Punitive child support enforcement

John sends this NY Times story on punitive child support enforcement:

Donald Gardner owes $119,846 in back child support to his former wife, but there is little chance he will pay it soon - or ever.

After failing to pay support for his two children for much of the early 1990's because he felt the payments were too high, Mr. Gardner broke 27 bones in a car accident in 1997. Being in and out of hospitals for three years left him penniless, and when he tried to return to work he found that the state had suspended his driver's license because of his accumulated child support debt.

That prevented him from going back to work as an interstate truck driver.

"I've decided that I'd like to get this behind me and pay the support," said Mr. Gardner, 47, who now lives in a homeless shelter in Harlem, "but if I can't drive I can't pay. It is like a Catch-22." ...

About 70 percent of the debt is owed by men who earn $10,000 a year or less, or have no recorded wage earnings at all, according to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. Less than 4 percent is owed by men with incomes of more than $40,000.

And the poorer men are getting caught in a vicious circle. Their debts have become obstacles to getting licenses for jobs to help them produce wages to pay down the debts.

Recent research by the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, found that aggressive collection of debts played a crucial role in pushing low-income black men ages 25 to 34 out of lawful employment, the opposite effect policy makers might have desired.

I think that it is exactly the effect that the policy makers wanted. They are all in favor of throwing low-income black men in debtors prisons. There is no other explanation for their policies.

Mr. Gardner, for example, said he had been to court to get his driver's license back on the condition that he started paying his former wife. But the court would not agree to the arrangement, he said, because it could not locate his wife.

"In theory you are supposed to be able to go into court and you are supposed to be able to get modifications," Ms. Holtzman said. "But in reality, there are a lot of judges who are sick and tired of dads who haven't paid child support. They don't want to hear you had a drug problem or were in prison. They just want the money and they don't even care if you can't pay it."

Remember, these child support obligations are to moms and welfare agencies, and there is no requirement that any of it be spent on children.

Fox hunting banned

Fox hunting is now illegal in Britain, so now they can hunt humans instead:

It's fox hunting, minus the fox. In a drag hunt, a field master leads a team on horseback, guided by foxhounds on the trail of an animal scent. A huntsman manages the dogs with the help of his assistants, the whippers-in. But instead of tracking and then killing a live fox, the hounds follow a dragsman—an ordinary (if athletic) human who runs ahead of the pack daubing the trail with artificial scent.

The scent is made from animal droppings or human urine, aniseed, and fixative. The dragsman pulls it along in a bag to create a cross-country trail (or "dragline") of a few miles that includes natural barriers and jumps for the horses. When the pack catches up with him, the dogs get some biscuits, and the hunt begins anew. A typical day of drag hunting takes only a few hours, whereas a fox hunt—in which hounds are liable to find a scent, lose it, and find it again—can take all day.

Foxes are usually considered pests. It is bizarre that British think that hunting humans is somehow better.

The Powerline blog reports on civil disobedience.

Feminist lizards take the male out of the picture

Mike asks whether there is any empirical evidence for lesbianism. The closest I could find is this account of Fake Sex in Virgin Whiptail Lizards:

Only females exist in several species of the lizards of the genus Cnemidophorus, which might seem like a problem when it comes time to propagate the species. The females don’t need the males though, they reproduce by parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual. So basically, the females don’t need the males; they just produce clones of themselves as a form of reproduction. Despite the fact that it is unnecessary and futile to attempt copulation with each other, the lizards still like to try, and occasionally one of the females will start to “act like a male” by attempting to copulate with another female. The lizards evolved from a sexual species and the behavior to copulate like a male -- to engage in fake sex -- is a vestigial behavior; that is, a behavior present in a species, but is expressed in an imperfect form, which in this case, is useless.

The item is no. 3 on a science site's top 10 vestigial organs. No, it does not try to relate the feminist lizards to human beings.

Why men fall asleep after sex

Here is new research on the obvious:

'As frustrating as it is for most women that their male partners just roll over and fall asleep after sex, men aren't entirely to blame,' said Dr Neil Stanley, director of sleep at the University of Surrey.

'Humans are the only animals in which sleep and sex are linked and while often seen as just a poor excuse, there are scientific reasons why men feel tired after sex. ...

Not everyone nods off after sex. The survey found 48 per cent of men had actually fallen asleep during the act itself.

A mere 11 per cent of women admitted being guilty of this.

A key word is "admitted". Surveys also show that women lie about sex more.

The pills don't work

Reuters reports:

A New Jersey man has filed a false advertising lawsuit against a maker of herbal penis enlargement pills, alleging the medicine does not fulfil its promises, the plaintiff's lawyer says.

The makers probably figured that their dissatisfied customers would be too embarrassed to complain. I wonder whether the plaintiff's shortcomings are detailed in the court papers.

More Aircraft Laser Incidents Pinned on Gay Club-Goers

The Swift Report blog says:

FBI agents have traced another airline laser incident to a gay nightclub, this one in Dallas, TX. Last year, after pilots began complaining of laser beams penetrating their cockpits, investigators linked the green beams to gay nightclubs around the country, where laser wielders use the green rays to shine a light on club ‘hotties.’

The red lasers are cheaper and more readily available; I am surprised that the gay clubs use green lasers. The green lasers are more dangerous to aircraft.

Men don't have a regular problem

These union women want menstrual leave:

Unions say they are negotiating a landmark industrial relations claim to allow women to take extra sick leave for menstrual pain.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) says some women have particularly bad periods and are genuinely forced to call in sick.

As part of negotiations for a new enterprise bargaining agreement at Toyota, the union has asked for women to be allowed 12 paid days menstrual leave a year. ...

"We believe that they shouldn't be disadvantaged against men that don't have a regular problem once a month."

I think that the women should be happy that they are paid the same as men.

Victims Gone Wild

The local paper prepares us for Valentines Day.

How Feminism Has Messed Up Relationships
By Amy Alkon

"IN SEDUCTION, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine," proclaimed radical feminist Andrea Dworkin in 1976. If you're a woman born 20 years ago, you probably don't even recognize Dworkin's name. Yet, there's a good chance you've had some seriously frustrating dates with her unwitting progeny: the guy who waits until date three or four—not to grab you, throw you up against the wall and suck face—but to politely inquire, "May I kiss you?"

Equal pay for equal work? It's a beautiful thing. Equal opportunity? Thrilled to have it. We women owe an enormous debt to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all who followed in their footsteps, fighting the righteous fight against sex-based discrimination.

Unfortunately, in the late '70s and early '80s, feminism got hijacked by a small but vocal gang of Victims Gone Wild.

I am glad to see someone recognize that men and women are different, even in liberal California. You can read more from the same columnist here.

It's stupid and it stinks

An elementary school installed a sound meter:

The stoplight is mounted on the lunchroom wall and goes from green to yellow, flashes, and then turns red.

When the light turns red, the lunchroom stays dark and youngsters have to stay silent until the Talk Light resets and turns green again.

"The ones who continue to talk have to write 50 times: 'I will not talk during lights out,' " said Renee Johnson, a lunchroom supervisor.

Not everyone is cheering. Fourth-grader Ethan Stiles recently grumbled as the light turned red just after he sat down to eat his lunch.

"It's stupid and it stinks," he said.

I would recommend hiring that fourth grader to evaluation the school's zero-tolerance policies.

Witch-doctor’s spell backfired, says transvestite

Here is some news from Africa:

A transvestite who is being prosecuted after winning medals and titles in women's athletics events has blamed a witch-doctor's faulty spell.
A Bulawayo court heard that Samukaliso Sithole, a Zimbabwean who competed in domestic and regional competitions for women, was actually a man. Sithole faces charges of psychological offence, reported the state-run Herald newspaper.
Prosecutors allege Sithole offended the dignity and sexuality of a woman who befriended him, confided in him and felt comfortable being naked around him, while believing him to be female.
Sithole was identified to her as a man by an acquaintance when he was among a group of women preparing to travel by train to an athletics meeting. Sithole tried to sprint away but was caught, and police supervised a medical exam. ...
The world athletics body no longer conducts gender determination tests, and the Olympic movement ceased these in 1999. The International Olympic Committee legally recognises transsexuals provided hormone therapy ceased at least two years ago.

I didn't know that the Olympics allows transsexuals to compete as women.

Hate Messages on Google Site Draw Concern

A NY Times article expresses concerns that people on private, invitation only, web sites might express some politically incorrect views, and that such private sentiments might be illegal in some other countries:

Under Brazilian law, it is a crime to practice, induce or incite discrimination or prejudice on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin. If convicted, offenders could serve two to five years in prison, in addition to paying a sizable fine.

