Engelske

The overwhelming reaction of the sixteenth century scientific community to Copernicus’ new book On the Revolutions, first published in 1543, was contemptuous rejection.

The Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, had proposed in the third century B.C. that the Earth was the third planet from the Sun, and not the center of the universe. The crazy idea that the massive Earth, the archetypal example of something totally immovable, was tearing around the Sun at 18 miles a second had been clearly disproved in ancient times. The Earth motion notion was clearly contrary to the scientific consensus, a consensus established for centuries.

The science was in! Copernicus was an Earth-center denier!

The attacks against Copernicus are astoundingly similar to the attacks on scientists like myself who are critical of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The great Copernican scholar, Edward Rosen, who was a distinguished professor at the City University of New York, compiled a wonderful source of original documents on Copernicus in Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution. Rosen records that a friend of Copernicus sent a copy of On the Revolutions to Pope Paul III, the man to whom Copernicus had dedicated his great work. Paul III gave the book to his personal theologian Bartolomeo Spino who, we are told, “planned to condemn it” but died before he could do so. The task of criticizing Copernicus was transferred to Spino’s close friend, the Dominican Tolosani, who penned the following:

The book by Nicholas Copernicus of Torun was printed not long ago and published in recent days. In it he tries to revive the teaching of certain Pythagoreans concerning the Earth’s motion, a teaching which had died out in times long past. Nobody accepts it now except Copernicus. [The Pythagoreans had proposed a non-mathematical Earth-motion theory before Aristarchus.]

[Copernicus is] an expert in mathematics and astronomy, but he is very deficient in physics. … Hence, since Copernicus does not understand physics … it is not surprising if he is mistaken in this opinion and accepts the false as true, through ignorance of those sciences … it is stupid to contradict a belief accepted by everyone over a very long time for extremely strong reasons, unless the naysayer uses more powerful and incontrovertible proofs, and completely rebuts the opposed reasoning. Copernicus does not do this at all. For he does not undermine the proofs, establishing necessary conclusions, advanced by Aristotle the philosopher and Ptolemy the astronomer.

Aristotle absolutely destroyed the arguments of the Pythagoreans. Yet this is not adduced by Copernicus in his ignorance of it.

Almost all the hypotheses of this author Copernicus contain something false, and very many absurdities follow from them. … For by a foolish effort [Copernicus] tries to revive the contrived Pythagorean belief, long since deservedly buried, since it explicitly contradicts human reason.

Notice that Tolosani “refutes” Copernicus by referring not to the observations — in predicting planetary positions, Copernicus was twice as accurate as Ptolemy — but to the opinions of Aristotle. What is striking about the AGW controversy is that the believers in human-caused warming do exactly the same: they cite the opinions of the authorities rather than the evidence.

Al Gore, in his recent op-ed for the New York Times, cites “every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change” and “the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” Even when Gore cites actual data — “from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago” — he always cites the manipulated temperature data, never the raw data (which show no significant warming).

Who are you going to believe: Gore, or your lying eyes? Gore writes: “January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States.” Yeah, it was. We Americans saw it. Sadly, Gore was just following the example of the leading climate “scientists,” who themselves never ask us to look at the raw data, but instruct us to read — and bow down before — the “peer-reviewed papers.”

The motto of the Royal Society of London, the world’s premier scientific society, is Nullius in verba – which they translate as: “Take nobody’s word for it.” Yet these days the Royal Society itself is asking us to accept AGW, and the only evidence they give is — you guessed it — “peer-reviewed papers.”

Hopefully the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences will one day return to their roots and behave as scientific academies.

Frank J. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. He is the co-author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford University Press) and the author of The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead and The Physics of Christianity both published by Doubleday.

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From Tennessee we go now to Canada on the continuing topic of equally shared parenting.  In both the state and the nation, there are bills pending before the legislatures that would establish the presumption of equally shared parenting.  And in both, the presumption could be rebutted by a showing that one parent was violent or otherwise unfit.  And both bills have substantial backing and momentum, although their ultimate fate remains unknown.

But what a difference a thousand miles or so can make!  This article on shared parenting actually deals honestly with some of the issues involved, particularly the issue of domestic violence (The London Free Press, 3/10/10).

(As a brief aside, let me point out that the entire debate about equally shared parenting sometimes seems like nothing more than a debate about domestic violence.  In that way, the anti-dad crowd has successfully highjacked the terms of the discussion.  And that's a shame since actual incidents of physically harmful DV are fairly rare.  As but one example, about three months ago, the government of Scotland published its most recent findings on DV in that country.  It found that about 5% of men and 5% of women in intimate relationships had experienced some form of DV in the previous year.  Seventy-nine percent of those had suffered no injury whatsoever or simply a "minor cut or bruise.")

If the article is any indication, people in Canada and specifically in Ontario, are starting to take seriously the many ways in which allegations of domestic violence can be used as a weapon in child custody matters.  In fact, the London Equal Parenting Committee is sponsoring a talk by former MP Roger Gallaway about that very topic.  The article quotes Gallaway as follows:

"What I find distressing is the lack of objectivity around this whole subject," says Gallaway, who represented his riding for the Liberal party from 1993 to 2006. "There has to be some type of balance put into the discussion. And it's sadly lacking."

Gallaway regrets that none of the 1998 report's recommendations -- including a call for stricter rules regarding the reporting of abuse -- were ever adopted.

"An allegation of violence is a weapon," he says. "And in Ontario we have a zero-tolerance policy, which generally speaking says that when allegations are made, it's the male who's removed (from the residence). And that then casts the die for what will occur in terms of child custody or access."

Gallaway adds that more and more people are starting to realize that more and more deserving fathers are being shortchanged when it comes to contentious custody battles.

"There's a growing constituency . . . that sees what's occurring and knows these men aren't bad people," he says. "So the doubt about what is being said about (so-called) violent men is growing."

The article illustrates Gallaway's point with this story:

One man I spoke to, for instance, says his ex-wife falsely accused him of slamming a van door on her leg. And even though that assault charge was later withdrawn by the Crown attorney, the man says the allegations damaged his reputation during proceedings with a family court judge who restricted his access to his kids.

It's a familiar story.  Family courts have always shown an overwhelming tendency to grant child custody to mothers.  Now that men are starting to understand the value to themselves and their children of hands-on fathering, they're trying to assert what parental rights they have.  The law places an enormously powerful weapon - allegations of DV - in the hands of mothers and they use it.  Sometimes they use it unscrupulously.

As a counterpoint, the article quotes DV advocate Peter Jaffe as saying that false accusations of DV are "rare."  Actually, in the U.S. studies have shown that as much as 71% of DV restraining orders were either unnecessary or received under false pretenses.  Other studies show that over half involve not even the allegation of physical violence.  In Canada, reports of child maltreatment are deemed to be unsubstantiated or without evidence in 55% of cases according to the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect.  So what Jaffe said looks to be far from the truth.

And Jaffe himself long ago proved his bias in matters of domestic violence by confining his research cohorts to women in DV shelters and then pretending that his findings can be extrapolated to the population at large. 

Little by little, state by state, country by country, the value to everyone of equally shared parenting is gaining understanding and acceptance.
 

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While I admire the generous purpose behind John Scalzi's The Big Idea posts, in which he provides space to an author to explain The Big Idea underlying his newly published book, I have to admit that I have tended to have little interest in most of books that have been featured there because I simply don't read much SF/F anymore. I increasingly find that I'd rather play it.

Since John doesn't do much the way of non-fiction at Whatever and because the Ilk tend to be more interested in exposure to more serious subjects than the latest attempt to adultize angst-filled teen vampire/wereseal novels, it occurs to me that a similar feature might be welcome here, especially in light of how Mr. Rockwell was kind enough to provide me with space at his site to introduce RGD the week it was published. So, if you are the author of a non-fiction book in the field of history, politics, economics, or science that has been published since August 2009, I'd like to invite you to email me a 500 to 2,000-word account of what you believe to be worthy of note about your new book accompanied by a link to an image of the cover.

