We have some useless letters in our alphabet:

A, so far so good. I won't pick on the vowels too much, because I know vowels by nature are flexible.

B, no problem there.

C? Do we really need C? Sometimes it's pronounced like a K, and sometimes, it's pronounced like an S. So why not just use a K or an S? And sometimes, there's a K or an S, and a C that you don't need, just hanging around. "Science." There's already an S there, so why the C? "Duck." Why a C and a K? K is enough. Basically, the only time you really need a C, is when it's with an H. So maybe we should just make C sound like a CH all the time. Then "cyclone" would become "syklone," and "chair" would become "cair." I think that's reasonable.

D, E, F, fine. G is another letter that kan't make up it's mind. Sometimes a G just sounds like itself, but other times, it sounds like a J. So why not use a J? Let's cange "garage" to "garaje." I think that makes sense. Sometimes the G kombines with an H, and just sounds like a weird sort of a breath. Sinse no other letter in the alphabet does this, I'll allow it.

H is okay, when it's by itself, but it tends to combine weird with other letters. I don't blame the H, I blame the letters preceeding it. So I'll let it go.

I is fine. However, the whole "I before E exsept after C" rule needs to go. "Weight," "Einstein," "weird," "science," "neighbor," "seize," "dreidel," "vaccancies," "beige..." Holy shit, this is a dumb rule. Let's kik this rule to the kurb with the rest of the garbaje. The new rule is, "I before or after E, depending on whatever you feel like."

J, K, L, M, N, O are okay.

P is fine when it's acting like a P. But sometimes it kombines with S or N and just disappears. Let's drop the P's from "pnemonia" and "psychology." Other times, the P kombines with H and sounds like an F. Well why not just use an F? People might tell you that "phone" is spelled with a PH, bekause that's the way the ancient Greeks spelled it. And I know that's bullshit, bekause the ancient Greeks didn't have any telefones. (Hey, at least the folks over at Trakfone have the right idea.) People might klaim that PH komes from the Greek letter phi, and PS komes from the letter psi. Well then why don't we just translate the letter phi as the equivilant of the letter F? So let's not stik P's anywhere where they don't belong.

Q is just stupid. In English, the letter Q is ALWAYS followed by a U. So if we know it's koming anyway, why even bother with it? And how would a Q be pronounsed if it wasn't followed by a U? Would it still sound the same? Or would it sound like a K? Since non-English words, such as "Iraq," make the Q sound like a K, I'm going to assume that Q is the same as K, and that QU is the same as KU or KW. So let's start spelling all our Q words foenetikally, and replace all the QU's with KW's, and all the lone Q's with K's. I think I'm being kwite lojikal about this.

R is good.

S is fine. Sometimes it kombines with H, but sinse no other letter makes the spesifik SH sound, I'll allow it. T is the same thing. Nothing else makes a TH sound, so we'll keep the TH. For now.

U is okay. V is okay. W is kind of a goofball letter. It's konsidered to be a vowel in only one word in the English languaje. The word is "cwm," meaning a steep valley in the side of a hill. This is dumb. W is a double U, and it karries a vowel sound, so why not just kall it a vowel already?

X doesn't really serve muc of a purpose. At the beginning of a word, it sounds like a Z. So why not use a Z? Canje "xenon" to "zenon." In the middle or end of a word, it sounds like a KS. So use a KS. Canje "box" to "boks." The name "Xavier" is kind of unusual, bekause the X is at the beginning, but it doesn't sound like a Z. It sounds like "egz." It kould be spelled "Egzavier," but sinse it's a proper name, I think it would be best to kall up all the Egzaviers on the fone, and ask them to judje for themselves whether they feel like canjing it or not. Really, the only time X is aktually useful is when the letter is by itself, as in "X-ray," or "X marks the spot." So those are the only times we should use X.

Y just pisses me off. It's a vowel, it's a konsonant, it's a vowel, it's a konsonant. Make up your fuking mind, Y! I say, Y makes a sound that sounds like a vowel, so let's just kall it a vowel all the time. There is no reason to konsider Y a konsonant. Let the folks on Wheel of Fortune start buying it already.

