Saving Children from Their Parents’ Creativity

"Ikea", "Fanta" and "Chanel". These names of a major furniture retailer, a soft drink and a luxury brand, respectively, have all also been given to babies in Germany. 

But joining this brand line-up, names drawn from Japanese such as "Taro" and "Kasai" are also said to be proving popular overseas in recent years. In Japan, the revised Family Register Act took effect in May 2025, requiring the readings of names to be added in family registers in the phonetic katakana syllabary. For so-called "kira-kira" names, or "sparkling" names with unorthodox readings, including foreign-style names and character names assigned to kanji, the revised law set a standard that readings differing from the original readings of the kanji must be "generally recognized as readings of characters used in names". 

The legal revision was reported around the world, including by The New York Times. The German magazine Der Spiegel, in an article with a headlined translating as "Japan introduces stricter rules for children's names", presented names symbolized in kanji for "Pikachu", "Nike" and "Kitty" as examples of kira-kira names. 

But as the German examples above show, "eccentric" names also exist in Europe and the United States. 

According to Knud Bielefeld (right), a name researcher in Ahrensburg in northern Germany, such names are rare but are sometimes chosen out of a desire to "give a child a special name". This appears to have something in common with parents in Japan who give their children kira-kira names. 

As reported by Western media reports, there was a child in Britain in 2024 named "Everest", the same as the world's highest mountain. In the United States, "Kasai" is gaining popularity as a boy's name meaning fire, and several hundred children were given the name in 2025. It is also said to be derived from the Japanese word "kasai", meaning a destructive fire. 

In some cases, however, courts have rejected unusual names, citing concerns including the risk that children could become targets of bullying. 

In France in 2015, the court rejected the name "Nutella", the same as the popular chocolate spread, for a girl. In Sweden in 1996, there was reportedly a case in which parents tried to have a long name made up of 43 letters of the alphabet with no vowels and a number read as "Albin", but it was not approved. 

At their core, both Japan's kira-kira names and the brand-inspired names of the West stem from the same place – a parent's deep wish to gift their child a special identity. However, as the legal backlash in Sweden, France, and Japan demonstrates, a name is never just a personal choice. It is a child's first introduction to the world, and striking the balance between 'memorable' and 'practical' is a global challenge that isn't going away anytime soon.

Beyond the Norm: Why I Drove 75 Minutes for a Speech

Last Saturday, I traveled to Prima Saujana, Kajang in Selangor, having accepted an invitation to the Kajang Toastmasters meeting to evaluate a highly articulate and prolific Distinguished Toastmaster.

The speaker was, of course, Ahmad Fakhri, who had already announced his topic: "Understanding Your Communication Style". And I knew ahead of time that the presentation would be far from traditional; he intended to use an unorthodox approach to actively challenge conventional wisdom.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, I braced myself for the task. In truth, the twist wasn't entirely unexpected, as he had dropped a blatant hint in his promotional poster by depicting himself as a blind gentleman.

Stepping onto the stage, he debuted a captivating new persona: Jai Narayan, a visually impaired Toastmaster friend from Bengaluru, India, delivering a speech powerfully titled, "Can You See What I Mean?" 

I did my job as expected, closely scrutinizing the speech for clarity, audience awareness, organization, delivery, and value. 

In the end, I was incredibly glad to be there.

Enlightening. Engaging. Engrossing. That is exactly how I would describe his presentation. It was certainly an uncommon experience for everyone in attendance, and well worth my 75-minute journey! 

While the entire Kajang Toastmasters meeting was filled with good moments, it was this masterful blend of performance and insight that lingered longest in the minds of the audience as they left. 

Ahmad Fakhri didn’t just deliver a speech; he set a new benchmark for what a communication showcase can truly be. And I am not exaggerating. 

Here are some additional photos from the meeting:

Donald Trump’s Wild Weekend: From the Moon to ‘New America’

On September 06, 2026, US President Donald Trump posted an image of Earth's natural satellite on Truth Social overlaid with the text “THE MOON IS OURS” alongside an American flag. 

Of course, the post went viral globally. 

He should know he cannot legally own or have the authority to claim the Moon for the United States, despite his viral social media assertion. 

