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21
Gotcha!  April fool!    :laughing6:
22
Article here.  This Supreme Court case (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes) is significant because of its potential to group all women as a sex into a monolithic bloc that can be represented in a class action lawsuit against employers.  In my opinion, the potential harm of a ruling against Wal-Mart and in favor of the plaintiffs is that women will be unfairly privileged in hiring and salary decisions, under the pretext that such female privilege is correcting some sort of systematic discrimination against all women within America's borders.

It's looking like Justice Kennedy is leaning against siding with the plaintiffs, along with Justice Scalia.  That leaves justices Roberts, Alito and Thomas in the conservative wing on the court, which if they all unite together would be a 5-4 majority.  The four other justices (presumably in the minority) would be Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor, all of whom seemed sympathetic to the plaintiff's position.

Wal-Mart sex-bias case hits possible court block
March 29, 2011
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_supreme_court_wal_mart_discrimination



WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appears ready to block a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of up to 1.6 million women, and that could make it harder for other workers nationwide to bring class-action claims against large employers.

The 10-year-old lawsuit, argued in lively exchanges at the court Tuesday, claims that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest employer, favors men over women in pay and promotions. Billions of dollars are at stake if it is allowed to go forward.

The case also could affect the future of other class-action lawsuits that pool modest individual claims into a single action that creates the potential for a large judgment and increases the pressure on businesses to settle.

In Tuesday's arguments, several justices suggested they were troubled by the case and lower court decisions against Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart. Estimates of how many women could be included in the lawsuit run from 500,000 to 1.6 million.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a key vote on the high court, said the women's argument points in apparently conflicting directions.

"You said this is a culture where Arkansas knows, the headquarters knows, everything that's going on," Kennedy said to Joseph Sellers, the women's lawyer. "Then in the next breath, you say, well, now these supervisors have too much discretion. It seems to me there's an inconsistency there, and I'm just not sure what the unlawful policy is."

Sellers said that lower courts had been persuaded by statistical and other evidence put forth so far in the lawsuit. He said Wal-Mart's strong corporate culture stereotypes women as less aggressive than men and that translates into individual pay and promotion decisions at the more than 4,300 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores across the country.

"The decisions are informed by the values the company provides," Sellers said.

Justice Antonin Scalia said he felt "whipsawed" by Sellers' description. "Well, which is it?" Scalia asked. Either individual managers are on their own, "or else a strong corporate culture tells them what to do."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that at this stage of the lawsuit, the issue is not proving discrimination but showing enough evidence to go forward. "We're talking about getting a foot in the door," Ginsburg said, a standard she called not hard to meet.

Ginsburg, who made her name as a lawyer by bringing discrimination claims, said it was possible that Wal-Mart could refute the claims at a trial.

The court's other two female justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Stephen Breyer also appeared inclined to allow the lawsuit to proceed.

But several of their more conservative colleagues appeared to agree with Theodore Boutrous Jr., representing Wal-Mart, that even subjecting the company to a trial would be unfair.

That split among the justices raised the prospect of an ideologically divided ruling by the court this summer.

Boutrous said the class-action nature of the case deprives the company of its legal rights because it is being forced to defend the treatment of female employees regardless of the jobs they hold or where they work.

"There is absolutely no way there can be a fair process here," Boutrous said.

He pointed to a group of at least 544 women who serve as store managers who "are alleged to be both discriminators and victims."

Two of the named plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski and Betty Dukes, attended the argument. Kwapnoski is an assistant manager at a Sam's Club in Concord, Calif. Dukes is a greeter at the Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, Calif.

Their situations were discussed only briefly, with Boutrous noting how different they were as a way to argue they should not be dealt with in the same lawsuit.

Business interests have lined up with Wal-Mart while civil rights, women's and consumer groups have sided with the women plaintiffs.

Both sides have painted the case as extremely consequential. The business community has said that a ruling for the women would lead to a flood of class-action lawsuits based on vague evidence. Supporters of the women say that if the court sides with Wal-Mart, it could remove a valuable weapon for fighting all sorts of discrimination.

David Sanford, who represents plaintiffs in other class-action cases, said after the arguments that the court seemed inclined to rule against the Wal-Mart women. Sanford said such a decision could "have implications for class actions more generally, making it more difficult for women and minority groups to enjoy equality and fair treatment in the workplace."

The Obama administration is not taking part in the case, although it was lobbied by both sides.

The case is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, 10-277.
23
Police: Mom Goaded Teens Into Fight, Posted Video Online
March 23, 2011 12:08 AM
CBS 13 Sacramento
Article:  http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/03/23/police-mom-goaded-teens-into-fight-posted-video-online/
Video:  http://video.sacramento.cbslocal.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?vt1=v&clipFormat=flv&clipId1=5684514&at1=News&h1=Police:

CERES, Calif. (CBS13) -- Detectives arrested a mother for allegedly orchestrating a fight between two teen boys, including her son, in her front yard and then posting the video online.

The Ceres Police Department said Jennifer Zuniga, 33, can be heard encouraging her son while the two boys throw punches and grapple in the front yard of a Ceres home. A number of bystanders, including several juveniles, can also be seen observing the fight.

