A man is supposed to take care of his children. If he gets a woman pregnant, he’s expected to step up and take responsibility. But what if that man discovers that the child he thought was his own — the kid he read to, cuddled and tucked in at night — is another man’s? Then who is responsible for the kid — the biological father or the nurturing adoptive dad? That is the quandary increasingly being raised by DNA tests. As Ruth Padawer writes in a fascinating cover story for the upcoming New York Times Magazine, the rise of paternity tests — bought on the cheap online or at local drug stores — have revealed “just how murky society’s notions of fatherhood actually are.”

Mike L., the lead subject in Padawer’s piece, found evidence of his wife’s affair with a coworker and decided to have L., his 5-year-old daughter, take a DNA test. The results arrived in the mail: He was not the father. “I ran upstairs, locked myself in the bathroom and cried and dry-heaved for 45 minutes. I felt like my guts were being ripped out,” he says. Mike separated from his wife, Stephanie, and began paying her child support because, he says, she claimed Rob, L.’s bio-dad, had refused. Things continued on this way for several years, until he got news that Stephanie would be marrying Rob, and that was too much to bear. He asked a Pennsylvania court to relieve him of parental responsibility, but a judge ruled that Mike was the legal father, not Rob.

Continue reading @salon.com…

The victim, 52-year-old assistant sub-inspector Balwant Pawar, sustained 85 per cent burns and is admitted to Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad. Ironically, the incident took place on International Men’s Day.

According to police, Pawar had a tiff with his wife over some petty issue on Wednesday night when he returned home. Irked over this, she poured kerosene over him and set him on fire, they said.

Pawar was working with the MIDC Cidco police station. The Begampura police have registered a case and are investigating further.

source: The Deccan Chronicle: ASI set on fire by wife on Int’l Men’s Day

The group stored the fat it collected in used soda and water bottles, which police showed reporters.

“We have people detained who have declared and stated how they murdered people with the aim being to extract their fat in rudimentary labs and sell it,” said Police Commander Angel Toldeo.

Police said they were investigating 60 disappearances in the area that might be linked to the gang.

full article here.

Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection,” Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.

In the Philippines, small brothels usually pop up near the coastal areas where many women perform sexual services for transient seafarers. Often, these prostitutes are ferried to bigger ships by their pimps.

*snip*

The UNFPA noted that the temperature in the earth’s surface has risen 0.74 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years. The 10 warmest years globally since 1880 have also been recorded in the last 13 years.

“Slower population growth, for example, would help build social resilience to climate change’s impacts and would contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gas-emissions in the future,” the UNFPA report said.

The UNFPA suggested five measures to mitigate climate change and overpopulation:

* Bring a better understanding of population dynamics, gender and reproductive health to climate change and environmental discussions at all levels;

* Fully fund family planning services and contraceptive supplies within the framework of reproductive health and rights, and assure that low income is no barrier to access;

* Prioritize research and date collection to improve the understanding of gender and population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation;

* Improve sex-disaggregation of date related to migration flows that are influenced by environmental factors and prepare now for increases in population movements resulting from climate change; and

* Integrate gender considerations into global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

–JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE, GMANews.TV

full source: GMANews.TV

Related: It’s not about the sins of sex, but for women to control their lives – UN official

Kevin Ballard is No. 943 at Arrowhead Stadium, but you won’t see him on the field. He works as a security guard, which is one of several odd jobs he has to support his three children.

“I’ve worked at jobs to where I had to shovel human poop at waste plants, ya know, to provide for my kids, so I’d do anything for my kids,” he said. “I’ve been working since I was 16 years old.”

Being a dad to three children is a responsibility he takes seriously, especially because he never had a father while growing up.

“Everybody grew up with a dad,” Ballard said. “I mean, basically I didn’t, but I mean everybody else grew up with a real dad to take them to ball games, cut their hair, to do whatever.”

So when Ballard was told eight years ago that he was the father of a child he did what he believed was right and began paying child support. In fact, most of his paycheck goes to paying child support for his four children — only three of whom are biologically his.

“I never got a subpoena to go to court, so I was just declared the father by default,” he said.

read the full article here.

Why Men’s Welfare:

Ask someone about the problems of women and a list would emerge that would never seem to end. Ask about men’s problems and all one sees is blank faces. Does that mean that men do not have any problems? Or is it that there is no awareness for the same, as mirrored in the statement – “Absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence.”?

1. If we look back, in the last 62 years of Indian Independence not a single rupee has ever been allocated for men’s welfare from the Union Budget.
2. Not a single constitutional or quasi-constitutional body ever been formed to study men’s issues.
3. Not a single study otherwise also ever been conducted targeted to study men’s issues.
4. Not a single scheme ever been envisaged for men’s welfare.

Hence, in the backdrop of this emptiness, the Government and the society have absolutely no Locus-Standi to deny accepting men’s issues or avoid addressing them. And it is this emptiness which has led to the formation of AIMWA, to study men’s issues and demand for a National Commission for Men and Men’s Welfare Ministry.

