Following the News Updates

In an update to the previous, the child was named (by his mother), Noah. And the BBC does not keep archives of old content, so if you click on the link to the story, you will not see the same story that I had hoped you would see, which is why it's even more important that I managed to give you a summary, rather than just say, "Read this! Isn't that stupid! Gosh, how stupid!" It wouldn't have made much of a post, anyway, which is what many bloggers seem to forget.

I have made this a separate "article" because I just wanted to decry the practice of not archiving content. If I make a minor change to content, it's fine to pretend like that was the original intention. For instance, I mistyped several words in Following the News and had to fix them after it was published, and I didn't simply start a new post. That would be silly (although there are some more-archivally-minded people in this great world of ours who would disagree and believe that everything should be handled as a CVS, which, if you're unfamiliar, is a content-management system which preserves a record of even the smallest edit, usually used for computer programming but also for wikipedia).

But if you change the entire story (for instance, when the baby is born and not named Nitro) it isn't fair to simply delete the old story as if it never existed. It makes you seem more prescient than you actually are, for one thing, and lets you go back and delete embarrassing errors or statements which later turn out not to be true. So I could have simply gone back and edited my previous article (I really hate calling them "posts" because it sounds so... well, just stupid really) to read differently, since the kid was not named Nitro (or Duke) after all.

I think the biggest lesson we can take away from this, however, is that the mother of this child is smarter than her husband. How much is unknown, but she's definitely the better of the two. And if she has the sense to name her child Noah rather than Duke, I guess I'll give my sanction to them both and call off the Federal Child Relocation Bureau, of which I happen to be the secret head.

No, that's a fantasy. But congratulations to Noah and his mother, and a big raspberry (but a teasing, rather than nasty, one) to his father. Better luck naming your dog, amigo.

Actually, Amigo would be a terrific name for a dog. Maybe that last sentence should read, "Better luck naming your dog Amigo." I'll go back and change it.

P.S. No more following the news, I swear. I'll keep to my ivory tower from now on.