When the boys wrestled each other to a standstill on the ground, bystanders separated the two and encouraged them to begin fighting again.

A detective contacted a school resource officer to determine the identity of the fight participants, which quickly led police to the scene of the brawl.

Investigators said the video shows the intervention of a Good Samaritan, who apparently put a stop to the fight before anyone was seriously injured.

Zuniga was arrested and charged with child endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Anyone who witnessed the fight is asked to contact Detective Darren Venn at (209) 538-5616 or the Stanislaus Area Crime Stoppers at 1 (866) 60-CRIME.
24
Check this out.  As I write this, the program is in progress.  Harry Crouch of the National Coalition For Men (NCFM) and also author RK Hendrick are the invited guests:

"Men's Rights - An Important Human Rights Issue"
By SDCommunityCoalition
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sdcommunitycoalition/2011/03/18/mens-rights--an-important-human-rights-issue
25
Check this out:
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/boy-body-slams-bully-20110315

Hurry before it's taken offline; YouTube and other sites dropped this video in a heart beat as a violation of their "Terms of Service," so watch it soon.  I'm telling ya, it's worth it.

What this reminds me of is the chivalrist argument (frequently made in discussions about domestic violence) that a larger male victim should never hit back against a smaller female perpetrator.  If not, then who else is going to challenge her?  Primary/predominate aggressor policies give such female perpetrators a pass, and so women are effectively permitted to violently abuse their male partners with near-total impunity.
26
Check out the ManCan, the latest sensation in scented candles geared toward the discriminating man's tastes:

MANCANS.mpg

Web site:
http://www.man-cans.com/

Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ManCans/177539685604248
27
Article here.  The author of the article, Joseph Caputo, interviewed me via telephone last Saturday for about 75 minutes.  In his communications with me, Mr. Caputo seems to be highly committed to using an even-handed and fair approach to addressing the topic of how the gender paradigm marginalizes and stigmatizes male victims of domestic violence.  FYI, I am quoted in his article about 14 paragraphs in.

Can We Degenderize Domestic Violence?
By Joseph Caputo
March 11, 2011
The Good Men Project Magazine
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/can-we-degenderize-domestic-violence/

Excerpt:

Quote
John Dias, Web developer and editor of the Misandry Review, has an encyclopedic knowledge of domestic violence policy. He has spent many hours on the subject since attending a 52-week program for batterers following what he considers an unjust accusation. He uses his expertise and plenty of data to address  injustice concerning male victims. Dias believes that if a domestic violence program receives public money, it should be gender neutral, but if his research is correct, that's the exception to the rule.

Dias believes that domestic violence programs are not transparent about their lack of services to men. When he scanned a directory of service providers, last published in 2008 by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, he found that many programs don't provide services for males past their teens. "What [domestic violence programs] don't tell you is that [the male victims they're providing for] are 16 years old and there because their mom is taken to the shelter," he said. "Because of the policy, not the demand, [men] are not going to get any help from any service provider. Your only solace will be a park bench or a friend's couch. That's the domestic violence safety net for male victims."
28
In response to this article:

"Men's rights activists: An introduction"
March 8, 2011
By Henry P. Belanger
The Good Men Project
http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/meet-the-mens-rights-movement/

Here is my comment:

______________________________________________


My name is John Dias and I am a men's rights activist.  I run a Web site called Misandry Review, which aggregates content from bloggers who are opposed to the cultural contempt for men.  My strongest area of expertise is in domestic violence, and I would now like to address the anti-male injustice of domestic violence policy and public response in this comment.  Footnotes to support my statements are displayed at the bottom.

In July 2000, the U.S. federal government commissioned a study (NCJ 181867) by feminist researchers Nancy Tjaden and Pat Thoennes which included data on domestic violence-related injuries, and they found that for every two female injury victims of male-perpetrated partner violence, there is one male injury victim of female-perpetrated partner violence [1].  That's a 2-1 ratio of female injury victims to male injury victims, which is a *significant* number of male victims.  Considering the physical differences between men and women, it's no surprise that female victims are more vulnerable to injury than male victims.  However, our society's domestic violence response toward male victims of partner violence is severely lacking.  Domestic violence shelters routinely turn away adult male victims, even though many of these shelter providers claim to "help" male victims merely because the children of the *female* victims are sometimes boys; still, a large portion of DV shelters turn away *adult* males.

How do we know this?  Well, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) publishes a thick spiral-bound guide which lists every single domestic violence service provider in the United States, and in that guide is a treasure trove of information about which services each shelter offers.  The guide also includes survey answers from the various shelters on whether they serve male victims.  The way that the NCADV asks the question is to ask for the "maximum age", if any, that male victims can utilize the shelter's services.  Some service providers answer that all males -- of any age -- receive either shelter-based services or at least hotel vouchers.  Some males are permitted if they are 12 years old or younger (but no males who are older).  Some shelters indicated that they exclude all males who are older than 14.  And some shelters indicated that they exclude *all* adult males.  These shelters can tell the world that they help male victims, but there are two things wrong with that statement:  One, the male victims are not necessarily victims of *intimate partner* violence; and two, adult males are excluded from receiving shelter services. [2] What infuriates me is that these shelters can use this faulty reasoning to get away with saying that they assist male victims, when in fact they turn away most male victims, and then they go on to testify before Congress and claim to serve all male victims in a bid to obtain federal STOP grants under the Violence Against Women Act [3].