• The Outer Space Treaty of 1967: Drafted in part by the United States and signed by over 100 countries, Article II of this treaty explicitly states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, use, occupation, or any other means. 
• Province of All Mankind: Under international space law, the Moon is legally designated as a shared resource for all humanity, meaning it cannot be added to any country's territorial or real estate portfolio. 

Media analysis indicates that the Moon graphic was part of a rapid-fire series of speculative and satirical posts. This sequence included AI-generated concepts for black US Space Force uniforms and altered geographic maps. 

Critics were quick to mock the sheer absurdity of trying to annex the cosmos with a social media graphic, noting that the stunt perfectly encapsulates Trump's signature brand of delusional showmanship and low-effort internet trolling. Legal and space policy experts emphasize that this social media assertion functions strictly as hollow political theater rather than a formal executive action or a shift in official US space policy.

On the same day too, Trump shared social media posts promoting the renaming of New Mexico to "New America". He started by uploading a modified United States map alongside an AI-generated video that showed an "America" sticker being placed over a "Welcome to New Mexico" highway sign.

After the maps went viral, he persisted with a text post claiming that "many people" had voiced the idea to him, writing: "Many people suggested changing the name of New Mexico... to NEW AMERICA. So much more prestigious and beautiful for the people of that potentially incredible State. Wow, I Love It!!!"

However, the US federal government have no authority to change the name of a state. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (right) rejected the proposal in a post on X, stating, "New Mexico's name isn't up for debate – it's been ours since before the United States existed". 

Following the viral pushback from local leaders, Trump aggressively doubled down the next day when he went on a rapid-fire spree, posting seven more times within a single hour with additional map variations and flag memes to keep the topic trending. 

Unplugged Medley Tribute to the Beatles

Before they dominated the late-70s dance floors with their iconic falsettos and flashing disco lights, Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb were a band trying to find their footing. 

By August 10, 1973, the Bee Gees' career had hit a temporary, lackluster lull following a string of lukewarm releases. To shake things up, the brothers stepped onto the stage of NBC's The Midnight Special, cast aside their massive studio productions, and delivered a raw, unplugged tribute to their idols – The Beatles. 

Through pure, unfiltered family harmony and just a pair of acoustic guitars, the trio transformed upbeat, high-energy pop anthems into intimate, melancholic folk-rock gems. It was a stunning demonstration of vocal arrangement and a pivotal moment in pop history that deserves a closer look. 

Instead of relying on predictable covers, the Bee Gees hand-picked five early-to-mid-'60s tracks from the Fab Four, entirely altering their DNA by slowing down the tempo and magnifying the vocal layers:

• "If I Fell": The medley opens softly with Barry’s solo vocals and a single acoustic guitar before Robin and Maurice join in, weaving a seamless three-part harmony over the gentle acoustic strumming.
• "I Need You": A delicate, driving continuation where the tight spacing of their voices gives George Harrison's original a distinct, early-70s singer-songwriter warmth.
• "I'll Be Back": Stripped of its driving jangle-pop rhythm, the brothers lean into the track's inherent melancholia, shaping it into a rootsy, acoustic lament.
• "This Boy": The undisputed emotional core of the performance. The intricate chord progressions become the backdrop for a heartbreaking, show-stopping lead vocal by Robin Gibb.
• "She Loves You": The most daring reinvention of the set. The Gibbs took the quintessential, explosive "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!" pop anthem and completely decelerated it, turning it into a vulnerable, breathtaking harmonic exercise.

What makes this entire performance brilliant is how deliberately the Bee Gees subverted the energy of the British Invasion. By replacing the brisk, electric bounce of the Beatles' early catalog with spacious acoustic arrangements and dragging tempos, they uncovered a dark, folk-rock melancholia hidden beneath the familiar pop hooks. 

It wasn't just a cover medley; it was a structural translation that shifted the focus entirely onto the emotional weight of the lyrics and the flawless precision of their three-part vocal stack.

A masterclass in vocal arrangement and a fascinating piece of pop history.