Men and their identity:

Today, expectations from men have skyrocketed and acceptance levels for them have nosedived. In fact, there is no limitation to expectations from men and no acceptance of their limitations.

Today men are expected to,

1. Take care of extended families of parents, siblings, wife, in-laws and provide for them,
2. Take huge financial burdens and risks by undertaking various kinds of loans like home loan, car loan, education loan for siblings to name a few.
3. Undertake the primary financial responsibility of the house even if the wife is well-qualified, well-earning and capable to share the financial load.
4. Sponsor the education of young in-laws and their expensive visas and foreign degrees.
5. Bow down before their wives or face Legal Terrorism viz. misuse of Section 498A and Domestic Violence Act.
6. Act as FREE ATM MACHINES and SPERM DONORS.

And not only for the above, men have been expected to undertake the most risky and laborious jobs since time immemorial and also have been expected to be the de-facto PROTECTOR as well. It is not unusual to expect a 10 years old male child to escort and protect 30 years old able-bodied female aunty and it is also not unusual to expect a young boy to take charge when some monkey enters a household in rural areas.

However, at the same time, the de-facto protector is left unprotected with no protection available to him. Additionally, men are emotionally castrated right from the age of 6 as they are discouraged from expressing their pains and feelings. Dialogues like, “Do not cry like a girl”, “Be a man” are quite normal for the society to a 6 year old boy whose psyche and identity is just evolving. And the impact of these statements is so deep that the boy develops a fear of self-expression and remains numb to abuse the rest of his life.

As a result, men are finding emotional confrontations extremely painful when they grow up and most men contemplate suicidal tendencies during emotional turmoil in their relationship and a reasonable percentage of them actually commit suicide. The same is corroborated by suicide statistics,

• 2005: 52583 married men committed suicide vis-à-vis 28188 married women.
• 2006: 55452 married men committed suicide vis-à-vis 29869 married women.
• 2007: 57593 married men committed suicide vis-à-vis 30064 married women.

Other than these, men face domestic violence from their wives and in-laws in the form of physical, emotional, mental, verbal and economic abuse. Added to this neither the society (including psychologists and marriage counselors) provides these men with any communication channel nor does the Government offer any legal relief.

Some other forms of harassment and discrimination faced by men,

1. Men pay more taxes than women at the same salary level.
2. Men are provided no protection against sexual harassment at workplace and against rape.
3. Men do not have the choice of being a domestic engineer, social engineer or into creative paths. Irrespective of his likes and willingness a man is forced to don the role of the breadwinner for the family or else face a social death.
4. Men are not accepted by the society the way they are; as human beings.
5. Men are not provided with a communication channel – a channel that listens to them without invalidating their feelings or justifying their problems.
6. No schemes are being furthered either by the Government or eminent social celebrities for boys the way they are happening for girls. This has led to more boys dropping out of school as per various media reports. Ultimately the boys are left under-trained to satiate the expectations as they grow up to be men and are developing resenting feelings towards the society which is leading to a lot of socio-legal problems.
7. There is no concept of MEN’s RIGHTS, only RESPONSIBILITIES and DUTIES are there in store for them.

National Commission for Women – The Enemy in the veil:

Very recently, in the case of alleged complaint of sexual harassment by an airhostess of Air India, it was clearly observed that the air-hostess had violated the rules of Air India and entered the cockpit when she was not supposed to and later on, she filed a false complaint of sexual harassment against the innocent pilots. Though innocent, the pilots were forced to take a bail, following an arrest, due to adverse media hype given to the case and unethical handling of the issue by the National Commission for Women (NCW) – the hotbed of male hatred.

Also, on the 12th of October 2009, the NCW proposed radical and vicious recommendations in Section 125 CrPC (maintenance for wife, children and parents) asking for “maintenance to adulterous wives” and forcing man to pay maintenance “irrespective of his sufficient means”.

Despite the fact that in rape and dowry cases, the testimony of the complainant is given a very high priority the NCW demands for death penalty in the two cases. On the other hand, at the same time the NCW is not ready to address the issue of Domestic Violence faced by unmarried daughters from their parents and by elderly mothers-in-law from their daughters-in-law.

It is very clear that under the barb and paradoxical veil of “Women Empowerment”, the NCW is perpetrating male-hatred and is working like a “National Commission against Men” instead of “National Commission for Women”.

On the occasion of 19th November the INTERNATIONAL MEN’s DAYn AIMWA places the following of its demands from the Government and the society:

1. Form National Commission for Men to study issues of men and provide the Government with recommendations for Men’s welfare.
2. Institute Men’s Welfare Ministry that will implement the recommendations of the National Commission for Men on behalf of the Government.
3. Abolish all anti-male gender biased laws.
4. Close down the National Commission for Women.
5. Rationalize the tax provisions to make them gender neutral.
6. Form welfare schemes for boys and girls unilaterally.
7. Form an ombudsman to regulate the anti-male quotient in media, television and films.
8. Allow single adult men to adopt children before the age of 30.
9. Do not force men to don the role of the breadwinner against their wish and give them a choice about their life.
10. Address health issues of men like prostate cancer, short life expectancy, high suicide rates, etc with seriousness.
11. Government should urge the private sector to come up with Health Products specifically targeted to diseases affecting men in large numbers.
12. The World Economic Forum should start recognizing men as human beings as well as study and publish Gender Index of Men besides that for women alone.

