I hate what America has become

Date: 2009-10-28, 9:58PM PDT

There are so many reasons that frankly, it’s hard to pick a place to start:

First of all…..when 28% of you brain dead fucking morons give a blithering IDIOT like Sarah Palin positive approval ratings and think she ought to run for president in 2012, it really makes me sick to know I am lumbered with that many mouth-breathing Cro-Magnons I unfortunately have to consider as my fellow countrymen….trust me…..I don’t. You motherfuckers are beyond help.

And before you go thinking this is a “liberal” based rant…..that brings me to one more item on an ever-lengthening list.

This “Liberal” versus “Conservative” paradigm that so many of you simple dunces buy into…..as BOTH parties sell you out to the multinational corporations, banks and special interests that actually run Washington D.C.)…..you do this STUPID dance every day, blithely detatched from the reality that YOU YOURSELF are helping to DIVIDE AND CONQUER the nation, as you myopically beat your little Hannity/Olberman drum of FUTILE self -righteous indignation. PATHETIC.

THIS is a nation of PUSSIES AND FUCKING COWARDS. If this nation had any BALLS WHATSOEVER, there would be a trail of DEAD MEN SWINGING FROM THE ENDS OF ROPES leading from AIG, thru WALL STREET, the not-so “Federal” reserve, the 9/11 commission, and right through every other set-up con-job you people just buy into like a bunch of CATTLE BEING LED TO SLAUGHTER.

It’s not that Americans don’t give a fuck…..every misled, misdirected group that goes out and crusades for the “Grand Cause” they think is responsible for the decimation of this ONCE great nation proves that…..the problem IS that the problem ISN’T illegal aliens (i.e. Minutemen) or Democrats in Washington (i.e. Teabaggers) or conservative policies (i.e. Code Pink)…….the problem is …… AMERICANS THEMSELVES.

AMERICANS have sat on THEIR ASSES while Washington and the Pentagon have BANKRUPTED THE TREASURY and sent our sons and daughters into MEAT GRINDERS in Iraq and Afghanistan for WMD’s and connections to 9/11 that did NOT EXIST and even AFTER the overwhelming evidence that the intel was “swept all up” (doctored, falsified, unreliable) you STUPID SHEEP keep buying into the BRAIN DEAD notion that somehow, these wars are for the FREEDOM of America.

You’re an IDIOT. They’re wars for EMPIRE.

Your son’s and daughter’s BLOOD is being used as OIL to grease an evil, out of control WAR MACHINE….Your money and financial security is being DEVOURED by Wall St. and the Federal Reserve, with collusion from YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, and your standard of living is slowly eroding into a two-class system as the middle class is being FORCED INTO EXTINCTION……

……and you do NOTHING to stop ANY of it.

You ignorant FOOLS who send shotgun Emails to all your friends warning of “death panels” and other such HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY PROPAGANDA, yes, you friggin’ GOMERS actually think the Health Insurance Industry has your best interests in mind, and it’s “dat mean ol’ gubmint” that wants to penalize you by providing your family health care that isn’t profit-based.

MEDICARE only got passed because it effectively REMOVED the highest-risk group to the insurance providers (the elderly) from the ‘pool’ of prospective insurees, thereby minimizing their financial exposure. It’s completely lost on most people that catastrophic illness is the main reason for personal bankruptcy….and that 75% of those who had to file HAD health insurance.

And this is the ’status quo’ many of you are defending. You are BEYOND dense.

America has lost it’s HONOR, as well as it’s collective senses. I don’t wish upon America any malice or catastrophe…..trust me, this is happening with assistance and collusion from the top down, not from some Arab in a cave. I just want to leave peacefully and live in a place that doesn’t have leaders that hope for a “catastrophic and catalyzing event” to promote a war agenda that takes pride in kicking the shit out of unarmed peasants living in the dirt….then blames them for retaliating. Can’t wait to see this dysfunctional madhouse in my rear view mirror.

When you abide by a system of government that you FULLY EXPECT will side AGAINST YOU and WITH corporate lobbyists (MANY of whom represent interests that are not even from the USA) who BRIBE THEM WITH BALES OF CASH….and are working 24/7 to maximize their profits and minimize their potential competition in the marketplace…..all at the expense of you and your family….and don’t lift a FINGER to do ANYTHING TO CHANGE IT……you fucking DESERVE WHAT’S COMING. What might that be…..?