So if male victims of female-perpetrated partner violence comprise about 1/3 of domestic violence-related injuries, yet have so few shelter-based resources to draw upon if they want to escape a toxic and violent environment, what is the alternative for them?  Our society doesn't even want to explore it.  The shelter booklet that I described above has all the data on which shelters actually DO assist male victims in the form of shelters, safehouses and hotel vouchers, but even in the Internet age they refuse to make this data available online.  They charge $49.95 for access to a hard copy of their guide. [2]  But what really makes my blood boil is that they provide their data electronically, to a Web site called Women's Law [4], and yet this Web site, WomensLaw.org, OMITS ALL OF THE DATA FROM THE NCADV SURVEY ABOUT JUST WHICH SHELTERS EXCLUDE -- OR ASSIST -- ADULT MALE VICTIMS.  The slogan on the WomensLaw.org Web site states, "Knowledge is Power."  You bet it is, and WomensLaw.org is disempowering male victims by omitting this valuable information about DV shelters that serve adult male victims. If you're an adult male victim and if you want to know which shelters will assist someone your age, you either have to (A) call around and risk rejection until you finally locate a male-friendly DV shelter, or (B) pay the NCADV 50 bucks and then wait for their guide to arrive in the mail (and possibly get intercepted by the female perpetrator, tipping her off to your intentions).

Why can't our society acknowledge the Catch-22 that adult male victims of female-perpetrated partner violence are in?  The more we assume that males are powerful, the less we want to face the vulnerabilities of men.  Male victims of female-perpetrated abuse are also constrained by their own size and strength advantages; they can't use self-protective violence specifically BECAUSE as males, they are more powerful.  This is the power of female weakness, and the weakness of male power.  And it's a horrible burden for males to bear.  What shelter can an adult male victim of female-perpetrated partner violence escape to, if not the "shelter" of an exposed park bench?

Only the men's rights movement is vociferously articulating these injustices.  If men can be injured (not just attacked) by partner violence at a rate of 32% [5] and yet receive such a pittance of the services for DV victims, what recourse is there?  Their advocates are in the men's rights movement, but scarcely elsewhere.

If anyone wants to contact me for further comment via phone or e-mail, I can be reached here:
www.misandryreview.com/?page_id=2#contact

__________________________________________

Footnotes:

1.  "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey"
by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes
July 2000, National Institutes of Justice (NCJ 181867)
URL:  www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

2.  "2008 National Directory of Domestic Violence Programs"
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)
Price (as of March 8, 2011):  $49.95
URL:  shop.ncadv.org/inc/sdetail/119

3.  Congressional testimony before U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (audio recording and transcript)
May 5, 2010
URL:  www.dvstats.org/2010-05-05-gelles-congressional-testimony.html

4.  WomensLaw.org -- State and Local Programs (Shelters)
URL:  www.womenslaw.org/gethelp_type.php?type_name=State%20and%20Local%20Programs

5.  Breakdown analysis of Tjaden and Thoennes DV survey results
By John Dias
October 1, 2010
URL:  standyourground.com/forums/index.php?topic=20319.msg213119#msg213119
29
Teacher rattles table in class, student calls 911
Associated Press
March 2, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110302/ap_on_re_us/us_teacher_table_rattling

ATHERTON, Calif. - A California school teacher was placed on paid administrative leave after he rattled a table to get the attention of his math students, startling an eighth-grade girl who used her cell phone to call police.

Atherton police Sgt. Tim Lynch tells the Palo Alto Daily News that officers went to Selby Lane School Tuesday afternoon because of reports a teacher was causing a disturbance.

Officers found a calm teacher with class in session.

The sergeant says the teacher's table-rattling startled a student and she used her cell phone to call 911. He says other students in the class weren't bothered by the teacher's actions.

Redwood City School District deputy superintendent John Baker says the teacher was placed on leave because there was a police response.
30
Main / Scholarships for males only
Mar 01, 2011, 03:20 PM
It seems that there's an organization that has cobbled together a few hundred dollars for a scholarship limited only to white males:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12672_thewhitemalesonlycollegescholarshipfund

The male-only part of the scholarship got my attention, and this is especially relevant because of declining percentages of male college enrollees and graduates.  I thought that this gender aspect was both bold and yet also economically justified since they're applying a needs test to the scholarship applicants.  But think of the firestorm that this scholarship has generated.  The media are all over the racial aspect of it, but unfortunately they are zeroing in on the racial aspect as a method of social discredidation, creating the implication that the Former Majority Association for Equality (the organization behind the scholarships) is somehow proclaiming that "privileged good ol' boys need scholarships too."  A representative with the Southern Poverty Law Center is calling the whole program a "provocation," again despite the use of means testing for the applicants.