AIMWA aims to work for men’s welfare and urge the Government and the society to take serious note of the problems of men.

All India Men’s Welfare Association, Bangalore

Save India Family Foundation
www.saveindianfamily.org

As Washington continues debating healthcare reform the rest of the country is primarily concerned about jobs and the economy. It is still uncertain what policies will be implemented, but I am certain about one thing: It will only further devastate our economy and our dollar.

The leadership has come up with a proposal they are confident will be what they consider fiscally responsible, only to have it scored as nearly twice as expensive by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Estimates of past healthcare spending programs have been off by as much as 100 percent so there is no telling what the actual cost will be.

The past century should have taught us one thing: that government intervention is expensive. Government programs lend themselves so easily to waste, fraud and abuse. Combine that with overall inefficiency and it all adds up to a hefty price tag for the taxpayer, with not much leftover for actual services. An outright takeover of an entire sector of the economy, especially one as important as healthcare, is something that we just cannot afford for the government to do right now. Not to mention the fact that it is completely unconstitutional. But Washington insists on torturing the numbers and tinkering around the edges rather than facing this truth.

If healthcare reform does indeed pass, we should not be under the illusion that it will be free. The money to pay for it will have to come from somewhere. They say they will get the money from cutting waste, fraud and abuse, but all of that is seemingly intrinsic to government programs. Since they want to expand the government’s reach we have to assume we will be trading waste, fraud and abuse for waste, fraud and abuse with a bigger budget. The powers that be have insisted the money won’t come from higher taxes, it won’t come from rationing of care, and it won’t come from higher premiums. This can only then put more pressure on the Fed to print the money out of thin air. We already have a weakening dollar. They are accelerating everything that weakened it in the past. Adding this new, monumental pressure could very well be the straw that will break the dollar’s back.

Foreign creditors are already nervous about continuing to invest in the US because of our skyrocketing debt. The explosion of debt that is certain to accompany the enactment of this national health care bill can only add to that nervousness.

Ironically, enactment of the health care bill could help the cause of liberty by hastening the day when Congress is forced by economic circumstances to stop increasing the welfare-warfare state and return to the Constitution.

There are many problems with our current healthcare system, to be sure. There are many tragic stories to be told. However, we need to look at the root of our problems in order to address them properly. More government intervention and bureaucracy injected into healthcare will take a flawed system and make immeasurably worse.

on the web @ ronpaul.com

Feminists have exercised nearly unfettered control of Congress’ social policy philosophy since the creation of the Great Society. That arrangement, designed to help a few women in trouble, evolved into an industry executing the feminist goal of destroying marriage. The ever-escalating demands to entitle non-marriage and out-of-wedlock procreation never end.

Full article at worldnetdaily.com

Count Trista Joy Lathern’s husband and co-workers among those who now feel misled and betrayed by her alleged pretense that she had breast cancer and was undergoing the rigors of chemotherapy.

Lathern, 24, formerly of Robinson, was arrested Wednesday on theft by deception charges after authorities say she lied about her medical condition, watched as friends raised $10,000 for her at a benefit and then reportedly spent the proceeds on breast-augmentation surgery.

Lathern, who remains free on bail, was arrested again Friday morning on a 2-year-old misdemeanor warrant charging her with theft by check. The warrant was issued in May 2007 in her maiden name, Trista Joy Fabianke, and county jail officials let her bond out Wednesday without realizing there was another warrant for her arrest.

Read the full report here.

Transcript:

Ron Paul: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier this year, Secretary Geithner had an interview and he said that the main source of our problem with this economic crisis was that we kept interest rates too low too long. And I certainly agree with him on that. And I also agree with the authors of this bill that we don’t have enough regulations. But that doesn’t mean that I endorse the notion that we need more bureaucrats and more written regulations of that sort.

A lot of people think that if you don’t support the bureaucratic approach, that you don’t endorse regulations. But the free market provides a lot of regulations and those who the regulations that we have ignored, as a matter of fact we have actually allowed them to go forward. A major regulation we should have is “always enforce contracts.” The government has a responsibility to ensure contracts are enforced.

But also the issue of fraud. Just because we are unregulated in the sense of not having bureaucrats do it, it does not mean that fraud should be tolerated. And yet now it’s coming out that companies like Goldman Sachs may well have been involved in something that could be construed as fraud. They were selling AAA securities – the credit default swaps – and at the same time they were shorting the market. They knew there was a housing bubble, but they were telling their investors that they had these wonderful bonds to buy. Now that, to me, is fraud. And that should be handled by people like this going to prison. But there are free market alternatives to pretending that every single transaction and almost preemptively prevent things. To me it’s sort of like trying to protect against slander from anybody saying or writing anything that harms somebody. We don’t believe in that. If somebody commits it then we, of course, penalize them for it. But in the marketplace we assume that we can preempt it, we can have prior restraint, and that’s where the chaos comes from. So, in that sense, I don’t believe in prior restraint. The people in the media have their limits; they cannot lie and they cannot get away with defaming people.

