Categorising Language According to Difficulty

I was idling around some language based websearches and came across an interesting wikipedia article.
It was about the language aptitude test employed by the U.S Defence Language Institute. Based on the results of the test, applicants are allowed to enroll to study a language thought to be of appropriate difficulty, in regards to applicants language apptitude. Essentially then, they've listed popular languages in order of difficulty. Note that they are considered relative only to native English speakers.

From the article:

• Category I language: 95 or better

(Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish)

• Category II language: 100 or better

(German)

• Category III language: 105 or better

(Belarusian, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Polish, Russian, Croatian, Slovak, Tagalog, Thai, Turkic, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese)

• Category IV language: 110 or better

(Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean)

Well. I would think a large factor pushing Chinese, Japanese and Korean to the top of the list is the written component of the language, but I'm not sure. On the other hand I get much better marks in Chinese than I do in Russian, so perhaps the list is rather subjective. I understand we have one or two students of linguistics who may occasionaly read this blog; I'd very much like to hear their opinion on this.

M.L.A vs Peta: Marketing

Readers will remember my uncharacteristic outburst a few months ago regarding the moral vanity of certain vegetarians.

Peta are smart though. Or at least, they've got a far better marketing team than Meat and Livestock Australia. Allow me to explain. Underlying both marketing campgains is an appeal to our baser instincts. Peta has realised that some instincts are more powerful than others.

Exhibit A:


The M.L.A's campaign, to quote directly from their marketing page, explains:
"The new Instinct ad shows that craving red meat is instinctive behaviour; in fact we’ve been craving it for millions of years."

The execution of the idea, in my opinion, lacked the aesthetics of the Peta campaign.

Exhibit B:


I think my case speaks for itself. M.L.A needs to hit back and sink to Peta's level; I expect to see a new campaign without Sam Neill, and would instead propose the following:


EXT. STREET - GREY AFTERNOON

A lone figure wrapped in a well-worn trench coat hobbles down a bleak alley. The sky overhead is washed out and colourless, like the pavement. The buildings are decaying, as are the tattered posters on the walls. They depict an extreme close-up view of a dictators face; it is Hitler. Beneath the menacing face lie the words
"Eat your greens like the Fuhrer. Meat is something that must be overcome."


The lone figure arrives at a nondescript doorway and knocks carefully five times. A viewing slide opens and a pair of eyes appear. There is a metallic snap and the door is opened.

INT. CORRIDOR
The figure enters a corridor and a slow, deep hum can be heard. As the figure walks down the corridor the hum grows louder; it is becoming rhythm, it is becoming beat. There is a door at the end of the dark corridor which beckons. As the figure finally reaches it, he pushes it open to reveal...

INT. BALLROOM
There is an exhuberant, surreal celebration taking place. The Russian disco-rock band Accident is blasting the song "Drink Beer, Eat Meat" from a stage that has been dressed in tribal-noveau. Red and purple light rages from all directions. Opium and cigar smoke fills the air, and grinning faces lay passed out on oriental pillows. Scantily clad young women and smiling young men bring trays of steaks, sausages and bread around to couples and singles alike, of various nationalities, who sit at huge wooden tables, and barbeques rage in the background with huge flames roaring. Little children run around belting drums, squirting tomato sauce on effegies of Hitler and playing catch whilst Japanese paper-walls reveal the shadows of copulating couples. Upon a dais in the center of the ballroom is a section of burlesque dancers playfully feeding each other mouthfuls of meat, and the camera pans up to a huge banner depicting five faces from different continents, and the words:
"Support the Anti-fascism, pro-liberation movement of the peoples of the world."

Of course, I'll happily write out a counter-campaign for Peta, for the right sum of money.

Navigating Ones Political Standings

I was recently introduced to the Political Compass. It's fairly unbiased (from what I've seen so far at least) website, which contains a test which is designed to map your beliefs on the political compass. It states a point which I think is lost on a lot of people these days: it's not as simple as left and right. The test will map political-standing to an X and Y axis, based on economic and social issues. Apparently I'm an ever-so-slightly-Left-of-Center Libertarian. Which is not surprising to me, given that my usual position on an issue is: "Both sides have a point and are considerably flawed in different ways".



So, why not take the test and post your result in the comments here?
You can compare yourself with famous world leaders. If I ever become a politician, or even better, prominent philosopher, they shall know me as being "In the middle-ground between Angela Merkel and the Dalai Lama".

An End to Satire

I've come to realise that it's far easier to write good satire than good critical analysis (assuming one acknowledges a difference between the two). And I don't wish to take such easy paths.

So from now on I shall try to put an end to my somewhat sarcastic, ironic tone of the last two posts.

To all who don't and didn't 'get it', I hesitate to apologise, but hope you'll continue to read onwards nonetheless.

I shall leave the satire to Hutton. He's brilliant.

And so to start things off on a far more serious note, let's go again to politics, in particular columnists.

Whilst some people, it would seem, decide on the columnist who they feel most akin to, find most agreeable and therefore less offensive, I find this is a very (obviously) myopic approach.