Nevertheless, with only a $3,000 endowment and scholarship award winners each receiving only $500, this scholarship fund is getting massive publicity.  I wonder if we in the MRM might gain similar publicity if we cobbled together a similar kind of scholarship fund but for young men's advocates -- omitting any racial aspect entirely -- and require only that the scholarship applicants be male.  Just the existence of such a fund would likely still be provocative, yet in this case provocative only to feminists.  If you think that organizing such a fund might be a justified effort considering the potential PR bonanza, then please indicate as such in a comment below.  It might be worth pursuing.
31
Half of men may have HPV infections: study
By Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
February 28, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110301/hl_nm/us_cancer_vaccine

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Half of men in the general population may be infected with human papillomavirus or HPV, the human wart virus that causes cervical and other cancers, strengthening the case for vaccinating boys against HPV, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

U.S. vaccine advisers have been weighing whether boys and young men should be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, as they already recommend for girls and young women, but some worry the vaccine is too costly to justify its use.

HPV infection is best known as the primary cause of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer in women worldwide. But various strains of HPV also cause anal, penile, head and neck cancers. Vaccinating men and boys would prevent some of these cancers.

Anna Giuliano of the H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, and colleagues studied infection rates among more than 1,100 men aged 18 to 70 in the United States, Brazil and Mexico to get a snapshot of the natural progression of HPV infection in men.

"We found that there is a high proportion of men who have genital HPV infections. At enrollment, it was 50 percent," said Giuliano, whose study appears online in the journal Lancet.


The team also found that the rate at which men acquire new HPV infections is very similar to women.

And they found that about 6 percent of men per year will get a new HPV 16 infection, the strain that is known for causing cervical cancer in women and other cancers in men.

Vaccines made by Merck & Co and GlaxoSmithKline both offer protection against this strain of HPV.

"The biology seems to be very similar (to women)," Giuliano said in a telephone interview.

"What is different is men seem to have high prevalence of genital HPV infections throughout their lifespans."

She said it appears that women are better able to clear an HPV infection, especially as they age, but men do not appear to have this same ability.

Vaccine experts said the study builds momentum for widespread HPV vaccination among boys.

Currently, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Gardasil vaccinations for girls and women between the ages of 11 and 26. Gardasil had sales of more than $1 billion last year.

And while doctors are free to use the vaccine in boys and men ages 9 through 26, U.S. health officials so far have declined to recommend routine vaccination for males.

"This study highlights the high incidence of HPV infection in men, which emphasizes their role in transmission of HPV to women," Dr. Anne Szarewski of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London said in a statement.

"It must surely strengthen the argument for vaccination of men, both for their own protection, and that of their partners."

In December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Merck's Gardasil HPV vaccine for prevention of anal cancers in both men and women, based on studies showing Gardasil was effective in men who have sex with men, a group that has a higher incidence of anal cancer.

Anal cancer is one of the less common types of cancer, with an estimated 5,300 new U.S. cases diagnosed each year, but the incidence is increasing.
32
I'm speechless.

Authorities: Man persuaded moms to abuse kids
By Jeff Karoub
Associated Press
February 28, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110301/ap_on_re_us/us_online_sexual_exploitation



DETROIT - A Michigan man built an online profile posing as a good-looking single dad and caring psychologist and persuaded mothers across the country to sexually assault their children as a form of therapy, then send him the images of the attacks, authorities said Monday.

Since authorities arrested him in October, seven children were rescued and at least three mothers have been arrested. Prosecutors say all of the children are now safe.

Steven Demink, 41, of Redford Township, Mich., appeared in federal court in Detroit to enter his plea on six charges related to the sexual exploitation of children. Seven charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. He faces 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in June.

Court documents paint a picture of a man who targeted single mothers, and in some cases, promised them a date if they followed through with his directions. He would identify himself in conversations as Dalton St. Clair, a single father of a 14-year-old girl, prosecutors said, and posted pictures of male models as his headshots.

He connected with mothers in New Hampshire, Idaho, Florida and elsewhere from April 2009 until September 2010, authorities say, and got them to engage in sexual acts with their children and send images via e-mail or through a live web stream. The children ranged in age from 3 to 15.

In one case, Demink started online chats with an Oregon woman about the sexual development of her eight-year-old autistic son, according to a plea agreement. He told her to engage in sexually explicit conduct with her son as a way to teach him about sex, and she did so while Demink watched on a web camera, prosecutors say.

"Demink intimated to these women that the result of the therapy would be healthier children," the document said.

Federal agents were tipped off to his operation by the Teton County Sheriff's Office in Idaho, said Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations, which led the probe. The mother of a woman who had been chatting with him called sheriff's officials in late 2009.

The woman's mother, Eileen Schwab, said she knows little of how Demink convinced her daughter to follow his orders, but knows she "met him on the Internet and he promised her the world." Schwab said her daughter was "depressed and lonesome" after her divorce. Her daughter pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with a child under 16 in May of last year, and is currently in prison.

"I don't know how he wrangled her in," Schwab said. "She could have turned off the computer and gone the other way. He must have had a power over her."

The arrested mothers also include a woman who lived in New Hampshire when prosecutors say the crimes occurred. She pleaded guilty in December to producing child pornography, which carries a possible sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced in March. The Associated Press left a message seeking comment from Larry Dash, a federal defender representing her.