"The U.S. is pretty unusual providing the broad protection we do to hate speech," said Professor Sunstein. In "South America, Europe - Google could have problems with many other jurisdictions."

Mr. Santos, the author of a book on hate crimes in Brazil, is targeting "all the communities that use racist and discriminatory terms on the site www.orkut.com," according to documents he filed in court. Because Brazilian law does not include discrimination based on sexuality in its criminal code, those behind sites like "I Hate Transvestites" would not face criminal charges.

Free speech means letting people express their views.

Fatherphobia

This new column says:

The threat to the right of children to be raised in mother-father homes comes not only from gay adoptions. It also comes from the fatherphobia of family courts that deprive children of their fathers. ...

Despite an extended string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions upholding the fundamental right of parents to the care, custody and control of their children (reaffirmed in a 2000 case), and despite a very high standard that the government must meet in order to terminate parental legal rights, fathers are routinely denied due process when it comes to determining child custody after divorce.

Family courts use a highly subjective rule called the best interest of the child as recommended by court-appointed child-custody evaluators or psychotherapists. There is no requirement that they have any first-hand experience with raising children, and they are allowed to use their own personal prejudices to overrule the parents.

Homeowners can kill burglars in self-defence

Good news for Brits:

Homeowners who confront burglars were told by the Government yesterday that they were entitled to kill in self-defence - and use guns and knives - to protect their family and property.

They were reassured that they will not be prosecuted if they acted "honestly and instinctively" against intruders in the heat of the moment.

Previously, some British homeowners were jailed for acting in self-defense.

Cambodian dog story

This Cambodian man had to choose between his newlywed 20-year-old wife and his dog.

The wife became even more upset when the man confessed he loved the dog more than her, district police chief Tuon Dorn told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa from Kampot province, about 140km southeast of the capital.

"When we arrived, the husband told us, yes, of course he did it. But as police, we could only solve the problem of his wife then wanting a divorce. We cannot solve the problem of his relationship with his dog, because under Cambodian law it is not strictly illegal," Tuon Dorn said.

"It is amazing, but this husband is not crazy. It seems he is a passionate human being who looked at a dog, and the more he looked, the more passionate he became."

Media man bashing

This NY Times article says:

Men Are Becoming the Ad Target of the Gender Sneer
By COURTNEY KANE
Published: January 28, 2005

Are today's men incompetent, bumbling idiots? Judging by portrayals in some advertising, the answer seems to be yes - much to the dismay of some men. ...

[The ad] campaigns portray[] men in general, and husbands and fathers in particular, as objects of ridicule, pity or even scorn. Among them are ads for Bud Light, Domino's, Hummer, T-Mobile and Verizon.

The "man as a dope" imagery has gathered momentum over the last decade, and critics say that it has spiraled out of control. It is nearly impossible, they say, to watch commercials or read ads without seeing helpless, hapless men.

In the campaigns, which the critics consider misandry (the opposite of misogyny), men act like buffoons, ogling cars and women; are likened to dogs, especially in beer and pizza ads; and bungle every possible household task. Most marketers presenting incompetent, silly male characters say their campaigns provide a harmless comedic insight into the male mentality while also appealing to women. But men who describe themselves as rights activists are increasingly speaking out against the ads as a form of male-bashing, especially when the ads disparage the roles that fathers play in their children's lives.

It is not just the ads. TV sitcoms overwhelmingly portray men as fools and dopes, and women are the only ones who have any sense.

Attacking Summers

This Slate article whines about people who said that Harvard Pres. Larry Summers was raising legitimate issues. It says, "no one is talking about achieving 50-50 representation", but then goes on to blast Summers because Harvard has not hired women in sufficient numbers. I guess it is looking for some sort of quota. Furthermore, it accuses:

The chairwoman of the sociology department has told the New York Times that after a meeting with Summers about this issue many female faculty had left feeling he did not understand their concerns.

Add that to the list of differences between men and women. Female employees cannot do their jobs unless they feel that their bosses understand their concerns.

Autistics do not read People magazine

This story says:

"One of the main problems in people with autism is that they don't find it very motivating to look at other individuals," Platt said. "And even when they do, they can't seem to assess information about that individual's importance, intentions or expressions."

So autism researchers have figured out how to train monkeys to trade juice for pictures of the rear ends of high-ranking monkeys. The next step is to drug the monkeys to mimic autism. The hope is to explain why autistics do not subscribe to People magazine.

Who ever decided that it is normal to want to read People magazine?

Injured back while sneezing

Sammy Sosa is not so popular among Chicago Cub fans, and is now being traded:

But Sosa was suspended in 2003 for using a corked bat, and he batted .253 last season, slumping to 35 homers and 80 runs batted in, his lowest totals since the strike-shortened 1994 season. He landed on the disabled list after injuring his back while sneezing.

Huhh? One of the great power hitters of all time was sidelined by sneezing?! I missed that story.

Paul Busa's recovered memory

Paul R. Shanley, the notorious Boston priest who wore long hair, challenged the Church teachings on homosexuality, attended NAMBLA meetings, and supposedly molested dozens of schoolboys, is now on trial. The prosecution is down to one witness against him, and that man has holes in his story. He appears to have suddenly and mysteriously remembered being abused in 1983 at the age of 6, just in time to collect a $500k settlement.

The accuser's name is Paul Busa. I am not sure why the mainstream news media is refusing to name him. He is 27 years old, and he has been in the news for a couple of years. The name of Shanley's other main accuser, Greg Ford, has been reported many times. If I were a juror, I'd be wondering why Ford and all the others who got big payoffs are not testifying at Shanley's trial.

I am very skeptical about prosecutions based on recovered memory from childhood. I believe that the evidence is that such memories are very unreliable.

The accusations against Shanley rely on a psychological theory called dissociated or repressed memory. It holds that the mind can submerge the most traumatic memories in some walled-off place, where they remain unaltered and retrievable in exact detail by a triggering event or therapy. The idea comes from Freud's early work, and is one which he ultimately rejected. It was reformulated in some feminist psychotherapeutic circles beginning in the 1970s, and reached its apex in the 1980s and early '90s, when children, prodded by therapists, began reciting "memories" of satanic ritual abuses committed at their day care centers. Many people went to prison as a result of those stories. Most of those convictions have since been reversed; others continue to be fought. Yet the theory persists. Daniel Brown, a psychotherapist who testified to the grand jury in Shanley's case, argues that "material that is too intense may not be able to be consciously processed and so may become unconscious and amnesic."

Other experts, however, reject the notion that highly traumatic memories can be spontaneously repressed and recovered. One of Ford's first therapists, Robert Azrak, testified in a deposition that "there is no scientific basis" for the type of recovered memories described in this case. As Richard McNally, a clinical and experimental psychologist at Harvard and the author of Remembering Trauma, pointed out, "There is just no mechanism in the mind for keeping the door shut to traumatic memory. The more times a particular type of event happens, the harder it may be to distinguish one incident from another, but that doesn't mean people fail to remember the entire set of events." Remembering trauma, McNally said, "is crucial to evolutionary development; if you've been threatened, you better remember if you want to survive." That was as true for cavemen as it is for the contemporary child who, once burned, learns to avoid a hot stove.

Such testimony should not be allowed in court. It is just Freudian nonsense.

Update: (Feb. 7) Shanley was convicted on all 4 counts. Shanley did not testify, and it appears that his lawyer put on a weak defense.

Unwed father rights

John writes:

This is the second libertarian feminist to take up the cause of this "biological father." Wendy McElroy wrote a similar column a week ago. PS strongly disagrees. She supports the right of an unwed mother to put her child up for adoption without notifying the "father" who, in her view, should have no rights.

Cathy Young says:

In the end, our society sends men quite a mixed message. If your partner gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby, you're liable for 18 years of child support, whether or not you want to be a father. If she doesn't want to be a mother, she can give your child to strangers and there isn't much you can do. Then we complain that men don't take parenthood seriously enough.

I do think that the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood should be linked to marriage. The columnists do have a point in that it is unjust for unwed fathers to have responsibilities, but not rights.

Prof murders baby and gets honored with a memorial

Villanova University plans to honor Mine Ener's work with a memorial student lounge in the university library:

Ener killed her 6-month-old daughter and committed suicide in a Minnesota jail. ...

"It was a sad and tragic situation. She was depressed, but she did murder her daughter," Hoffman said Wednesday. "It isn't the kind of thing you want to remember on a Catholic campus." ...