On a barely tangential note, this afternoon I had what I thought to be a fantastic idea for my next non-fiction book. Reflecting on the missing Life of Epaminondas, I completely cracked up over the thought of writing Godwin's Lives, which would be a set of parallel Lives ala Plutarch purporting to compare one classic historical figure with a modern one, albeit every classic figure would be compared to Hitler. Needless to say, this is why Spacebunny seldom asks me to share what I'm thinking.

And to return to the subject, more or less, I'm presently reading Makers of Ancient Strategy, edited by Victor Davis Hanson. It's a very good collection of essays and I will post a review of the book next week. However, it was a little startling to encounter VDH's brief rebuttal - a fairly effective one, to be honest - addressed to the "many commenters" who had referenced the Athenian attack on Syracuse in criticizing the American invasion of Iraq. I suspect he may have had this column in particular in mind.Posted by Vox Day.

Feminism is like the hydra — every time you cut off one of its heads a couple more grow back. Some older feminists are horrified by the new growths that have replaced their own cherished brand of feminism. Charlotte Raven, writing for the Guardian, deplores the image of the modern woman, which she sees as excessively sexualized and narcissistic.

To Raven, artificially augmented British sex symbol Katie Price epitomizes the new woman:

Katie Price’s currency is as high today as when she published her million-selling autobiography in 2004. She has generated much outrage in the last few years, but it is nothing compared with her influence. Her narcissism no longer seems so aberrant. Women’s belief in specialness and a concomitant sense of entitlement has inflated in line with Price’s most famous assets.

Two new exposés of the dehumanising effect of the Price worldview feel like too little too late. The fantasy world described in Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, where appearances are everything, has already come to pass. Today’s young women are right to think they will be judged on how they seem, rather than who they are. In this context, Kat Banyard’s promise to tell “the truth about women and men” in her new book The Equality Illusion is the promise of a horse-drawn plough in the machine age. The truth is no longer enough; she needs a promotional gimmick.

In a recent study of 1,000 British girls (admittedly by a mobile entertainment company), quoted in Walter’s book, 60% said glamour modelling was their preferred career. A quarter said they would consider becoming lap dancers. By all measures, the value map has shifted in Price’s favour.

Raven does something one very rarely sees any feminist do: she takes responsibility, and admits that “thinking women have turned their backs on feminism.” This bit of introspection marks a turning point for the old guard, which is increasingly uncomfortable with the monster it has spawned.

However, despite her regret, Raven still can’t bring herself to admit that second wave feminism itself was a failure. Instead, she blames corporate culture and asserts that women were simply being manipulated by pervasive branding.

Her biggest fear, it seems, is that women are losing that asset that got them so far in the heady, early days of our own sexual revolution: permanent victim status. However, the image she returns to is deeply conservative, which raises interesting questions about what truly motivated feminists in the first place:

If awareness returned – if modern woman were no longer disassociating from her pain and victimhood – all her decisions would be different. The things that hurt us would never seem “potentially enjoyable”. We wouldn’t wear silly shoes, blog about our sex life, worry that our babies are upstaging us. Most importantly, we’d resist the temptation to caricature ourselves. We’d lose the Nigella-esque pinny, the Price-esque lash extensions; the Belle-esque pose of erotic empowerment would seem inhibiting. We’d recover our desire for the missionary position with the person lying next to us. In every sphere of existence we’d be free to choose normality.

$20,000.

That seems to be the asking price for killing off one’s soon-to-be-ex-husband.

In an interesting case in New York, 43-year old Susan Williams has been arrested because she contracted with an undercover cop to arrange for the killing of her estranged husband of 21 years.  The Williams couple was apparently in the middle of a bitter divorce, and I suppose the $20k sounded cheap compared to the legal bills she’d incur trying to secure her, ahem, fair share of the assets.  Strangely, the mother of four seemed nonplussed the entire arrangement, going about her normal beauty salon treatments routine (and complaining to her hairdresser about the difficulties of dating as a soon-to-be-divorced woman in her early 40s) as she anticipated her husband being killed and his body quietly and mysteriously disposed of.

Unfortunately for Williams, she’s now behind bars and Mr. Williams has been granted temporary custody.  It always strikes me as strange when a woman flips her lid like this during a divorce, because if a woman plays her cards correctly, she’s going to win the divorce 99% of the time.  I suppose there is the greed factor (nothing beats getting 100% rather than something between 50 and 100%) and perhaps the revenge factor (if her husband was cheating or something like that – a la Elin Nordegren yet a bit more organized and determined).  But perhaps the strangest thing about this case is the following little factoid:

Why, if you were planning to hire a hit man to kill your spouse, would you approach an ex-cop for advice?

If you know anything about contemporary feminism, you know that the word “structure” is popular. Structures in culture and society explain why men and women behave the way they do. Oppressive structures keep women down, and maintain the integrity of the patriarchy. Free will barely exists, since we are all programmed by the structures surrounding us. The only time that individuals are emphasized in this kind of feminism, is when it comes to rebelling against these structures or to illuminate how individuals are hurt by said structures.

People who take issue with the radical feminist description of the world, usually want to switch the focus from cultural and societal structures to talking about individuals. After all, rights and responisibilities are individual, and therefore it doesn’t make much sense to talk about collective rights or identity politics. This is the argument usually put forward in Sweden when discussing whether to implement gender quotas in corporate boards of directors. The argument is that if we prioritize gender quotas instead of each individual’s right to be considered a candidate on his or her own merits, then we are putting identity politics ahead of basic individual rights.

While I agree with the view that rights are first and foremost connected to the individual, and not to groups, I think that anybody opposing feminism and feminist ideas without addressing structures ends up with fairly weak set of arguments. If the radical feminists are talking about individuals and structures, and the opposing side is only talking about individuals, then the feminist view of structures is the prevailing one by default.

At the moment, this is exactly what has happened around the Western World, and beyond. Whenever gender equality and structures are discussed, the seemingly self-evident assumption is that the current structures oppress women and favor men, meaning that women are the group we need to help. This in turn shapes everything from media coverage of gender issues, to policy making domestically and in Third World countries.

Denying the impact of structures is not only ineffective, it is fairly silly too. Whenever you meet someone from a different country you immediatly notice that they speak a different language, and have different customs and traditions. How can we explain this without acknowledging the importance of cultural and societal structures?

In the field of gender issues, this means that the only way to combat misandry and the prevailing perception that men are a privileged group that willfully oppresses women, is to describe how cultural and societal structures keep men stuck in their own kind of straitjacket:

• It is a man’s job to keep society safe. This cultural expectation means that men are expendable in wars and in dangerous jobs.
• Cultural expectations of men are narrow. Be successful. If you have a family make sure you support it. If you fail at these tasks, there’s no place for you in society. This in turn leads to men being 3-5 times as likely as women to be homeless or commit suicide.
• The societal structure that is our educational system produces far more women than men who go to college and university.
• Men’s harsh reality under the current structures leads large amounts of random street violence between men.

I could list more examples but you get the point. It is only when we dare to describe men’s situation in terms of being exposed to unhealthy structures that we can hold our own in a discussion with a radical feminist (or in a discussion with virtually anybody, since the basic views of radical feminism are embraced by almost everyone nowadays, without knowing where they got those views).

Many men are reluctant to talk about themselves in this way. Men don’t like being victims or abandoning their sense of self-reliance. In my opinion this is a good thing, and the strength of the men’s movement rests on this very attitude.

However, it is perfectly possible to describe the facts of men’s situation in neutral terms, without whining or abandoning individual responsibility for one’s own life. In fact, I believe that the only way to ever have men’s issues reach the political agenda is by daring to describe how men are hurt and suffer in the face of cultural and societal structures.

It is very hard for a politician, or for anyone wanting to come across as a decent person, to say that they don’t care about male suicides and male homelessness. Consequently, the very moment a critical mass of individuals start talking about structures hurting men, that is the moment radical feminism crumbles, once and for all.