Think Germany and the treaty of Versailles…..when a wheelbarrow full of Deutschmarks is what it took to buy a MEAL.

WHEN the dollar collapses…..not IF, WHEN…..THAT’S when you’ll really begin to see the true definition of FASCISM. The unity of government and corporations to economically and militarily control it’s people. History WILL repeat itself….but if you’re like so many of the morons in the USA who think they’re so smart but don’t know SHIT…..it will all be NEW TO YOU. Good luck…..you’ll need it.

This is the most ARROGANT nation in EXISTANCE, second only to ISRAEL….and since ALL of our politicians are falling over backwards to kiss Israel’s ASS on a daily basis, fully knowing that exposing any inconvenient TRUTH about them equals political SUICIDE….that and the mass media in America that feeds it’s daily ration of BULLSHIT is controlled by individuals biased towards them as well….ANYONE who thinks they know what is going on because they read TIME magazine and watch CNN, FOX news OR MSNBC…..you are DELUSIONAL.

One nation under God….? What a JOKE.

MONEY is God here pal….even people who are reading this who hate the words I typed KNOW this is true. What does it say in your bible about the love of money? The root of all evil, no?

How DARE this nation question human rights abuses of other nations after Abu Ghraib and countless other bombing and torture campaigns, where it was stated it is passable to crush the testicles of young boys in front of their fathers to extract information.

How DARE this nation deign to be the world’s nuclear police when WE are the only nation to ever USE NUKES.

MOST of you actually consider Palestinians as TERRORISTS, when it is THEY who have been occupied, imprisoned behind 25 foot high concrete walls and denied basic human decency by APARTHEID ISRAEL. Those of you who get your info from American media REMAIN IGNORANT OF THE TRUTH.

You’re probably wondering if I’m some Arab, or other person hostile to “America’s Freedoms” lol…. Yeah, you’re really free here…….

Free to go BANKRUPT if you get sick, even if you HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE.

Free to vote on DIEBOLD voting machines that can flip elections and leave no paper trail.

Free to watch your life savings DWINDLE AND EVAPORATE into the pockets of the ROBBER BARONS you PATRONIZE.

Free to watch your JOB get shipped to CHINA….and then you fucking FOOLS buy the goods PRODUCED FORM THOSE JOBS at Wal Mart, further REWARDING AND ENCOURAGING businesses to CONTINUE this pattern. I have never bought a fucking THING from Wal-Mart, and if you have…..you are a simple, stupid FUCKSTICK.

You’re free to be video monitored, photographed by the millisecond at traffic light traps, electronically surveiled, searched with no warrant, shaken down and partially disrobed at airports, free to be told how much shampoo you are allowed to carry in your luggage, free to buy processed foods that give you cancer, genetically altered vegetables that contain neat things like INSECT DNA, free to pay more than ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET for pharmeceuticals, free to be the pharmaceutical company’s guinea pig for drugs that have potentially catastrophic side effects, free to have PUBLIC POLICY DICTATED TO YOU by government ‘officials’ that have dual citizenship with ISRAEL, free to have ANY MEANINGFUL TRUTH WITHHELD FROM YOU by the mass media……

…..and free to be one of the ONE OUT OF EVERY HUNDRED AMERICANS living in PRISON.

Land of the free, home of the brave??

More like land of the SHEEP and home of the SLAVE.

Yilan smiled and watched the cities in the smoke, and the passing shapes of friends. Enkindu, Patroclus, Hephestion, and Antony and a thousand others. “Patroclus,” he called him. “And Lancelot. And Roland. O my friend…do you see, do you yet see? Sometimes we meet so late…you’re always with me, but so often born late, my great, good friend. Most of my life I knew I was missing something, and then I found you, and Gunesh, and I was whole. Then it could begin. I didn’t know in those years what I was waiting for, but I knew it when it came, and now I know why.”

Shimshek’s eyes lifted to his, spilling tears and dreams, dark as night his eyes were now, but they had been green and blue and gray and brown, narrow and wide, and all shades between. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes. Now I think you do. Cities more than this one…, And Gunesh… she’s always there…through all the ages.”