But this “too low and too long” on the interest rates, I think, is the key to it. The free market explains the business cycle better than anybody else. Because they understand that the cycles come from artificially low interest rates. So Geithner admits they were too low too long. The reason why this is so damaging is that the interest rate level is key; it’s key to the investor. It’s key to the developer and the builder. If the interest rates are low, the signal that they’re hearing is that there is a lot of savings, and therefore there is capital available to them. But we went through a period of them when there was zero savings and interest rates were low. So it was very confusing. The savers don’t save anymore because there are so called too much savings. At the same time the developers and builders think, “Hey, there is a lot of capital out there”. But it really wasn’t capital; it was artificial. It was credit created out of thin air and it was a fraudulent approach to the issue of providing capital. And someday we’ll get to that. We’re not going to get to that whole idea in this bill because that deals with monetary policy and understanding of how that system works.

But systemic risk is very, very serious and it is the nature of money that creates the systemic risk that we’re trying to deal with. The Federal Reserve came into existence in 1913 and they were given a dollar that was worth 1/20th of an ounce of gold. Today it’s worth 1/1100th of an ounce of gold. Which means that our measuring stick is unstable; it continually loses value. And you can’t build a healthy economy domestically, or especially internationally, if that dollar or that currency becomes the reserve standard of the world. And we’re doing this constantly. Right now it’s not only the Fed’s fault; we’ve run up the deficits. There is a limit to what we can tax, there is a limit to what we can borrow. And at the same time we turn it over to the Fed and the Fed prints the money and artificially lowers interest rates, and that is where the systemic risk comes from.

So someday we’ll have to address that subject of exactly where this comes from. I will offer my amendment, which is the HR1 207, dealing with the Federal Reserve, but that deals only with transparency and we have broad bi-partisan support for this bill and I hope there will be a consensus on supporting that bill.

Thank you very much.

Transcript:

Bill Dod: If Obama doesn’t deliver change, the U.S. still has other potential candidates eager to lead the country. And one of them is Republican Ron Paul, who is poised to run for the presidency in 2012. Let’s now cross to Priya Sridhar, she’s in our Washington studio. Interestingly enough, Pria, Ron Paul hasn’t actually yet announced he is running for this, so why have supporters already started his campaign at such an early stage?

Priya Sridhar: That’s right Bill, nothing is official just yet. But if you go to Ron Paul’s website there is a question there that says, “Do you think Ron Paul should run for President in 2012?” and you can even buy “Ron Paul for President” merchandise. So people are getting pretty psyched for the 2012 election, even though it’s kind of far away.

And joining me to help talk about Ron Paul’s popularity is Shelly Roche from the Ladies for Liberty Alliance. Shelly, thanks so much for joining me.

Shelly Roche: Thanks for having me.

Priya Sridhar: So, first of all, why do you think Ron Paul is becoming so popular right now?

Shelly Roche: Well, I think it’s a number of factors. But really when you look at the direction we are going as a country and all of these big frightening things that are happening like the bailouts and the economy and health care, you know, he’s kind of the one voice of reason that’s standing up and saying, “We don’t need all of this. We do have other options”. And he is always making sense, and I think that really resonates with people.

Priya Sridhar: And what do you think? You think he is going to run for office in 2012? I have a feeling you’re hoping he will, but do you think he actually will?

Shelly Roche: I definitely hope he will and I think he recognizes that it would be a smart move to at least position himself to do that, because that’s really what launched him back in 2008 into the media and got him a lot of momentum. And so I think this is another big opportunity for him to kind of capitalize on that and just go for it and set himself up to do it, and we’ll see what happens.

Priya Sridhar: So he is becoming more popular. But realistically do you think he has a chance and what are some of the challenges he might face?

Shelly Roche: Well, I think he has a better chance than he had last year. One of the biggest challenges he is going to face is resistance from within the Republican Party, because he’s kind of at cross purposes with them in some of their platform items. And in trying to reform the Republican Party he’s going to meet with a lot of resistance. So I think his message resonates with Republicans and Democrats and it’s really he’s going to have to overcome that kind of obstacle.

Priya Sridhar: And what idea, specifically, do you think resonates the most with the American people that Ron Paul sort of stands for and advocates?

Shelly Roche: Well, I think it is the economic freedom, the fiscal responsibility and just ending corruption and the entrenched “politics as usual” kind of system. He doesn’t play that game and he kind of brings a new perspective to politics and what it can be. So I think that really gets people excited.

Priya Sridhar: And do you think his popularity right now is a direct correlation of President Obama’s kind of sliding approval ratings, or do you think that people are just looking for something that’s a little different?