Ener, 38, went into the bathroom at 9 a.m. one morning and fatally slit the infant's throat with a knife from the kitchen, because, she told police, she wanted to give the baby relief. Less than a month later, Ener put a trash bag over her head and committed suicide in prison.

New tables, lamps and an oriental rug _ a nod to Ener's area of study _ will be dedicated to her memory Thursday morning in a corner of the Falvey Library student lounge. A plaque already hanging on the wall lists Ener's department, her years at Villanova and an epitaph: "Scholar, Teacher, Mentor, Friend."

I don't see any memorials to any murderers who are men.

Lesbian college chief is upset

The new UC Santa Cruz chancellor Denice Dee Denton is all upset about Larry Summers remarks, and this article explains why. She managed to hire her lesbian lover in a phony $192,000 per year job.

Slandering a woman's virtuous reputation

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Seattle Democrat is sponsoring a bill to repeal a 1909 Washington state law that makes "slander of a woman" a crime.

It isn't that Kohl-Welles, a women's studies lecturer at the University of Washington, wants to hear women slandered. But she believes the law is a relic of a time when men put women on a pedestal but denied them basic rights.

"This is one of those old laws that is really irrelevant now," said Kohl-Welles, adding that it almost surely violates the state and federal Constitutions.

The statute prohibits "false or defamatory words or language which shall injure or impair" the virtuous and chaste reputation of any female over 12. The law does say it is OK to slander a "common prostitute."

This is yet another feminist attempt to have women treated like common prostitutes.

National 'No Name-Calling' Week

Here is another goofy school trend:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Middle schools across the United States will observe "No Name-Calling Week" starting Monday.

The program, now in its second year, takes aim at insults of all kinds, whether they are based on a child's appearance, background or behavior.

It has the backing of the Girl Scouts of America and Amnesty International, but a handful of conservative critics have zeroed in on references to harassment based on sexual orientation.

"No Name-Calling Week" was developed by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which is seeking to ensure that schools safely accommodate students of all sexual orientations.

The group said it's unsure how many schools will participate in this week's event, but says 5,100 educators from 36 states have registered, up from 4,000 last year.

I think that a little name-calling is healthy.

Family ruined by suspected Shaken Baby Syndrome

Bob sends this Greenville Ohio horror story:

Prosecutor says boy may have died from genetic disease, not abuse

Associated Press

GREENVILLE, Ohio - A woman plans to seek custody of two children taken from her and put up for adoption now that a prosecutor says their brother may have died from a rare genetic disease - and not child abuse.

However, the length of time since the adoptions occurred could make the mother's efforts futile, a legal expert said.

The Darke County prosecutor said he is closing the homicide investigation into the death of 5-year-old Daniel Crow Jr. because of the disease.

Prosecutor Richard Howell told the Dayton Daily News in an interview Jan. 11 that Daniel's parents "deserve some exoneration. It shouldn't be held over their heads. ... I can't prove he was even abused, let alone who did it."

Despite many such prosecutions, I believe that there is considerable doubt whether Shaken Baby Syndrome even exists.

Harvard prez says women can't hack it

Joe sends this Boston Globe story:

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities. ...

However, the problem of women in academia is one that Summers is confronting in his role as university president. The percentage of tenured job offers made to women by the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences has dropped dramatically since Summers took office, prompting vigorous complaints from many of Harvard's senior female professors...

He offered three possible explanations, in declining order of importance, for the small number of women in high-level positions in science and engineering. The first was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks.

The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. ...

In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them "daddy truck," and one "baby truck."

The iSteve blog adds:

I think it's highly relevant to this that one of Summer's first accomplishments at Harvard was hiring away MIT's superstar evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker.

I don't know what Pinker thinks about this, but he is adamant that there is a scientific consensus that these sorts of innate genetic differences exists. That's the way evolution works, he says.

Update: Here is a Saletan column on the subject. Here is Charles Murray in the NY Times.

FORTY-SIX years ago, in "The Two Cultures," C. P. Snow famously warned of the dangers when communication breaks down between the sciences and the humanities. The reaction to remarks by Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, about the differences between men and women was yet another sign of a breakdown that takes Snow's worries to a new level: the wholesale denial that certain bodies of scientific knowledge exist.

I don't think that there is any communication breakdown. It sounds like Summers communicated quite clearly. The Boston Globe reported:

Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

It sounds like she understood him, but behaved like a stereotypical woman who cannot face the truth.

England criminalizes smacking children

The BBC reports:

Parents in England and Wales who smack children so hard it leaves a mark will face up to five years in jail under new laws in force from Saturday.

Mild smacking is allowed under a "reasonable chastisement" defence against common assault.

But any punishment which causes visible bruising, grazes, scratches, minor swellings or cuts can face action.

This didn't satisfy the anti-spanking zealots. One of them said, "Defining acceptable ways to hit children should become a thing of the past. It should be just as wrong to hit a child as it is to hit an adult."

This is from a country that doesn't believe in self-defense against home invaders. The academic studies have failed to show any harm to mild spanking, and most American parents believe that spanking is necessary.

Was the feminist movement a cruel hoax?

A Maureen Dowd column in the NY Times says:

A second study, which was by researchers at four British universities and reported last week, suggested that smart men with demanding jobs would rather have old-fashioned wives, like their mums, than equals. The study found that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to get married, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax?

The feminist movement did not change anyone's IQ, so I guess she means that it suckered smart women into developing attitudes and habits that made them undesirable to men.

She may be correct. Many feminists have attitude problems that make it hard to visualize them having happy marriages. I think that most men are happy to marry an equal if she really is an equal, but are not eager to marry a feminazi with equality delusions.

All family groups agree

This Family News story says:

Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the pro-family Eagle Forum, said she hopes lawmakers will also look to Ohio, whose state marriage amendment is considered the strongest in the nation.

"It not only protects marriage," she explained, "but it protects us from the Legislature or the courts pretending that they have a substitute for marriage and giving same-sex couples all the rights and benefits of marriage even though they don't give them the name."

There will be disagreements within the pro-family camp when the final draft is submitted­specifically over the issue of civil unions­but Tom McClusky, director of government relations for the Family Research Council, predicted everyone will be onboard.

"One hundred percent of the family groups agree that something needs to be done," he said, "and ultimately it will be deduced that we need to pass a marriage amendment."

No, it doesn't protect marriage from its main attacker -- the family courts.

Bush admits no WMD

In the evening news at 11:03 pm, the San Jose bay area NBC TV station said:

Turning now to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration admitted today its main reason for going to war was not justified. After searching every weapons site in Iraq, 1500 military and weapons specialists determined Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

Now that would be news, if true. But here is the White House press conference, and McClellan didn't say that at all. He merely acknowledged that Pres. Bush said in October that no WMD had been found, that the main reasons for war are as valid as ever, and that no WMD have been found since then.

Playing footsie at Harvard

The NY Times reports on some scientific research:

In another, psychologists at Harvard found that they could increase the attraction between male and female strangers simply by encouraging them to play footsie as part of a lab experiment.

This would be obvious to anyone but a Harvard psychologist.

Children Made Fatherless By Family Courts

A Phyllis Schlafly column on how family courts attack fathers:

One of the best-kept secrets in American society today is that two-thirds of divorces are now sought by wives, not husbands. The feminist movement has taught wives that they can seek "liberation" by walking out on the marriage contract and marital duties and still reap the benefits of marriage, i.e., their children and his money.

Some 80 percent of divorces are involuntary, over the objections of one spouse. Very few of these divorces involve grounds such as desertion, adultery, or abuse.

We urgently need a comprehensive study of how many family court decisions deprive fathers of their parental rights, and deprive children of their fathers, when that awesome punishment is not based on any finding of fault. Information is difficult to gather because most of what family courts do is not available to public scrutiny.

How many children are separated by judicial fiat from involuntarily divorced fathers who have done nothing wrong? How many children are separated from their fathers because of questionable child abuse accusations without any evidentiary hearing or due process of law?

The answer is many millions of children. There are actually many books and articles on the subject.

Brian writes:

Thank you Ms. Schlafly for your article. You stated that "[w]e urgently need a comprehensive study of how many family court decisions deprive fathers of their parental rights, and deprive children of their fathers, when that awesome punishment is not based on any finding of fault." Please allow me to respectfully disagree with you on this point. A study, no matter how comprehensive, is not material. A right is a right is a right, no matter what any "study" says. If all of the religious leaders of the world did a study which proved that individuals were not properly practicing their faith, as I'm betting you know, that would not mean that the state could (legally) create laws that would encourage proper practice.