“You”re like my father, Yilan Baba; more father than my own. Tell me what to believe and I believe it.”

He shook his head. “You’ve only known me longer; give your father his honor. There was not always such a gap of years, sometimes we were brothers.”

“In other lives, Baba? Is that what you mean?”

“There was a city named Dur-sharrunkin; I was Sargon; I was Menes, by a river called Nile; I was Hammurabi; and you were always there; I was Gilgamesh; we watched the birth of cities, my friend, the first stone piled on stone in this world.”

Shimshek shivered, and looked into his eyes. “Achilles,” he murmured. “You had that name once. Did you not?”

“And Cyrus the Persian; and Alexander. You were Hephestion, and I lost you first that round – ah that hurt – and the generals murdered me then, not wanting to go on. How I needed you.”

“O God,” Shimshek wept.

Yilan reached out and caught Shimshek’s strong young arm. “I was Hannibal, hear me? And you Hasdrubal my brother; Caesar, and you Antony; I was Germanicus  and Arthur and Attila; Charlemagne and William; Saladin and Genghis. I fight; I fight the world’s wars, and this one is finished as far as it must go, do you hear me, my son, my brother, my friend? Am I not always the same? Do I ever hold long what I win?”

“Yilan Baba -”

“Do I ever truly win? Or lose? Only you and Gunesh…Roxane and Cleopatra; Guenevere and Helen…as many shapes as mine and yours; and always you love her.”

Terror was in Shimshek’s eyes, and grief.

It’s from The General by C. J. Cherryh. A good story, and there are better ones in the compendium of short sci-fi stories by the author. Pick it up and read it for a good sense of a sweeping scale, an inkling of man’s infinitesimal presence in the epic transformation of ages.

1. Right click on image
2. Save to hard drive
3. Fire up an FTP client, Filezilla in this case
4. Connect to my FTP server
5. Load the directory with the downloaded image in the left pane, and the appropriate FTP directory in the right pane
6. Upload the file

My add-on automates these steps. Since I don’t know how to use Javascript to upload a file to an FTP server, the script calls a PHP script which does the heavy lifting. I repeat that again: you must have a PHP-enabled webserver to run this add-on successfully. It doesn’t need to be a hosted one, I just run apache on my box and point the javascript to localhost. More detailed instructions are at the bottom. First, we look at how it works.

If you’re on some random site and think you want an image for your personal post or to share with others without being a leech on the original host, you right click on an image to see the context menu augmented by the “Upload To FTP” sub-menu.

Select the first option, “Images”. The second menu, “Fav 2″ can be customized to whatever you want, if you’re so inclined, but it’s mostly there to show that other options can be added. If you right-click on a non-text element the context menu is still augmented. I followed the Mozilla instructions but wasn’t able to get the sub-menu to not show up on non-image environments. If anyone figures it out after looking at my code, please drop me a line.

If you try to upload the non-image element, you get an error message stating that non-images cannot be uploaded at this time.

Finally, we check the folder on my website where the images were sent to. If you try to add a file with the same name more than once, it increments the file name by the next digit. I don’t know if this will be useful, but I have often come across several image files with the same name and different content (think Google image search for: Canada) and I’d hate to see them overwritten and end up being the same file. We see:

Here is the zip file containing both the XPI installer for the Firefox add-on, and the imgupload.php file. You can install the add-on by opening it with Firefox (File -> Open File). I’ll submit it to the Firefox add-on repository soon.

UploadToFTP zip file.

As for the PHP file, note that it does no error-checking whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. You’ll need to fill in parameters such as the FTP server name, login, password and upload folder. Once that’s done, host it in the root of your webserver’s public HTML directory and you’re done. If you host it in any other location, such as a subfolder or whatnot, then you need to update the “overlay.js” file in your Firefox profile’s extensions/uploadtoftp@viren.kumar/content folder.

Enjoy, and let me know if this is useful for you or if you’d like to see any upgrades or features.

Anybody know what kind of sniper rifle that is?

EDIT – The comments have taught me that the two guns aren’t “sniper” rifles. In my ignorance of all things firearms-related, I assumed they were so. Thanks, Reddit.

