Which Is Worse The Name Or The Court?

Being named "Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii", or the NZ Family Court placing the child under their custody? (Like my choice of source?)

This has been an ongoing discussion on Myspace for the past few days.

The girl given that name managed to avoid being bullied by calling herself "K".

This story spread quite quickly with it being found apart from the Honolulu Advertiser on theInternational Herald Tribune the BBC, CBC, CNN and Reuters.

What I don't seem to understand is why exactly the mainly American posters on the Myspace thread seem to think that a) the action of the courts was wrong and b) the child was permanently removed from the parents.

The linked articles all made the second point clear. The girl was placed in the custody of the court so her name could be changed. Based on that I think it would be quite safe to say that after the girl got her name changed (probably to whatever "K" was since most people knew her as that) her parents regained custody of the child.

I however, fail to see why the action of the court was the wrong one.

The girl clearly didn't like her name and the court, in doing what it did, complied with her wishes. It's like the Swedish court forbidding a couple from naming their kid Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, which by the way, somehow corresponds to the name "Albin". I see no difference in what the Swedish court did and what this court did except that the Kiwi parent at least knew how to spell the name in such a way that it matched with the pronunciation of the name.

Yet I see mainly American people trying to argue that it is wrong.

What is the logic behind that? Or do they think that it is fair that children should be bullied for their name?

So parents want to give their kids "creative" names (honestly, "Number 16 Bus Shelter" as a name is as creative as me putting a dot on a white canvas and calling it "Ant in a Snowstorm"), but I guess that when I am older giving kids names that we consider "normal" today will become the new "crazy".

If parents can come up with a "creative" name that is good, and I mean good, not some stupid one, then by all means go for it. But if you want to name a kid something that stupid, then maybe you should move to New Zealand and see how far you get, or to the US where they don't seem to have any restrictions on giving your kids really, really, stupid names.

The One?

I'm entering this discussion a bit late. I read about it a while ago and didn't bother about it.

Over on Thinking is Real there is a series of posts on the topic. The link is to episode 1.

I'm watching the show as I write this.

The first section involves "psychics" "diagnosing" random people. By which I mean they said what injuries they had.

I would like to know how long these people had to scope out their targets before they "diagnosed" them.

Now they are going to do the same thing in the studio.

Too bad this isn't live.

Guest #1, had a kidney transplant.

The reiki guy said abdomen but said the intestines.

The leather girl said kidneys but was deliberately vague about it (saying "I'm not a doctor").

Guest #2 had cancer and glaucoma etc. He was a smoker.

Reiki guy pointed out smoking.

I missed the other psychic's prediction though. I think he said something about it being somewhat right.

Guest #3 was an amputee.

Blond Girl failed.

Reiki guy said dancing, but said nothing about her amputation.

Leather girl was probably the closest but didn't say amputation.

Guest #4 had a stroke.

Reiki guy said lungs. Guest 3 says miss.

Leather girl said stroke. And according to the guy was correct.

Blond Girl said fracture, which is somewhat correct but not what she was supposed to get.

Guest #5, dirtbike rider. 17 bone fractures.

Reiki guy:

Pain in knee, pain in elbow, said fracture, damage to ribs, body has battering. Guy got side right. Left foot thing. Guy said it happened on stage, so I think there might have been a visible cue.

Blond girl was apparently ok as well.

Richard the skeptic pointed out the odds of finding a hit. And that stroke guy might have been standing differently to the other people. Psychic judge made up a bunch of crap about it. Leather girl did make quite a few guesses, probably not as many as the blond girl or reiki guy, but it was not as the judge described (one hit after another).

I'm not recording the show so I know that I have missed some things, and as you can see I'm writing during a commercial here.

I think that there has been some editing afoot, they didn't show as many misses, and I think that they might not have shown all the people (I don't remember seeing blond girl with the first guy for example) making their guesses.

Now they are finding whether they can match luggage to the person.

I don't remember seeing second guy in the last segment though. I think I've conflated him and reiki guy.

Reiki guy failed with the luggage challenge. Picked a woman.
Blond girl managed to pick the guy, but thought she would take another look and failed (woman again).
Second guy was wrong as well, at least he chose a guy though (which the owner of the luggage was).
Leather girl picked a girl but it was the man behind her.

This segment was 0/4.

All the psychics made up crap to explain away this.

Psychic judge was still trying to claim that they are psychic because (at least the girls) were so close to the person in question.

It still means nothing though. But we did hear the old spiel about "can you measure love, power etc?"

No, because they are subjective.

The next is a "celebrity psychic reading".

Celeb #1 Guy Leech.

Leather girl, who apparently is called "Charmaine"

2 Kids. "Hit"
"Barry". "Hit"
What sport. Miss
Daughter, dark hair, dancer, focus of family. "Hit"

She had two guesses on his "celebrityness". She said TV first, but then changed to sport.

Celeb #2 Paul O'Brien.

Second guy.

Bikes. "Hit". But I don't know if it was actully a hit for "excercise". He did say Bike riding though.
Fireplace. Miss
Athsma/bronchitis."Hit"
Accounting and Finances etc. "Hit" The guy had something to do with a mortgage.

Based on this rough list we see that these people are 3/4. I want to know how many misses were there and whether they are the only "hits" that they got.

We are at a commercial break, so let's see how many hits the other two get.

Celeb #3 Toni Pearen

Reiki guy was up.

bubbly vivacious outgoing. "Hit"
Dog. Miss
Has no kids but are around other kids. "Hit"
Hard to get close, but they are very important. "Hit"
Volunteer work. Miss
Needed time to herself. "Hit"

Celeb #4 Justin Melvey

Blond girl was up.