Pelle Billing is an M.D. who writes and lectures about men’s issues and gender liberation beyond feminism.

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Luke continues our dialogue. In case you haven't figured it out yet, this isn't going to end anytime soon. I will respond before the end of the month, but in the meantime, I will put a few of Luke's commenters straight:

1. Vox happens to be a genius by the dictionary's numerical definition. Nevertheless, Vox does not believe he is a genius because he rejects that definition in favor of alternative and less specific definitions that are based upon uniquely superlative intellectual accomplishments. Writing the occasional novel, demolishing the central New Atheist arguments, and correctly anticipating the global financial crisis are certainly intellectual accomplishments, but they are neither unique nor superlative.

2. As will eventually become clear, Vox is not rejecting any of the suggested criteria out of concern for their potential effect on his theories. As a general rule, it is a mistake to project one's own predilection for intellectual dishonesty on others; at the very least, one should wait to see what the justifications are before passing judgment.

3. Vox has no authority on these matters and has no problem whatsoever with having his epistemology examined or exposed. This accusation is ironic, for as Luke and many of the VP readers know, it is usually the atheist camp that prefers to avoid epistemological examinations.

4. The fact that you don't understand a point Vox made is not prima facie evidence that Vox is being obscure or even insufficiently clear. If a majority of the readers understood it without any trouble, logic dictates that you consider the probability you are either insufficiently informed or insufficiently intelligent to understand it.Posted by Vox Day.

Sometimes it seems that we just can't get away from outrageously bad "journalism."  In just the past two days I've been astonished at the frankly false data reported by the Bangor Daily News about child maltreatment.  The article completely ignored easy-to-find accurate data published yearly by the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services.  That data directly contradicted the article's main point which was that fathers commit more child abuse than anyone else.  In the history of the statisitics gathered by the ACF, that has never been true in any year.

Now we have this piece about the bill before the Tennessee Legislature currently being vetted in committee (Jackson Sun, 3/10/10).  It would establish a presumption in law that equally shared parenting would be in the best interests of the child.  Of course the bill includes many exceptions to equally shared parenting, such as a history of violence on the part of one parent, unfitness by one parent or an agreement between parents to have something other than equal parenting responsibilities.  In short, it's similar to other equally shared parenting legislation around the country and the world.   

So what's the Jackson Sun's take on the bill?  According to that paper, it would create "mandatory joint custody" after divorce.  That's right, a bill that would do no more than establish a presumption that could be rebutted in numerous ways and that parents could simply agree to ignore is in some way "mandatory."  The piece uses the term several times throughout.

But, not content to frankly misrepresent the effect of the proposed legislation, the piece then turns its blurred vision on supporters of the bill, describing them as

those who have been to court in child custody disputes and have been disappointed in the outcome. Perhaps they received weekend visitation, which they believe to be insufficient.

Fathers who have testified for the bill believe that the courts have an inherent bias for mothers, and these fathers who have been denied joint custody are angry.

So naturally, those who support a father's right to time with his child and a child's right to time with its father are portrayed as nothing more than petulent men who are angry that they didn't get their way.

Both the article and the WPLN audio piece it links to at the bottom make much of the fact that in 95% of cases, the parents agree on custody.  Now, assuming that figure is correct, (and I have grave doubts that it is based on data from studies outside of Tennessee), did it occur to anyone that fathers agree to accept "visitation rights" because they know that's all they'll get under the current regime?  Countless family lawyers have told their male clients some version of "You can pay me a lot to try to get custody and end up with visitation every other weekend, or you can pay me a little and end up with visitation every other weekend.  It's your choice."  Faced with that prospect, of course fathers agree.  But to the fine folks at the Jackson Sun and WPLN, that's proof that the system is working fine.

That brings me to the fact that, as bad as the piece is for what it says, it's actually worse for what it doesn't say.  And that goes for the WPLN audio piece too.  In both pieces,

• there's not a word about the radical discrepancy in child custody under the current system in which 84% of custodial parents are mothers;
• there's not a word about the actual need, established by five decades of social science, that children have for their fathers;
• there's not a word about how the current system of primary custody/visitation strongly tends to separate children from their non-custodial parent regardless of who the parent is;
• there's not a word about the widespread refusal by family courts to enforce even the meager visitation rights they give to fathers;
• there's not a word about the benefits to children of having as much contact as possible with both parents;
• there's not a word about how mothers can benefit from greater father involvement with children by being freed to achieve and advance more in their careers;
• there's not a word about the fact that supporters of equally shared parenting include not just disgruntled dads, but countless psychologists, sociologists, social workers, mothers, fathers, judges, attorneys, politicians and many others who understand the value of fathers to children;

In short, in an article that's supposedly about equal parenting, there's not a single word about the many virtues of having both parents involved in a child's life after divorce.  Those are, after all, why there's such a wave of support for equal parenting worldwide.  The audio piece briefly acknowledges the broad and deep support equal parenting has, but treats it as some sort of bizarre phenomenon, incomprehensible by reason. 

When you think about it, it's funny how many things opponents of equally shared parenting have to ignore in order to maintain their opposition.  That's understandable since their brief for clinging to the status quo is thin-to-non-existent.

It's understandable alright, but it's sure not journalism.

Help for Houston Fathers
The Law Offices of Thomas A. Martin helps fathers with Family Law and Criminal Defense in Houston and surrounding areas. Martin handles divorce, child custody, alimony, domestic violence, restraining orders and a wide variety of issues fathers face. www.thomasamartin.com

[This post was submitted by meistergedanken]

This post may present a slightly new wrinkle for this site, as most of the populace of the MRA/PUA realm seem to either take the approach of wanting to free or disassociate themselves completely from women, or want to sufficiently alter their behavior so they can use them and lose them at will. But some of us are still in the thick of it, attempting to retool a marriage that seems assaulted from innumerable external forces and inbred expectations, and are trying to make the best of a difficult situation….

Obsidian’s March 6 post briefly alluded to the issue I am going to address (“…Female Double Standard #2: Women Are Snobs Much More Than Are Men, AND, Don’t Really Believe In Merit Either”), and so I decided I needed to strike while the iron is hot.

In our current Mancession environment, there is a lot of talk about credit, and its supposed scarcity. But I would like to examine a different kind of credit, and how its abuse has rankled me, and I suspect, many more men in committed relationships.

I am specifically speaking of credit in the intellectual sense, referring to an acknowledgement of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.

I’ll start with the axiom that women “put on airs”, and that they do this based on the most tenuous justifications. Why do women buy into and breathlessly promulgate the “two become one” vision of marriage? Because it permits them to absorb all the accomplishments, social status and rank that the man has worked so hard to accumulate. With a stroke of the pen on the marriage certificate it is instant and legal entitlement. “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is yours”. Of course, when the woman doesn’t bring any meaningful assets into the relationship (and no, the cats don’t count), and indeed brings considerable debt in the form of student loans, that sort of sentiment is easy to adopt as a credo.

The phenomenon is best described as “achievement without accomplishment”, just like the corrosive basis of our current public school system, where grade inflation and social promotion are rampant.

The anecdotal evidence for this is everywhere. At work I have heard the receptionists talk about how the rudest callers to the front desk aren’t angry clients, but the wives of the owners of the company. Their bosses would never speak to them the way their wives do – after all, they are employees in a professional environment, where a collegial atmosphere is valued and personal relationships are cultivated to enhance efficiency. A good boss knows that there is an office karma, and rude, demeaning behavior comes back to haunt you at some point. Respectful interactions with your employees earn you loyalty and encourage them to go the extra mile when it is called for. So where do these wives get off pulling this attitude? Because they assume they have the same authority as their executive husbands – the two are “one”, you see, and so the receptionists better hop to it and follow their orders! Furthermore, like most women, they don’t like to acknowledge the pitiless edicts of Cause and Effect, and in this case the consequences of their actions can be avoided (or at least deferred) because they can just hang up the phone and never go into the office. Let their husbands deal with the resulting resentment…

A colleague of mine related to me a story about how he decided he had to relocate a tree so his driveway could be enlarged, and that his wife stood there watching him on and off for three hours while he was laboring at this, making sure he put it in the spot they agreed upon. And the next week he stood there, his back still in pain from the ordeal, aghast, as he overheard his wife say to her sister, “you wouldn’t believe how hard we had to work to move this tree!” “What is this ‘we’ you speak of?” he asked wryly.