Look at where we sit. more individualistic AND more secular-rational than the good ol’ US. Japan and Sweden are at the top, who would have thought? I wonder how old this is, it shows Eastern and Western Germany. It also misspells Czech as “Chech”. Look how close Poland is to India, it’s not too hard to believe, I guess. How is Turkey more traditional than India or Poland? Kemal must be turning over in his grave.

Also, Uruguay’s secular enough to belong to “Catholic Europe”. I guess they broke out of Latin America after all. Let me know your thoughts.

If you’ve ever wanted to see how long you’ll be playing a particular artist’s music for, if you were to play their entire discography, I present a one-liner in bash that will show you just that.

find . -type f -name '*.mp*' -exec exiftool '{}' + | grep Duration | awk '{x += $3; print x;}'

The venerable find command needs no introduction. Suffice it to say that the type switch restricts it to files, and the *.mp* restricts the files found to MP3s or MP2s.

Exiftool is a nifty command-line processing tool for tags of all kinds, as seen by its name. In this case, we want just the ‘Duration’ field of each song. Once we have those, we pipe those to awk and get a running total, which shows us how long the entire discography is when the final total is printed.

Now I know that I have 5668.14 minutes of Zappa goodness, or a mere 208 minutes of godly Death. You need to run this in the folder that has all the albums by the artist, or of course, you can adapt it to a script and pass in parameters and so on.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Nile AND Immolation live, in concert, together. It was an evening of untrammeled brutality and ferocity, easily the best tour of the year so far. I know, I know, the year is only 28 days old.

We got to the venue, El Corazon in Seattle, around 7.30. A smallish venue, but it held enough souls to make the experience enjoyable. I bought a Nile t-shirt, as well as an Immolation t-shirt from Ross himself. The man is funny, and has a hell of a roar.

First up was Evangelist, a local Seattle band. I wasn’t too impressed with them, but they were alright for an opening band. They served their purpose by getting the crowd warmed up. The lead singer had a Pharaonic headdress on, ostensibly as homage to Nile. Anyhow, they were soon done their small set and the next band came on.

The next band was The Dreaming Dead and boy, were they great! A fine four-piece from Los Angeles, the lead, rhythm and vocal duties were handled by two ladies, while men handled the skins and basslines. A refreshing change to see more women in the scene and these two could really play. They were tight and impressed everyone there. Their setlist consisted of a few good songs, but sadly I didn’t write them down. However, I do plan on checking some more of their discography out, and you might like them too, if melodic death metal is your cup of tea.

On to Krisiun. Proudly sporting a Schizophrenia t-shirt, the boys from Brazil made short work of a brutal set. Krisiun is another of those bands that produce a wall of sound that is not easily penetrated by casual fans. However, I am just that, so the setlist may be a little incorrect or incomplete. They played:

Combustion Inferno

Wrath

Refusal

Sentenced Morning

Meaning of Terror

During the set, the drummer had some troubles with his set, and we were treated to some flashy guitar wanking courtesy of the lead axeman, who distracted us from the ineptitude of the drum tech. Soon, order was restored, more invectives were hurled, the brotherhood of metal was saluted and the thrash train from Brazil was back on the tracks. After their blistering set, which set the crowd a’moshing, we had the the mighty Immolation take the stage. They were greeted as heroes and launched into their only-too-short set. We were treated to:

Passion Kill

The Devil I Know (? Not sure about this one)

The Purge (new song off upcoming Majesty and Decay album!)

Den of Thieves

Burial Ground

World Agony

Immolation is a band I’ve never seen before and they did not disappoint. I wish they’d played songs with more groove, but one cannot have everything. I’m a fan of their devastating time-shifts which are brutally graceful. Let’s face it, their rhythm section is like a panzer ballet and while obliterating everything in its path, is yet catchy enough to hum in the shower. Maybe next time, with a longer set, Immolation will grace us with a few more songs. The t-shirt I bought:

That’s right kiddies. Can you hear us, Death to Jesus. A firm stand against theistic satanism, as my friend Geoff put it.

The chronometer ticked away, it was nigh 10 PM and the one and only Nile took the stage. A sterling intro set the stage for what was coming. We see metal bands covering classical pieces all the time, but they either speed it up or ruin it with their vocals, but in this case, Nile nailed the cover of Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War. Without further ado, here’s the set that killed The Heart:

Rameses, the Bringer of War

Kafir!