The "public" has been so dumbed-down about rights, and relies instead on "studies" by purported "experts." So, I would suggest to you that the last thing we need is a study. What we need is the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize our cases and stand behind their countless decisions that parenting is a fundamental right that cannot be infringed upon without a compelling state interest. It is the ONLY thing that matters. Though I doubt they will hear me, I'm working on it (as many others are). You can find more information at www.loveisearned.com. My best to you and your children.

Brian is right. The advantage of the study is just to document and publicize the damage that the courts are doing. Many people naively assume that the courts are acting in the interests of the children.

Adulterous wife denied divorce

Here is an LA Times story about an adulterous wife who vindictively sent her husband to prison on dubious charges, got a wholly unnecessary restraining order against him, demanded custody of their 2 small children, got pregnant with another man, went on welfare to become a public parasite, misled her divorce court judge, and now she is generating public sympathy from the news media. Seattle Superior Court Judge Paul A. Bastine denied Shawnna J. Hughes' divorce petition because Washingtion state law presumes the imprisoned husband to be the father, and the state may want to sue him for welfare reimbursement.

There are so many things wrong here that I won't try to explain them.

Very few Christians are really fundamentalists

Here is a NY Times article that acknowledges that not all right-wing American Christians are fundamentalists.

"If I were to buy stock in global Christianity, I would buy it in Pentecostalism," said Martin E. Marty, professor emeritus of the history of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a coauthor of a study of fundamentalist movements. "I would not buy it in fundamentalism."

After the American presidential election in November, some liberal commentators warned that the nation was on the verge of a takeover by Christian "fundamentalists."

But in the United States today, most of the Protestants who make up what some call the Christian right are not fundamentalists, who are more prone to create separatist enclaves, but evangelicals, who engage the culture and share their faith.

And of course most American Christians are either mainline Protestants or Catholics, and they aren't fundamentalists either.

Child murderer gets new trial

Judges seem to have a lot of tolerance for mothers, no matter how bad the behavior. Andrea Yates murdered 5 of her kids, and was convicted by a jury for 3 of the murders, but an appellate court has just ordered a new trial:

The Texas First Court of Appeals ruled that the conviction should be reversed because an expert witness for the state, Dr. Park Dietz, presented false testimony when he said Yates may have been influenced by an episode of the "Law & Order" television program. No such episode had ever aired.

Yates, now 40, apparently was a fan of the show and watched regularly.

Men get railroaded all the time based on inaccurate and speculative testimony from govt experts, and no one cares.

If a witness did indeed mischaracterize a TV episode, then the time to object should have been during the trial.

John writes:

I'm with Andy on this one. False testimony by a government expert witness should be sufficient to require a new trial for both Martha Stewart and Andrea Yates. There can be no doubt that, in each case, the false testimony was critical to the jury's conviction.

No one ever explained what was [Yates's] motive. Until that question is answered, yes there definitely is a real question of her guilt.

Yes, this crime is worse because it was rational and lacked insanity. (Alternate link here.)

These were not "honest mistakes." They were not mere inadvertent "inaccuracies." They were pivotal, decisive, intentional, and deliberate. They went to the heart of the case against these two women, supplying a missing link in the case against them.

Without the false testimony of these two experts, the government's case was insufficient and both women should have been acquitted.

No, that is not the law. It is not a crime for a physician to do an abortion (with the woman's consent), and your article quoted a Michigan criminal law prof as saying that this recent incident was not a crime under Michigan law either.

Mothers murder their kids in the USA much more than fathers do. Your message just illustrate the bias that makes excuses for mothers murdering their kids, while wanting to criminalize men's behavior that law profs say is completely legal.

Abortion provider distributes defective condoms

Consumers Reports magazine now tests condoms for reliability, and ranked them:

Planned Parenthood model worst performer A melon-colored model distributed by Planned Parenthood performed the worst, bursting during a test in which the latex condoms were filled with air.

Abortion is Planned Parenthood's main source of revenue.

Ode to the Nice Guys

Read this rant about nice guys.

Gunfight stories

Read Handguns magazine for What Really Happens In A Gunfight. Along with practical advice, it tells this story:

The most dramatic wound that I ever personally saw involved a woman who was shot in the head by a .357 Magnum. I was a patrol deputy and responded to a public housing project on the report of a shooting. I arrived at the same time as the medic crew and found a white female sitting on the sofa with a dimpled hole in her forehead.

There was a similar wound on the back of her head. As I spoke to her at the scene (to find out who shot her, not to further my personal research) I was told that she had been in an argument with her live-in boyfriend when he picked up a snub-nosed .357 revolver and shot her in the forehead. She advised that her head, "Slammed back and I fell back onto the sofa. I have been sitting here ever since. I have a big head ache." It later turned out that the 158-grain jacketed semi-wadcutter bullet used in the shooting had spilt the lobes of her brain finer than any surgeon could have hoped to. The bullet left a hole in the rear of her skull, which was patched in some way. This victim was released from the hospital and then refused to testify against her boyfriend. ("I still love him.") He was prosecuted anyway. This incident remains one of the strangest things that I have ever seen.

H suggests: 38 Special 158-grain lead hollow-point; 9mm +P+ jacketed hollow-point; .40 155- and 165-grain jacketed hollow-point; .45 ACP hollow-points; .223 55 grain FMJ and hollow-point; 12 gauge 00 buckshot; and 12 gauge rifled slugs.

British teens on the pill

The BBC lists 2004 stories you might have missed, and includes this:

96. One in four 16- and 17-year-old girls in the UK is on the contraceptive pill - more than ever before.

I've wondered why European teenage pregnancy rates aren't higher. I guess this is the explanation.

Haitian zombies

This article outlines how to make a zombie.

In real life, the zombies come from the Caribbean island of Haiti. They are a person who has been almost-killed, and then later raised from the almost-dead by a voodoo priest, to be used as slave labour for the rest of their miserable life. Zombies can move, eat, hear and speak, but they have no memory and no insight into their condition. There have been legends about zombies for centuries, but it was only in 1980 that a real-life case was documented.

Married men are fat and healthy

This Wash Times story says:

Married adults are more likely to be healthier — physically and mentally — than divorced, widowed, cohabiting or never-married adults, a new federal report says.

Regardless of age, sex, race, education, income or nationality, married adults were least likely to be in poor health, suffer serious psychological distress and smoke or drink heavily, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) says in its new report, which reviews health data gathered from more than 127,000 adults from 1999 to 2002.

The only category in which married adults fared poorly was weight — and this was primarily because married men were more likely to be heavier than other men, the study says. ...

"Wives are especially good at what social scientists call 'social support' and ordinary people call 'nagging,' " said columnist Maggie Gallagher, who heads the District-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

"And it turns out the nagging works: People who are reminded to do healthy things like wear your seat belts, eat vegetables, exercise or go to the doctor, actually do them more often than people who aren't reminded," said Mrs. Gallagher ...

If Gallagher's theory were correct, then why can't wives nag their fat husbands into losing weight? Here is an alternate theory:

Do you know why single men are skinny and married men are heavy?

The single man goes to the fridge, doesn't see anything good, so he goes to bed.
The married man goes to bed, doesn't see anything good, so he goes to the fridge.

There are other theories for the health difference also. Maybe most women will only marry a healthy man, and divorce him if his health goes bad.

No more school milk cartons

This AP story says that the school milk carton is being abolished:

Encouraged by a milk industry study that shows children drink more dairy when it comes in round plastic bottles, a growing number of schools are ditching those clumsy paper half-pint cartons many of us grew up with.

"Those ... square containers are awfully hard for kids," says New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor, who has watched the trend spread to some 320 schools in New England. "Teachers say you can spend the whole lunch period just walking around and opening those containers."

My local Si Valley paper has this story along with a story about more and more teenage girls are getting breast implants. No, there is no connection.

The supposedly-gay penguins

People keep citing gay penguins in zoos as justification for human homosexuality. Here is another story.

I guess that it is possible that animal studies might illuminate human behavior. It would be interesting if animals with a homosexual orientation could be found. Most penguins mate for life. Apparently zoo penguins will choose a mate of the same sex if none of the opposite sex are available. If the gay penguins really had a homosexual orientation, then they'd prefer a mate of the same sex even when there are plenty of the opposite sex available. No one has observed that.

Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth

Scientific American says:

Boosting people's sense of self-worth has become a national preoccupation. Yet surprisingly, research shows that such efforts are of little value in fostering academic progress or preventing undesirable behavior.

Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent academic performance.

I expect that the worthless practices to continue.

Realizing rape, 13 years later

32-year-old singer Jill Scott remembers how she was 19 years old when her boyfriend of 4 years made love to her. She also remembers smiling all the way home.

Now this USA Today story says:

Scott says that she didn't realize what had occurred until she was recently writing in her journal.

Now Scott has come to the sudden realization that it was rape. The woman is crazy, and so is anyone else who takes her seriously.

Provocative women get noticed

This CNN story says that a couple of casino security men got fired for ogling women with low-cut blouses from hidden surveillance cameras. I thought that women who wear revealing clothes like to be noticed.

Child support guidelines are too high

The Glenn Sacks show has an economist who says:

Child support guidelines currently in use by the U.S. states typically generate awards that are three to four times what they should be if based on economically sound cost tables and on a true equal duty of support standard for both parents.

A lot of people think that child support has to be spent supporting children. It is mostly just a tax on fathers to support mothers.

96% of women are liars

This Scotland paper says:

NINETEEN out of 20 women admit lying to their partners or husbands, a survey on attitudes to truth and relationships has found.

Eighty-three per cent owned up to telling "big, life-changing lies", with 13 per cent saying they did so frequently.

Half said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby’s real father.

Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.

And an alarming 31 per cent said they would not tell a future partner if they had a sexual disease: this rises to 65 per cent among single women.

It is my experience that men are much more truthful to women than women are to men.

UK men are helpless victims

A UK forensic psychologist says that a British subject must never defend himself when a criminal invades his home:

From a police perspective, the advice to potential victims of burglaries is unequivocal and clear-cut and you should never "have a go", so to speak, but for the victims of crime this is a very difficult thing to put into practice, especially when your natural instincts are to defend yourself, your family and your own property - the very pillars of your life that are being violated and potentially destroyed by criminals.

He suggests active passivity (trying to avoid the attacker), total passivity (offering complete cooperation with the attacker), and afterwards seeking professional "counselling to develop effective coping strategies".

No, he does not mean buying a gun or learning martial arts. He means that men must learn to accept the fact that they are helpless victims who can do nothing to defend their families.

Boys are dropping out

Andy writes:

Meanwhile, I see that there is another argument to use against Title IX quotas. Boys are dropping out of school like flies. Newspapers don't report on this, but the situation has reached crisis level. In 2003, 712,000 women earned bachelor's degrees while only 531,000 men did. In 2001, 18.9 percent of boys dropped out of high school while only 14 percent of girls did, according to Postsecondary Education Opportunity.

What's this have to do with Title IX? Boys programs need to be improved, not girls'. The big football college Penn State does attract and retain boys, unlike other schools lacking strong mens' sports program. Colleges in places like Maine and South Carolina, which have weak mens sports programs, have only 40% male enrollment. But Penn State, in contrast, is 55% men.

Men coach college girls

Girl's ice hockey is growing in American colleges, and increasingly they are coached by men. The girls should be happy -- there are far more good male coaches available than female coaches.

Andy writes:

Charges of shaken baby syndrome (SBS) are the latest rage among prosecutors. Newspapers are reporting charges or convictions at a rate of two per day nationwide. Unless a juror lost an infant due to natural causes, which prosecutors can screen for, convictions are essentially guaranteed. That's pretty rough considering that there is no real evidence that SBS (without impact) is even possible, and that analysis of the physics suggests it is impossible. One medical skeptic puts it this way: shake an egg as hard as you can and you still will not ever break the yoke.

Here are five examples of SBS prosecutions from just the past ten days:

1. Boyfriend faces 25-years to life for SBS of a girl who had fallen to a pavement days earlier.
2. Father faces 1st degree murder for SBS; denied child abuse but admitted "bouncing" baby.
3. Boyfriend charged with SBS despite lack of any external injuries.
4. Pregnant babysitter charged with SBS: "no evidence that anyone [else] caused the ... death."
5. Father sentenced to nine years for SBS that he adamantly denies.

These common themes underlie the prosecutions:

1. Mothers are very rarely tried for SBS, but fathers, boyfriends and babysitters frequently are. Prosecutors are clearly exploiting juries' prejudices.
2. Possible natural causes of death by infants are ignored. As in the fourth story below, prosecutors take the view that defendant must be guilty because no one could have done it.
3. The "confessions" to shaking are usually descriptions of an attempt to revive the infant, or merely routine jostling ("bouncing") of a baby. Sometimes the confessors speak poor English.
4. Childrens' hospitals, which rely on child abuse funding, seem more likely to allege SBS than other hospitals.

Letting daughter attend drunken frat party

A letter to Dear Abby says:

My 16-year-old daughter went to a party at a frat house where she was given a great deal to drink. Feeling "woozy," she went outside. One of the "boys" suggested she go back to his room to lie down. She had known this fellow before that night and trusted him. ...

You can guess the rest of the story. The odd thing here is that Dear Abby fails to notice anything wrong with the parents for letting their 16-year-old daughter get drunk at a college frat party.

Aliens getting American jobs

John sends this Las Vegas Sun article about how a new increase in the H-1B quota is going to cost Americans their jobs.

Some high-tech groups claim H-1B visas unfair

A push by some federal lawmakers to extend a yearly cap on temporary visas for highly skilled foreign workers is necessary to make sure American businesses can attract the talent they need to compete, company executives and immigration lawyers say.

But one local out of work computer programmer says allowing more foreign skilled workers is unfair to people like him, adding to the supply of workers chasing scarce jobs.

Jordan Stevens, a computer programmer who hasn't worked full-time in his field in three years, sees the proposed extension as a way for companies to improve their bargaining position with prospective employees, an unnecessary federal move that would hurt American workers.

NBA bad boys

I think that a lot of people are overreacting the recent scuffle at a Detroit basketball game. I've seen several TV clips, and I don't see where anyone got hurt. There was some bad behavior, but I don't think that anyone attempted to injure anyone else. I didn't see anything criminal. A one-game suspension for players should suffice.

The NY Times is covering the invention of digital music:

Music Industry Is Trying Out New Releases as Digital Only

... But for the companies, shifting to a digital world means treading on unstable financial ground. Instead of plunking down $16 for an album, fans can now visit free file-sharing networks to grab songs.

Somebody should tell them that music CDs have been all-digital for over 20 years.

Andy writes:

A few times a year liberal publications will promote a "new missing link." You can count on the NY Times running this type of story in its bogus "Science" section several times a year. Roger just circulated such a story from the Murky News (San Jose Mercury News).

Each of these stories has the following characteristics:

1. It gives the impression that the artifact is "human" when it really isn't. (Liberals have redefined "human").

2. It quotes "scientists" who likely supported Kerry and would believe in evolution regardless of the evidence, creating enormous bias.

3. It claims to have old dates for the artifacts but never tells you what was actually dated (usually the dating is NOT based on the artifacts themselves).

4. Usually the artifact is a collection of separate pieces put together by evolution promoters, but the article will not convey that impression.

5. There is a lucrative market for these alleged artifacts, giving greater incentive to fake them, that is never disclosed in the articles.

6. Independent scrutiny of the artifacts by skeptics is usually not allowed. Access to the Piltdown Man was limited for years, for example.

These pseudoscientific articles are supermarket tabloid stuff. They give science a bad name.

The article said:

Scientists have discovered the remains of a tree-climbing creature that lived 13 million years ago in what is now northeastern Spain and may be the last common ancestor of modern-day great apes and humans, according to a report published today.

Scholars greeted the discovery as a spectacular find, bringing together 83 skull fragments, vertebrae, wrist bones, ribs and other bones from the same animal, a rarity in a field that often bases its analyses on a few skull fragments and teeth.

The fossil also is the oldest of a primate displaying traits shared by modern great apes, but not by monkeys: a broad, flat chest; shoulder blades fixed to the back rather than the sides; a spinal column suited to vertical climbing; a relatively flat face; and wrists that make it easy to grab and hold branches and tree trunks.

In all, the remains represent a landmark addition to a fossil record that seeks to trace primate evolution from a 55 million-year-old lemur-like creature to the monkeys and great apes -- chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and human ancestors -- and finally to the appearance of modern humans only 100,000 years ago.

Andy is misusing the term "artifact" -- all artifacts are made by humans.

Parents get prosecuted for minor mistakes

15-year-old Christopher Osbourne got mugged, and his parents got arrested for failing to notice that his head was bleeding. His lawyers say:

The story of the interrogation and arrest of Carlene Francis and Neville Henry is far from unique; this is a case that we as lawyers at the Bronx Defenders' Family Defense Project see every day in the criminal justice system and in family court.