Copyright Disclaimer & Fair Use Notice: This post contains an embedded video clip utilized for the purposes of criticism, comment, historical scholarship, and musicological analysis. Such use constitutes a Fair Use of any copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This blog is non-commercial, transforms the original work by adding contextual critique, and does not serve as a market substitute for the original broadcast.

Celtic faced St Johnstone yesterday at the latter's home ground in a league match, which they won 1-0. 

The first half was keenly contested but ultimately goalless. However, midfielder Mika Baur found the back of the net in the 52nd minute when he met Haissem Hassan's sharp, low cross. 

That single goal was enough to maintain a 100% Scottish Premiership record for Celtic.

The Comic Strip Commando

Welcome to the US War/Defense Department gaming lobby: how a cartoon perfectly captures Pete Hegseth’s high-octane, culture-war defense doctrine. 

Imagine a Pentagon briefing room transformed into a teenage boy’s bedroom – complete with action figures, Monster Energy drinks, and a speaker blasting death metal – and you’ve got the exact vibe of the former co-host (right) of Fox & Friends Weekend’s "warrior ethos".💥 

In fact, Graeme MacKay’s three-panel editorial cartoon, published on September 04, 2026, for The Toronto Star and The Hamilton Spectator, captures this exact brand of military doctrine.

It is less a grand geopolitical strategy and more a hyper-charged schoolyard fantasy where the Department of War/Defense operates like a live-action GI Joe commercial.

Instead of traditional defense diplomacy, his public messaging stands out through a bizarre trifecta:

• Hypermasculine chest-thumping💪
• Call of Duty-style meme culture📱
• Militant Christian nationalism⛪

Because apparently, nothing screams "national security" quite like running the world's most powerful military like an energy-drink-fueled gaming lobby. 🎮🛡️

The questionable appointment of Pete Hegseth serves as a prime example of the Donald Trump administration's disruptive approach to governance. Alongside a lineup featuring JD Vance, Scott Bessent, Marco Rubio, and others, his prominent role reinforces fears that the United States is sliding downhill. In fact, the whole White House leadership operates less like a strategic team and more like an accelerated eviction notice for both American stability and international security. 

A tough Champions League match awaited Liverpool yesterday as they took on Atlético Madrid. Of course, they were unfazed and went on to win 2-1. 

Diego Simeone's side actually scored first in the 17th minute. The Reds pushed back hard and found their equalizer in the 40th minute through Dominik Szoboszlai, who converted a pass from Ronald Araújo. 

And then, in the 50th minute, Alexis Mac Allister scored Liverpool's winning goal with a stunning long-range rocket to complete the comeback.

Road Runner's Final Lap

Let's clear the air: cartoons aren't real! Most of the time, anyway! 

And, sometimes, the coyote catches the road runner. In the classic “Looney Tunes” cartoons featuring the Road Runner and Wile E Coyote, which first appeared in 1949, the coyote is foiled again and again in his efforts to catch the puckish bird in the deserts of the American Southwest. 

But a photographer in the Chatsworth Nature Preserve in Los Angeles on Saturday captured a real-life image of something you would never see in that cartoon: a coyote who successfully nabbed a road runner, instead of falling from a cliff, getting hit by a train or having an anvil land on him. 

The snapper, Alexander deBarros (right), took the photo while out with a survey team from the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society for a monthly check of the ecosystem at the preserve, a 1,325-acre space in northwestern Los Angeles. (The photograph was reported by the Los Angeles TV news station KTLA). 

There is no indication that this coyote effected the capture through the use of an Acme jet-propelled pogo-stick, Acme rocket-powered roller skates or Acme dehydrated boulders (“Just add water!”). 

Also, there were no reports of the road runner saying, “Beep, beep”.

While the image proved that coyotes do sometimes come out on top against road runners, it’s not a common occurrence. 

“It is considered very rare for a coyote to catch a road runner”, said Scott El Henke, a professor at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University, Kingsville. Road runners can run about 20 miles an hour and are agile, he asserted. 

“Physically they can outrun a coyote”, he added, and they “can fly up into tree branches to escape attacks”. 

DeBarros said in an interview that he initially thought the prey might be a ground squirrel. 

“When we confirmed that it was, in fact, a road runner in that coyote’s mouth, we freaked out a little bit”, he intoned. He claimed in 17 years of birding, it was the first time he had seen the cartoon antagonists together. 