A woman from Lee County, Fla., also has pleaded not guilty to five counts and was being held without bond in Florida and faces a May trial in federal court in Fort Myers, federal defender Martin DerOvanesian said. Prosecutors say Demink also is linked to four other mothers in Indiana, Georgia, Illinois and Oregon but has not been charged with crimes related to those communications. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy said those cases are not part of the indictment but can be considered during sentencing.

The Associated Press is not naming the women to protect the identity of the children. The AP generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse.

In court on Monday, Demink told U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen he understood the charges and that he was giving up his right to a trial by pleading guilty. When Rosen asked how Demink was feeling, he said, "Nervous, your honor."

Demink told Rosen that before his arrest, he worked as a car salesman for about six months and before that for about five years at a local bank. He said he completed a U.S. Customs and Border Protection training program in 2002 and worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service for about a year.

Demink's attorney, Timothy Dinan, said his client "has expressed a lot of remorse" for what he did and has taken responsibility by pleading guilty. Dinan said Demink's parents, who were in court but declined to be interviewed, are praying for their son as well as the victims and their families.

"It's a shame he couldn't ask for help," Dinan said.
33
Article here.  This attention-starved women is seeking to provoke a fight as a method of raising her name ID.

Why Are Men So Angry?
By Kay Hymowitz
The Daily Beast
February 28, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12649_whyaremenangrymanningupauthorkayhymowitzexplains



NEW YORK - Men in their twenties and thirties are fed up with women, but author Kay Hymowitz says you can't blame them when women are demanding equality except when it comes to romance.

About a week ago, The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt of my new book,  which argued that the new stage I call pre-adulthood--the twenties and early thirties--was not bringing out the best in single young men. Some men didn't like it. As in, "cancel-my-subscription-the-writer-should-contract-such-a-bad-case-of-carpel-tunnel-syndrome-she-never-writes-again" didn't like it.

But a lot of the responses unwittingly proved my point--and another one: Men are really, really angry. Consider: "We're not STUCK in pre-adulthood, we choose it because there aren't any desirable American women. They've been bred to abuse men." This fairly typical response that appeared at the Seattle Post Intelligencer website: "Sorry ladies. In the age of PlayStation 3s, 24-hours-a-day sports channels, and free Internet porn, you are now obsolete. All that nagging, whining, and stealing our hard earned cash have finally caught up to you."

Shocked? I wasn t. During the last few years researching this age group, I've stumbled onto a powerful underground current of male bitterness that has nothing to do with outsourcing, the Mancession, or any of the other issues we usually associate with contemporary male discontent. No, this is bitterness from guys who find the young women they might have hoped to hang out with entitled, dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling--and did I mention gold-digging?

Check out the websites like names like MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), Nomarriage.com, or EternalBachelor.com ("Give Modern Women the Husband They Deserve. None."). Or read popular bloggers like the pseudonymous Roissy, a ferociously caustic dissector of female "sluttiness" and "shit tests" (attempts to manipulate men). There are dozens upon dozens of gurus and counselors who publish posts like "42 Things Wrong With American Women" while chat forums ruminate over how "American Women Suck."

Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren't so sure.

So, is this what Susan Faludi famously called the backlash? Is it immaturity, as my own book seems to suggest? Is it the Internet as an escape valve for decades of pent-up rebellion against political correctness? Or, is it just good, old-fashioned misogyny?

A bit of all of the above, probably. But there's another reason for these rants, one that is far less understood. Let's call it gender bait and switch. Never before in history have men been matched up with women who are so much their equal--socially, professionally, and sexually. By the time they reach their twenties, they have years of experience with women as equal competitors--in school, on soccer fields, and even in bed. They very reasonably assume that the women they are meeting at a bar or café or gym are after the same things they are: financial independence, career success, toned triceps, and sex.

That's the bait; here comes the switch. Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren't so sure. The might hook up as freely as a Duke athlete. Or, they might want men to play Greatest Generation gentleman. Yes, they want men to pay for dinner, call for dates--a writer at the popular dating website The Frisky titled a recent piece "Call me and ask me out for a damn date!"--and open doors for them. A lot of men wonder: "WTF??!" Why should they do the asking? Why should they pay for dinner? After all, they are equals and in any case, the woman a guy is asking out probably has more cash in her pocket than he does; recent female graduates are making more than males in most large cities.

Sure, girls can--and do--ask guys out for dinner and pick up the check without missing a beat. Women can make that choice. Men say they have no choice. If they want a life, they have to ask women out on dates; they have to initiate conversations at bars and parties, they have to take the lead on sex. Women can take a Chinese menu approach to gender roles. They can be all "Let me pay for the movie tickets" on Friday nights, and "A single rose? That's it?" on Valentine's Day.

Far worse in the bait and switch category is women's stated preference for nice guys and actual attraction to bad boys. Now, clearly this is not true for all women. Many, maybe even most, want a guy with the sweetness of a Jimmy Stewart and sensitivity of Ashley Wilkes. But enough of them are partial to the Charlie Sheens of this world that one popular dating guru, David DeAngleo, lists "Being Too Much of a Nice Guy" as No. 1 in his "Ten Most Dangerous Mistakes Men Make With Women." At a website with the evocative name Relationshit.com, ("Brutally honest dating advice for the cynical, bitter, and jaded," and sociological cousin of Dating-is-Hell.com) the most highly trafficked pages are those asking the question why women don't like good guys.

