Physician father could do nothing

A reader forwards a message with a sad story about a teenaged boy who was put on ritalin and other drugs, became a juvenile delinquent, and is in a mess. His parents were divorced, and his mother had custody. His father was a physician, and the writer wonders why the father didn't do a better job of overseeing his son's medical prescriptions.

If the case was the typical mother custody divorce case, the father would have been stripped of all authority and decision-making. Even tho he was a physician, he would not have been permitted to make any medical decisions. That is the bias of the family court. It forces kids to be raised without fathers, and there is overwhelming evidence that many of our social ills result from single-mother-headed households.

Kids barred from college

UK college news:

"The admissions executive is in discussions around whether we should introduction a minimum age of 17 for undergraduates," confirmed Ruth Collier, a spokesperson for admissions to Oxford. "We have been pushed to consider it, not because of concerns about whether it is psychologically healthy for children to study here, but because of child protection laws which have come into play this year for the first time." ...

Children can no longer live in student accommodation, because the university could not carry out a criminal record check on every other undergraduate sharing the same premises.

These child protection laws have gone too far.

Picky college girls

College girls can be picky about the men they date. A Cornell senior named Heather Grantham writes:

Unfortunately, in my experience, when something seems too good to be true, it pretty much always is. On our first date, Jackpot didn't tip. At all. From there, the disappointments just kept coming. Not long after, I was appalled to learn that Jackpot had made it into his late 20s without ever going down on a woman. That's right; this grown-ass man had never performed oral sex. He even dug his hole a little deeper by pronouncing the act "something you resort to when you can't please your woman in other ways."

Now, I hate to use poor Jackpot as the example for today's lesson, but guys, this is just utterly unacceptable. ...
At this point, I had a nasty little dilemma. I could stop answering his calls, but then I'd be seeing no one. I mean, which is worse: bad sex or no sex at all?

The article is funny (and off-putting). She suggests that Jackpot was a black man by using an assortment of racial stereotypes, but does not explicitly say so.

School kids can use F-word 5 times

Here is a new UK school policy:

"Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score," he wrote in the letter

"Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson."
Parents called the rule 'wholly irresponsible and ludicrous'. ...

The 1,130-pupil school, which was criticised as 'not effective' by Ofsted inspectors last November, also plans to send 'praise postcards' to the parents of children who do not swear and who turn up on time for lessons.

Headmaster Alan Large said he had received no complaints about the policy. "The reality is that the fword is part of these young adults' everyday language," he said.

"As a temporary policy we are giving them a bit of leeway, but want them to think about the way they talk and how they might do better."

I wonder what else they are tolerating, but not condoning.

This Michigan story has more on the soldier who lost his son while fighting in Iraq:

In a recommendation, court referee Louis Belzer expressed concern over e-mail correspondences between the McNeilly and his son during his time in Iraq.

Belzer said the e-mails display a much different relationship than a typical parent-child relationship, and more as a "counterpart to share his military adventure."

Belzer wrote, "I also question the nature of some of the correspondence relating to how to kill people in multiple ways and then indicating that 'next time someone touches you and leaves bruises on you, I'll be ready.' "

Belzer said McNeilly seemed more of the disposition to be a friend and buddy rather than a parent.

These are absurd reasons for taking a son away from his dad and denying the dad his fundamental rights. Louis Belzer should never be allowed to testify in family court again.

Coffee has benefits

UK science news:

A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes.

"Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close," said Professor Vinson, whose study was described at the weekend to the American Chemical Society in Washington. ...

The pros and cons of coffee

BENEFITS
Can increase alertness and improve short-term recall.
May reduce the risk of cirrhosis of the liver among heavy drinkers.
May postpone muscle fatigue.
Contains caffeine-related compounds (theophylline) that can alleviate the symptoms of asthma in some cases.

RISKS
Increases blood pressure among people who already suffer from high blood pressure.
Causes insomnia, anxiety, and irritability.
May worsen symptoms of PMS in some women.
Can reduce fertility in women trying to conceive.
Can cause heartburn and indigestion.

Another risk is that coffee is very addicting.

Horrible zombies

The movie The Ghost Breakers (1940) has this scene:

Larry (Bob Hope): You live here?
Geoff: Yes.
Larry: Maybe you know what a zombie is.
Geoff: When a person dies and is buried, it seems there's certain voodoo priests who have the power to bring him back to life.
Mary: That's horrible.
Geoff: It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes, walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.
Larry: You mean like Democrats?

