221,135 shares; the Religious of the Virgin Mary-B with a total of 4,216,804 shares; and the Archbishop in Zamboanga owned 1,116,147 shares.

According to the Philippine Stock Exchange, as of 27 May 2011, each Philex share is valued at P20.45. This means that the Catholic Church’s holdings in the company are valued at P65,872,210.75; P86,233,641.80; and P22,825,206.15 respectively, or a total of P174,931,058.70.

In BPI’s list of its top 100 stockholders as of 31 March 2011, at least eleven were obviously Catholic entities. The worth of these stocks amounts to many billions of pesos (computed at P57.05 per share according to the 27 May PSE Market Information). These were (according to ranking and number of stocks owned):

• 4 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila with 222,843,681 shares worth P12,713,232,001;

• 8 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Real Casa de Misericordia) with 41,408,841 shares worth P2,362,374,379;

• 13 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hospital de San Juan de Dios) with 22,072,182 shares worth P1,259,217,983;

• 15 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hospicio de San Jose) with 6,016,624 shares worth P343,248,399;

• 17 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hosp de San Juan de Dios) with 4,285,572 shares worth P244,491,882;

• 21 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Mayordomia dela Catedral) with 2,664,266 shares worth P151,996,375;

• 26 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (St. Paul’s Hospital) with 1,772,418 shares worth P101,116,447;

• 49 Carmel of the Divine Infant Jesus of Prague, Inc (Filipino) with 726,819 shares worth P41,465,024;

• 60 Superior dela Corporacion Filipina de Padres Agustinos Recoletos, Inc. with 551,382 shares worth P31,456,343;

• 64 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jaro with 491,385 shares worth P28,033,514; and

• 74 Corporacion de Padres Dominicos with 380,307 shares worth P21,696,514.

The staggering amount of RCC money in BPI alone totals P17.3 billion pesos. Add its Philex holdings and the total is 17.5 BILLION PESOS. This huge amount in only two corporations! It will not be surprising if the Catholic Church has a lot more money in other big corporations.

With this alone, the Roman Catholic Church already becomes the 9th richest in the country dislodging Emilio Yap, Manila Hotel and Manila Bulletin owner and Oscar Lopez of Benpres Holdings Corporation.

Hypocrisy. This is why I don't anymore go to church and listen to mass.

Right around the time this is posted on my blog, I would be inside a Carmelite chapel with my wife and two children. My daughter is turning three years old and it is customary for Philippine Catholics to go to church on their birthdays. I like to think that, despite my disgust towards religion, I am having my children practice Catholicism because it gives them some semblance of what faith is.

When they grow up, I hope they make wise decisions on where they want to put their faith on.

On Wednesday, the Thiel Foundation, funded by Mr. Thiel, announced the first group of Thiel Fellows, 24 people under 20 who have agreed to drop out of school in exchange for a $100,000 grant and mentorship to start a tech company.

More than 400 people applied. The winners include Laura Deming, 17, who is developing anti-aging therapies; Faheem Zaman, 18, who is building mobile payment systems for developing countries; and John Burnham, 18, who is working on extracting minerals from asteroids and comets.

The fellowship addresses two of the country’s most pressing problems, Mr. Thiel says: a bubble in higher education and a dearth of Americans developing breakthrough technologies.

In the PH, you literally could not get into most white collar work without at least a 4-year bachelor's degree. The effect is that the PH's college education value is low because the supply (college graduates) is way more than the demand (jobs and other opportunities for these graduates).

Thiel's idea is a good way of changing the age-old assumption that to get ahead in career and life, you need a degree.

We need these sorts of ideas here in the PH in order to put value back to college education and not take it for granted and to give opportunities for those who can't or won't choose the college path.