Now I’m no Norm Abrams, and my handyman skills are modest, but in the first year my wife and I moved into the house I planted five trees, replaced eight light fixtures, painted four rooms, refinished the stairs, installed two cabinets, built several shelving units, and put in a flagstone walkway. And then there was the stuff I couldn’t do, that I hired people [men] for: replacing the roof shingles and basement windows, installing new exterior doors and locksets, sealing the driveway, tiling the fireplace, cutting down three trees, installing gutters on the garage, and repairing a rotted windowsill. Did the Wife contribute any money to these endeavors? No. Did she ever pick up a tool and pitch in? No. Which is fine, I know what I signed up in that regard when we married so I am willing to shoulder that burden. But when you then hear your wife say to visiting friends or neighbors, “yes, we’ve put in a lot of hard work on this place,” or “yeah, we spent a bundle to remodel this kitchen,” the incredulity always strikes me afresh. What is this “we” you speak of, woman? Whose work? Whose money?

If a man is to have a satisfying relationship, he needs recognition when it is due him. And if a man is to have a satisfying life, he needs to be able to take pride in something: his work, the fruits of his labors and/or ingenuity. Pride is grounded in personal achievement – anything else is delusion. One flows from the other. It is an emotional form of Cause and Effect. Anything that sullies the purity of that, or that compromises that simple equation should be neutralized. How to do that is another matter entirely.

When you can’t actually DO anything, the most efficient way to seem impressive is to appropriate the work of others. Culturally, poseurs do that (accompanying track: “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, by the Cure). In literature, this forms the underlying theme of Atlas Shrugged. In industry, it’s like India mass producing generic drugs that American firms spent decades formulating, or China bootlegging DVD’s of movies that cost $100 million to make. It is piracy, though not of an intellectual property sort, but of a value-added sort.

Yet somehow, of course, pointing this out is seen as petty.

It's a "gimmick" when banksters do it. It's criminal fraud whenever anyone else does:

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc used accounting gimmicks and had been insolvent for weeks before it filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, but there was not extensive wrongdoing, a court-appointed examiner has found.

In a 2,200-page report made public on Thursday, examiner Anton Valukas, chairman of law firm Jenner & Block, reported the results of his more than year-long investigation into who could be blamed for the firm's collapse, which deepened the global financial crisis.

The examiner said that while some of Lehman's management's decisions "can be questioned in retrospect" and the firm's valuation procedures for its assets "may have been wanting," those responsible for the firm had used their business judgment and were largely not liable for the firm's collapse.

So, Lehman's management ran the company into insolvency, then committed weeks of fraud to hide that fact, but somehow they "were largely not liable" for the collapse of the company? How is that even remotely credible? Especially in light of how the FDIC has made it perfectly clear that most banks are fraudulently hiding their present insolvency by assigning hugely exaggerated values to their assets. Even by the FDIC's overly conservative measure of "estimated losses", it is obvious that there is a huge gap between reported assets and actual assets.

This can be computed by subtracting the average FDIC-seized bank's deposit liabilities from its reported assets, then adding the estimated losses. In 2009, this average asset gap was $505 million against reported assets of $1,229 million, or 41.1%. In 2010, the average asset gap is presently running $272 million against reported assets of $638 million, or 43.7%. This indicates that the smaller banks are every bit as insolvent as the bigger banks. As are the giant banks; Karl Denninger explained the probable extent of their balance sheet fraud a few days ago:

So let's be generous and assume that the "big banks" are over-valuing their assets by 25% - the lower end of the range of what the FDIC says is, through actual experience, what's going on, and add it all up.

Bank of America shows $2.25 trillion in assets.

Citibank shows $1.89 trillion in assets.

JP Morgan/Chase shows $2.04 trillion in assets.

And Wells Fargo shows $1.31 trillion in assets.

This totals $7.49 trillion smackers.

The FDIC's experience with seizing banks thus far suggests quite strongly that all four of these entities are lying about these valuations, and that were they to be seized the loss embedded in them (and for which you, the taxpayer would be responsible) is somewhere between $1.49 and $2.99 trillion dollars.

Based on the last two years of data, the actual gap between the assets and liabilities of the Big Four is actually more like $3.2 trillion, or roughly the size of Citibank and Wells Fargo put together. Despite their failure to act, the FDIC obviously knows about this. By way of evidence, here was the FDIC's response to one of the Market Ticker's readers who asked about the difference between bank-reported assets and FDIC-reported estimated losses: "That’s the value the bank had them on their books on their year-end financials, but the true value is much less. It is similar to someone in Las Vegas saying that their house is worth $300,000 because that’s what they paid for it three years ago, but the reality is, if they had to sell it in today’s market, they’d only get $250,000 for it. The FDIC has to sell assets in today’s market."Posted by Vox Day.

No sooner have we finished with Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Ben Field's suspension from the practice of law due to prosecutorial misconduct, but this comes across our desk (San Jose Mercury News, 3/11/10).

Last year I reported on a Santa Clara Hospital that the county's prosecutors used to analyze evidence in cases of alleged sexual abuse.  Back then some 3,000 videotapes of examinations of alleged sexual assault victims came to light.  It seems that the woman who conducted the examinations recorded them as well.  She didn't tell prosecutors about the tapes, and when they found out about them, they, er, neglected to inform defense attorneys.  One man's conviction was overturned and apparently "dozens" of others may be.

Now,

Attorneys have uncovered a second, critical trove of evidence that has been withheld for years by medical investigators in hundreds of Santa Clara County sex-assault cases, prompting a wholesale review of procedures at the county's public hospital.

The emergence Tuesday of previously unknown forms documenting interactions between medical personnel and suspected victims comes after prosecutors discovered more than 3,000 videotaped medical exams of children last year that were also improperly withheld from the accused.

So once again possibly exculpatory evidence has been withheld from defendants in alleged sex crime cases.  And just like in the Ben Field case, we hear echoes of the Duke Lacrosse case.  Here's how it works:

Prosecutors are required by law to turn over exculpatory evidence in their possession to defendants and their attorneys.  But the key words there are "in their possession."  In the Duke case, tissue samples had been collected and DA Mike Nifong sent that material, not to a state-run laboratory, but to a private one.  That way, the tests could be conducted and if they indicated guilt, the lab reports could be given to the DA who would then turn them over to the defense.  But if they indicated innocence, the results stayed in private hands.  Therefore, the DA's office would not have exculpatory evidence "in its possession," and therefore it wouldn't be required to turn it over to the defense.  It maintained "plausible deniability."

The same thing looks to have been happening in Santa Clara County, which is why,

Two years ago, an appellate court ruled that the hospital examiners were part of the "prosecution team," making the District Attorney's Office responsible for ensuring that evidence is turned over to defendants.

By adjudicating the hospital officials to be, in effect, an arm of the DA's office, the court was trying to prevent prosecutors from doing what Mike Nifong had done - hiding evidence from the defense in a purportedly neutral place. 

What's now come to light are intake forms in which people alleging sexual victimization tell hospital personnel what happened.  Obviously, in some cases, their statements then could tend to prove the innocence of a person subsequently charged.

Interestingly, hospital personnel who are part of the Sexual Assault Response Team continue to stonewall not only defense lawyers but prosecutors as well.  Last year, when the scandal about the withheld videotapes came to light, prosecutors swore that there was no other missing evidence beyond the tapes.  That was because hospital personnel had told them that.  Now that turns out once again to have been false.  One defense attorney, Michael Kresser,

praised prosecutors for acting quickly, but expressed concern about their lack of knowledge about Sexual Assault Response Team procedures, including the existence of the forms.