Z is okay, for the most part. But sometimes, SH, ZS, G or S sound like a ZH, but the only time a word with that partikular sound is spelled that way, is in the diktionary foenetik respelling. I don't see why we kan't just spell a ZH sound with a ZH. Canje "beige" to "beizhe," canje "treasure" to "treazhure," and canje "mirage" to "mirazhe." Maybe even canje "Zsa Zsa Gabore" to "Zha Zha Gabore." Again, I'm fleksible on proper names.

And while we're at it, let's drop all the silent konsonants. We've already dropped the P from "nemonia" and "sykolojy," but now let's drop some of those silent Bs and Ls. Canje "walk" to "wak?" Okay, maybe that's too konfusing, so let's ...add a W, and kall it "wawk." Then seal up your windows with "kawk." I think that's reasonable. Canje "comb and tomb" to "com and tom?" No, those are already words, so we'll need to add a more appropriate letter. I think an extra vowel is rekwired. Canje "comb" to "koum," and canje "tomb" to "toom." "Dumb" and "numb" don't need any ekstra vowels, so they kan just bekome "dum" and "num." Yes, we're definitely making some improvements here, and making the way we tawk muc less dum.

Anyway, those are a few small canjes I would make to the English alfabet. I guess that makes me a vizhionary, who thinks outside the boks.

Demands for the Ninety-Nine Percent

One of the biggest criticisms of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its analogs in other cities is that the protesters don't have a "clear message" or a "list of demands."  I find that every time someone tries to propose a clear message, it's more or less dismissed based on the assumption that it's already implicit.  Basically, the message, as is implied, is this:  "Rich people are too rich, and that sucks."  It doesn't really suggest a course of action to resolve this issue, other than to ask the upper 1% to acknowledge that they do in fact suck, and possibly for somebody, somewhere, in some unknown corner of existence, to think of a way to make the world not suck.

I think there's a reason why the protesters are favoring vagueness.  I think that many of them are afraid that if they focus on a clear and specific demand, that the movement might lose support or splinter, from groups who have the same complaint, but a different solution.  As long as the ideology is that we should have a system of "something other than oligarchy," but not specify which something other we want to use, the anarchocapitalists and the socialists can be on the same team.

Unfortunately, the elitists LOVE when the capitalists and the socialists fight with each other.  As George Carlin said, the rich know that as long as the rest of us are busy fighting with each other, they can keep going to the bank.  I say it's unfortunate, because the only way this protest can stay together is by remaining so completely disorganized, that it never accoplishes anything.  The moment it chooses a direction, it loses support.  Also, once it has a specific goal in mind, it becomes predictable, and the elitists can compensate for its presence.  Just look at the way the politicians adapted and integrated the Tea Parties.

So there are our options.  We can either have a disorganized protest that can't accomplish anything, but be a hugely widespread movement, or we can have a few small, but highly organized social factions, which start out by getting in each other's way, and end up becoming assimilated by the corporate-political machine.  I'd choose the former just based on principle, if I thought the world situation was truly hopeless.  However...

As the technological evolution takes us further from the world of television and radio, and more integrated into the world of electronic media, the need for financial backing for mass communication is diminished.  As a result, the people become more equal in terms of power of speech, and thus, political influence.  When Steve Jobs introduced the idea of home computers back in 1984, he made a big production (literally) of the idea that he was in some way taking down Big Brother.  Now, just after his death, twenty-seven years later, I start to get the feeling that he had a better idea of what he was doing than any of us realized.  Just think, through the power of the internet, a political candidate can run an entire campain online for almost no money.  When (not "if") television comes to its end, there will be absolutely no need for a politician to receive donations, which means that the upper 1% will have no power over any politician.  (Consider the impact that the internet had on the campain of Ron Paul, who was often deliberately ignored by conventional media.)

Okay, so in the not-too-distant future, the politicians will be subject to the will of the populus, rather than the elites.  Well, how are the politicians going to know what the people want?  How are the people going to educate ourselves on the political, social and economic issues?  How are the people going to make our voices come together and be heard by the people elected to represent us?  The most effective way, as far as I can see, is to come together into large angry-yet-peaceful mobs, outside where we can't be ignored (not sitting lazily behind some keyboard, like me), and shout out what we like and what we don't like.  Well, we're doing that now.  So in this case, a clear message, even though it could risk splintering the movement, will prepare us for when that tipping point when a moble app reaches more people than the six o'clock news, and every politician turns his attention away from his financial backers and toward the voters.