Watch the movie clip here.

Man forced to have sex

South African news:

Johannesburg: The hunt is on for three women who ambushed a 30-year-old man and forced him to have sex with them at gunpoint. ...

Nothnagel said that on Saturday night the man was walking through Roodepoort when the women pulled up next to him in their maroon BMW.

They asked him for directions to the Savoy Hotel and he got into the car to show them the way.

At the hotel the women persuaded him to join them for a drink, before asking him for directions to yet another hotel.

While on the road to the Station Hotel the women suddenly changed direction and drove to a dark and empty field near the Durban Deep mine.

"One woman produced a firearm and held the man at gunpoint," Nothnagel said.

"The women got undressed and all three took turns to have intercourse with him."

Africa. 3 women. Gun. Maroon BMW. Dangerous combination.

Straw man has a gun

I was just watching The Wizard of Oz (1939), and I just noticed that the Straw Man is carrying a pistol when they are looking to steal the wicked witch's broomstick. I guess he got it at the land of Oz somehow.

Inequality Taboo

Joe sends this Charles Murray article:

The women with careers were four-and-a-half times more likely than men to say they preferred to work fewer than 40 hours per week. The men placed greater importance on ?being successful in my line of work? and ?inventing or creating something that will have an impact,? while the women found greater value in ?having strong friendships,? ?living close to parents and relatives,? and ?having a meaningful spiritual life.? ...

I have omitted perhaps the most obvious reason why men and women differ at the highest levels of accomplishment: men take more risks, are more competitive, and are more aggressive than women.

He calls it the Inequality Taboo.

Update: Steve Sailer comments. He has other articles here.

Egg donors and surrogate moms

Virginia Postrel says:

When a woman of my advanced age, or, say, Elizabeth Edwards', has a baby, chances are very, very high that she used another woman's egg--especially if the baby is her first. Unlike adopting a child or using a surrogate, however, using an egg donor means you get pregnant and bear the child yourself. And that means you can pretend no donor was involved, which is exactly what a lot of people do.

There are probably a million moms in the USA who are lying to their kid about who the dad is. Now it seems that there are maybe 200,000 who are lying about who the genetic mother is!

When you hear about a 40-year-old woman going to a fertility clinics, she is probably buying eggs from another woman. Most people don't even know that it is legal to pay big bucks for a human egg.

Breastapo strikes

Sally Satel writes:

he Breastapo are at it again, trying to dictate what American women should and shouldn't do with their breasts. ...
"They're making women sick," Kim Gandy of NOW weighed in. "Women will risk a lifetime of grave complications from faulty breast implants because the Bush administration and their appointees value short-term profits over women's long-term health." ...

Study after study confirms silicone implants do not cause disease. It is now 13 years since FDA Commissioner David Kessler imposed a voluntary moratorium on silicone implants, motivated by case reports that they caused connective tissue diseases (e.g., lupus, scleroderma). ...

Throughout the 1990s, litigation against the silicone-implant industry flourished in the absence of any scientific proof that women were made ill by implants. Dow Corning Corporation, once the biggest implant maker, filed for bankruptcy in 1995 to pay $3.2 billion to settle about 440,000 women's claims. ... No rigorously designed study showed any evidence of disease.

Still, the feminist health groups keep pumping out misinformation.

I guess some anti-science feminists don't want women to control their own bodies.

Actress Tara Reid says, "I mean, everyone does it. I don't know why I'm the one who gets so much attention?" She says that she is looking for Mr. Right.

Men cleverer than women

UK research news:

Academics in the UK claim their research shows that men are more intelligent than women.

A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests.

Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn claim the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered.

Their research was based on IQ tests given to 80,000 people and a further study of 20,000 students.

'Widening gap'

Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four the study showed that, up to the age of 14, there was no difference between the IQs of boys and girls.

"But beyond that age and into adulthood there is a difference of five points, which is small but it can have important implications," he said.

"This is against a background of women dramatically overtaking men in educational attainment and making very rapid advances in terms of occupational achievement."

The academics used a test which is said to measure "general cognitive ability" - spatial and verbal ability.

As intelligence scores among the study group rose, the academics say they found a widening gap between the sexes.

There were twice as many men with IQ scores of 125, for example, a level said to correspond with people getting first-class degrees.

At scores of 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

Hmmm, this will offend some folks. In the USA, we have more girls in college than boys, but maybe they're majoring in easier subjects.