In other words, this time it's not prosecutors who are subverting justice and putting innocent defendants behind bars, it's nurses and other hospital personnel.  And it seems only to be a problem in allegations of sex crimes.

Here's my guess: someone at the hospital (and it may be several "someones") is a "believe the woman" adherent.  That is, there's someone who's swallowed whole the notion that women or children who complain of sexual abuse can't lie.  Therefore, since all allegations must be true, withholding exulpatory evidence is acceptable because it jails a man who's guilty even if there's evidence tending to show he's not.  I'd put money on it; there's one of those (or more) at Valley Medical Center in Santa Clara County, California.

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Given the current state of affairs, it is very easy to be cynical about the prospects for any political change. If you take a long term view, cynicism is usually justified. People forget past lessons, they usually don’t know a good thing when they have it, and they wreck things by trying to fix what worked pretty well. However, for some reason we seem to keep on moving forward even in the darkest of times: technology progresses, we adapt, and buried truths are brought to light.

The odds against men are formidable. Governments across the Anglosphere have crafted increasingly complex legal constructs designed to extract the maximum amount of resources from men to turn them over to women and the state, and have built the most extensive peacetime prison network the world has ever seen to enforce them. Our consumer-driven economy has helped push this trend along, as women are more reliable spenders and more susceptible to advertising. Finally, thick-skulled men with an atavistic sense of chivalry have aided and abetted this process every step of the way.

When taking into consideration that some enlightened men’s best efforts over the last generation to warn us and point out the obvious have been totally ignored and ineffectual, one can’t be blamed for giving up hope. Men, it seems, are determined to allow themselves to lapse into a permanent state of subjection due to passivity and and a refusal to act in their self-interest.

When I lived in China, I was bemused by Chinese assertions that they, the Chinese people, could take anything, and could even survive by eating grass. I wondered why that was something to be proud of. “What’s the point of taking all that abuse, and shouldn’t you have been less tolerant?” I’d ask them. Stubbornly proud of this trait, they would give me a smug look as though the answer was so obvious that there was no need for explanation.

To an American, it might be understandable that the Chinese were proud of their ability to survive great deprivation, but that was only part of it: they also declared that not only could they survive terrible conditions, they would actually allow things to get that bad before they would do anything about it. To me, it seemed absurd that people could be so proud of being humble and passive, almost as though it were a completely illogical contradiction. From an American perspective, there is something shameful about not “doing something” immediately to fix some problem.

However, in retrospect, this trait is far from useless. Perhaps, as a relatively new people (I count the British people as fairly new as well), we have little historical perspective from which we can understand why, and its counterintuitive nature must be learned from experience rather than deduction, but there are plenty of examples for the familiar.

What is really going on is that the humiliation, suffering and oppression endured by the meek gives them a messianic zeal and a moral imperative that cannot be gained in any other way. After decades of warlordism, war with the Japanese, and finally civil war, the starving peasants marching with their savior Mao Tse-tung were an irresistible force that Chiang Kai Shek’s corrupt, urban nationalists couldn’t hope to defeat. Their determination, ferocity, and – mostly importantly – conviction, gave them an overwhelming edge.

Christianity incorporates the same principle. In fact, it is the image of the Via Dolorosa and the cross that gave it the kind of moral determination that comes from enduring the unendurable. The Jewish Shoah had the same effect, galvanizing the Jews and leading to the establishment of Israel. The crushing poverty of late Bourbon France created the radicalism that led to the French Revolution. The list goes on.

I hope Western men never have to face the kind of travails endured by mid-20th century Chinese, European Jews, and 18th century French peasants, but more of us are being crushed under a severe economic burden than at any time since the Great Depression, and today the law and political atmosphere is more hostile than it was in those grim days. Millions of men will face pretty severe hardship, if not starvation. Many of them are inexorably being pushed to the margins and out of a legitimate, above-board position in society. These men – many of whom are fathers – have all the rights of illegal aliens, and none of the political support. The law is ruthless toward them, and given the prevailing trend, will only get worse. All that they can hope for is that states don’t have enough money to imprison them.

From our Western, Anglo perspective this just looks hopeless. Men are being taken to the cleaners, legislated into quasi-criminality, stripped of their children — and they aren’t doing anything about it. It would be easy at this point to simply write them off, just like the world wrote off the Chinese in the 1930s as hopeless and powerless against the arrogant, modern, imperialist Japanese, but it would also be too hasty.

In every man and boy cheated, dispossessed and abused by venal politicians and their churlish, feminine masters, a new strength and certainty will take root. Men will stop blaming themselves, and, as they realize that they have no say or choice, they will no longer be plagued by indecision, which is a luxury reserved for those with options.

It is not such a bad thing that so many men are now under the boot, and beginning to recognize their pathetic, hopeless position. Let more of them plumb the depths of despair and hit bottom with a thud. When they finally stand up, they will be much tougher customers than before.

It was once said that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” This was not merely eschatological prophesy; it is the way the world works.

To anyone familiar with the false allegations of rape levelled at three members of the Duke Lacrosse team in 2006, the following should be well-plowed ground.  One of the signal features of the Duke imbroglio was the fact that the prosecutor, Michael Nifong, ended up both losing the case and having the defendants declared not merely "not guilty," but "innocent."  That's an accomplishment few state's attorneys can claim.  But Nifong didn't rest on those laurels; he got himself disbarred as well.

One of the principal ways he managed that was by withholding evidence of the defendants' innocence from them and their lawyers.  Prosecutors are generally required to turn over to defense attorneys all exculpatory evidence, and Mike Nifong failed to do that repeatedly.

Now it's Santa Clara, California Deputy District Attorney Ben Field's turn.  Read about it here (California Bar Journal, March, 2010).  He's had his license to practice law suspended for four years for doing the same thing.  In fact, the state bar originally charged him with 25 counts of professional wrongdoing in four separate cases.  He was convicted by a judge of several of those counts and now an appelate court has upheld his suspension.  Apparently the most important charge against Field came in a sexual assault case against two men.  They were convicted, but filed a motion for habeas corpus.  As the state's bar journal describes it, Field

intentionally withheld a witness’ statement that was favorable to the defense in a 2003 habeas corpus proceeding involving a sexual assault. The judge found that he committed a discovery violation. 

In that matter, the review panel found that Field’s misconduct escalated over time and constituted “a calculated scheme to hide evidence favorable to the defense.”

Two men who were convicted of sexual assault had filed petitions for writ of habeas corpus and provided a declaration by a witness who claimed the 15-year-old victim had made false accusations because she missed curfew.

Field’s investigator found and interviewed the witness but did not notify the defense. In addition, he instructed his investigator to prepare a misleading declaration and filed it with the court, filed a statement with the court implying he did not know the witness’ whereabouts, and then waited five months before disclosing the interview, only after opposing counsel learned of the interview and had filed a motion alleging prosecutorial misconduct.

(I'll only note in passing that even the State Bar of California doesn't seem to understand that a person - in this case a 15-year-old girl - who falsely accuses another person of a crime, is not a "victim."  In fact, it is the men she accused who are her victims.  We might excuse a journalist who makes that mistake, but you'd think attorneys would know better.)

But what's described certainly echoes the Duke case and Mike Nifong's outrageous behavior.  Here as there, a false allegation of sexual assault was made to cover the accuser's own behavior.  Here as there, the prosecutor engaged in patently unethical, illegal and deceptive practices in order to get a conviction of men he had good reason to know to be innocent.  He then resisted, again by unethical and illegal means, the last realistic means they had of getting out of prison and clearing their names.  Sound familiar?

Well, it may be about to become more familiar still.  This article says that, for the first time, the State Bar is taking a hard look at allegations of prosecutorial misconduct (San Jose Mercury News, 10/17/08).  The Bar is starting to use its grievance procedures to scrutinize prosecutors' conduct, to which I can only say, "it's about time." 