Shelly Roche: I think it’s a combination. I think the degree to which we’ve started expanding government and really the debt and the economy has really contributed to people starting to think about that maybe this isn’t the right direction. And so that certainly helps. But also it’s just kind of… he has a totally different perspective, he has a consistent voting record. He’s been in politics forever, so he kind of offers that assurance that he is not going to succumb to special interests and that sort of thing. He’s representing the people and always doing what he thinks is best for the country whether you agree with it all the time or not. At least you have that.

Priya Sridhar: And how do you think the country would be different right now if Ron Paul was President and not Barack Obama?

Shelly Roche: Wow, I think there are so many ways. We wouldn’t be talking about health care the way we are. We’d be talking about different kinds of reforms. So maybe smaller steps that are more practical and limiting the size of government, getting rid of wasteful programs, real reform, not just the kind of reform that expands government and costs trillions of dollars.

Priya Sridhar: And the last think I want to ask you really quickly is, you know, a year ago today Barack Obama found out that he was elected as the President of the United States. How do you think things have changed from a year ago till today?

Shelly Roche: Well, you can look at the approval ratings and that sort of thing, but something I saw online last night and today, they were asking people to submit one word to describe how they felt about the first year of the presidency. And the Republicans, you can guess what they can say: “outraged, betrayed, scared”. But on the Democrats’ side they were saying things like “hopeful” and the things you would expect. But they were also saying “disappointed, anxious” and I think that really is a barometer of the way people are kind of starting to feel a little bit nervous that he has not really delivered on his promises so far and some of that support is waning I think.

Priya Sridhar: Well, I think there are a lot of people out there like Shelly who will anxiously be waiting to see what happens with Ron Paul next. But for now, Bill, it’s back to you.

Bill Dod: Thanks very much indeed. That was our correspondent Priya [Sridhar] talking to you with Shelly Rose from the libertarian organization, the Ladies of Liberty Alliance, live in our Washington studio. Thanks very much indeed, Priya.

WORLDWIDE OBSERVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY, THURSDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2009 BY MEN AND FATHERS, MEN’S GROUPS, FATHERHOOD ORGANIZATIONS, AND FATHERHOOD PRACTITIONERS.

AUSTRALIA – 6 NOVEMBER 2009 — Men and Fathers, Men’s Groups, Fatherhood Practitioners, and Fatherhood organizations throughout our global village will observe International Men’s Day on Thursday, 19 November 2009.   Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Australia, India, United States, Singapore, United Kingdom, Malta, South Africa, Georgia, New Zealand, Moldova, Germany, Holland and Brazil are a sample of the nations around the globe that are planning activities on International Men’s Day 2009 which will honor the selfless sacrifices of men and celebrate men’s invaluable contributions to families, communities, and society.

International Men’s Day is a call for international collaboration to address the challenges and problems men face; improving gender relations between men and women; promoting gender equality; highlighting positive male role models – not just movie stars and athletes – but “everyday working class men who are living decent, honest lives”; and creating a safer and better world.  Dr Jerome Teelucksingh, a University of West Indies History Lecturer, conceived and coordinated the first celebration of International Men’s Day in Trinidad and Tobago on 19 November 1999.  Dr. Teelucksingh selected 19 November 1999 as the date for celebrating International Men’s Day because it coincided with his father’s birthday, whom he felt was an excellent male role model, and also because it was the day in which the football team in his country created a level of unity which crossed gender, religious and ethnic divisions.

When asked to comment on International Men’s Day, Dr Teelucksingh, the founder, said:  “I realized there was no day for men… some have said that there is Father’s Day, but what about young boys, teenagers and men who are not fathers? The theme for the worldwide observance of International Men’s Day 2009 is ‘Positive Male Role Models’.  The theme for the 2010 worldwide observation of International Men’s Day will be ‘Unity’.”

Uma Challa is the International Men’s Day Coordinator for India. She stated:  “The inseparability of the male and female entities in the Universe is represented by Ardhanareeswara, who embodies both male & female in Indian culture. This representation indicates that while both the female and male forms have their own individual identities and strengths, they are still interdependent and complementary and, it is only by combining their individual strengths that they are able to create and nurture life in the Universe. International Women’s Day is celebrated the world over every year. We also need to have a celebration every year to recognize and honor men; our fathers, brothers, partners, sons, male friends and colleagues; for the numerous services they render and the innumerable sacrifices they make to ensure the health and well-being of the family and the society.”

Warwick Marsh from Australia’s Dads4Kids and the Global Coordinator for International Men’s Day shared his thoughts about the 19 November 2009 worldwide celebration of Men’s Day:   “It is my hope that International Men’s Day will be the catalyst for men, Men’s Groups, Fatherhood Practitioners, fatherhood organizations, women, social entrepreneurs, church leaders, health care professionals and providers, legal professionals, legislators, law enforcement professionals, social services professionals and providers, educators, academic and religious institutions, and businesses to begin working together in the spirit of collaboration and with a ‘sense of oneness’ to create, share, and implement key ‘pieces of the puzzle’ to resolving the critical state of affairs of men’s health and to create resources and support services that effectively address the unique health and fathering needs of men.   Every idea is important.  Every voice must be heard. Together we can make a difference.”

