DRAFT: first crack at updating the language and pulling in an initial set of patches

@braddunbar please review! I know there's still a bunch to do but wanted to get feedback early. I've included just the patches that can standalone except for date just for fun to jump start us figuring out how to organize patches that work with popular/common libraries (in this case momentJS).

Considerations:

* coffeescript or javascript?
* need to remove requireJS probably 
* need more tests and better commentary/docs on existing patches