PlayStations and Internet porn? For a lot of guys, they seem like the better way.

Kay S. Hymowitz is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Her new book is Manning Up.
35
Looks like some doctrinaire feminist got to this little girl and convinced her that she is being oppressed and controlled if she exercises the privilege of being financially supported by a male breadwinner.  I hope depriving herself of the wonderful blessings of the nurturing role -- a decision made (for her) so early in life -- somehow works out for her.  I wouldn't want to be in her shoes when she reaches 35 and changes her mind about having a job but has too few marriage options anymore, bless her heart.

5 year old needs a job before getting married - funny!
36


This would be a great tool to have if you're interested in monitoring the location of your kids, while at the same time giving them the ability to contact you via cell phone from wherever they are.  It's a wristwatch, and it also contains a GPS device and even a cellphone.  It's got three preset buttons that can be pressed in order to initiate a phone call or SMS message.  As a parent, this would be a great tool to give to your kids if you're wondering where they are, because you can send a text message to the SIM card in the wristwatch, and it will automatically reply to your cellphone with an SMS message that contains the GPS coordinates of the watch (all of this, it seems, would be transparent to the person who is wearing the watch).  So the incentive for the kid to wear the watch would be the phone aspect, and the incentive for you to buy it for that kid is to be able to stay in touch with them and monitor their precise geographical coordinates.  It operates on GSM so if you're in America you'll need to use AT&T or T-Mobile.  It's essentially an unlocked phone, so it doesn't matter which of these wireless companies you choose.

http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/gps-cellphone-wrist-watch/

The above Web site, Chinavasion, is chock full of other amazing products.
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Article here, via Feminist Critics.  Spread the word, before the comment period expires on the April 4, 2011 deadline.

Help the DoJ Regulate Against Prison Rape
By Hugh Ristik
February 5, 2010
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2011/02/05/help-the-doj-regulate-against-prison-rape-rp/

The Justice Department is finally taking steps against prison rape, but they need our help.

After the harrowing publication of No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. prisons in 2001 by Human Rights Watch, lawmakers started paying increased attention to prison rape. The book-length report found that rape and other forms of sexual abuse were common in prisons, while officials often turned a blind eye, or even failed to keep track of statistics of the abuse.

No Escape was a pivotal factor for passing the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003 (PREA). The act established the elimination of prison rape as a priority, and created the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (PREC) to study the problem for the next 6 years.

So, why haven't you heard about PREA and PREC? According to Slate, "The reason you've never heard of the Prison Rape Elimination Act is probably that no one who knows our criminal justice system believes it will do much of anything to eliminate prison rape." PREA lacked concrete regulations for enforcement. PREC was a study group: the Huffington Post pointed out that, "while they study, rape continues."

PREC published its recommendations in July 2009. As Toysoldier discussed in June 2010, the DoJ missed its deadline, due to resistance from prisons. Now the DoJ is finally acting. The Washington Post writes:

Quote
Last week, the Justice Department took an important, long-overdue but still inadequate step toward fulfilling PREA's promise. In releasing draft regulations to implement the landmark legislation, the department closely tracked many of the recommendations of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, the congressionally created panel that spent some six years studying the problem. The department concluded, for instance, that PREA addresses not just rape but all manner of sexual abuse in correctional facilities - an interpretation resisted by some corrections officials. It calls for the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse; maintains prohibitions on cross-gender pat and strip searches of juveniles; requires a facility to designate an on-site PREA coordinator; and calls for background checks of prospective corrections officers to screen for past incidents of inmate abuse.


The Justice Dept.'s press release is here. Unfortunately, there still seem to be some gaps in the regulations, according to the Washington Post:

Quote
But the department punted on several crucial issues - a particularly frustrating development given that it had the benefit of a thorough and credible report from the commission. The department failed to articulate rules for independent audits of facilities and did not come to any conclusions about how often such audits should take place. (The commission recommendation: every three years.) Such evaluations are crucial in determining whether facilities are complying with the law's mandate. Perhaps one reason the Justice Department had a hard time with audits is that it also failed to specify what criteria should be used to determine whether an institution is in compliance with the law.


Since so many prison officials have shown indifference towards sexual abuse in the walls of their prisons, they must not be allowed any way wriggle out of enforcing the regulations against prison rape.

The Justice Dept. is soliciting feedback from the public, which could give us the opportunity to encourage them to make PREA properly enforceable:

Quote
DATES: Written comments must be postmarked on or before April 4, 2011, and electronic comments must be sent on or before midnight Eastern time April 4, 2011.

ADDRESSES: To ensure proper handling of comments, please reference "Docket No. OAG-131" on all written and electronic correspondence. Written comments being sent via regular or express mail should be sent to Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Room 4252, Washington, DC 20530. Comments may also be sent electronically through http://www.regulations.gov using the electronic comment form provided on that site. An electronic copy of this document is also available at the http://www.regulations.gov Web site. The Department will accept attachments to electronic comments in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Adobe PDF, or Excel file formats only. The Department will not accept any file formats other than those specifically listed here.