Jason Thompson from Australia and the Global Promotions Coordinator for International Men’s Day made the following comment:  “International Men’s Day  is a day to celebrate all positive examples of men and boys, those people we can look up to and ultimately emulate such as school prefects, academic achievers, political leaders, champions of the environment, and those more humble males who on a daily basis clean our streets, build our houses, fix our cars, police our streets, care for children, and dedicate themselves to others.  Blogs, forums and resources are found on the internationalmensday.com website, available for your use. Please download logos and posters for your event. I would like to take this opportunity to ask individuals and organizations who have an event planned or are in the process of planning an event for International Men’s Day to contact me with the details so that we can publicize your efforts.  I can be reached by email at:  hippolytus_101@yahoo.com.au ”

Diane A Sears, the International Men’s Day Coordinator for the United States of America offered the following statement about the 19 November 2009 worldwide observance of International Men’s Day:   “I share Warwick Marsh’s sentiment that we all have key ‘pieces of the puzzle’ to addressing and resolving the unique parenting and health issues of Men from all Walks of Life throughout our global village.  We must work together as a team.  International Men’s Day provides us with a great opportunity ‘to begin to work together in a ‘spirit of collaboration’ and a ‘sense of oneness’ . . . to share our ideas, form strategic alliances, and create and implement resources and support services that will strengthen fathers from all walks of life throughout our global village.  Strong fathers create and sustain efficiently functioning family units. Efficiently functioning family units positively shape the minds and souls of our children – our future – our bridge to the future.  After all, isn’t it really about our children?”

For more information about the observance of International Men’s Day on 19 November 2009, visit International Men’s Day website at  www.InternationalMensday.com.

People accused of domestic violence have a lot to lose. Not just their freedom, but the right to even visit their children.

That was the scenario for a Stamford man who was arrested two years ago for allegedly assaulting his wife. She said he threw her down a flight of stairs and kicked her in the head, all in front of their two toddlers.

But the defendant, Fernando A., whose full name is not released in court records, said the two were divorcing and his wife fabricated the attack story to gain leverage in family court proceedings. Fernando A., however, never got a chance after his arraignment to object to the order of protection issued against him that prevented him from seeing his children.

His lawyer, Steven D. Ecker, of Hartford’s Cowdery, Ecker & Murphy, asked for an evidentiary hearing after the arraignment, but Superior Court Judge James Bingham denied the request. Ecker challenged the denial up to the state Supreme Court.

In an opinion to be officially released this week, a divided court ruled that a defendant must be granted an evidentiary hearing at which the state must prove, by the civil standard of a preponderance of evidence, that the order of protection is a continued necessity.

“All we were asking for is a hearing within a reasonable time after someone is kicked out of their home and prohibited from any contact with their children,” said Ecker. “It seems appropriate a court would permit a hearing to consider both sides of the story. That doesn’t seem particularly controversial.”

There are about 19,000 protective orders currently in place in Connecticut. And in a year when domestic violence cases have repeatedly made headlines in the state, it’s no surprise that the Fernando A. appeal drew interest from various advocacy groups, including the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.

Full article here

I made The New York Times last week. It even ran my picture. My mother would be proud.

Unfortunately, the story was critical. It said, “Critics have leaped on Mr. Stossel’s speaking engagements as the latest evidence of conservative bias on the part of Fox.”

Which “critics” had “leaped”? The reporter mentioned Rachel Maddow. I wouldn’t think her criticism newsworthy, but Times reporters may use MSNBC as their guide to life. He also quoted an “associate professor of journalism” who said my speeches were “‘pretty shameful’ by traditional journalistic standards.” All this because I spoke at an event for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a “conservative advocacy group.”

full article at reason.com

…In our investigation, we reenacted the crime scene and determined it was impossible to discern any words spoken or shouted from 50 yards away.

Later, we tracked down the then-teenage witness who said he saw McKinney that night. The man recanted his testimony on videotape, and told us police beat him.

We also found a fire department document that indicated the paramedics were called to the police station during McKinney’s interrogation, raising the question of whether he was roughed up during his interrogation as he said he was.

We interviewed the “gang-bangers” who chased him that night. They acknowledged they chased him after the Ali fight because they were angry he had damaged their car earlier.

Finally, we identified alternate suspects, one of whom stated on videotape that he was there when the murder was committed — and that McKinney wasn’t.

After I graduated, the investigation continued. Once Protess felt there was enough evidence, after nine teams of student reporters had worked on the case, the information was shared with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern’s Law School and McKinney’s legal team.

The audio and videotaped interviews, affidavits and other on-the-record interview transcripts we worked on also were presented to the district attorney’s office. Last year, the new evidence was submitted to the Cook County Circuit Court in an effort to exonerate McKinney.

