Topics

[http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece]

Holy crap.

Boy dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: "I think it's a lot."

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.  The shy lad, whose voice has not yet broken, said: "I thought it would be good to have a baby.

"I didn't think about how we would afford it. I don't really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece (http://%3cb%3ehttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece%3C/B%3E)

[Vimax]

Numerous web sites have recently found every ad zone on their pages filledwith ads for Vimax, which is supposed to enlarge a certain body part.We don't run ads for stuff like that, and of course no one here could possibly need it anyway.


But there's malware floating around out there that hijacks yourcomputer's DNS settings and puts its own ads into your zones. Unlikeregular viruses, it can attack both PCs and Macs. It seems to oftencome with free video-processing software.


If it happens to you, rest assured that it's happening only in your Web browser and not to your readers. Here's what to do:


  * For Mac users: Apple's forums have info about a couple fixes in this thread (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1848543&tstart=135)
  * For PC users, several people suggest Trend Micro's free HijackThis (http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis) tool.

[not]

Forwarded to me for general interest at tax time:

This could go in the thread for the 'tax rules for 2008', although this is not a new tax rule.
I have been claiming this for some time. in our 50/50 rotating situation we are both require to maintain a life insurance policy.

My tax preparer didn't believe me on this one, until I showed him the supporting literature.

For those required by their CO to maintain a life insurance policy with the other parent as the beneficiary for the policy (since the children cannot claim the benefits of the policy until 18 years of age). Payments made to maintain such a policy can be deducted as alimony on your taxes.

So...if you have been paying for a life insurance policy and not claiming this as alimony, you also have the option of filing a correction for preceding years taxes. However, this amount may be trivial.

[Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care]

Below is my review of Kathleen Parker's new book, Save the Males.  The review was published several weeks ago in Human Events, the influential conservative weekly newspaper here in Washington.  I was waiting for it to go online, which they said it would, but that never seems to have happened.

Happy New Year.

Stephen


Men:  The New Victim Group
By Stephen Baskerville
Human Events, vol. 64, no. 41 (November 24, 2008), p. 19.

Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care

Kathleen Parker
Random House
$26.00, 215pp.

"The last thing we need in America is yet another victim group," writes columnist John Leo, "this one made up of seriously aggrieved males."  Yet he devotes the column to the dangers of male-bashing.

        Men seldom complain about negative "stereotypes," from fear of appearing petty.  So Kathleen Parker has performed a valuable service in her fine book about the increasingly male-hostile culture created by extreme feminism.  The relentless venom against males and masculinity - and its impact on women and girls - is presented in readable prose with vivid, often humorous anecdotes.  In popular culture, men are portrayed as bumblers, deadbeats, pedophiles, rapists, and batterers.  Even boys are deprecated beyond a joke, with feminist teachers declaring "I don't like boys" and feminist curricula trying to make them girls, plus T-shirts urging that they be pelted with rocks.

        The consequences reach beyond New Age Men in aprons and Lamaze classes.  By far the most serious fallout is the systematic destruction of fatherhood - "patriarchy" in feminist jargon.  Single motherhood is more than celebrated in the popular culture; it is enforced in the courts.  Public ridicule may be sufficient for public figures like former Vice President Dan Quayle, who do not subscribe to the fashionable orthodoxy that children can be raised just fine without fathers, but handcuffs and jail cells are available for private men who refuse to accept that their own children are just fine without them. 

Parker shows how families with fathers are more than a cultural ideal and social necessity:  They also "keep government in its place."  She exposes repressive measures against "deadbeat dads," including privacy and constitutional rights violations of "Americans accused of nothing," and how this dishonest campaign is actually causing the problem it is supposed to be addressing.  While Parker's emphasis is on culture, she transcends the trendy but superficial "he said/she said" approach and highlights government power:  How easily "stereotypes" result in not merely unfairness but incarceration. 

        To appreciate why this book is more than the mirror image of feminist "whining" requires recognizing a fundamental distinction between unfairness and injustice.  It may be unfair that a woman can decide to abort a child or not and that a man with no "choice" about the child he fathered must then pay child support.  But (even aside from the immorality of abortion) it is not necessarily unjust, and it does not in itself threaten a free society.  Criminalizing innocent fathers by seizing and holding their children through divorce laws that allow them to the "treated like criminals by family court," leveling false charges of ill-defined "abuse," confiscating their homes, gagging their voices, forcing them to confess to crimes they did not commit, demanding that they pay for it all under the guise of "child support" - and all this on pain of incarceration without trial - constitutes government repression.  It threatens not only the families and social order but the privacy and freedom of us all. 

