Translators

I read this entry from Will over on DesignerBlog concerning the firing of gay translators.

IBM has announced that it will supply major amounts of Arabic-English translation software to the U.S. armed forces. The gift is to fill the yawning gap left in this vitally needed service caused by the dismissal of hundreds of human translators solely on the grounds of their being gay or lesbian. The government itself has recognized that the current lack of Arabic translators has caused a critical situation in American-Iraqi communications that is highly counterproductive to Bozo’s current reincarnation of “stay the course”.

Yet in the face of all reason, Bozo himself has endorsed the dismissals under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in a recent White House Rose Garden press conference. Asked if he agreed with General Pace’s controversial comments that gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors and marines are “immoral”, Bozo said he would make no moral judgments; asked if he still supported DA,DT he said yes indeed, because it’s a good policy.

In a perverse way (unless it were to further endanger any American serving in Iraq or Afghanistan) I kind of hope IBM supplies the kind of translation quality that you get when you feed text into any of the on-line translation systems.

I have used the online translation programs a bit and I can tell you from personal experience that some of the return results are not exactly what you want to say. So, I couldn’t resist. I just had to leave the following comment...

“In a perverse way (unless it were to further endanger any American serving in Iraq or Afghanistan) I kind of hope IBM supplies the kind of translation quality that you get when you feed text into any of the on-line translation systems.”

TYPED INTO TRANSLATOR: “What do feel the United States can do to alleviate the violence from suicide bombers?”

TRANSLATED TEXT: “I would like to have fun with your donkey, if he is willing to wear red without suicidal alleviation.”