Dusk Falls Upon The Temple Of The Serpent On The Mount Of Sunrise

Sacrifice Unto Sebek

Hittite Dung Incantation

Kudurru Maqlu

Serpent Headed Mask

Ithyphallic

Execration Text

Papyrus Containing The Spell To Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In The Water (easily the longest name of any song I’ve seen live)

Fourth Arra of Dagon

Return to the Underworld

Sarcophagus

Lashed to the Slave Stick

Cast Down the Heretic

Black Seeds of Vengeance

An excellent show, with a very strong finisher. A lot of superb songs off In Their Darkened Shrines, which is my favourite slab o’wax. Execration Text was an unexpected bonus, definitely not a song I expected to see live. I find the title track off Ithyphallic a bit drawn-out, but Papyrus… is a superlative track, one whose chorus had everyone singing along. Who knew that songs about ancient mutterings to escape crocodiles would be so catchy 7000 years after they were written.

If you’ve heard the last 5 minutes of Fourth Arra of Dagon, you know that the ending is anthemic. Simple but effective. Here’s a video of the last minute or so of it, the chanting is superb, we’re treated to some vocal crowd control, courtesy of the boys from South Carolina.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Here’s the other t-shirt I bought. Yes, it’s good to be a metalhead fanboy all over again. Dallas Toler-Wade cut his hair and looks a bit like Uncle Fester, complete with grimaces and all. The overall experience of watching Nile live was excellent. They played Sarcophagus live, which is easily one of their best songs ever, despite being one of the slower ones in their repertoire.

All in all, a great night for brutal death metal and well worth the drive down to Seattle. Here’s to the next show, may it be as good as this one.

One of the most fascinating topics is linguistics and I consider myself an armchair linguist. Several forms of consonant shift exist, and can be seen throughout the varied family of Indo-European languages, which are spoken by a majority of humans today. Let me illustrate with some examples:

b/v alternation

Seen in words like probe/prove. Even in names like Elizabeth/Elizaveta and so on. Also heard in other people’s diction. For example, whenever an accented Spanish-speaking person says “Vancouver”, most Canadians will undoubtedly hear it as “Bancouver”. This is because the sounds we make that are responsible for ‘b’ and ‘v’ are very similar, and only the slightest movement of the lips differentiates between ‘b’ and ‘v’.

t/d

t and d are both dentals, i.e., they are sounds made with your teeth. Don’t ask a toothless person to utter them, because without teeth they sound like ‘pf’. As words with t and d migrate, they alternate to give us lots of words. This is visible even within a single language, as people hear and mishear and transcribe slightly different variations of the same word. Consider Willingdon/Willington.

d/th

This applies to the soft d seen in many European languages, but which is missing in English. The closest an English-speaker can come to making this sound is the  ‘th’ sound in ‘thee’ or ‘there’. Which is why it’s no surprise that these consonants undergo an orthographic transformation to end up as th. Witness deist/theist or danke/thank.

f/v

This one is huge. One massive culprit is German, where the v is pronounced as f, which is not shocking, since v and f result from almost the same anatomical movements. Textbook example: vier/four.

b/p

Similarly, b and p are both labials, i.e., they are both sounds produced with the lips.  Over time, as words migrate between languages, the b’s and p’s alternate and give us variants. Token example: bop/pop.

v/w

This gives most non-native speakers more grief than it’s worth. Some people simply can’t pronounce the v, and pronounce everything as if it’s a w. An example of this being present not due an inability of the speakers is German, where their sounds are swapped. In any case, w is a fairly recent letter and as such, deserves little respect.

j/y/i

This can be seen in the hordes of Norwegians who pronounce Java as Yava, and the tons of languages where j is pronounced as y. Well, j itself is the newest addition to the English language and simply supplants i. An example: major/mayor. This one needs no further examples.

k/g

This applies to the hard g, not the soft g. Best example: gnos/know. Again, this is because both sounds are velars, produced by the roof of the mouth.

m/n

Both sounds being nasal in nature, it is easy to mix them up, especially since most people don’t articulate well these days. Witness the confusion when you meet someone who either talks too fast or mumbles with incoherent diction. In fact, I bet it’s sounds like these that gave rise to the whole Alpha, Bravo, Charlie code, to prevent any confusion. This one is a bit more involved and involves a rule called ‘assimilation’, where a consonant is changed to become more like the surrounding one. Consider the word ‘imbibe’. it comes about from in + bibere, which means ‘to drink’ in Latin. Since we have an n + b, the n is assimilated and becomes an m. The same holds for impossible, imbue and so on. This is a complex topic and one I’ll discuss later.

r/d

This can be seen in some Slavic tongues, where the name Mary becomes Madia, for example. A very thick, rhotacizing effect can change an r into a d, if sufficiently ‘hard’ enough.