I am still haunted by the case. I am still haunted by my visit to see McKinney in prison — the gentle face of a man who still has hope after so many years.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, Sally Daly, told me that we, as students, were “conducting these interviews for a grade in this class.”

She went on to say the “request for the grades goes to explore any possible bias, interest or motive.”

The claim is that we, as students, were motivated to get witnesses to play into a preconceived thesis of innocence in order to get good grades. I think I speak for my fellow alums when I say this class was never about grades.

It has always been about searching for truth and justice for people whose cases didn’t get due diligence from a bogged-down system. This was about journalism in its purest and most passionate form.

full source article here

Any parent with a teenager will be painfully aware that for impressionable young TV viewers, there’s nothing sexier than a vampire – and it’s got nothing to do with Halloween.

Channel 4’s latest attempt to seduce us with a mixture of swearing and sex comes in the form of True Blood, the latest in the long line of sexually explicit, violent and vulgar programmes that have, sadly, become the norm on British television.

True Blood is a shocking tale of depravity, explicit sexuality (bordering on pornography) and vile language.

Even before the opening credits have rolled in the first episode, we see a young woman pleasuring a young man while driving her car.

Sexually explicit: But True Blood can be accessed at any time by children via the internet

The plot is lazily set up at the outset via a television broadcast of a lady vampire informing us that since scientists have found a way to make artificial human blood, vampires no longer represent a threat to society.

As the tale unfolds, we learn there has been a horrifying reversal of events and that some humans, known as vampire drainers, like to drink the blood of vampires as it increases their strength, sexual appetite and performance.

The programme is full of others with fantastical powers. Set in Louisiana, there’s the telepathic waitress, Sookie, and the ’shapeshifter’ Sam.

Then there are the ‘fang-bangers’ – humans who like having sex with vampires – and the drug dealers.

More offensive than all this is the sheer distasteful nature of the content. There’s oral sex, overt discussion of genitalia, graphic sex scenes bordering on the deviant, and foul language.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1225388/True-Blood-vampires-explicit-TV-sucking-innocence-children.html

You know, I’m getting really sick of this. I am a perfectly normal, fully functioning adult, and yet it seems like every other day someone tells me that I need to get professional psychiatric help and probably be put on some sort of medication. Well, if I’m so batty, then answer me this: Why do so many men have sex with me every week?

Most people don’t even know how to respond when I bring up that important little fact. Because what can you say in the face of such hard evidence of complete normalcy? Of course, I get the occasional “Gina, listen to me, you’ve got histrionic personality disorder and you have an excessive, self-destructive need for attention, negative or otherwise.” But please. If that’s what you think, then how do you explain the men practically lined up around the block to hook up with me when I’m wearing next to nothing and dancing on a barroom pool table at three o’clock in the morning?

You’re trying to tell me they would approach a complete lunatic?

Give me a break.

source and full article here.

… we kids growing up in the fifties were better off in all sorts of ways. Mad Men has lots of fun showing the Drapers heedlessly clouding their children in secondhand smoke and letting them run around in dry-cleaner cellophane. But in that less fearful and blissfully P.C.-free age, we also learned independence and resilience by roaming the neighborhood unsupervised and playing dodgeball at recess. And though it’s hard to imagine in a time when eight-year-olds are robbed of innocence by everything from Miley Cyrus to the smutty double entendres of Two and a Half Men, our TV shows—Wagon Train and, yes, [Leave it to] Beaver—offered lessons in bravery, honesty, and doing the right thing. In school, our teachers and history texts stressed America’s founding ideals and the remarkable individuals who’d struggled to bring them to life, and we came of age with a straightforward, uncynical love of country wholly alien to children today.

Full article @City-Journal.org: What Mad Men Gets Wrong

Having reached the age of 38 without meeting Mr Right, Karen Shefras decided to become a mother by using donated sperm.

As a result, Karen, who runs her own company, has never met her ten-month-old daughter’s father. The closest she came to him was at the clinic where five of her eggs were injected with sperm donated by the dark-haired and intelligent businessman.

‘Ideally, it would have been nice to have met a man and had a baby the conventional way,’ says Karen, now 41. ‘I always pictured myself getting married – but it just didn’t happen…

The Human Fertility & Embryology Act 2008 means that doctors no longer need to take into account the ‘need for a father’.

Instead, a woman requesting sperm must only demonstrate that any child will receive ’supportive parenting’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1224225/Daddies-damned-Who-British-women-think-fathers-irrelevant.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0VfTSN9Mg

British police inspectors have been building a massive, secret database containing personal information on thousands of otherwise innocent political activists, an investigative report revealed Sunday.

“The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor ‘domestic extremists’, the Guardian can reveal in the first of a three-day series into the policing of protests. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime.”

The UK paper added that the term “domestic extremist” has no legal basis, but is instead intended to tar those who may have participated in something so benign as civil disobedience.

Even merely attending a protest and standing on the outskirts of the crowd can be enough to land one on the National Public Order Intelligence Unit’s list of “domestic extremists.”