In poor communities of color, like the South Bronx, the criminal justice system is routinely used by the police and prosecutors to call into question reasonable and necessary parental decisions that should never be criminalized.

As the lawyers for Ms. Francis, we saw the rush to judgment by the police and prosecutors and the subsequent trauma and separation this family endured. There should never have been an arrest or a child protective investigation of this family.

You may need permission to fast-forward

John writes:

Here's another reason to fight Arlen Specter!

Congress is considering a new copyright law:

The proposal started with the Hollywood lobby trying to prevent DVD makers from including technology that would allow people to skip through the promotional material that comes with movies at the beginning and end of DVD films.

But now lawmakers are realizing that the bill is written so loosely that it could make criminals out of viewers sitting at home who use a remote control to fast-forward past commercials. (The bill specifically allows people to fast-forward through parts of a movie if it is too gory or sexually explicit — a right people already have, of course.)

This is crazy. How would anyone decide what is legal to skip, and what is not? If, say, I have a pathological fear of spiders, could I get govt permission to skip movie scenes with spiders?

Bogus sexual harassment lawsuit

A former writer's assistant for a TV sitcom, Amaani Lyle, has sued for sexual harassment, because they used some sexually explicit language while brainstorming new scripts!

She doesn't even claim that any of the comments were directed at her, but only that she was offended that the writers talk about sex so much.

The whole point of a TV show like Friends is to be soft-core porn for women. It uses a lot of sexually titillating jokes that women like. It seems obvious that the writers would use much more vulgar language, and then clean it up for TV.

The complainer had previously sued for sexual harassment in a previous job. There should be some national registry of women who file such lawsuits.

School has zero tolerance for cartwheels

A schoolgirl was suspended for doing cartwheels:

Deirdre Faegre, a sixth-grader at San Jose-Edison Academy in West Covina -- a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter school with 1,150 students --was suspended Tuesday when school authorities warned her for the last time to stop doing gymnastic stunts during lunchtime.

"They told me I can't do it anymore because I can hurt other people or myself," the 90-pound Deirdre said. "There's other kids that do ... but it's obviously only been told to me and I don't know why." ...

"Our first concern is the safety of all of our children," Patton said. The gymnastics have "created an unsafe situation for herself and others." ...

There would be chaos if all students decided to do gymnastic stunts at school, he said.

Also, Patton added, most children are not as skilled as Deirdre, who has been practicing with the Charter Oak Gymnastics team since she was 6. They may try to copy her and get hurt.

"She may be skilled in being able to do these stunts, but I have had children who have tried to mimic what these skilled children do and end up hurt."

Maybe the problem is stupid school administrators trying to mimic the skilled ones.

Arafat dead

It is funny how no one wants to say that Yasser Arafat died of AIDS.

Wisc. evolution

Andy writes:

Roger circulated an AP story saying this: "Members of Grantsburg's school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum 'should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,' said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin. Last month, when the board examined its science curriculum, language was added calling for 'various models/theories' of origin to be incorporated."

OK, so far so good. Only the most hardened censor would object to that.

But that's what liberals are, as 300 educators complain about allowing any criticism or alternatives to evolution indoctrination. CNN's headline screams, "Wisconsin district to teach more than evolution," and AP complains with the lead sentence that "School officials have revised the science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed."

Phyllis writes:

Another item of intolerance: The ACLU is suing the Cobb County School District (Atlanta) for a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state because the school has put stickers in biology textbooks saying that evolution is "a theory, not a fact" and should be "approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." NYT, 11-8-04

Fatherhood wins in Mass. election

Fathers rights groups advocate a presumption of joint child custody, instead of just giving custody to the mother. A nonbinding ballot initiative in Mass. just passed with about 80% of the vote:

The referendum asked whether voters want their state representative "to vote for legislation to create a strong presumption in child custody cases in favor of joint physical and legal custody, so that the court will order that children have equal access to both parents as much as possible, except where there is clear and convincing evidence that one parent is unfit, or that joint custody is not possible due to the fault of one of the parents."

Supporters of a "yes" vote have argued that some judges in divorce and child custody cases are inclined to favor the mother when deciding which parent should have legal and physical custody. They contend that state law should guide judicial action more firmly in the direction of joint legal and physical custody and of assuring children's "equal access to both parents as much as possible."

Is it a gay gene or a God gene

Dr. Dean Hamer, a molecular geneticist, once claimed that he discovered a gay gene. Further research by others shot down that theory. Now he claims that he has found a God gene.

Still, he writes, the fact that spirituality has a genetic component implies that it has evolved for a purpose. "There is now reasonable evidence that spirituality is in fact beneficial to our physical as well as mental health. Faith may not only make people feel better, it may actually make them better people."

This sort of goofy genetic determinism used to be very politically incorrect.

No right of self-defense in Britain

John sends this Joyce Lee Malcolm column

In recent years governments have even felt it necessary to prevent the public from defending themselves with imitation weapons. In 1994 an English home-owner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the home-owner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

Crime has gone up, and Britons live in fear.

New bacterial meningitis vaccine

It looks like we are getting another vaccine
that fails a cost-benefit analysis. The NY Times says:

The price of the new vaccine will most likely be $80 a dose. Vaccinating all 40 million people from age 11 to 20, as some experts have suggested, would cost the government $3.5 billion next year. That is more than $1 million a life spared, far more than health officials are normally willing to spend.

This NY Times article explains that vaccines are really a growth business, in spite of all the bad press about the flu vaccine.

The defender of the American male

I recommend Glenn Sacks, a radio host and columnist. He documents many anti-male aspects of our society.

Recombinant hepatitis B vaccine and the risk of multiple sclerosis

Andy sends this study in the journal Neurology, that indicates that the HBV vaccine is associated with a tripling of the risk for multiple sclerosis.

The Crusade Against Evolution

John sends this Wired Mag story:

On a spring day two years ago, in a downtown Columbus auditorium, the Ohio State Board of Education took up the question of how to teach the theory of evolution in public schools. A panel of four experts - two who believe in evolution, two who question it - debated whether an antievolution theory known as intelligent design should be allowed into the classroom.

This is an issue, of course, that was supposed to have been settled long ago. But 140 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, 75 years after John Scopes taught natural selection to a biology class in Tennessee, and 15 years after the US Supreme Court ruled against a Louisiana law mandating equal time for creationism, the question of how to teach the theory of evolution was being reopened here in Ohio.

Court file says candidate threatened wife

A NY family court accidentally released some dirt on a political candidate, according to this AP story:

BATH, N.Y. - Sealed divorce records alleging a Republican candidate for Congress once threatened his wife at gunpoint were obtained by his Democratic opponent's campaign manager, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Halloween offensive to real witches

This story says:

The superintendent has cancelled all Halloween activities.

A letter sent home to parents Wednesday states there will be no observance of Halloween in the entire school district. ...

Hansen says the superintendent made the decision for three primary reasons. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. In addition some families can't afford costumes.

It's the third reason some Puyallup parents are struggling with.

The district says Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.

"Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that," said Hansen.

Academics deny sex differences

A new book by a couple of academic feminists, Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs attempts to deny the obvious. It says:

Same Difference takes on the myths of "Mars and Venus":
Myth...Men are genetically driven to seek out beautiful women. This may have been true in the stone age, but times change. Now, a significant number of men report that an attractive portfolio is even more alluring than a pretty face.
Myth...Women want to marry wealthy men who can protect them and their children. In fact, a surprising majority of today's women put a higher price tag on empathy and nurturance. ...
Myth...Men and women speak "different languages"-they "Just Don't Understand" each other. Wrong. Women talk "male" in the boardroom, and men easily master "motherese."

We need another planet to describe where these academics are from.

Bill O'Reilly was set up

I am beginning to think that Bill O'Reilly (of Fox News) was set up. I wonder if Andrea Mackris got paid off after she got her CNN boss fired for sexual harassment. If so, her lawyer probably told her that they could get a bigger jackpot by going back to work at FoxNews.

My hunch is that she already had a contingency agreement with her lawyer before she went back to work for Bill O'Reilly this past summer. Both Mackris and her lawyer sound like they were out to get O'Reilly. It is very strange the way they carefully documented the alleged transgressions, and yet she never complained about them.

It is also strange that she quotes O'Reilly's parts of the phone conversation, but not her parts. It seems likely that she was encouraging him, not saying "Goodbye".