Physician discipline for fat lecture

NH news:

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- The New Hampshire attorney general is investigating a Rochester doctor because a patient complained that he bluntly told her she needed to lose weight.

Dr. Terry Bennett said that he's outraged by what he calls a baseless complaint. A patient was apparently insulted when Bennett told her that she was obese and could only get healthier by losing weight.

"It's an epidemic in the United States, and it's croaking us," Bennett said.

Bennett said that it's a lecture he gives to many of his overweight patients. ...

Bennett said that the Attorney General's Office tried to get him to settle the matter by agreeing to attend a medical education course, which he refused.

Ever been annoyed by a physician who lectures you about diet or exercise or smoking or whatever? I had no idea that you could just file a written complaint, and the state attorney general would try to send the physician to a re-education camp!

Another article says:

Dr. Terry Bennett, who practices in Rochester, said he has "an obesity lecture for women" that is a stark litany designed to get the attention of obese female patients.

He said he tells obese women they most likely will outlive an obese spouse and will have a difficult time establishing a new relationship because studies show most males are completely negative to obese women.

Maybe there should be separate listings for physicians with attitude, and physicians without.

California judges perceive no reason

The California supreme court has issued some new supremacist opinions promoting the gay agenda. The legislature has passed some radical new domestic partnership laws, but the new rulings go beyond them.

In one ruling, the court says (pdf opinion):

We perceive no reason why both parents of a child cannot be women. ...

The circumstance that Elisa has no genetic connection to the twins does not necessarily mean that she did not hold out the twins as her "natural" children under section 7611.

This is just being stubbornly closed-minded. There are reasons based on biology, law, culture, social science, and religion, and there are 1000s of years of history in which all civilized societies reached the opposite conclusion. For some judges to say that they "perceive no reason" is only to display willful ignorance.

I also think that it is a little strange that the court and the news media are concealing the last names of the lesbians. If they are really just regular parents, then why not disclose the names as they do in regular divorce cases? And if the kids are being harmed by having such kooky lesbian pseudo-parents, then shouldn't the court consider that when it gives its blessing to the arrangement?

Feminists are very confused

Wash. Times article:

Combine that with assorted readings and film clips shining a positive light on self-centered, lesbian, anti-male existence, and you might see the feminist movement for what it really is: Anything but harmless.
Most despicable in my view is the movement claim to represent all women equally. My professor could not get her mind around anyone disagreeing with her. Her open-mindedness simply did not extend to someone with pro-family convictions.
The Women's Awareness Coalition at my school certainly does raise awareness -- the question is: of what? Trying to explain to a feminist that feminism furthers a leftist agenda, not the rights of all women, is something I think I'll have earned a minor in if I survive the second half of my college career.
After the mentoring lunch, a ninth-grader wrote to me, "I learned that most feminists are very confused." I couldn't have put it better myself.

A college girl named Miss Danielle Sturgis has discovered academic feminism.

Best interests of the child

I've been looking into the so-called "best interests of the child" standard for making family court decisions. It is commonly used in statutes and court opinions. Sometimes the phrase uses "interests" in the singular and sometimes in the plural. Technically, these would mean different things, but no one distinguishes them, so I won't either. I'll just call it BIOTC.

John writes:

BIOTC did not come out of the blue. It was a legal "term of art" that dated back at least 200 years to Blackstone, who said parents are presumed to act in their child's best interest.

IOW, BIOTC is just another way of expressing the principle (which also dates to Blackstone) that parents have a fundamental right to the care, custody, and companionship of their children, and to direct their child's upbringing, education and religious training.

BIOTC is not a separate principle, it is part and parcel of parental rights (a natural right or substantive due process concept) recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a string of cases from Meyer (1923) and Pierce (1925) through Parham (1979), Santosky (1982) and Troxel (2000).

IOW, the BIOTC is whatever the parents say it is.

Of course, a presumption can be overcome with a proper showing. Even a fundamental right can be overcome in extreme cases where a parent is found to be unfit. But unless and until a parent is found (after due process) to be unfit, a parent has the right to determine the best interest of his or her child.

But family courts today seem to mean something different. They use BIOTC to mean the opinion of putative experts who may know nothing about the wishes of the parents. But the phrase is just a smokescreen. The interests of the child are never defined, and there is certainly no analysis of what would be best. I cannot find any example of where any court actually ruled based on some legitimate BIOTC analysis. Either it assumes that the parents will act in the BIOTC, or it relies on some putative expert who is not really an expert at all.