To find out how to comment on the regulations, see the document on the regulations website. They have a comment form. Comments are public record, but it looks like many of the fields asking for personal information are not required (note which fields will be viewable online).

Please send this information to anyone who might be interested, or blog about it yourself. Also, if anyone can point out any additional areas for improvement in the regulations, that would be very useful, so we can know what to suggest to the DoJ.
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Super Bowl-domestic violence myth persists
By Caroline May
The Daily Caller
February 1, 2011
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/01/super-bowl-domestic-violence-myth-persists/



Though long ago debunked, the myth that more women fall victim to domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday still persists -- ironically, according to some experts, to the detriment of women.

The myth dates back to 1993 when, like a game of telephone, anecdotal evidence became conflated into a statistical fact parroted throughout the media without confirmation. That year, The Associated Press and CBS labeled Super Bowl Sunday a "day of dread" for women across the country. Women advocates spoke of a "flood" of calls to domestic abuse hot lines and media mailings warned women "Don't remain at home with him during the game."

Christina Hoff Sommers, American Enterprise Institute resident scholar and equity feminist, tracked the rumor from its inception and, along with such journalists as Washington Post reporter Ken Ringle, demonstrated that despite the hysteria, women have never been in any greater danger on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day.

Sommers explained to The Daily Caller that while such dramatizations may serve a purpose for some activists, domestic violence is too serious a problem for such exaggerations and opportunism.

"Women who are at risk for domestic violence are going to be helped by state of the art research and good information," she said. "They are not going to be helped by hyperbole and manufactured data."

For just those reasons, Philip W. Cook, an investigative journalist affiliated with Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), told TheDC that domestic violence is a topic that often requires a great deal of fact-checking.

"There are more myths, misinformation and half truths about [domestic violence] than any other significant social issue," Cook said. "So this is simply part and parcel of a tremendous amount of myths, misinformation and half truths that get accepted without critical journalistic thinking and inquiry."

Propagation of such fallacies such as the "Super Bowl hoax" helps perpetuate negative stereotypes, said Sommers.

"If you look at these myths they almost all promote this idea that women are victims and men are brutes. The 'Super Bowl hoax,' for example, depicts the average guy sitting in his couch watching the Super Bowl as a violent predator and I think this promotes prejudice," Sommers said. "This view has been popular among hard line gender activists who want to depict masculinity as pathological."

One of Cook's concerns has been the manner in which false data inform policy makers and the harm it can cause for real victims.

"[The myths] translate into public policy that directly affects people's lives," Cook said, pointing to ineffectual programs and agencies. "When it comes to domestic violence policy, there is more misinformation out there and in particular the media tends to accept it without any scrutiny."

While some may view America as a patriarchal nightmare, by comparison to much of the rest of the world, it is an oasis of gender equality. According to Sommers, such falsehoods work to harm America's reputation.

"These false claims about violence make our society look dangerous for women, when in fact American society...is a place where women have achieved great success stories for feminism," said Sommers. "In Pakistan and Iran they will defend their societies by saying women are imperiled in the West, that ...women are beaten -- especially Super Bowl Sunday! -- there can be no distinction between women who are free and are oppressed.
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Teacher who advises colleagues on how to avoid affairs with students caught having sex with 16-year-old boy from her school
January 31, 2011
By Paul Thompson
London Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352063/Teacher-advises-colleagues-avoid-affairs-students-caught-having-sex-16-year-old-boy-school.html


Caught in the act:
Courtney Bowles, 31, was discovered
in the back seat of her car with a
16-year-old boy


A teacher who advises colleagues on how to avoid affairs with students was caught having sex with a teenager in the back of her car.

Courtney Bowles was found by a police officer naked lying on top of the boy, who was also completely naked, from her school in Colorado.

A partly consumed bottle of vodka was also found in the car with the couple.

Her student lover initially said he was 20 years old - but later admitted he was 16.

Bowles,31,was employed at his school as a teacher's instructional coach. It was her job to trains teachers on how to maintain a professional distance from students.

Unfortunately for the teacher, the evidence of her dalliance with the student was rather overwhelming when a police patrol spotted a lone car parked in a park in the town of Loveland.

When an officer shone his torch into the car he saw they were having sex.

According to an arrest report the officer wrote: 'The female was on top of the male and she quickly jumped off of the male when she saw my flashlight shining into the vehicle.

'I told both subjects that I could see they were naked and they needed to get dressed and talk to me.'

Mother of two: Bowles, who faces up to 10 year in jail if convicted, is on $50,000 bail - but cannot approach anyone under the age of 18, including her own children


Awaiting hearing: Bowles faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of charges relating to the sexual assault of a child


Investigators said the boy initially told the officer he was 20 years old, but when asked for identification he produced a school ID card that showed him to be 16.

The officer also found a bottle of vodka inside the vehicle.

Bowles, a mother of two, was booked into the Larimer County Detention Centre on charges of sexual assault, sex assault of a child by a person in a position of trust and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

She was released on $50,000 bail but not allowed contact with anyone aged under 18 years of age, including her own children - both girls.

