Story here. Excerpt:

'Three young girls were found home alone and apparently abandoned on Christmas Eve, it emerged yesterday. The youngsters had been left with no presents to open and no tree to cheer them up.

While police officers tracked down and arrested their mother on suspicion of neglect, their colleagues organised a whip-round and dashed to the shops before they closed for Christmas to buy some last minute gifts for the girls.

The incident happened in Gorton – the tough district of South Manchester which originally formed the backdrop of the Channel 4 comedy series Shameless.'

Nice change! Article in "Marie Claire" here. Excerpt:

'According to a Penn professor who studies these things, every American man has about a 28 percent chance of being struck by a woman at some point in his life (in related news, the number of girls ages 10 to 17 arrested for aggravated assault has doubled in the last 20 years). And yet no one seems to take the phenomenon that seriously. Maybe it's because men, generally speaking, are bigger and stronger, and we assume there's a real limit to the physical damage women could actually inflict. We don't picture these scuffles resulting in bloody noses and black eyes or a trip to the station house. Furthermore, pop culture has made the idea of a pretty girl whaling on a guy a wacky comedy staple — Angelina Jolie smashing wine bottles over Brad Pitt's head in Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Cameron Diaz coldcocking Edward Burns in The Holiday were both played for laughs. But the reality of getting hit by your girlfriend isn't so sexy or hilarious.'

Story here. This is one to keep an eye on. The issue here is equal treatment under the law. Had the father been the mother, would she be facing these charges? I doubt it. Still, there strikes me as being a strong element of negligence here, unless there are salient facts missing from the story. I am curious to know the more of the circumstances around events. If I get wind of updates or "new news", I'll post, and feel free to submit if you spot anything. Excerpt:

'A father charged with the hypothermic death of his daughter cried and banged his head against a table Monday in a Shoshone courtroom after a judge read out each charge against him.

Robert E. Aragon, 55, is accused of felony injury to a child and second-degree murder, after two of his children tried to walk nearly 10 miles on their own through feet of snow and freezing temperatures on Christmas to see their mom.

Aragon's family says he's a loving father who shouldn't be in jail for the tragedy.
...

Story here. Excerpt:

'Police in Delaware have arrested a woman they say had sex with her teenage daughter's friend.

38-year-old Juli Faunce, a resident of the unit block of Commonwealth Avenue in the Overlook Colony Apartments, has been charged with four counts of rape in the 3rd degree.
...
Police say Faunce had sex with the boy on at least two occasions in November while he was "staying the night" in her apartment.

Faunce later learned that her daughter had also engaged in a sexual relationship with the boy. She called police Sunday to report the teen had forced himself on her daughter, because they say she was unhappy with the news of her daughter's new relationship.

Faunce has been arraigned and released on $40,000 bail. She was ordered to have no contact with the victim and also ordered to not have any teenage boys in her home for any period of time.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Local Government Association (LGA) has said that at at least 15 per cent of those in operational roles should be female.

That means they will fill one of the five or six places for crew on each engine.

The LGA said an increased number of firewomen is necessary "to meet the needs of local people".

But critics warned that political correctness was being put above the ability to save lives.

Susie Squire, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Introducing this sort of quota to the fire service is a big mistake.

"If ever there was a job that should be awarded on merit and physical fitness, it is that of a firefighter.'

The Los Angeles Times reports today: Arsenic levels too high in Kern Valley State Prison's drinking water. Excerpt:

"At the California Institution for Women in Chino, the state has been buying bottled water for prisoners for five years -- at a current annual cost of $480,000 -- because of nitrate levels that violate federal standards in the water supply to the facility and to the nearby California Institution for Men.

Chino-area municipalities have built systems to filter their own water, and the state hopes to complete a similar project a year from now for both the women's and men's prisons."

Fred and I discussed the APA's DSM-III on episodes of Face Up To Fred that dealt with Parental Alienation.

It's too bad this L.A. Times article (DSM psychiatry manual's secrecy criticized) doesn't address the "gender politics" that goes into some of the DSM's conclusions (in my opinion). Excerpt:

"...the issue carries real weight for parents desperate to address children's difficult behavior or people in distress over their mental state. It also speaks to citizens' concerns over news accounts of an overmedicated America and of the troubling financial links between some psychiatric researchers and the pharmaceutical industry."
...
"Darrel Regier, who heads the APA's research arm, said the critics are failing to recognize progress in the field. 'The field of psychiatry has gone from an ideology to a scientific pursuit,' he said."
...
"Some critics suspect that a quest for profits has encouraged the field to create mental illnesses out of personality quirks."