Mackris had worked with O'Reilly for 3 or 4 years, and knew him well enough. I think that she asked him for phone sex, and then taped him. Her claim of damages is not even remotely plausible.

Charlie sends this:

Say goodbye to the American software programmer. Once the symbols of hope as the nation shifted from manufacturing to service jobs, programmers today are an endangered species. They face a challenge similar to that which shrank the ranks of steelworkers and autoworkers a quarter century ago: competition from foreigners.

Some experts think they'll become extinct within the next few years, forced into unemployment or new careers by a combination of offshoring of their work to India and other low-wage countries and the arrival of skilled immigrants taking their jobs. ...

Since the dotcom bust in 2000-2001, nearly a quarter of California technology workers have taken nontech jobs, according to a study of 1 million workers released last week by Sphere Institute, a San Francisco Bay Area public policy group. The jobs they took often paid less. Software workers were hit especially hard. Another 28 percent have dropped off California's job rolls altogether. They fled the state, became unemployed, or decided on self-employment.

Accusing Bill O'Reilly

The Bill O'Reilly lawsuit is wild. The allegations consist mainly of O'Reilly flirting and bragging in after-hours meetings with an employee Andrea Mackris. He also gave her some unsolicited advice. Most of this seems plausible as it is consistent with his on-air personality. Mackris left O'Reilly and FoxNews to get more money at CNN, got her boss there fired for sexual harassment, and then went begging back to O'Reilly for her old job back. So it is hard to see how she could have been too offended by O'Reilly's antics.

Mackris's most lurid charges have to do with phone sex. The Smoking Gun says:

Based on the extensive quotations cited in the complaint, it appears a safe bet that Mackris, 33, recorded some of O'Reilly's more steamy soliloquies.

Mackris is demanding $60M. O'Reilly is fighting back. I hope he teaches her a lesson. She is just an extortionist.

Update: I just heard O'Reilly gave his spin on his legal troubles on his radio
show, and aired a mattress ad:

Even if you suffer from back pain, you can sleep as well as Bill O'Reilly does.

Funny. I don't think that O'Reilly has been sleeping too well lately.

Another goofball Nobel Prize winner

It sounds like the Nobel Peace Prize winner is as wacky as the Literature Prize winner. This ABC News story says:

Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, today reiterated her claim that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent.

"Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.

"Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet," Ms Maathai told a press conference in Nairobi a day after winning the prize for her work in human rights and reversing deforestation across Africa.

There is a theory that AIDS was an accidental byproduct of a 1950s Congo polio vaccine program, but we still don't have the technology to create a biological agent to kill black people.

Some scientists are only admitting now that there is such a thing as race. Just 4 years ago, this was the politically correct view:

"The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis," said J. Craig Venter in June 2000, standing beside President Bill Clinton to announce the completion of the first draft of the human genome sequence.

But this NY Times article goes on to explain that there is indeed such a genetic and scientific basis, and that basis is essential for some new medical treatments.

Something that has no coherent basis is the French philosophy of deconstruction. See this obituary of Jacques Derrida to get an idea of what nonsense it is.

Update: A bunch of Derrida fans complain here, comparing him to Einstein. Einstein communicated clearly, dealt with reality, and had his theories experimentally tested. Derrida was a nut-case, so are most of his fans.

Swedish MPs want men taxed

Here is more anti-men news from Sweden:

Swedish MPs want men taxed

Mon Oct 4,12:59 PM ET

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A group of Swedish parliamentarians has proposed levying a "man tax" to cover the social cost of violence against women.

"It must be obvious to all of us that society has a huge problem with male violence against women and that has a cost," Left Party deputy Gudrun Schyman told Swedish radio on Monday.

"We must have a discussion where men understand they as a group have a responsibility," said Schyman, one of the party members to sign the motion for debate on the new tax.

Sweden already has the highest taxes in the European Union as a percentage of gross domestic product to pay for its famous but hard-pushed cradle-to-grave welfare program.

It is also one of the world's most advanced nations in terms of gender equality, but Schyman said in a headline-hitting 2002 speech that discrimination in Sweden followed "the same pattern" as in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

I don't know about Sweden, but in the USA, women already have most of the money but men pay most of the taxes.

A pitch for alumni donations

I just got a call from a girl at Princeton Annual Giving. Princeton U. has more money than it knows what to do with, and only charges high tuition because it can get away with it.

She said that a high alumni giving rate can boost the US News college rankings!

She also said that the fundraising program provides good part-time jobs for students. In other words, she wanted me to give money in order to fund her in making more harassing phone calls!

She also explain how Annual Giving allows the college to enforce differential pricing, where the college forces some students to pay much higher fees than other students. Okay, that wasn't exactly the way she described it. But still, I see nothing good about it. I think that Princeton U. would be a better place if alumni would quit giving it so much money.

Feminist objects to cute girls

I just heard a young feminist plugging a book. One of her complaints was that, in 2004 today, it is still advantageous for a college girl to be cute!
She thought that college girls should be judged purely on their brains.

Another wacky Nobel prize

The Nobel literature prize just went to a psychotic Austrian feminist commie. The playwright Elfriede Jelinek writes depressing nonsense:

In her fiction, Jelinek, 57, has explored pornography, sadomasochism, persecution and what she regards as the degradation of women at the hands of men. Her work is peopled by characters who are fractured, self-lacerating and pathologic.

But the Swedes praised "her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power."

Even the official Nobel Prize site explains that she is getting the prize for the political content of her writings, and has her official biography saying:

Jelinek lets her social analysis swell to fundamental criticism of civilisation by describing sexual violence against women as the actual template for our culture.

No, I won't be reading anything she wrote.

Pedophile Protection Act

California has passed a bill to reduce the reporting requirements for child abuse. I am not sure who is behind this, but it appears to be part of an effort by Planned Parenthood to protect child molesters.

According to this lawyer site, some states require everyone to report suspected child abuse or neglect, with the only exception being lawyers who are trying to protect child abusers! It is hard to see why physicians should have a greater reporting responsibility than lawyers.

On intelligence

Bob recommends the new book On Intelligence. It is a book with theories about the brain, by one of the Palm PDA inventors.

Pit bull lawyers

John sends this story:

Some attorneys and at least one state legislator have pointed to the 1-800-PITBULL number as a prime example of how attorneys' advertisements contribute to a negative view of the profession.
...
The law firm, specializing in motorcycle crash litigation, has spent the last three years defending its use of 1-800-PITBULL ...

"I don't think 1-800-PITBULL exemplifies the level of professionalism I hope we would see among our lawyers, which most lawyers do have," said Florida Bar president Kelly Overstreet Johnson ...

There are a lot of people who prefer pit bulls to lawyers.

Islam compared

Bob writes:

The comparison between Islam and the Soviet Union is a hit and a miss. Islam is no more unified than the components of the former Soviet Union. However, Islam has been around for over 1300 years and shows no sign of dying out. Communism will be an historical footnote in 50 years.

If we compare the contributions of cultures of the big 2 religions, Christianity has both modern science and modern democracy to its credit. Islam preserved Greek knowledge and according to the history I was taught, the renaissance was kicked off by the knowledge from Islamic culture coming to Europe and finishing off the dark age culture which was focused on the after life. I would like to find a good source which explains the differences between 11th century Islam which was active and competent at science and current Islam, which is not. Unless Islam regains its ability to support science it will never be culturally, economically, or militarily competitive.

If we look at mathematics, science, the arts, and hot sex, the Greeks were superior to Christian and Moslem cultures in per capita output.

JAMA admits sex differences

The prestigious medical journal JAMA hired a feminist editor 5 years ago. She now wants articles that distinguish men from women! This AP story says:

These discoveries are part of a quiet but revolutionary change infiltrating U.S. medicine as a growing number of scientists realize there's more to women's health than just the anatomy that makes them female, and that the same diseases often affect men and women in different ways.

"Women are different than men, not only psychologically (but) physiologically, and I think we need to understand those differences," says Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

DeAngelis, who became the journal's first female editor in 1999, says she has made it a mission to publish only research in which data are broken down by sex unless it involves a disease that affects just men or women.

It is amazing how educated feminists have difficulty with the obvious.

Low Moslem suicide rate

Andy writes:

After I observed that Moslems have by far the lowest rate of suicide, John replied:

Where do you come up with this nonsense? We have seen thousands of suicide attacks by Muslim fanatics, who do not act alone but are aided, abetted, financed, celebrated and eulogized by their Muslim leaders. No other religion is remotely comparable to this.

In light of this appalling record, to say that "Islam bans vices" is just preposterous.