For many years now, we've had a "jail 'em and throw away the key" attitude toward criminal defendants in this country.  Every imaginable act seems to be a crime these days, and the prevailing sentiment has given prosecutors a virtual carte blanche.  They seem to routinely overcharge defendants and go for the maximum sentence whether it's warranted or not.  There was a time when prosecutors had the sense to know which defendants were truly bad actors who needed to be in prison and those who weren't.  Now there seems to be no such concept among Assistant DAs.  So it's no surprise that the U.S. has more people behind bars than any country in the world and has many different organizations like the Innocence Project devoted to proving the innocence of people states have put away.

Certainly prosecutors like Mike Nifong and Ben Field aren't the only ones to blame for our out of control system of criminal justice, but, as the judges who upheld Field's suspension said,

“Although our system of administering justice is adversarial in nature and prosecutors must be zealous advocates in prosecuting their cases, it cannot be at the cost of justice,” wrote Judge Catherine Purcell, who was joined in the decision by Judges JoAnn Remke and Judith Epstein.

“Field lost sight of this goal,” Purcell continued, “ … and in doing so, he disregarded the foundation from which any prosecutor’s authority flows — ‘The first, best and most effective shield against injustice for an individual accused … must be found … in the integrity of the prosecutor.’”

Frail as that reed may be, it's an important one.  With luck, state bar associations across the country will take heed and start to hold prosecutors to their legal and ethical obligations.

Thanks to Scott for the heads-up.
 

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Do your children refuse to see you since you and your ex separated? When you actually get to see your kid(s), do they lash out at you? Do they know things about your break-up or divorce that they shouldn’t know? Do they “diagnose” or berate you by using adult terms and expressions that are beyond their years?

If so, you’re probably experiencing the effects of parental alienation or hostile aggressive parenting. It’s normal to have hard feelings at the end of a significant relationship, however, you have a choice about how you handle it.

Most cases of parental alienation occur in dissolved marriages/relationships, break ups, and divorces in which there’s a high degree of conflict, emotional abuse and/or mental illness or personality disorders.

If you were emotionally abused by your ex while you were still together, then your kid(s) learned some powerful lessons about relationships, especially if you had a “no talk” policy about the rages, yelling, emotional withdrawal, cold silences and verbal attacks. Children are adversely affected by witnessing constant conflict and overt and covert relational abuse, no matter their age.

Emotionally and/or physically abusive women and men are scary when on the attack, which probably makes it all the more confusing to see your ex turn your child(ren) against you. Don’t your kids see how out of whack their mom or dad is being? Don’t they know that you love them and how much you want to be in their lives? Don’t they realize they need you now more than ever? Yes and no.

On some level, they do know this. Nonetheless, they’re lashing out at you like mini-versions of your ex. Why?

It’s not that confusing if you think about it from a child’s perspective. Children depend utterly upon their custodial parent. Seeing mom or dad lose it and out of control is anxiety provoking, if not downright terrifying. The following are possible reasons why your ex’s campaign of parental alienation may be successful.

1. You left them alone with the crazy person. You got out and they didn’t. They’re mad that you’re not there anymore to intervene, act as a buffer, protect them or take the brunt of it.

2. Self-preservation. They see how your ex is treating you because she or he is angry with you. Your kid(s) don’t want your ex’s wrath directed at them. It’s like making “friends” with the school bully so they don’t pick on you.

3. Fear of loss. They’re worried that if they anger or displease your ex that they’ll be emotionally and/or physically banished, too. This is especially true if your ex used to shut you out, give you the cold shoulder and/or ignore you when she or he was upset with you. Your kids probably fear your ex will do this to them if they don’t go along with her or him.

4. They’re mad at you. You’re no longer physically present at home, which they experience as a psychological loss. Many kids experience this as betrayal and/or abandonment. Even if they can recognize that you didn’t have a happy marriage, they still want mom and dad to be together.

Loss, whether it’s physical (death) or psychological (divorce), requires a mourning period. Children aren’t psychologically equipped to handle grief and mourning. Pending other developmental milestones, kids don’t have the psychological capacity to successfully navigate loss until mid-adolescence. If you’d died, they could idealize your memory. However, you’re alive and chose to leave (or your ex chose for you). How do you mourn the loss of someone who’s not dead? It takes a level of intellectual sophistication children don’t possess not to vilify the physically absent parent—especially when your ex isn’t capable of it as an adult.

5. Rewards and punishment. Your ex “rewards” the kids (material goods, praise, trips and fun activities—probably with your support money—oh the irony) for siding with her, being cruel to you or cutting you off. If your kid(s) stand up for you or challenge your ex’s smear campaign, they’re chastised, lose privileges or have affection withheld from them. Remember how your ex used to treat you when she or he was displeased? It’s way scarier when you’re a kid. You have options as an adult that your children don’t.

6. The good son or daughter. They see how upset and out of control your ex is and want to take care of and make her or him “better.” They try to do this by doing what your ex wants, which is being hostile toward you and/or excluding you from their lives. This creates what psychologists refer to as the parentified child. Parentification forces a child to shoulder emotions and responsibilities for which she or he isn’t developmentally prepared and is also a form of child abuse.

Emotional parentification is particularly destructive for children and frequently occurs in parental alienation cases. The custodial parent implicitly or explicitly dumps their emotional needs on the child. The child becomes the parent’s confidante, champion/hero and surrogate for an adult partner. This is extremely unhealthy as it robs children of their childhood and leads to difficulty in having normal adult relationships later in life.

7. Power and control. They see the power your ex wields by behaving in an abusive and hurtful way toward you. They can wield the same power by acting out and hurting you, too. A child or teenager’s first taste of power can be thrilling for them. Of course, what they’re learning from you ex is how to gain control by being an emotionally abusive bully.

8. It’s good to be the victim. The more your ex plays the professional victim to friends, family and the legal system, the more benefits she or he gains—deferential treatment, sympathy, power and money. The kids mirror your ex’s victim mentality and behaviors and use it to net their own gains.

A combination of the above reasons probably applies to child(ren) siding with your abusive and alienating ex, particularly when you’ve been a good and loving parent. It’s demoralizing to have your kid(s) slap or push you away each time you reach out to them. It’s maddening that family court in many cases is blind to the abuses of parental alienation. Try to keep in mind that most children aren’t consciously aware that the above phenomena are occurring. Of course, that doesn’t make it any easier to be the emotional and financial punching bag for your ex and children.

by Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Originally published at A Shrink for Men on March 6, 2009

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After looking at the books, do you still think democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is a priority?

50% of the federal budget right now goes to entitlements.

This last month we posted a record $220.9 billion budget deficit. We took in $107 billion but spent $328 billion.

Isn't that special. We only funded 32% of expenditures?

Remember - entitlements were half of that $328 billion.

So let's see if we can do the math here.

Entitlements were about $164 billion last month in spending. The rest was, of course, the rest.

But we only took in $107 billion.

So even if we eliminated all entitlement spending we still did not have enough money to cover the rest.

The insane thing is that the only pressure from the American people to date is to fight entitlement reduction even though eliminating all entitlements isn't enough to stem the financial bleeding. One certainly can't say they aren't going to get what they deserve. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that even the Tea Partiers don't want to cut back on military spending.Posted by Vox Day.

[This post was submitted by Michael Claymore]

Quick, picture a woman in your mind, right now. So, what did she look like? Was she fat and /or plain? Probably not, despite the fact that in the real world that is what most women look like!

If you’re anything like most men you probably pictured some hot piece of tail out of Penthouse, or your favorite porn star , or maybe just a generic “Girl Gone Wild!”. Either way, you pictured something that is not representative of women, and in doing so you on some level transferred at least some of the feelings that you have towards “good looking women” to the larger group called simply “women”!