The database, which is operated by some 100 employees, gets £9 million in public funding, the paper reported. In addition to giving officers the ability to search for an “extremist” by name, vehicles associated with individuals tied in to the database are automatically tracked across the country by a system of license plate recognition cameras. In one instance, the paper revealed that a man who attended one protest was stopped by police 25 times in just three years because his vehicle was tagged with a “protest” flag.

source and full article here.

A soft-spoken Muslim woman tried to slit her Staten Island husband’s throat as he slept – enraged that he made her eat pork and wear sexy skirts, officials said.

“It’s time for you to die!” screamed Rabia Sarwar as she pounced on hubby Sheikh Naseem, sources said.

He woke early Wednesday to find her straddling his chest and hacking at his neck with a knife.

The burly 41-year-old, a teacher at Susan Wagner High School, overpowered the pretty petite Sarwar, 37, and grabbed the weapon.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/10/30/2009-10-30_woman_held_in_slay_try_of_hubby.html#ixzz0VT4pBSQK

Any number of pundits claim that we have now passed the worst of the recession. Green shoots of recovery are supposedly popping up all around the country, and the economy is expected to resume growing soon at an annual rate of 3% to 4%. Many of these are the same people who insisted that the economy would continue growing last year, even while it was clear that we were already in the beginning stages of a recession.

A false recovery is under way. I am reminded of the outlook in 1930, when the experts were certain that the worst of the Depression was over and that recovery was just around the corner. The economy and stock market seemed to be recovering, and there was optimism that the recession, like many of those before it, would be over in a year or less. Instead, the interventionist policies of Hoover and Roosevelt caused the Depression to worsen, and the Dow Jones industrial average did not recover to 1929 levels until 1954. I fear that our stimulus and bailout programs have already done too much to prevent the economy from recovering in a natural manner and will result in yet another asset bubble.

Anytime the central bank intervenes to pump trillions of dollars into the financial system, a bubble is created that must eventually deflate. We have seen the results of Alan Greenspan’s excessively low interest rates: the housing bubble, the explosion of subprime loans and the subsequent collapse of the bubble, which took down numerous financial institutions. Rather than allow the market to correct itself and clear away the worst excesses of the boom period, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury colluded to put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars. Those banks and financial institutions that took on the largest risks and performed worst were rewarded with billions in taxpayer dollars, allowing them to survive and compete with their better-managed peers.

This is nothing less than the creation of another bubble. By attempting to cushion the economy from the worst shocks of the housing bubble’s collapse, the Federal Reserve has ensured that the ultimate correction of its flawed economic policies will be more severe than it otherwise would have been. Even with the massive interventions, unemployment is near 10% and likely to increase, foreigners are cutting back on purchases of Treasury debt and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet remains bloated at an unprecedented $2 trillion. Can anyone realistically argue that a few small upticks in a handful of economic indicators are a sign that the recession is over?

What is more likely happening is a repeat of the Great Depression. We might have up to a year or so of an economy growing just slightly above stagnation, followed by a drop in growth worse than anything we have seen in the past two years. As the housing market fails to return to any sense of normalcy, commercial real estate begins to collapse and manufacturers produce goods that cannot be purchased by debt-strapped consumers, the economy will falter. That will go on until we come to our senses and end this wasteful government spending.

Government intervention cannot lead to economic growth. Where does the money come from for Tarp (Treasury’s program to buy bad bank paper), the stimulus handouts and the cash for clunkers? It can come only from taxpayers, from sales of Treasury debt or through the printing of new money. Paying for these programs out of tax revenues is pure redistribution; it takes money out of one person’s pocket and gives it to someone else without creating any new wealth. Besides, tax revenues have fallen drastically as unemployment has risen, yet government spending continues to increase. As for Treasury debt, the Chinese and other foreign investors are more and more reluctant to buy it, denominated as it is in depreciating dollars.

The only remaining option is to have the Fed create new money out of thin air. This is inflation. Higher prices lead to a devalued dollar and a lower standard of living for Americans. The Fed has already overseen a 95% loss in the dollar’s purchasing power since 1913. If we do not stop this profligate spending soon, we risk hyperinflation and seeing a 95% devaluation every year.

Ron Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.

Men walking about in Langley should be wary after a woman viciously kicked a man in the groin, causing him to lose a testicle.

….the force of the assault had caused his testicle to rupture. It had to be removed and will be replaced by a prosthetic before Christmas.

Embarrassed by the situation, [the victim] didn’t go to the police until nearly four weeks after the attack.

Constables have told him there have been three or four similar assaults on other men….

The suspect is described as a Caucasian woman, in her late teens or early 20s. She was between five foot five and five foot seven tall, and 130 pounds with a slim build, and brown hair.

source: full article here

Human eggs and sperm have been grown in the laboratory in research which could change the face of parenthood.

It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own.

But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1223617/No-men-OR-women-needed-artificial-sperm-eggs-created-time.html#ixzz0VMCIRIRF

Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun’s work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

click to read full article at wsj