kids defy logic and it's ok, cause they're kids

these pearls of parenting wisdom are from skeptic dad.

Junior Logical Fallacies

1. Argument by Repetition – Any time a child wants something and asks for it repeatedly without regard to the fact that her father has said “NO” and stated his reason. This fallacy typically occurs when an ice-cream truck pulls into the cul de sac or when the family is at the toy store exit.

2. Argument by Ignoring – When a father clearly states a simple order, and his child refuses to acknowledge the request or respond to it appropriately. A good example of this fallacy is when a child spends fifteen minutes organizing her bag of “gems” instead of putting on her shoes like her Dad told her to do in the first place.

3. Argument by Tantrum – This effective fallacy uses public embarrassment via an enraged fit to communicate an intense desire for something that the child does not intrinsically need. Often, the Argument by Tantrum, indicates a deep underlying need for sleep and relaxation for the child… and the parent.

4. Argument by Cuteness – When a child spontaneously acts like an adorable puppy dog and starts licking her arm and quietly whimpering, while looking at you with moistened eyes. This fallacy is used by toddlers who can’t verbalize complete sentences. It often coincides with the announcement that it’s time to go to bed.

5. Vicious Circle of Persistent Questioning – Why do those ducks have green heads? Because they evolved that way. Why did they evolve that way? Because having a green head gave their ancestors a survival advantage. Why did having a green head give them an advantage? I don’t know. Why don’t you know? Because I don’t study ducks. Why don’t you study ducks? Because I chose to be a theatre major in college. Why did you choose to be a theatre major in college? That’s a long story. Why is it a long story? [...ad infinitum]

6. Argument by Parental Deferment – When a child petulantly tells you that her mother will let her do the thing that you are forbidding. This fallacy is usually followed by the child calling her mother on the phone and insisting that you were mean to her, even if all you did was refuse to let her have Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey for a snack.

7. Argument by Peer Reference – When an older child insists that she should be able to do something just because all her friends are allowed. This fallacy occurs in proximity to cell phones stores. The best response to this fallacy is to mention the dangers of Peer Reference, especially in regards to jumping off a bridge.

8. Argument by Eye Roll – When a teen lacks the verbal intelligence to defend her point, and instead, rolls her eyes toward the sky while looking at you with utter contempt.

9. Argument by Whining – This is a fallacy that, left unchecked, will slowly melt your brain away. Although similar to the Vicious Circle of Persistent Questioning, this fallacy is differentiated by the elongation of diphthong vowels at the end of sentences. There’s typically a rise in annoying inflection, implying demand, but then a dip in tone, implying a need for sympathy. A parent can tune this fallacy out so that it sounds like the distant melodic gasps of a lone accordion

10. Argument by Blame – A fallacy for siblings that usually involves one sister excusing her bad behavior because of something the other sister did. This fallacy is associated with a perceived violation of possessions and is used to justify physical harm done to the other sibling. For example, “I bit her ear because she took my Dora coloring book.”

"I don't put a gun to nobody's head"

ooooh brother.

i google-news "psychic" and i get all kinds of pro-psychic articles.
like this one.

the author gives such gems as "Genuine psychics are very good at tuning in to information they don't really need to know but that is available all the time, and almost anyone can learn to develop this ability to some extent. While some people are truly 'gifted' with psychic ability in the same way that some people are born good at music or math, almost anyone can develop the ability to pick up on subtle environmental cues."
then, she somewhat redeems herself with: "Just don't charge for it."

i google-news "psychic fraud" and i get, well, all kinds of psychic fraud articles.
like this one.
where the subject of the article, who charged her target approximately $20,000, says:
"The woman was in an abusive marriage and had gone to psychiatrists...I worked closely with her until she mustered up enough strength to leave," Miller said. "I talked to this woman every day on the phone, I saw her at least four times a week for nine months straight. I was being compensated for my time, for my expertise and for my practices."
Considering all that, the amount she charged was reasonable, Miller said. "Why should I give my services away for free when people out there like doctors and psychologists get compensated?"
While Miller said she invests a lot of time in her clients, she does not offer guarantees.
"Before they pay a single dime, that is told to them upfront," Miller said. "I don't go out and hunt people down; they come to me for my services. I don't put a gun to nobody's head. This is all done by their own free will."
she (april miller) tops it off with:
"I have had complaints against me, but my paperwork is all in order. If I had stolen someone's money, don't you think I'd be in jail?"