And are those feelings just the self-serving ones like lust? No. If you’re one of those men who goes against what he’s been taught all his life and actually examines his feelings, you will probably find other emotions triggered by female beauty – tenderness, affection and protectiveness.

Feminists often whine about the proliferation of beautiful women in our media, yet ironically these images do men more damage than they do women, precisely by giving many of us a false inner image of what “women” are. This leads many of us to respond emotionally not to the prosaic reality of “Actual Woman”, but to a glittering, media-induced mirage best described as “Idealized Woman”! So when bastards like Obama get up there and whine about domestic violence, do most men picture a fat and/or ugly woman? No! They picture a good-looking woman with a black eye, thereby triggering feelings of affection and protectiveness and attaching them to the concept of the abused woman, and in turn increasing the likelihood that they will support whatever nutty D.V policy President Useless has up his frilly sleeve!

There is nothing wrong with appreciating beauty in women, and I should know, I’ve drawn and painted hundreds of gorgeous women over the years. But men have got to make a conscious effort to separate the affection and protectiveness induced by what is at best a tiny minority of women, from a reality which does not support the same feelings.

Perhaps I’m wrong in this. Perhaps I’m projecting the way artistically inclined, beauty-loving males see things. Perhaps I am the exception rather than the rule, but even if so, who do you think ends up generating the media’s images of both men and women? Yes, it’s the artistic men who create those images inside your head, and on that fact alone, it’s time we took a serious look at how false images of women influence the way we feel about the real deal.

Michael Claymore is the manager of Porky Domesticus, your host at Porky’s Place.

The International Violence Against Women Act – I-VAWA for short — has recently been introduced in Congress. Certainly we all wish to see an end to domestic violence around the world.

But scratch below its innocent-sounding name and you’ll find a bill brimming with ideological buzz-words, dubious assumptions, and unproven remedies. Worse, if passed, the International Violence Against Women Act could actually harm women around the globe. Here’s how:

1. Defines minor marital discord as “violence.” I-VAWA defines domestic violence broadly to include “coercion.” Do we really want to prosecute a woman on charges of pestering her better half? Is it wise to turn husband-nagging into a crime?

2. Will weaken the family structure. Families are the most important economic and social institution, especially in developing countries. Encouraging persons to scream “abuse!” for every lover’s quarrel and marital tiff will rend asunder family ties.

3. Will place women at greater risk of partner violence. By breaking up the family unit, women will face higher odds of abuse. Research shows persons in stable, married relationships have the lowest rates of partner violence, while the highest rates are found among separating and unmarried couples.

4. Will force women into poverty. Removed from their primary breadwinner, women will be forced to depend on social welfare programs that are spotty or non-existent in Third World countries. (In the 1970s, Great Society programs required low-income women to leave their income-producing husbands in order to qualify for aid. Social scientists termed the ensuing pauperization the “feminization of poverty.”)

5. Will result in the widespread incarceration of women. I-VAWA would institute heavy-handed criminal justice measures. In India, misguided mandatory arrest policies resulted in the arrest of 123,000 women accused of abuse during the period 2004-2007. Now, women’s groups are at the forefront of efforts to roll back the country’s domestic violence laws: http://uchalla.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/international-womens-day-2010/

6. Ignores the leading cause of domestic violence injury to women. According to Centers for Disease Control researcher Daniel Whitaker, “a woman’s perpetration of violence was the strongest predictor of her being a victim of partner violence.” But I-VAWA is silent about helping violence-prone women to curb their abuse.

7. Closes it eyes to other common causes of domestic violence. Partner violence is often linked to alcohol or drug abuse, poor conflict resolution skills, and childhood emotional trauma. Again, I-VAWA implies these are non-issues.

8. Stereotypes men as abusers. Most women care for men — their husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, co-workers, and sons. Women certainly don’t want men to be vilified, or have their civil rights removed in the name of curbing abuse.

9. Silences partner abuse in the lesbian community. Lesbian (and gay) couples experience domestic violence as often as heterosexual couples. Stereotypically depicting domestic violence as men striking women does a grave disservice to persons in same-sex relationships.

10. Diverts resources away from the true victims. The true victims of domestic violence need our help. These persons shouldn’t have to compete with trivial or bogus cases to get the protection and help they need.

The International Violence Against Women Act is so far removed from the realities that women around the world face – and from the science of effective abuse-reduction methods – that one wonders if I-VAWA should be renamed the International Act Against Women.

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Even if you don't care about baseball, you have to loathe the Yankees after reading this tale of attending a Yankees game:

My father-in-law was thrilled when we reached our seats. He couldn't believe it. He'd never had seats this good. "Hey," he said with a twinkle in his eye, "maybe we'll catch a foul ball."

I looked around. "We got a shot," I said.

"You know," he continued, "I've been coming to Yankees games for 65 years. Never caught a foul ball."

Never caught a foul ball? Celebrating his 71st birthday? My father-in-law? Kids, we have a mission.

So we got to the seats, and remember, these were crazy good, expensive seats. Sitting behind us in Row 2 were four kids who I'd guess were between the ages of 8 and 10. A couple of things immediately stuck out about these kids:

1. They were bragging to one another about all the different toys, vacations, servants, whatever they all had.
2. There were no parents in sight.

Apparently, they were just dumped there or something. I know baseball is America's pastime and kids are cute, but let me tell you something, and I'm not gonna lie. These kids were superannoying. They came across as spoiled, rich kids. They were loud, demanding and, just like you would expect of unsupervised children, completely without a care about anyone around them.

They were discussing foul balls and bragging to one another about how many they had. This one had five, this one had three, a third had four, so on and so on. They apparently came to these seats a lot.

The game started, and we were close enough that the players could hear us. The kids knew this. And started screaming at the players.

"Throw us a ball! Give us a ball! Hey, mister, we want a ball! Give us a ball! Hey, throw the ball here! We want a ball! Please, mister, throw us a ball!" On and on they went. "Hey, mister! Mister! MISTER! GIVE US A BALL!"

If you think that is annoying to read, imagine it being screamed during the game, constantly, inning after inning, directly behind you. In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Yankees went 1, 2, 3 with the final out a ground out. As the Blue Jays ran off the field, first baseman Carlos Delgado (told you it was a while ago) tossed the ball up into the stands. Many folks went for it, but I came down with it.

I turned to my father-in-law, all smiles. "Here's your ball, Joe."

As he looked at the ball, the kids started yelling. "Can we have the ball? Hey, mister, we want that ball. Give us the ball!" "We've been yelling," and so on. My father-in-law turned to me and said, "If you want to give the kids the ball, that's OK."

Hells. No.

My father-in-law was a softy. I'm not. And I was not going to give up Joe's first foul ball in 65 years so some spoiled brats could add it to their collection. Just because you beg for something in an annoying manner does not mean your efforts are rewarded. Learned that while dating in high school.

But some wise guy a few rows behind the kids started a chant. "Give-the-kid-the-ball. Give-the-kid-the-ball." It picked up steam. "Give! The Kid! The Ball! Give! The Kid! The Ball!" Soon, the whole section was chanting this. GIVE! THE KID! THE BALL! GIVE! THE KID! THE BALL!

I ignored it and tried to watch the game. The kids turned from annoying to nasty. "Hey [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 1]! Give us the ball, [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 2]! He was throwing the ball to us, [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 3, which, frankly, I'm not sure where an 8-to-10-year-old kid would learn]."

We continued to try to watch the game.

Then the food bombardment started. Peanuts, hot dogs and beer were thrown at us. Repeatedly. Security was nowhere to be found. We asked folks to stop, which made it worse. We tried to ignore it. But the food, beer and insults kept coming.

Order was finally restored a half-inning later when the first-base umpire came over and handed the kids some balls. The kids bragged to us. "Told you we'd get a ball, a--hole."

And that's why I hate the Yankees.

It's not just the team and the way it is run. It's not just its owner or the cheating, performance-enhancing drug users A-Rod and Andy Pettitte.

It's the collective known as Yankee Nation.