When DeBarros spotted the coyote, it already had the road runner in its mouth. He did not see any chase or kill. 

Dr. Henke said this particular road runner might have been caught because it was distracted hunting its own prey, or perhaps it had been hit by a vehicle and was scavenged by the coyote. 

Scavenged? Maybe Wile E didn’t catch the road runner after all. 

Another coyote expert, Stanley D Gehrt, a professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University, agreed that the scavenger theory could be true. 

“But I have learned to never underestimate coyotes”, he said. “They can do anything, even catch a road runner”. 

[FYI, the species found in the American Southwest and depicted in the cartoons is the Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus)]. 

In an odd coincidence, DeBarros’s father, Brian Mainolfi, is an animator who worked with Chuck Jones, a creator of the coyote-road runner cartoons, on the 1994 cartoon “Chariots of Fur”. 

Jones, who died in 2002, once said he got the idea for the coyote character from a travel book by a classic novelist. 

“I first got interested in the coyote as an animal while perusing Mark Twain’s ‘Roughing It’ at the age of 7”, he said in a 1989 interview with The New York Times. “I thought of it as a sort of dissolute collie. And actually, that’s just about what a coyote is! No one saw it more clearly than Mark Twain”. 

The cartoon has been back on the radar since the American release on August 28th of the movie “Coyote vs. Acme”, in which the coyote sues the Acme Corporation for its defective products. (It is fictional). 

The feature is dong exceptionally well. It earned a spectacular 95% 'Certified Fresh' score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore from audiences.

But did you know that it has an intriguing back story? 

After years of headlines mourning its potential deletion, the theatrical run of "Coyote vs. Acme" has turned the film into one of Hollywood's ultimate underdog success stories.

Independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment acquired the worldwide rights for roughly $50 million, stepping in to rescue the live-action/animated hybrid after Warner Bros. Discovery initially chose to shelve it for a $30 million tax write-off in late 2023. 

Size Matters: UN Fixes the World Map

The United Nations on September 04 voted for a shift away from the 16th-century Mercator global map toward one more accurately reflecting countries' true size, a resolution sponsored by African states to counter perceptions that the continent is peripheral. 

Togo led the initiative to advance the African Union campaign to limit use of the Mercator map, which distorts the relative size of land masses by expanding those nearer the poles. It makes Greenland appear roughly the same size as Africa, though the latter is about 14 times larger. 

"A fair world begins with a fair map", ⁠Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey ⁠told Reuters ahead of Friday's vote. 

The resolution promotes ‌the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately portrays the size of the continents. It is not legally binding and it "in no way challenges the use of the Mercator projection for maritime and aerial navigation, for which it remains fully suited", the Togolese ministry said in a statement. 

The ⁠resolution passed in the UN General Assembly by a vote of 164 to one, with six abstentions. The United States, the only country to vote against the resolution, said it promoted an "ideological agenda" and was a distraction ‌from the "genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations". What BS! 

The Mercator map remains widely used in classrooms, but Togo hopes to change its school geography materials by the end of the year, Dussey told Reuters. 

"Togo will be ​the first country to change our own geography books", Dussey said. "In the classroom, we need to change it to give an example to ⁠all the countries in the world". 

His country will press other governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to ⁠move away from the centuries-old Mercator projection, Dussey said, adding that Equal Earth offers "the best perception" of ⁠the ⁠world. 

Dussey linked the campaign to adopt the map to wider African efforts to confront colonial-era legacies, while saying it was not an attack on Europe or any other civilization. 

The Mercator map's widespread use is a consequence of colonization, he insisted. 

"The world is ⁠changing. Africa also is changing".

From Donald Trump:

There's absolutely no need for words because it is self-explanatory.

Chasing the Book Devourers

Amazon have been caught scanning and destroying a large shipment of rare books so they can train their AI models. 

In an investigation by 404 Media, a US bookseller suspected that an order they received for 1,000 books on Biblio, a marketplace where buyers can remain anonymous, was for an AI company. 