anyhoo - with both of these google-news searches, i get ridiculously idiotic psychic "sponsored ads" in the right hand column of google - i s'pose it's no different from pr0n.

says me: psychics and pr0n have quite a lot in common

both fields are shoddy, shady, full of douche bags, someone is making LOTS of money and someone else is getting hurt and exploited, often willingly.

that said, i think pr0n is the lesser of the two evils.

and speaking of psychics, these are quite entertaining!

flim flam the flim flammers!


this is from a TV show:


goofing on "psychic kids"


regarding the "psychic kids" spoof, - ya also gotta love the YouTube comments from the folks who obviously supported the child abuse that was "psychic kids". such words of wisdom:

this is really sad. i wish he wouldnt make fun of the kids. it's people like this that hurt the kids socially. people should be open minded and such about things like this. for all we know it could be real.

...douche

This guy's a jerk! I'm can sense ghosts and it's REAL! Jackass.

Well you know what? For every single one of those clips they showed, I saw the entire episode and they didn't even give the full story!!! For the kid with the tapping on the window his sibling slept in the same room, and as for the healing girl, she was able to guess another girl's blood disorder when they had only known each other for a couple hours and she hadn't said anything about her blood disease!

What the world needs now...is not this kind of sarcasm and a channel called 'HATE by Numbers." Please, everyone, what is the use of "HATE?" Stop passing it around. Please.

i dont have time for all you normies who dont understand a bit wat we are going through try to tell ur mom ur phychic (happy i spelt it right?) and have her look at you funny

NORMIE! NORMIE! I SPY A NORMIE! It is not our fault that you are so closed minded, it's people like you whom gives your race a bad name. A very bad name, but hey, it's not my fault. I hope your child does not come to you stating that she has psychic abilites. Besides, leave everyone alone. Oh, have fun being out at midnight and 3-4 in the morning!

hey just beacuse i dont know how to spell correctly dosnt give you any right to say im not and i bet you don't know what spirit guides are without looking it up and now that you probably looked it up, i can talk to all of them and you have 6 of them ya i can read people but i really want to make you belive i am cuz i don't want any1 thinking i'm faking this crap.. i thought i was weird when i learned what i can do. peace

i could go on, but why bother?

speaking of physics, interesting theory

i know this is not news to most people, but i reckon the more people who blog / post about it the better...

infrasound could well be the cause of many peoples' daytime "paranormal" experiences.

Tandy was working late in the "haunted" Warwick laboratory when he saw a gray thing coming for him. "I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck," he said. "It seemed to be between me and the door, so the only thing I could do was turn and face it."* But the thing disappeared. However, it reappeared in a different form the next day when Tandy was doing some work on his fencing foil. "The handle was clamped in a vice on a workbench, yet the blade started vibrating like mad," he said. He wondered why the blade vibrated in one part of room but not in another. The explanation, he discovered, was that infrasound was coming from an extractor fan. "When we finally switched it off, it was as if a huge weight was lifted," he said. "It makes me think that one of the applications of this ongoing research could be a link between infrasound and sick-building syndrome." When he measured the infrasound in the laboratory, the showing was 18.98 hertz--the exact frequency at which a human eyeball starts resonating. The sound waves made his eyeballs resonate and produced an optical illusion: He saw a figure that didn't exist.

and now for some physics instead of psychics

i was reading about the TAM7 connie sonne shenanigans online and ran across an interesting sounding person who was a keynote speaker: jennifer ouellette.

being an armchair fan of both physics and BTVS, i must look for her books pronto.