I have come to the conclusion that BIOTC is one of the worst ideas in the history of human civilization. Never have I seen an idea that was so uncritically accepted among the public, and yet so utterly bogus. It is just a license for some authority figure to do whatever he wants. No good has ever come from the concept.

Iraq duty cost him custody of son

Michigan news:

Army National Guard Spc. Joe McNeilly hasn't been the same since he returned from Iraq in March.

But it's not flashbacks to explosions and injured soldiers that haunt him most. It's that he lost shared custody of his 10-year-old son while he was serving his country.

"You want to make a soldier cry, you take his son away," McNeilly, 33, of Grand Ledge, said last week as he blinked back tears. "It's devastating."

McNeilly believes he lost custody of Joey because he was in Iraq for 15 months.

... a report from the May hearing says the court favors Joey's mother, Holly Erb of Mason, because she was the "day to day caretaker and decision maker in the child's life" while McNeilly was deployed. ...

The report says that McNeilly treats his son more like a friend than a son, and "sees the child as a counterpart in his military adventures."

It also questions some of McNeilly's correspondence to his son while on active duty.

McNeilly said one postcard showed a soldier holding a gun. Another showed a soldier spearing a tire as if it was an enemy.

The court report says McNeilly also told his son how to kill people in multiple ways, and that he wrote his son "the next time someone touches you and leaves bruises on you - I'll be ready."

Yes, it does sound like the soldier is losing his son, and the son is losing his father, just because he is a soldier. It is entirely appropriate for a soldier at war to send his son a postcard showing a soldier holding a gun. The anti-male bias of the courts is frightening.

The core of the problem is that the mom took advantage of the soldier's absence to get a court-ordered $525 per month. If she allowed the son to be re-united with his father, then she would lose that $525 per month. The "best interests of the child" is just a smokescreen to allow the greedy mom to keep cheating her ex-husband, even if it also punishes her own son. A man should not be punished for serving his country.

Update: I just got a nice note from Spc. Joe McNeilly himself, along with some pictures of him with his son. He is trying to get a change to the Michigan law so other soldiers are not similarly punished for serving their country.

Falsely accused fathers

KGO radio just broadcast a segment on men who are forced to pay child support, even tho DNA tests prove that they are not fathers. In most cases, the fathers are not even served properly and have no opportunity to contest the court order.

A couple of women called in at the end of the show, and argued that the men should have to pay anyway. One strenuously argued that even tho a man might be proved to be not the father, he could have been the father. She said that most men can avoid these problems by refusing to have sex with unfaithful women.

Apparently the most common situation is when a women is secretly having sex with several boyfriends, gets pregnant, goes on welfare, and names the man with the fattest wallet. In some cases the man gets tricked into believing that he is the father until the statute of limitations has expired. In others, his wages are garnished or his licenses are suspended without him ever even receiving notice.

Sometimes the alleged father has never even met the woman. Sometimes he is the husband, and the wife is secretly committing adultery. The wife eventually runs off with the true father or some other man, and punishes her ex-husband by making him pay child support. (I shouldn't really call it child support, because the money does not goto the child.)

In no case is any woman punished for falsely and vindictively naming the wrong father. In my opinion, a woman who names the wrong father should be jailed, and she should permanently lose custody of the child. It is just not possible for a woman to make an innocent mistake.

Illegal aliens seize Arizona border ranch

PHOENIX - An Arizona ranch once owned by a member of an armed group accused of terrorizing illegal immigrants has been turned over to two of the very people the owner had tried keep out of the country.

The land transfer is being done to satisfy a judgment against Casey Nethercott, a member of a self-styled border-watch group who is serving a five-year prison term for firearms possession.

Morris Dees Jr., chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented the immigrants, said he hoped the ruling would be a cautionary tale to anyone considering hostile measures against border crossers. ...

A jury deadlocked on the assault charge but convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Morris Dees is famous for causing racist mischief. People should be rewarded for keeping illegal alien trespassers out of the country, not punished.

46 percent are crazy at some time

Fox reports:

LOS ANGELES ? A new study by Harvard University and the National Institute of Mental Health claims that 46 percent of all Americans will, at some point in their lives, develop a mental disorder.

But this new statistic has experts arguing over exactly what constitutes a true mental illness.