So what are our demands, specifically?  I can't speak for everyone, so I'm not going to try.  I'll just speak for myself, and tell you what changes I want to see:

• No one shall ever by considered "too big to fail."  All corporations will have the same opportunity to fail as any poor private citizen would.
• No subsidies for companies that the Government happens to like, regardless of how the politicians "think" they will be able to help our economy.
• Criminal act will be punished the same regardless of income status.  If any extremely wealthy person commits theft, fraud, tax evasion, etc., they will be treated exactly the same as anyone else.
• Revise the tax codes.  Ideally, I'd like to see the income tax abolished, but for the time being, I'm willing to settle for closing the tax loopholes which allow corporations to avoid paying the same taxes as the rest of us.
•  Remove regulations which force private companies to maintain stock prices.  This will allow competition from more consumer-friendly companies, forcing larger corporations to adapt their own policies similarly.  Also, it will allow investors to start thinking long-term.
• Because a lack of public insurance limits health care to the wealthy, and a public health option allows pharmacutical companies holding monopolies on particular drugs to extort arbitrary prices from public funding, and thus, the taxpayers, it is important that the Government does not support these monopolies.  Therefore, patents on perscription drugs should not be enforced.
• Any regulations on companies with regards to working conditions or environmental impacts should continue to be applicable to American companies which set up production overseas.  This way, such regulations would not be driving employers out of the country.
• No one should be punished for being rich.  This demand is directed more at the protesters.  We must remember that we are motivated not by envy of others' success, but by a desire for equal opportunities to succeed.  Some say "We are the 99%."  I say, "We are the 100%!"

I've got a LOT of ideas about reforms I would like to see, but these which I have listed apply directly to the general goal of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Sure, I'd like to see drugs and prostitution legalized, amnesty for illegal immigrants, government staying out of marriage, and so on.  However, I do not want to divert this movement from its objective.  A protester who tries to attatch his ideology to an existing social movement is no better than a politician who attatches pork to a bill.  So if I want drugs legalized, I'll start my own protest, but I won't bring up the topic at someone else's.  I think that's a very important distinction.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is for the purpose of addressing the problem of unfair economic advantages for corporations, so all of the specific demands which I have suggested above, are designed toward those ends.

I do realize that a lot of people would like to see a socialist, or possibly even communist solution to the problem of the upper 1%.  I disagree.  I think that unilaterally taxing the super-rich would only discourage companies such as McDonald's or Microsoft which get rich by producing products, and allow non-productive companies such as Goldman-Sachs to simply cover the costs of their higher taxes by inventing new ways to rip people off.  Besides, taxing the rich would be kind of like solving the problem of a burglary by sending a second burglar to rob the first one.  I support real capitalism, but I don't stand in the way of anyone who wishes to be a communist.  In fact, I applaud them for taking such a clear position.

In conclusion, I believe we are on the edge of a new age.  As much as the wealthy elite wish they could maintain the status quo indefinitely, they must realize that change is inevitable.  Let us work together to make sure that change is for the better.

When to stop listening.

Here are some key phrases which will absolutely insure that no one will continue listening to what you are saying:

* My cat did the cutest thing the other day...
* Did I tell you about my surgury?
* I had the weirdest dream last night...
* Let me tell you how you can save a lot of money...
* As a valued customer, we have several offers for you...
* Did I tell you about the new mods on my car?
* Jesus said...
* And another thing that the Jews control...
* According to your horoscope...
* And another thing that the Freemasons control...
* My therapist said...
* I do.

Idea for Occupying Wall Street

You want to really fuck with the Government/Corporate/Media Trinity?  Here's what you do.  Get a bunch of Tea Party Republicans and Libertarians to join the Wall Street Protest in their tri-corner hats and tea bags, and rally in opposition to how the Government uses the people's tax dollars to bail out big corporate banks.  Right now, the media is trying to spin this story as a "Left vs. Right" matter.  It's time to let them know that both the Tea Parties AND the Wall Street Protests are actually "Bottom vs. Top."

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I just signed up for Blogger.com.  That is all.