        Though sugar-coated on Oprah and Dr. Phil, what this book exposes are the consequences of a political ideology that, like most ideologies, promotes hate.  Not only has this permeated every corner of our society and culture; its ideologues are now set to assume unprecedented political power.  Save the Males offers an important contribution to understanding what we may expect.

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken Into Custody:  The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family (Cumberland House, 2007).

************************************************

Stephen Baskerville, PhD
Associate Professor of Government
Patrick Henry College
1 Patrick Henry Circle
Purcellville, Virginia  20132

Now Available from Cumberland House Publishing:

Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family
STEPHEN BASKERVILLE, PhD

"This book is a tremendous and much-needed report on how family courts and government policies are harming children."   -- Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum

Order today at Amazon's special price of $16.47 (regular price $24.95).
For more than 80 articles and studies in mainstream publications on the abuses of the divorce industry, see www.stephenbaskerville.net.

[BE ALL YOU CAN BE]

BE ALL YOU CAN BE
In a March change of regulations, the Pentagon began saving money by reducing
"combat-injury" benefits for all except those wounded while actually fighting,
explaining that combat-"related" injuries were simply not worthy of full compensation.
Thus, in examples offered by The Washington Post in November, Marine Cpl.
James Dixon and Army Sgt. Lori Meshell were not entitled to full combat-injury
coverage for their Iraq wounds (Dixon from a roadside bomb and a land mine,
and Meshell while diving for cover during a mortar attack) because neither was
actually fighting at the time. (Dixon, initially denied about $16,000 by the classification,
recently won a hard-fought reversal, but Meshell, drawing $1,200 less per month
because of the change, is still appealing.)


NEW DEFINITION OF WINNER: "LOSER"
When Arien O'Connell posted the fastest time in October's Nike Women's Marathon
in San Francisco, she expected of course to be declared the winner, but the shoe
company apparently had promised a group of elite runners (to attract them to
enter the race) that one of them would be the "winner," and consequently, first
place went to a woman who ran 11 minutes behind O'Connell. After a storm of
complaints, Nike reluctantly settled on calling both women "winners" and said next
year it would scrap the two-tier system.


HA HA, MADE ME LAUGH
In 1983, convicted South Carolina murderer Michael Godwin, then 22, succeeded
in getting an appeals court to reduce his death-by-electric-chair sentence to one
of life in prison at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. Six years
later, in March 1989, while sitting naked on a metal toilet and attempting to fix
earphones that were connected to a television set, Godwin bit into a wire and
was electrocuted.

[[HIGHLIGHT=#ffff00]Why does a court allow this? Because in their eyes, FATHER'S DO NOT MATTER. The father is deprived of his right to be a father, and this child will grow up never knowing who her real father is. Hooray for justice. [/HIGHLIGHT]]

[HIGHLIGHT=#ffff00]Why does a court allow this? Because in their eyes, FATHER'S DO NOT MATTER. The father is deprived of his right to be a father, and this child will grow up never knowing who her real father is. Hooray for justice. [/HIGHLIGHT]

Mother allowed to keep baby secret from father
Last Updated: 2:11AM GMT 24 Nov 2007

A woman who had a child after a one-night stand with a work colleague has won the right to keep the birth a secret from the father.

Three appeal court judges ruled that the mother has "the ultimate veto" over who should be told about her baby, and banned social workers from tracking down the father.

The 20-year-old mother had hidden her pregnancy from friends and family, and said that she wanted the girl to be adopted immediately after she had given birth.

However, a county court ordered that her parents and the father must be told after her legal guardian and local authority argued that they should be assessed to see if they were able and prepared to care for the child.

The woman then took the case to the Court of Appeal, where the judges ruled that no steps should be taken to identify the father or tell him about the child, now 19 weeks old.

There was also an order barring the authority from introducing the baby to any of the mother's family to assess them as potential carers.

They had learned about the child only when the local authority made inquiries.

In the ruling yesterday, Lady Justice Arden said the county court judge had made his order because he believed that the local authority had a duty under the law to find out as much information about the background of the family as they could.

But she said there was no such obligation - only a duty to serve the best interests of the child.

The judge said the mother had not realised until a late stage that she was pregnant and the woman did not think she could look after the child.

She kept her pregnancy a secret, living on her own and pursuing a career.

The judge said she asked for the child to be adopted, saying she did not believe her divorced parents could provide a home for the girl.

She stressed that she did not want the father to know anything about the child.

Lady Justice Arden, sitting with Lord Justice Thorpe and Lord Justice Lawrence Collins, said this was not a violation of the father's rights to family life under the Human Rights Act because he had no rights to be violated.

Lord Justice Thorpe said: "The law improves the opportunity of the child of anonymous birth to search out its biological origin.

"However, the ultimate veto remains with the mother. Registers of information are in place to lead the searching child to the mother's door but the child has no right of entry if the mother, despite counselling, refuses to unlock it."