These can also be daisy-chained, giving us quite the sequence of alternations. Consider p->b->v->f. Thus, where we had a word with p, we end up with one that now starts with f. Best example: pater/father. The link is more convoluted, probably looking more like pater-> pader-> vader-> fader-> father.

There are many many more which I haven’t covered. After all, this was just the primer. Since the primary vehicle of consonant shift up until now has been spoken or written speech, with spoken speech being the overwhelming majority, it is now time to consider the new kid on the block: typed speech.

Written speech was limited in the damage it could cause, since it was usually proofread and corrected by legions of editors, only too happy to wield the red pen like the sword of Tamerlane. Alas, typed speech on the internet suffers no such restrictions. Let us ignore non-English, non-standard keyboard layouts for now. Since the majority of English communication on the internet occurs via the humble 104- key keyboard, we can focus on this particular specimen.

Here are a list of common mistakes people have made when writing me emails or in instant messaging. I’ve described them in terms of the same notation above.

b/v

m/n

k/l

g/h

w/e

r/t

s/d

c/v

u/i

c/x

We notice right away that b/v and m/n already exist. Typing mistakes can only make them stronger. We can also discard the ones with vowel/consonant pairings, since on being read aloud, it is likely that they will be dismissed as being improbable. This leads us to discard w/e.

We’re left with k/l. at this point, we have to decide if such jumps are possible. k is a hard velar sound, while l is a soft liquid sound. Try saying a word with k in it after substituting l for k. Let us consider cake -> cale -> lale. Or kiss -> liss. How about kilometre -> lilometre? That just sounds silly, as does lale. But kiss -> liss might work. It seems that a soft word like liss, composed of a liquid sound like l and sibilants like s might actually do a better job, onomatopoeically speaking. So perhaps we need to amend the rules. k- > l, iff l precedes sibilants? How about the other way around, l-> k? Liter -> kiter or lion – > kion. Seems doubtful, but you have to understand it’s very hard for us to do this. Most of us are too far entrenched in English to think of these as anything beyond laughable. But to someone who is unaware that lion sounds right since it derives from leo and so on, why, kion for a big yellow cat might make perfect sense.

G -> h could succeed on a very slender stem of probability, but even I must admit it’s unlikely. Many words have a ‘gh’ combination in them, and simply deleting one or the other might still leave the meaning unchanged. The biggest obstacle here is the fact that h is an aspirant, a sound made by breathing out air, something g is most definitely not.

R -> t probably has the biggest chance of succeeding. Since r/d occurs already, and so does d/t, we can easily get r-> d.

C -> v also has a moderately good chance of succeeding, simply because they’re so similar. The labial v might be a little hard to overcome, however.

U -> i is probable as well, since throughout history vowels have been shuffled around. We’re focusing on consonant shift here, so we’ll leave this advanced topic for later.

Finally c -> x awaits. We need to remember that the letter x is simply shorthand for ‘ks’ or ‘cs’, with a hard ‘c’ of course. Words that are spelled ax can just as easily be spelled acs or aks. However, does this mean that c -> x is probable? Consider ax -> ac, or mix -> mic. All that’s missing is the final s, which could be forgiven, if and only if the non-s word wasn’t an already-extant word. Ac would work for this reason, but mic wouldn’t. How about the other way around? Spic -> spix or nick -> nix? The addition of the s leaves the original word’s meaning almost unaltered, except for imposing a plural definition. This is something that might be coped with, especially given the current decline of plural usage ubiquitous today.

One must remember that I’m an armchair linguist and this is merely my hobby, but it should be exceedingly interesting to see which of these, if any ever come to pass. After all, languages are living things and only imbeciles seek to control them. The most we can do is marvel at their beauty and see which way their inky wonders flow.