According to experts, severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, dementia and manic depression are relatively uncommon. But the updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM ? the standard survey for mental illness ? lists conditions like adjustment disorder, passive-aggressive disorder and female sexual arousal disorder as mental illness, reflecting what are claimed to be advances in the mental health profession.

Critics say that's crazy, and that it won't be long before all human quirks and flaws are classified as mental disorders.

Not all quirks. They refuse to classify certain deviant sexual practices as disorders.

Homemakers better than lawyers

Here is the latest attack on judicial nominee John Roberts:

CNN's Bill Mears, Joe Johns, Robert Yoon, Melissa McNamara, David DeSola, and Xuan Thai reviewed the latest dump of documents, which covered Roberts' work as a White House lawyer in the Reagan administration from '82 to '86. Here are some findings:

Most notably, Roberts dismissed a corporate award for women over age 30, saying, "some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

The young lawyer made the comment as a personal aside after being asked to examine whether Linda Chavez, then the White House director of public liaison, could nominate one her aides to a "rising star" award sponsored by the Clairol beauty care company. The $1,000 grant was designed to honor women who "made a significant change in their field" after turning 30.

The aide, Linda Arey had left teaching to enter law school. She had encouraged many former homemakers to enter law, while working as a dean at Richmond Law School. Roberts, whose job in part was to decide conflict of interest and ethics issues, concluded that the award was proper.

The comment, one of many flip remarks Roberts made in official documents being reviewed this summer, annoyed women across the ideological divide yesterday. "It kind of sounds like a smart alecky comment," Phyllis Schlafly, the president of the conservative Eagle Forum, who entered law school when she was 51, told the Washington Post. Schlafly noted that Roberts was "a young bachelor and hadn't seen a whole lot of life at that point."

Roberts is right. Homemakers are trying to make the world better, and lawyers are trying to make it worse.

Research promising for chocolate lovers

Chocolate news:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not exactly a guilt-free pleasure, but food researchers say cocoa beans could be good for you. ...

The health potential is real. Cocoa beans have natural compounds called flavanols, and a growing pile of scientific research suggests they do good things to blood vessels.

Customers at Neuhaus, a Belgian chocolate shop in Washington's Union Station, like thinking the dark stuff might be healthy, said manager Clementine Loeman.

"That way, they don't feel guilty," Loeman said, adding that chocolate was sometimes considered medicinal when the company began as a pharmacy 148 years ago.

Women often feel guilty when they eat food. Chocolate makers have discovered that they can sell more chocolate if they can alleviate guilt in women.

Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

UK news:

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.
The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan.

The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.

I am still trying to figure this one out. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are jumping on the global warming bandwagon.

African wives get beaten

The NY Times has a page one story with domestic violence propaganda:

Nigeria, Africa's largest nation with nearly 130 million people, has only two shelters for battered women, both opened in the last four years. The United States, by contrast, has about 1,200 such havens. Moreover, many women say wifely transgression justify beatings. About half of women interviewed in Zambia in 2001 and 2002 said husbands had a right to beat wives who argue with them, burn the dinner, go out without the husband's permission, neglect the children or refuse sex.

To Kenny Adebayo, a 30-year-old driver in Lagos, the issue is clear-cut. "If you tell your wife she puts too much salt in the dinner, and every day, every day, every day there is too much salt, one day you will get emotional and hurt her," he said. "We men in Africa hate disrespect."

American women have it better than those in any other country. They can disrespect their husbands and get away with it.

Liza writes that this article shows what life is life for women in societies without strong enforcement of criminal laws against domestic violence and other legal protections for battered women. No, that is not the significant difference between USA and Africa.

Emily Read, a domestic violence lobbyist, writes to the NY Times:

"Entrenched Epidemic: Wife-Beatings in Africa" (front page, Aug. 11) reports that domestic violence is more entrenched and accepted in sub-Saharan Africa than in most other countries, and that "one in three Nigerian women reported having been physically abused by a male partner."

Sadly, the same statistic holds true for the United States. According to the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence, reporting on a 1996 study by the American Psychological Association, "nearly 1 in 3 adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood."

There you have it. The DV lobby thinks that American women are just like sub-Saharan Africans.

Paternal discrepancy

UK news:

LONDON (Reuters) - One in 25 fathers could unknowingly be raising another man's child, British scientists said on Thursday.

Researchers at Liverpool's John Moores University examined the findings of dozens of studies, published over the past 54 years, on cases of paternal discrepancy -- where a man is proved not to be the biological father of his child.