The names and locations of everyone involved in the case cannot be published by order of the court.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1570339/Mother-allowed-to-keep-baby-secret-from-father.html

[Mother who abandoned baby in court battle to stop father being told]

Mother who abandoned baby in court battle to stop father being told

A man is unwittingly at the centre of what could prove to be a landmark court case about his right to know he may be a father.

By Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:19AM GMT 28 Nov 2008

The man, who cannot be named, lived with a woman who abandoned her newborn baby son at a hospital and who is desperately trying to stop him finding out about the child's existence.

The boy's guardian wants the man to be told that he may be a father, but the baby's mother wants him to remain in the dark.

At London's Civil Appeal Court on Thursday, leading judges ordered an urgent court hearing with the mother present in order to settle the issue, so the boy can be adopted or returned to her.

If a ruling is made in favour of the man, it could set an important legal precedent that men have the right to know they may be a father regardless of the mother's wishes.

However if a judgement goes against him and in favour of the mother, women everywhere could use the case to stop fathers finding out about their children.

The court heard that even though the couple were living together, the woman managed to hide her pregnancy from the man and gave birth at home without him knowing about it.

He remains totally unaware he may be a father after the mother "delivered the baby to a local hospital and made it plain she did not seek to care for the child", it was said.

Social workers from Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council in the north east are now involved in the row over whether the man should be told about the baby.

Although a court-appointed guardian wants to tell the man about the baby, his mother is adamant that he should not find out.

Lord Justice Thorpe has now ordered an urgent court hearing about the issue, which he said should take place in Newcastle "with maximum expedition" so it can be decided once and for all whether the boy should be adopted or returned to his natural mother.

Justin Gray, a barrister representing the baby boy, told the judges that any further delay in deciding the infant's future could be "disastrous" to any potential adoption placement.

He claimed the baby's mother had refused to take part in the court process and despite "great efforts" made by her solicitors, she had failed to give them any instructions.

Lord Justice Thorpe, sitting with Lord Justice Richards and Lord Justice Rix, said the mother was "obviously a very anxious woman who feels herself under great pressure" and warned that problems would arise if she "makes herself scarce" from the court process.

The judge therefore took the unusual step of ordering her to attend the hearing of the case in Newcastle, as well as the disclosure of her medical records to the court.

Directing an emergency hearing of the case, Lord Justice Thorpe concluded: "This is urgent business and must be settled as soon as possible.

"This case deserved the maximum expedition because, until the issue in relation to the boy's father is resolved, the boy's future – either return to his family or adoption – cannot be settled."

The critical hearing will probably take place in front of a High Court but no date has been set for it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3532084/Mother-who-abandoned-baby-in-court-battle-to-stop-father-being-told.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3532084/Mother-who-abandoned-baby-in-court-battle-to-stop-father-being-told.html)

Did Santa Clara County prosecutors withhold videotape evidence in sex-abuse cases?

By Tracey Kaplan
Mercury News - Article Launched: 12/20/2008 09:03:45 PM PST

Amid the discovery of videotapes from thousands of medical examinations of children in sex-abuse cases that had been withheld for years, the nurse who conducted those examinations has testified under oath that local prosecutors have long known she was taping the procedures.

Her former boss, the doctor who oversaw the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center unit, agrees the videotaping was no secret. He said he made the decision to keep the tapes from defense attorneys, at least in part, because they could have hampered prosecutions by "muddying" the evidence.

The bombshell disclosures dramatically raise the stakes in the videotape controversy. The testimony of Mary Ritter, physician's assistant at the hospital, contradicts claims by District Attorney Dolores Carr that the office was unaware of the taping.

It adds fuel to questions about whether the prosecutor's office has fulfilled its legal obligation to make sure defense attorneys are provided any potentially helpful evidence. And it puts the district attorney in the peculiar position of challenging the credibility of Ritter, who is a star witness for the prosecution in many child sex-abuse cases.

The Mercury News reported this month that Ritter has tapes of as many as 3,000 examinations that were never turned over to defense lawyers, a disclosure that could jeopardize an untold number of past sexual-assault convictions. The paper has since learned of Ritter's testimony, which came as she was questioned about the videotapes in an October deposition in connection with a federal lawsuit alleging that the county wrongfully removed children from a home based on an erroneous claim of sexual assault.

Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11280969?nclick_check=1

[UK court rejects enforcement of prenuptial pacts]

UK court rejects enforcement of prenuptial pacts

By ROBERT BARR

LONDON (AP) — Prenup? Forget it for now in Britain.

A court ruling has made it worthwhile to wait at least until the honeymoon to thrash out the details of a separation.