Far better to adopt the Baconian method (named after Francis Bacon the philosopher, not the painter). On the assumption that the truth would often lie between left and right idealogues, and indeed 'Beyond Good and Evil', the Baconian method suggests to consider both extremes of opinion, would that the resultant view become balanced.

In a modern Australian context, I would take this to mean: read both Philip Adams and Andrew Bolt.

Steel Enema for the Japanese

Paul 'Steely Dan' Watson, captain of the vessel Farley Mowat, is a man of unique beliefs.
In some ways, he and I aren't that different. He loves whales, and so do I. I think they're splendid creatures, a sight truly beautiful to behold, and even more beautiful to taste.

I tasted my first whale in Osaka. I remember it very well; a high-rise restaurant in the lovely Rihga Royal, sipping the divine Asahi Black, which is the best stout beer one can find, as far as I'm concerned. And the whale; whilst words shall never do justice to such olfactory and gustatory delights, a comparison to the finest qualities of bacon, steak, and salmon would not be misleading. Thus it is vital that we preserve the whale population, and indeed encourage growth. Unfortunately, there are certain Japanese Vessels who inappropriately whale under the wrong conditions, in the wrong areas. Such actions haved jeopardised the whale population, and as such action should be taken against it, especially as international water policing forces are reluctant to uphold their international laws. Watson and I agree on this point.

Unlike myself, however, Watson is also accustomed to performing enemas on a mass scale.
"Perhaps it's time to give [the Japanese] a steel enema they will never forget.'' says Watson.

It's a unique solution to the problem of over-whaling, one that I wouldn't have thought of personally, but Watson has over 30 years in the field of steel enemas. It's also a rather more culturally specific solution- I'm aware that certain Japanese find the act of the enema rather enticing, and indeed erotic. So this move should be seen not as an act of the iron fist, but as an act of the velvet glove.

Whilst it may seem to us a unique, even bizarre suggestion for persuading the Japanese Whalers into conversation, we can't place our Western sexual anxieties ahead of the whales.

After all, so called anti-whaling countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the US merely boycott conversations with the Japanese on the issue.

I'm glad to see some action taken.

Watson, and the Mowat, pre-enema phase of the operation.

'Midnight' Garrett and 'Dog' Turnbull

It's hard work keeping up with politics these days. Just recently, a work colleague of mine remarked: "It's hard work keeping up with politics." This was after I had exclamed my frustration at being called in to work last evening, thereby missing the 7.30 Report debate between the new Minister and Shadow Minister of Environment.

After reading the transcript, I thought it'd be timely to introduce the two men, after what I've read of their MP websites.

Peter Garrett was once vocalist and interpretive dancer for the band Midnight Oil.
"For me, music is still the food of life and books remain the great reservoir of imagination and insight, ie the good stuff for us all to draw on." he explains on his website.
Garrett's days as a street performer of mime.

Malcom Turnbull was, and remains, a prominent lover of dogs.
"Malcolm Turnbull, Wentworth's own Federal Member loves dogs. He has three of his own – a red cattle dog, Rusty and two Maltese silkies, Jojo and Mellie." thus explains his website.

Amazingly, the Hounds of the Turnbulls are no strangers to mass-communication. They maintain blogs of their own. Unfortunately, this often results in confusion as to the author of the articles.

For example,

"Today I had a bath. There. I have written this awful truth.

Most of the time I dont have baths. The little terriers are always getting washed.... And they don't seem to mind. In fact, I suspect Mellie likes being washed. She changes colour and goes from a muddy white colour to what she likes to think is champagne blonde! What a laugh.

Anyway, I resist baths. But sometimes, it catches up with me and so I found myself in the bathtub being scrubbed, a small boy called Luca was assisting with great glee. Weeks and weeks of carefully accumulated smells washed away."

Now, given that Turnbull is an advocate of water conservation, could not this article have been written by him? A stoic, eccentric man, who rumours have it*, once proclaimed to the press
"Bath? I know no bath". The same rumour also holds that this was Turnbull's justification of the Ba'thist Cleansing policy in Iraq.


Turnbull with Wife, Son, Daughter and Hounds.

*This rumour was started by me

What the Ho?

Macau, from my small knowledge of the it, is an interesting place filled with interesting people.
For example, a son of Kim Jong-Ill's apparently lives there a lot of the time.

Paul told me about how Stanley Ho made heaps of money by owning the license to run a casino in Macau- apparently for a while he was the only one in town who had the license. Forbes say he's the 84th richest man in the world.

So what's he doing paying the New South Wales Labour Party AUS$109,000 in donations? I thought capitalist tycoon billionaires gave to the right, not the left.

Whilst he does apparently have 'significant property holdings in Queensland', where the ALP is also (thankfully) in power it seems an odd move. Perhaps he's going to start buying big in Sydney. Even stranger is that he payed AUS$48,000 for lunch with Premier Morris Iemma of NSW, and then skipped the lunch!

Billionaires. They're a foreign people.