This is old news, of course. Many wives are unfaithful.

12 best foods

Here are the Forbes 12 best (worst) foods. I'm not sure what the point is; there is no scientific evidence that any of those foods are unhealthy.

Trouble hearing women

UK science news:

Men do have trouble hearing women, scientists find

LONDON (AFP) - Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's, a report said.

The Daily Mail, quoting findings published in the specialist magazine NeuroImage, said researchers at Sheffield university in northern England discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds.

Men deciphered female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engaged a simpler mechanism, it said.

The Mail quoted researcher Michael Hunter as saying, "The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices.

Broadcasters should go back to just using men to read the news.

Women initiate minor aggression

From the Pittsburgh newspaper:

Women may be the primary victims of serious domestic violence, according to most experts, but they are just as likely -- if not slightly more inclined -- as men to engage in "minor aggression" such as hitting and slapping in relationships, according to a new study.

In lengthy interviews with more than two dozen women, those surveyed reported initiating aggression in more than half of the conflicts with their partners. And one of the main reasons, says University of Missouri-Columbia researcher Loreen Olson, was frustration about their inability to gain their partner's attention.

"They told us they would try and try and try to get their partner to listen to them, and that the men had withdrawn and were avoiding dealing with the issue or confronting the conflict," said Olson, who co-authored the study with Sally Lloyd, professor of family studies at Miami University in Ohio. The study will be published in the October edition of the academic journal Sex Roles.

"So they resorted to verbal aggression or even physical action, like slapping their partners on the upper torso, or throwing things at them, in an effort to get them to engage in discussion." ...

"What's typical is that I want to talk about something and he doesn't want to talk about something, and then I'm like, I just [verbally] push and push and push and then he starts where he backs off and ... he wants to leave. And I'm like, 'No, you cannot leave.' "

There are many studies finding that women initiate domestic violence as much as men.

I think we'd look like idiots

News from Congress:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even after failing a drug test, Rafael Palmeiro insists he was being truthful when he told Congress that he never used steroids. ...

As a practical matter, perjury referrals are uncommon. Prosecutions are rare," House Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Wednesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ...

And then Davis added: "If we did nothing, I think we'd look like idiots. Don't you?"

No danger. They already look like idiots, and that won't change.

Women having strippers is fun

I found this online:

I remember back in college when a female friend told me she was shocked and dismayed that a men's dorm (no greek system at this school) had hired strippers for a party (OFF campus). She told me it was demeaning and horrible, and she planned to go to the dean of students and demand an investigation, major punishment, expulsion, etc.

I reminded her of the fact that her own dorm had been entertained by a male stripper just a few months before (ON campus, in the dorm itself). She quickly shrugged that off, though. She told me this:

"It's different, though. Women having strippers is fun, like funny. For men it's all about power and rape."

Yeah, I know the type. Some women are fanatical consumers of pornography, but they get all offended if a man looks at porn.

Female badgers prefer the dark

This UK news story says that female badgers and humans have something in common:

During a new moon, female badgers are "tolerant or indifferent" to the advances of males and, when the moon is full, they become actively hostile. ...

Last year, a survey revealed that one in five women feels uncomfortable undressing within sight of her husband or boyfriend and a similar proportion also refuses to have sex when the lights are left on.

There are also a lot of women who like to show off their bodies.

Divorce disallowed

Shawnna Hughes put her husband in jail on bogus domestic violence charges, took their 2 kids, got pregnant with another man, sued for divorce (that her husband did not contest), and obtained a judgment for child support for the 2 kids.

Spokane County (Wash.) Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine said that she didn't quite do it right. She failed to demand child support for the unborn child! He threw out the divorce decree, and an appellate court just agreed.

Family courts usually do whatever they can to bust up marriages and extract onerous support payments. I guess the judges get confused when they see a conflict between those 2 goals.

Man tells wife phony hitchhiker story

Florida news:

A man made up a story about killing a hitchhiker and burying the body in the woods in an effort to persuade his wife to leave him, authorities said.

Teddy Claire Akin, 28, of Ocala, was charged Tuesday with making a false report and petit theft. He was being held without bail.

Akin's wife, Felicia, called the Marion County Sheriff's Office Monday to report that her husband had told her that he killed a hitchhiker, authorities said. ...

Akin eventually told investigators that he was going through a divorce and had hoped the murder story would make his wife leave him...

I think I see the problem. He is nuts, and she is a backstabber.