You give bash more credit than it deserves. `wget url?a=1&b=2` is parsed as`wget url?a=1 & ; b=2` ie, it runs `wget url?a=1` in the background and sets the she

You give bash more credit than it deserves. `wget url?a=1&b=2` is parsed as`wget url?a=1 & ; b=2` ie, it runs `wget url?a=1` in the background and sets the shell variable b=2.