From this:

The best single socio-economic predictor appears to be religious affiliation. Suicide is infrequent in Moslem populations, typically reported as less than 1 per 100,000 per year. It also is uncommon in many Catholic countries, with rates of 2 to 8 per 100,000 per year.On the other hand, Catholic Austria and Hungary have rates of 23 and 39 per 100,000 per year, respectively. Protestant, Hindu, and Buddhist regions have, with a few exceptions, higher reported suicide rates than Moslem or Catholic ones.

John's and Joe's comments suggest they doubt this approach entirely. Yet the data are objective and certainly worth reviewing and discussing.

Note that for decades thousands of conservatives objectively evaluated the strength of the Soviet Union so that we could determine if and how to address it. In that case, one could point to a region on the globe and speak in terms of the familiar nation-state.

Where is the same analysis and debate about Islam? Does its lack of affiliation with a powerful nation-state cause everyone to drop their guard?

People can and should engage in an objective comparison in potential of Islam with that of modern Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, and atheism. Aside from which you may personally prefer, which is becoming the most powerful? Right or wrong, I would say Islam has advantages in all-important areas of personal discipline and gender relations.

Liza writes, "Please don't make me vomit."

Andy responds:

That reminds me of Yogi Berra's famous quip: "Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It's too crowded!"

Adultery still legal in Turkey

Turkey dropped its plans to reinstate its adultery law:

Adultery was illegal in Turkey until 1996, when the Constitutional Court overturned the law, saying it was unequally applied. Under the earlier laws, men were deemed adulterers if they were proven to have been involved in a prolonged affair, while women could be charged if they were unfaithful once.

Objections came from women's rights advocates, who say that women's have a right to use their bodies to commit adultery. But the clincher came from EU officials who said that Turkey might not be let into the EU unless adultery were legal there!

School-based mental health screening

Eagle Forum is concerned about universal mental health screening in our public schools.

Title IX FAQ

Andy sends this:

Q. Hasn't Title IX greatly increased participation by women in sports?

A. No. The Title IX quotas were imposed by President Carter in 1979. Most of the increased participation by girls and women in sports occurred in the 1970s before the quotas were imposed.

Q. What do you mean by "quotas"?

A. The requirement that schools reduce the ratio of males to females on their sports teams to the same ratio in enrollment. If the school is 50/50 in enrollment, then its Title IX quotas push the sports teams to the same gender ratio.

Q. What's wrong with that?

A. Boys are at least twice as interested in sports than girls. And just as the victories go to the best team on the sports field, the funding should go to the most motivated athletes, regardless of gender.

Q. Didn't Title IX help us win the most medals in Athens at the Olympics?

A. Our percentage share of medals in Athens was our second lowest ever at Olympics in which we participated. (Our lowest was at the last Olympics in 2000.) Since Title IX quotas were imposed, our medal share has fallen far below pre-Title IX levels.

Q. Are you against Title IX?

A. No, I'm against the Title IX quotas.

Q. Isn't our women's soccer team doing better because of Title IX?

A. Our women's soccer team did better in the 1990s than it has in this decade. Germany defeated us in the last World Cup.

Q. What about our great women's softball team?

A. Softball is a uniquely American sport. There is even talk about discontinuing it as an Olympic sport.

Q. But didn't women break records at the Olympics in Athens?

A. No. Only six American women were able to win individual gold medals in Athens. And all of them were private club-based athletes. Title IX cannot take credit for any of these medals.

Q. But what's the harm in Title IX?

A. Title IX quotas hurt our competitiveness, and cut off opportunity for developing future athletes. Most of our Olympic athletes now have to go to private clubs to develop their skills. Most people cannot afford that approach, and are not exposed to these private clubs as youngsters.

Q. But you must agree that Title IX helps women athletes, even if the men are hurt.

A. The quotas hurt women too. Women's gymnastics teams have been drastically reduced due to the quotas, and replaced by easy-to-learn sports like rowing and horseback riding. That way schools can boost their numbers of women athletes and meet their quotas. As a result only one of our women Olympic gymnasts ever competed on a college team!

Q. What's your solution?

A. End Jimmy Carter's Title IX quotas as soon as possible. Our competitiveness would improve as a result. Funding would then go to the most motivated athletes, regardless of gender.

Human Brain More Complex Than Chimps

Evolutionists are always emphasizing that we have the same genes as chimps, so they may be surprised at new research showing: Human Brain More Complex Than Chimps.

Title IX bad for Olympic athletes

Andy writes this letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Your Aug. 29 editorial on U.S. women at the Olympics, "A summer of memories and medals," and a follow-up letter to the editor dated Sept. 4, pretend that Title IX has enhanced our competitiveness.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Title IX regulations impose quotas on schools, requiring them to eliminate men's teams until the ratio of men to women athletes is comparable to their overall enrollment. Our most competitive athletes have been replaced by less interested ones. Scores of men's track, swimming, diving, wrestling and other teams have been eliminated in favor of easy-to-learn sports like women's rowing, water polo and horseback riding.

The results are predictable. No men's team (other than rowing and relays) won a gold medal in Athens. We failed to win a single diving medal for the first time ever. Our overall medal share was the second-lowest at any Olympics we have ever participated in. Since the Title IX quotas were imposed in 1979, our medal share has fallen far below our historic levels.

Women athletes have been hurt too. Only six women could win individual golds, and all were the product of private clubs. The impoverished athlete has almost no chance to win an individual gold medal anymore. Mark Spitz's and Greg Louganis' original college teams have been eliminated. Title IX quotas ensure that our declining medal share goes mostly to club athletes who have the money and support to train outside of school facilities. Even women gymnastic teams have been replaced at schools by women's crew, simply because the latter is easier to attract neophytes to.

The Olympic spirit is to give the gold medal to the best competitor. Our Title IX funding should be distributed the same way to restore our historic competitiveness and opportunity.

Title IX wouldn't be so bad if it were implemented as Congress intended. It is not clear that Congress wanted it applied to athletic programs, and it certainly didn't want quotas.

Lonnie responds:

As a high school principal for six years, I was responsbile for upholding the law, including the vaunted Title IX. I never eliminated one male athletic program during that time, nor did any of my fellow principals, nor have they since those years. There was never a quota, just the ridiculous argument that women would not rally to the newly formed women's programs because there was no evidence that they were interested in them.

What we discovered, of course, was that women soon flocked to the athletic programs in which they could now participate. As any fair-minded educator would tell you, the main force suctioning off resources from men's athletic programs was and is football and (to a lesser extent) mens' basketball, which indeed made it difficult for other sports to flourish, including women's.

All my (3) daughters participated in high school varsity athletics, as did my son. Title IX afforded them opportunities unavailable to previous generations. Those opposed to Title IX when it was enacted often felt genuinely aggrieved that women might try out for men's sports and create mixed gender teams they found appalling (never happened!) Or they honestly didn't see the clamor among girls for athletic opportunity (history has proved them wrong wrong wrong).

Those opposed to Title IX today are just gender bigots. Period.

Thanks for your thoughtful if misguided response, Mr Schlafly. I read the article of your namesake, Phyllis, also of Eagle Forum, making the same absurd claim that Title IX caused our NBA stocked Olympic basketball team to lose the gold medal, as well as other men's teams. Men's athletic programs nationwide, as you must know, have increased lo these past 30 years.

Oh, hell, I doubt you've read this far, since your goal is merely to put your propoganda into the Inquirer so it can counter the truth of my letter, so this little citizen and dad will stop.

Andy responds:

I read your response carefully. "Gender bigots"???? Don't make me laugh. There is nothing "bigoted" about objecting to the Title IX quotas that have been imposed on colleges, and are now beginning to be used against high schools. Men at Howard University lost their baseball team because of it, while women can obtain full college scholarships in sports in which they have no experience (e.g., rowing). Once people wake up to what is going on, they recognize the absurdity of it.

You omit when you were high school principal, and your other observations are outdated. Not only have numerous men's track, swimming, diving, wrestling and other sports been eliminated to meet senseless Title IX quotas, but women's teams like gymnastics have been eliminated also in favor easy-to-learn sports like rowing and water polo. The Title IX quota police are only recently taking their agenda to high schools. One high school case is before the US Supreme Court right now.

Nearly all the individual Olympic winners developed their skills in clubs, not in public schools. That's great for those who can afford the clubs. Title IX quotas are an abysmal failure at producing excellence, though it is unlikely its supporters care.

If you support allocating sports funding based on excellence and motivation, then you'll oppose the Title IX quotas.