# remove horizontal asterisks
s@\*\*@@g

# preserve double hyphens between words in GNU GPL
s@\([^\-]\)\-\-\([^\-]\)@\1SDFGHdbldash\2@g

# remove horizontal hyphens
s@\-\-@@g

# reintroduce double hyphens
s@SDFGHdbldash@--@g

# remove trailing asterisk
s@[ ]*\*[ ]*$@@g

# remove leading asterisk
s@^[ 	]*\*@@

# remove lonely slash
s@^/$@@g

# remove leading whitespace
s@^[ 	]*@@g

# preserve bullets
s@^o @ oSDFGHbullet @g

# preserve sentence spacing
s@\.  \([A-Za-z0-9]\)@.SDFGHJdblspace\1@g

# remove first line
1d

# read entire input and preserve paragraph separation
s@^$@ SDFGHJdblnewline @