I came away from that game with a hatred of the Yankees and was absolute in this belief: Yankees fans are subhuman. Everything they and the Yankees stand for was represented during that half-inning. Like the kids, they are spoiled and demanding and see things only from their self-indulgent point of view. Like the adults, they act out when they don't get their way.

Of course, there is a better reason to despise the Yankees. They are, after all, the New York Yankees.Posted by Vox Day.

This article weighed in with some disinformation about child abuse, neglect and death.  Its headline - "Most Often Children Die at the Hands of Young Men" - gives a taste of what's to come (Bangor Daily News, 3/6/10).  That is, the article itself contains some important misstatements of fact.

The piece is all about homicides that have children as their victims.  It quotes a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, Stephen McCausland, as saying that about two children per year are victims of homicide in Maine and that usually they're under the age of three when they die and that most of the perpetrators are parents.

Without knowing the Maine statistics in detail, none of that is surprising, because the same is true nationwide.  According to the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 80% of homicides with children as the victim are perpetrated by parents.  There are about 1,300 of those nationwide.

McCausland goes on to say that,

The vast majority are children who died at the hands of a young man, usually the father or the mother’s boyfriend.

That's a defensible statement.  The facts are these:

• From 2005-2009, 11 children under the age of 18 were the victims of a homicide in Maine;
• Three were killed by fathers, three were killed by mother's boyfriend; two were killed by mothers; two were killed by other children and one was killed by a step-father;
• One of the boyfriends was mentally incapable of criminal wrongdoing and was committed to a psychiatric institution.

So in Maine, over the years McCausland referred to, seven of the 11 children were killed by a father or boyfriend.  This is a very small sample size, easily subject to fluctuation, but it is 63%, and if that constitutes a "vast majority," so be it.

But where the article really goes wrong is with its next expert, Dr. Lawrence Ricci who tries to bootstrap the Maine statistics to the national level by saying,

That’s certainly the case in Maine, and it’s certainly the case nationally.

Actually, that's certainly not the case nationally.  The ACF tracks child maltreatment including homicide yearly.  And every year since at least 1997, women have killed significantly more children than have men, regardless of their relationship.

For example, in the ACF's report of state data for 2007, some 56.5% of child homicide was committed by women while 42% was committed by men, with the sex of the remainder of perpetrators being unknown.  Ten years before, the figures were about 63%/37%.

But Ricci doesn't stop there.  He goes on to claim that nationally,

the perpetrators of serious physical child abuse or homicide are most likely fathers, next are nonbiological father figures such as stepfathers or mothers’ boyfriends, and then sitters, Ricci said.

Mothers are the fourth-most-likely perpetrators and “well down on the list,” he said.

Again, that's just flat-out false.  The most likely perpetrator of child injury or death is the child's mother.  Referring to all injury to children, the 2007 ACF states,

Victim data were analyzed by relationship to their perpetrators. Nearly 39 percent (38.7%) of victims were maltreated by their mother acting alone (figure 3–6). Nearly 18 percent (17.9%) of victims were maltreated by their father acting alone. Nearly 17 percent (16.8%) were maltreated by both parents.

The same report found that 27.1% of child homicides nationwide were committed by a mother acting alone while 16.3% were committed by a father acting alone.

The figures for all child maltreatment over the years are these:

• 2006: Mother acting alone - 39.9%; Father acting alone - 17.6%
• 2005: MAA - 40.4%; FAA - 18.3%
• 2004: MAA - 38.8%; FAA - 18.3%
• 2003: MAA - 40.8%; FAA - 18.8%
• 2002: MAA - 40.3%; FAA - 19.1%
• 2001: MAA - 40.5%; FAA - 19.3%
• 2000; MAA - 40.0%; FAA - 16.6%

In other words, for none of those years was child abuse by a mother less than twice that of a father.

Prior to 2000, the AFC didn't break down abuse into categories like "mother only" or "father only," so here are the figures for male and female child abuse for the three years before 2000:

• 1999: Female - 61.8%; Male - 38.2%
• 1998: Female - 60.4%; Male - 39.6%
• 1997: Female - 62.3%; Male - 37.7%

I've emailed Ricci to find out his response to these data, but he hasn't responded.  How he figures that fathers commit more child abuse than do mothers is anyone's guess.

If you want to email the Bangor Daily News, the editor-in-chief is Michael J. Dowd and his email address is mdowd@bangordailynews.net.  If you want to email the article's author, Dawn Gagnon, go to the article and click on her name.

Thanks to Tatyana and Jeremy for the heads-up.

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The Spearhead has been around for almost six months now, and considering its short life and rather sudden emergence, it’s made quite an impact. Looking around, subtle cues are emerging even in the mainstream that people are recognizing that feminism has gone too far, and men across the Anglosphere are starting to let it be known that they are fed up. We are getting nearly a thousand first-time visitors every day through searches and referrals, and a significant proportion of those people are sticking around to see what we have to say.

I suspect some higher level pundits have read some of our articles, and are thinking about the implications of a society filled with rootless, disenfranchised men. Perhaps they are a bit worried; they should be if they value stability, productivity and growth.

I’m delighted that our publication has been climbing its way into the public consciousness, and excited about its potential. In fact, I’m so optimistic about the prospect for making a real difference that I’ve taken it on as my primary job, and that’s where things get complicated.

As much as I’d like to pretend that money doesn’t matter, little things like my computer falling apart recently, the need to feed my kids and pay bills, and the other mundane costs of life continue to pile up. As a simple man with simple tastes, my needs are not great, but there is a bare minimum associated with life in America. Because I am primarily motivated by abstract ideals rather than concrete profits, I’d be perfectly happy to keep putting a great deal of work into The Spearhead for that bare minimum, but I do have to meet it.

Ad and affiliate revenue has risen to almost $200/month, which covers my costs as far as bandwidth and overhead (not counting hardware). This is roughly 10% of what I need to get by. My next goal, which I have mentioned before, is to start publishing books in both electronic and print format, and I have recently set up a good system for producing them. All I need to proceed is to purchase some ISBNs to finish setting up my account with the printer. I am hopeful that The Spearhead will be self-sustaining through a combined income approach in due course, but that will take some time.

Eventually, we’re going to have to go from words to action, and I have some plans along those lines as well. Of course, one can only take on so much at once, but I can imagine putting some effort into influencing some political campaigns come summer and fall. Defeating feminist senator Patty Murray, champion of VAWA and IMBRA, is something I’d be thrilled to help accomplish, and I already have some potentially useful ideas that might help with that.

Last time I asked for some support – three months ago almost to the day – quite a few people came through. Some donors have truly humbled me with their generosity. Following that appeal and subsequent response, I began to put substantially more work into The Spearhead. This paid off with rapid growth over the next couple months. In fact, it grew so fast that I could barely handle all the comments and attention. Things have evened out a bit over the last month, but as our database continues to grow, more and more links and views are coming in every day. We have almost 1,100 subscribers now, and the number continues to rise week after week.

In short, The Spearhead is still gaining steam. I can foresee a day – not too far off if I may be optimistic – when we outrank Feministing, which operates with a paid staff and has connections at the highest levels of national government as well as ridiculously wealthy supporters. We are like David facing an Amazon version of Goliath, and we should have all the same confidence the shepherd boy did before he sank a stone in the monstrous Philistine’s forehead.

Once again, I’d like to thank our writers, to whom The Spearhead owes its success. Their content has been brilliant and thought provoking. Ordinary men from many different walks of life have contributed thoughts that are being read by hundreds of thousands of people. Their voices together have grown strong and reached far and wide. For far too long these men and others like them have been silenced and pushed aside, but now that they’ve found their voice it turns out that the people want to hear what they have to say. If anything, seeing that happen has been the most rewarding thing about being a part of this publication.

So in closing, I’d like to ask for your support, and to offer my most sincere gratitude to those who have already pitched in. Any contribution is helpful, and will allow me to continue the fight for a better society for men and mankind.

Or send check or money order to:

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