In the case of two Americans who live in the British territory of the Isle of Man, judges on Wednesday affirmed the validity of arrangements made after the wedding, rebuffing the ex-wife's attempt to gain a larger share of her former husband's fortune than the pair had agreed to.

But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — the highest appeal court for British territories — also said it would keep to its rule that agreements made before a marriage are contrary to public policy, leaving it up to British lawmakers whether to follow the United States, Australia, Russia, Germany and others in recognizing prenuptial agreements.

Lawyers said the ruling was a disappointment for wealthy clients who are turning to such agreements to secure their fortunes in case of divorce.

Full Story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i0E7aem6ih17ryV5XBHz2w3l_oCAD955BUHO0

[The Worst Ballot Challenge Of All]

The Worst Ballot Challenge Of All      
By Eric Kleefeld (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/kleefeld) - December 18, 2008, 10:32PM
         
Looking back over today's meeting of the Minnesota state canvassing board, it's become painfully clear that Norm Coleman's big problem is that his ballot challenges are made up almost entirely of brazenly frivolous attempts to get votes for Al Franken thrown out. During the recount proper, that puffed up his apparent lead.

But now we're at the point where all those challenges are resolved-- in other words, he can't hide behind these tricks anymore. To be fair, Franken had his share of hopeless tries to toss Coleman votes, but it was nowhere near this bad.

This one might just be the worst of all. The Coleman campaign tried to get a vote for Franken thrown out because the voter had written on the ballot. What'd they write?

         "Thank you for counting my vote!"

Is there anything more that needs to be said?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/the_worst_ballot_challenge_of.php

               

[Unbelievable. She wants $53,826 per week for doing....nothing.]

Unbelievable. She wants $53,826 per week for doing....nothing.

How to spend $53,826 a week without really trying

The estranged wife of United Technologies Corp.'s chairman George David filed a document with the court that shows that she requires $53,000 a week to support her lifestyle. If you're curious to see how one person can spend that much money a week, here's the PDF of the court filing (http://www.courant.com/media/acrobat/2008-12/44011085.pdf).

    Real estate accounts for a lot of it, including mortgage, maintenance fees, rent or other costs for a Park Avenue apartment, a Hamptons residence and several properties in Sweden.

    But travel ($8,000), clothing ($4,500), hair and skin care ($1,000), dry cleaning ($650) and flowers ($600), among many other items, contribute to the total.

    Dry cleaning does not include fur storage and cleaning ($45).

    And that's when Douglas-David is cutting back.

    "While recognizing that many of these expenses may seem high, most are lower than prior to the commencement of this case in August 2007," a footnote in her financial affidavit says.

Wife Of UTC's George David Has Expenses Of $53,000 A Week (http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/hc-david1218.artdec18,0,4768262.story)

[We recommend using Firefox: Get Firefox Now]

Microsoft has begun flooding media outlets with information advising users to switch to an alternate browser (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm)while a serious security flaw is being patched. The flaw, which affectsall versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, is manifested via malwareand has infected over 6000 sites thus far (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Hackers-Compromise-Legit-Web-Sites-to-Target-Microsoft-IE-Flaw/).

Microsoft states: 'The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference in the data-binding function (http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9123338)of Internet Explorer. When data binding is enabled (which is thedefault state), it is possible under certain conditions for an objectto be released without updating the array length, leaving the potentialto access the deleted object's memory space. This can cause InternetExplorer to exit unexpectedly, in a state that is exploitable.'"

According to the BBC report, though, Microsoft itself is only askingthat users be "vigilant while it investigated and prepared an emergencypatch"; it's outside experts who say to dump IE (at least for now).

[HIGHLIGHT=#ffff00]We recommend using Firefox: Get Firefox Now[/HIGHLIGHT] (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)

Sarcasm used to diagnose dementia

Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but Australian scientists are using it to diagnose dementia (http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2428/sarcasm-useful-detecting-dementia), according to a new study. Researchers at the University of New SouthWales, found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2428/sarcasm-useful-detecting-dementia

[Not like here in the west, where it's a gesture of affection.]

On the heels (ha ha) of the now-notorious incident in which an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at some guy named George Bush, the world press has rushed to tell us that throwing shoes is a really bad thing in the Arab world. Not like here in the west, where it's a gesture of affection.

"In Arab cultures, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect." —Bloomberg.com (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aabFVZj4gc4g&refer=home)

"The act is an Arab symbol of contempt." —Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1215/p25s06-wome.html)

"Throwing shoes at somebody is a supreme insult in the Middle East." —Reuters (http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/12/14/africa/OUKWD-UK-IRAQ-BUSH.php)

"In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt." —Associated Press (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTki_d652tvHLYQvaRlelGq64GoQD952NAD00)


Those Mysterious Easterners, So Different From You and Me (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010871.html)