Counsellors were called into the Mountain View High School where she worked to help any children troubled by the arrest.

She faces up to ten years in jail if convicted of all the offences and placed on a sex offenders register for life.
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California is currently accepting comments for review of the state's child support guidelines.  The commenting deadline is Friday, January 28, 2011 at 5:00 pm.  



Check out my letter below to the California Judicial Council, which I submitted today (January 25, 2011) through their Web page form.  In it, I criticized the misleading nature of California form FL-150 (Income and Expense Declaration), which seems to trick child support obligors into not claiming a genuinely valid deduction that would lower their child support obligation, namely the health care premiums and uninsured health expenses that the obligor pays for his *personal* health coverage, distinct from the premiums that are paid to cover the child.  The form actually uses bold type letters on the final page of the PDF to emphasize that only the amounts paid for the child's health premiums (not the adult's too) may be factored in, contrary to State law (namely family code 4059[d], which I quote in my letter below).

_______________________________________________________________________


To the Judicial Council of the State of California:

I am writing about the poor and misleading design of California's Family Law form #150 (FL-150), which I believe induces obligors to pay higher amounts in child support than they actually owe.  The form implies that the *personal* health expenses of the child support obligor are not eligible to be counted as a deduction for the purpose of calculating child support.  This likely creates an assumption by many child support obligors that their own personal health care premiums and expenses (i.e. health premiums for the adult parent's health coverage, distinct from the premiums paid for covering the child) must be paid completely independent of their child support obligation, and as a consequence such obligors are saddled with artificially high child support orders.

Here is the relevant section of the state family code.  As you can see, the health premiums for the parent -- and not just those for the child -- are to be factored in as deductions in the calculation of child support:

[font=Verdana]CALIFORNIA FAMILY CODE
Section 4059.  The annual net disposable income of each parent shall be computed by deducting from his or her annual gross income the actual amounts attributable to the following items or other items permitted under this article:
(d) Deductions for health insurance or health plan premiums FOR THE PARENT and for any children the parent has an obligation to support and deductions for state disability insurance premiums.
[/font]



Below are the relevant portions of the form FL-150, Income and Expense Declaration.  The URL to the form on the state Web site is displayed here:

Income and Expense Declartion (form FL-150):
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/forms/documents/fl150.pdf

Below, you'll see that the phrase "total monthly amount" is used, but doesn't specify whether the so-called total should omit or include the parent's health care premiums; it's vague.  An obligor could plausibly infer that this item refers to the total monthly amount that he or she pays specifically for the child's health care premiums only, rather than those of the parent too.

[font=Verdana]Page 2:
10. Deductions
* c. Medical, hospital, dental, and other health insurance premiums (total monthly amount)[/font]
[/size]

Again, in another section the phrase "average monthly expenses" is used, but vaguely doesn't mention that the parent's health care premiums should be included within this figure:

[font=Verdana]Page 3:
13. Average monthly expenses
* b. Health-care costs not paid by insurance[/font]
[/size]

Page 4 is the key page in factoring in child support; it is specifically entitled "Child Support Information," implying that whatever deductions are claimed here are specific to the formula calculation whereas the preceding pages are not.  Notice that the only way that a parent could claim his personal health care premiums on this page is to utilize the last item that mentions "extreme financial hardship."  Since when is it an "extreme" circumstance for a parent merely to insure himself?  The alarmist language presents a significant disincentive for an obligor to specify his own personal health care premiums in this section, and as a consequence his child support obligation is likely to be calculated at an excessively high figure (in violation of the Family Code 4059(d) that I quoted above).

Notice also that the word "children's" is used exclusively, and is actually intentionally singled out in the form by being BOLDED in the printed form's text (the bolded portion is shown below, on item 17d, in capital letters)!  The use of bold letters in the form itself is a glaring subtlety, indicating a poorly-designed (and apparently intentionally misleading) form:

[font=Verdana]Page 4
Items 16-20:  "Child Support Information"

17. Children's health-care expenses
* d. The monthly cost for the [/font]
[/size][font=Verdana]CHILDREN'S[/font][/u][/size][font=Verdana] health insurance is or would be (specify): $______

18.  Additional expenses for the children in this case
* b. Children's health care not covered by insurance: $______

19.  Special hardships.  I ask the court to consider the following special financial circumstances:
* a. Extraordinary health expenses not included in 18b: $______
- The expenses listed in a, b, and c create an extreme financial hardship because (explain):[/font]
[/size]

Again, why should the state's form so thoroughly emphasize only the health premiums and uninsured expenses for the children, while implying that any mention of the parent's health premiums and expenses should be considered so "extraordinary" that they somehow represent an "extreme financial hardship," requiring the parent to "explain" them?  Isn't it normal for a parent to insure himself?  Isn't it in the child's best interest for the parent to have health coverage for himself?

California's FL-150 Income and Expense Declaration form is sorely misleading, inadequate, and in direct contravention of the state's Family Code section 4059(d).  The parent's personal health care premiums and uninsured expenses should absolutely be included as a deduction in the state's formula for calculating child support, and I suspect that this form is causing too many parents to unwittingly be obligated to pay more child support than they actually owe under state law.