Ehlana

Ahem. Pig Latin is not a branch off of English. It is en encrypted form of English. It's like Morse Code. And people create such "languages" all the time, in every culture. It's cool to study them. But there are cooler things, like Verlan, the French language originally used by criminals and now used as slang by young people (probably like gangsters - a French guy told me there are a lot of gangsters in France). "in (high school), they give me a choice of Spanish, French, German, and Latin" Lucky bastard... They gave me the choice of... let's see... **counts on fingers** Spanish. I hate that language. The one and only language I hate and probably ever will hate. French is a part of my life... not fluent yet. I've been studying it since the end of 8th grade, but it took me a year to find the right strategies for learning. I have not once spent money on learning French, and I'm doing pretty well. French is the second most used language online and I think the second most studied worldwide, so it's all right here. I love languages... There must be at least fifteen that I want to learn, but I only have around 30 years to learn them because after that I'll be too old to bother. I despise those people who grow up speaking seven languages, especially the ones who go on to say they don't like languages. There are basically three kinds of people in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada: those who speak one language and negligently wish they knew another language, the clever cynics who speak one language and think English is all an educated person needs, and those who aren't monolingual. The only person I know who has learned multiple languages and thinks any of them are useless to him is my mom's boyfriend, but he's also the one who thinks that he's going to convince the northern hemisphere to share its summer heat with the southern hemisphere and vice versa. I could give so many reasons why languages are beneficial to anyone and everyone. Anyway... For those who want to study languages on their own, you don't have to spend a lot of money... just get a little coursebook (maybe some audio, too) to help you through the beginner to lower intermediate stages and also a dictionary... Depending on the language, you might find a lot of help online. If you want to learn French, I'd advise skipping the coursebook. I have learned far more by just reading than anything else. You can find online news in practically any language you want to learn. And a good website for language-lovers is: http://www.unilang.org

I have a question: does the moon somehow protect the earth (besides from incoming asteroids and other space junk)? I thought I remembered hearing that the moon protects the earth some other way, but I may have been getting it confused with the protection from the magnetic field.

If I want badly enough to die right now, I will damn well die right now. It doesn't matter what age... It doesn't matter if it involves logic or not. Is there logic in eating one too many cheeseburgers? As much as logic as the victim says there is. That is your right to doing something "bad" to your body. It doesn't even matter if living for 12 hours longer would have changed Joe into a happy guy... because then you start talking about a person that could have existed and not a person who did exist.

Mesdames et messieurs... Have any of you ever seen an Australian aboriginal? They look... um... primitive. Well, suffice it to say that they look (only facially) like what you'd imagine seeing in a movie about cavemen. But they are quite human. They look very unattractive to me. "2. With the recent findings of the 'hobbit people', does that up the count of homonid species to 18? or are they considered part of an existing species?" I don't know if they're close enough to humans to be considered hominids. But I know they are hardly considered part of an existing species. They turned out to be much more primitive than people had hoped. The tools found near them must have belonged to homo erectus. "3. Doesn't seem to make sense that interbreeding was a major part of the extinction of all these other species when you look at the differences in genetic makeup of modern humans?" If it were interbreeding, it would not be extinction. It would be evolution. Or at least, the extinction would not be an effect of interbreeding. And I say no, it doesn't seem to make sense. Obviously, humans are evolving as we speak and not because of breeding with different species. "4. Is it possible that our genetic makeup just overtook theirs in interbreeding and we became the dominant species?" Personally, I doubt it because there have to be very special circumstances in order for two species to interbreed... but I'm really not qualified to say.