Strong built."Hit"
Male. "Hit"
Carrie, Kenny, championship ring. "Hit"
Brothers. "Hit"
Ice cream lover. "Hit"

Richard. Pointed out generalisations. There were plenty of them. Had reiki guy pointed out that Toni was a girl he would have been 5/7 instead of 4/6. Blond girl was 4/4.

I do like how they redefined the word "fact".

If you don't like my list, I'm giving "hits" based on what the celebrities thought. Again, a subjective thing. Blond girl said something along the lines of "I'm getting a Carrie... Kenny... something about championships" (I think it was Kenny. Could have been Kelly.). From the celeb I think that what he gave a hit was technically a miss, because it was not him but someone else.

What I would like to know is if they are "psychics" then why don't they know if they are going to win?

Reiki guy, who I've found out is called Jason, was kicked off.

But I think that even though he lost he will be raking in the dough.

They are now telling us who to vote for to win. Funny that they aren't doing a "live" show.

But in their last show, they are going to try and find the body of Peter Falconio.

I guess they would have used the Beaumont Children case but they couldn't because a psychic who was well known at the time tried to find them and was wrong.

Handlebars

Go and listen

That is all.

Crackergate

In case you don't know, it's finished.

On July 24, 2008 at 2:00 PM most likely PZ time, PZ Myers reported that he went through with his claim and desecrated a (blessed?) Eucharist, a Koran and a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

I guess it is really over. I've been wondering if it should be called "crackergate" and a Google search shows that others have used it.

I think the -gate suffix is so overused (cross reference Iguanagate) that I think that it should only be used when something stupid comes out of it.

PZ reported recently that Michael Edmonton, of "Beware the Believers" video fame created this:



So I think that enough stupidity has come out of this to call it "crackergate".

However I would like to express my outrage.

How dare PZ desecrate a copy of The God Delusion?

That's like desecrating a copy of the Koran, or, or, or a Eucharist.

I mean how could he, what does he think he is a fundie? A joker?

I hope he dies horribly.

Bork Bork Bork.

I fuoond thees vheele-a guugleeng.

It's a bork feelter.

Noo iff yuoo hefe-a Fureffux (Teke-a thet IE!) yuoo tuu cun eejuy veb peges thet reed leeke-a zee Svedeesh Cheff frum zee Mooppet Shoo.

Vhy nut luuk et thees veet it oon?

Oor vhy nut check oooot zee heeleriuoos seete-a Preesunplunet?

Leern ebooot "sceeence-a" frum ieezeer zee Deescufery Institoote-a, oor Unsvers in Genesees?

It elsu trunsletes blug pusts.

Audiosurf

I've become hooked on Audiosurf. If you download the demo be aware of two things, first you need to get Steam to play it, and second you'll only be able to play five songs.

The US$9.99 is worth it though, especially since the real dollar (Aussie) is nearly at parity.

As I said, I've become hooked.

What I have found is the following:

1. The hardest song that I have encountered is "Million Way of Drum" by Force of Nature. I guess that's how the game engine designates blocks and such because there are millions of them since the song is basically, as the name suggests, drums (there is a bass guitar in it for a little bit as well).
2. The songs "Kalinka" and "Korobelniki" as sung by the Russian Red Army Choir give plenty of red blocks.
3. I haven't tried it yet but I think that it would be entirely possible to listen to say Skeptoid while you play. I don't know if it recognises a difference between podcasts and songs.
4. No matter how obscure you think something is, there will usually be someone who already holds the #1 spot.

I'd say get it and have fun. The game is fun, and the music is always excellent.

Answers in Genesis Has A Journal?

I saw this on Panda's Thumb.

Answers in Genesis have their own "peer reviewed" "journal".

I must admit though that their page with the articles in it looks nice, and at least it's free for people to make fun of.

This one caught my eye.

Entitled Microbes and the Days of Creation without proper stupid protection you will lose several IQ points.

The abstract alone makes me think immediately of this (as a side note, the owner of that site is apparently on Myspace, and although wrong at times isn't really that stupid).

Clearly though they are trying to reconcile the lack of microbes with a literalist interpretation of Genesis.

The argument is as follows.

It's simply that micro-organisms exist in symbiosis with plants and animals. So nitrogen fixing bacteria that are found with peanut plants for example were created on the third day, with the rest of the plants etc. etc.

We do get to an interesting position though.

You know how some people believe that humans were created in the image of God?

Well then either God is actually a giant E. coli bacterium, and that humans were created to house that which was made in his image, or E. coli are just as important to God as we are. I mean the neutral E. coli are quite useful to the body.

If God was supposed to have made his creations perfect to begin with, why have a bacterium in you that gives you Vitamin K₂ but can also give you food poisoning if you have a specific strain?

Then there is the section on viruses.

It reads like the "good" viruses are there to help humans, when in fact they would be doing what they are doing to "survive". What exactly would you say for the undead or non-live?

For pathogens and "bad" viruses, well they are easily explained by the standard creation argument. Yep that's right. The "fall" was responsible.

I guess back in Eden HIV went about making people happy and immortal or something stupid like that.

For some reason I feel as if what I read is completely useless for science.

Wait a minute, no I don't.

It is completely useless for science.

Like everything in creationism there is no use for this "paper". It doesn't explain anything for science, it explains how creationists think, but not science.

Unless this AiG "peer reviewed journal" is actually an elaborate humour site it's rather pathetic to see them having to make their own journal, I guess they thought that proper journals wouldn't publish their stuff.

It's a creationist version of the Journal of 9/11 Studies.