Some people, when asked to read the word “asked,” will tend to spontaneously say “ax’t.” Other people, when asked to read the word “asked,” will tend to spontaneously say something that is much closer to “ass’t.” Both of these represent a significant difference between the way the word is pronounced (a metathesis of the /s/ and /k/ in one case, and a complete elision of the /k/ in the other, not even getting in to what’s going on with that last syllable). Yet it’s only the people who say “ax’t” who routinely get mocked, or get judged as ill-educated, or ignorant of the standard pronunciation, or who are assumed to lack basic literacy skills, just because of the way they happen to pronounce the word. I wonder why that is.

Of course there were certain excesses . . . . “According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. . . . “It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched. . . .” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran I predict that, like the recent open admission of complicity in the removal of Mossadeq, this announcement will also have exactly no effect at all on how anyone in mainstream political commentary talks about the motives, or the moral status, or the likely outcomes, of the U.S. government’s foreign policy or intelligence apparatus. The very worst offenses of the U.S. government are largely openly-admitted matters of public record, and public-affairs commentary mostly proceeds on the assumption that there is nothing worth saying about any of that, except to wave it off with an impatient roll of the eyes and a suggestion that you are immensely childish and un-Serious for even mentioning such things as if they should matter. Via Nathan Goodman

http://funnie.st/310962/awkward-family-photos/3/ You make fun, Funnie.st, but seriously, this kid is my new hero.

Someday I will probably fall out of love with this new printer. To-day is not that day.

To-day: Help Markets Not Capitalism and the ALL Distro get to Libertopia (Aug. 30-Sep. 2, San Diego, CA.)! We are looking for help to cover some traveling costs, and get a strong presence for market anarchism and free-market anti-capitalism at Libertopia. Help us if you can! http://www.gofundme.com/all-libertopia-2013?pc=fb_cr

“Nothing to worry about here. We checked us out and it looks like we’re pretty much doing fine.” #SeemsLegit

Look man, if someone changes their name and says they want you to use that new name, just fucking use the new name. It doesn’t matter whether or not you understand their reasons, or sympathize with their reasons, or whether or not you think they’re being weird. People change their names all the time, and people are weird all the time, and this is part of what’s great about people. And if you think that your being weirded out by their reasons for doing so is more important than your showing the most basic sorts of interpersonal respect toward them, then you need to ask what’s wrong with you that this bothers you so much. Not what’s wrong with them.

We have an exciting Fall coming up. It starts in San Diego. We’re looking for help to cover our travel costs, and help bring the ALL Distro, Markets Not Capitalism, and Molinari Institute speakers to the Libertopia Festival, Aug. 30-Sep. 2.

Johnson’s Law: as an online discussion of Anarchism grows longer, the probability of a completely off-topic joke about John Zerzan and telepathy approaches 1. (*) (* I am completely guilty of helping to make this empirically true.)

Seriously, y’all, English has not had an accusative case, or any case system at all, since the twelfth century. If you think the “correct” way to answer “Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?” is “It was they!” then you are wrong. If you think that proper English grammar would be to say “Woe is I,” then you are wrong.