So to get to the bottom of the mystery, they agreed to place an Apple AirTag between the pages of one of the volumes. The tracking device traveled across multiple US states, eventually terminating at a high-security Amazon facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Inside this warehouse, a specialized unit code-named VGT3 systematically processes incoming books by slicing off their bindings, scanning the pages for digital intake, and destroying the physical originals. 

This aggressive scanning pipeline highlights the extreme lengths to which tech companies will go to secure high-quality training datasets, particularly pre-2022 literature that is completely free of AI-generated content. 

While independent booksellers watch their inventories get shredded, legal and ethical questions are mounting over the practice of turning physical, copy-protected books into digital training data before disposing of the evidence. 

Amazon defended the operation in a brief statement, claiming they purchase books through commercial channels to improve their products and services, but the revelation has ignited intense debate over the systematic destruction of physical human knowledge to fuel artificial systems.

Despite Amazon clearly trying to keep this practice under wraps, the logo for the part of the warehouse the book scanners work in, called VGT3, is so on the nose that it borders on farce: a T-Rex holding a book in its hand that it’s about to eat – which, we have to say, kind of looks AI-generated. 

Futurism's Frank Landymore reported on August 17, 2026 that the public only became aware of this AI industry practice in a lawsuit against Anthropic, which revealed that the Claude chatbot maker was using industrial equipment to cut the pages out of millions of books and scan them, before they were disposed of. 

More alarming was the upshot of that lawsuit, Bartz vs. Anthropic when Judge William Alsup in the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on June 23, 2025 that this specific one-for-one digital conversion of legally purchased print books for internal AI training was "spectacularly transformative" and constituted fair use, as the digital copies were not shared or sold outside the company. 

Since then, book sellers have often suspected that their wares are being used, and then destroyed, to train AI models. In previous 404 reporting, one said that some of the giveaways were the size of the orders, the seemingly random selection of books, and that the books all had ISBNs. But they couldn’t prove this hunch because the orders are anonymous. 

As 404 notes, that the workers at the Amazon site are apparently scanning the ISBNs of all the books they process gives credence to a spooky theory by booksellers: that AI companies are trying to scan every printed book in the world by going through a list of all their serial numbers.

The bookseller 404 worked with sold books that are rare, meaning that there are few copies left in circulation. That can be for a myriad of reasons – they’re not necessarily first editions of old classics – but they’re still valuable. 

“There are different types of value”, the bookseller told 404. “There’s monetary value, obviously, but there are a lot of other types of value. There’s historical value, intellectual value, sentimental value. All sorts of things, and all of those the AI companies don’t care about. They just want the content as a bunch of words strung together”.

The World According to Trump

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, suggested renaming the Strait of Hormuz as “Trump Strait” despite ongoing clashes with Iran – then hours later implied he wasn’t serious. 

He has made a series of geographical name changes to international bodies of water in his second term, at least partly with the aim of trolling other countries. 

The latest suggestion came as Trump insisted the US had full control of the crucial waterway, even as fresh clashes raged there with Iran. 

“Now that we have it under USA control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before!” Trump said on his Truth Social network. 

The White House later posted a map of the Gulf on social media with his suggested name, adding: “It’s got a nice ring to it”. 

Trump has in recent weeks repeatedly threatened to claim sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, even posting a map showing the waterway as a “new US territory”. Trump, however, later played down the idea of rebranding the Strait of Hormuz. 

This psychological warfare via cartography mirrors Executive Order 14422 Trump signed to officially rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America" on August 27, 2026. 

Even major tech platforms like Google Maps and Apple Maps have already updated their platforms to display "Lake America" exclusively for US-based users. 

The aggressive rebrand has sparked severe backlash from America's northern neighbor. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford both condemned the action, asserting the 400-year-old body of water will remain "Lake Ontario, now and forever". 

Ford's administration went as far as erecting a massive physical "Lake Ontario" signage on the shoreline as a direct jab back at Washington. 

The Great Lake rebranding marks the second official success of Trump's broader geographical campaign, following his executive order in early 2025 that legally designated the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” on official US federal maps. 

I won't be surprised if the Pentagon’s next strategic deployment includes a highly armed team of graphic designers to update the world’s maps before the international borders decide to sue for trademark infringement! 😝