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Canadian man is urging others who may have slept with his Thai stripper ex-wife to get tested for the HIV virus after she passed it on to him, according to a report in the Toronto Sun.

"I know there were other men she slept with," Percy Whiteman told the Sun on Sunday. "I am lucky that I was able to find out early."

Whiteman said learned her HIV status when she fell ill in 2004. She was convicted of criminal negligence causing bodily harm for infecting Whiteman with HIV and was sentenced to three years in jail in August 2007, the Sun reported.

Imkhong came to Canada in 1995 and was a dancer at the Zanzibar Tavern in Toronto until 2004. She married Whiteman in 1997. "She should have been deported a long time ago for what she's done to others," Whiteman told the Sun. "I don't think justice was fully served."'

Dear MensActivism,

I received a link to this site recently in an email note and thought that you might be interested.

Regards,

Heretic
http://hereticalsex.blogspot.com/

--

Ed. note: This study has been mentioned before here on MANN but it can't hurt to mention it again for the benefit of people new to the site.

Story here. Excerpt:

'NEW DELHI: A little less than 20% of sexual-assault cases reported in and around Delhi are false, shows a five-year study. In almost every fifth incident, or, in 18.3 % cases to be precise, rape is used as a weapon to malign and attempt revenge, found a group of psychologists who assist Delhi Police in investigating sexual assault allegations.
...
In September 2007, the Supreme Court had alerted lower courts to attempts at misusing the rape law, noting "the courts should bear in mind that false charges of rape are not uncommon."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Tahlequah woman was arrested by Cherokee County sheriff’s deputies Monday for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, domestic abuse, and domestic abuse in the presence of minors.
...
Finch met deputies at a neighbor’s house. When the deputies went to her residence to talk with her husband, they met the man with numerous injuries, including stab wounds, scratches and bite marks on his shoulders, scalp, forehead and forearm. He was bleeding in numerous places. He told deputies his wife had thrown snow globes at him and stabbed him numerous times.

Three children in the home were interviewed by deputies, and said Finch had thrown snow globes at the man and also hit him over the head with a green vase.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Suddenly, Obama was an obstacle to the advancement of women. Now, President-elect Obama is again being portrayed as an obstacle to the advancement of women. Radical feminists whine that he didn't appoint enough women to his Cabinet.

Upon seeing that Obama had named five women to top administration posts, Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said, "there need to be a lot more women's voices in this administration."

Amy Siskind, co-founder of New Agenda, said Obama has taken "shocking steps backward." She said "this constituency does not matter to the President-elect."
...
This type of bean counting, as Bill Clinton called it, is silly. Obama should have the freedom to pick the people he believes best suited for the work without being criticized by activists who care more about pressure politics than good government.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'If I have a daughter one day, among the many things I'll teach her will be how to tie her shoes, to look both ways before crossing the street, to never end a sentence with a preposition, and to always let the man say "I love you" first.

I'll give her plenty of other relationship tips, too, like how it's perfectly okay to ask a guy out, to make the first move, to even propose, but when it comes to the "L" word, the ball's in the guy's court.

Unlike asking a man out, making a move on him, or even proposing, there's no action-based response to the first "I love you." It's all words, it's all emotion. In that moment, he either loves you back or he doesn't -- you only hear the black or white of a 'yes' or 'no,' not the gray of "Well, I like you a whole lot and I could see myself falling in love with you, but I'm just not quite there yet."

Article here. Excerpt:

'Obama is toadying to his feminist friends by pushing ratification of the UN Treaty on Women, known as CEDAW. It was signed by Jimmy Carter in 1980 and persistently promoted by Hillary Clinton, but the Senate has so far had the good judgment to refuse to ratify it.

This treaty would require us "to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women," to follow UN dictates about "family education," to revise our textbooks to conform to feminist ideology in order to ensure "the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women," and to set up a federal "network of child-care facilities."

Article 16 would require us to allow women "to decide number and spacing of their children." Everyone recognizes this as feminist jargon for a UN obligation to allow abortion on demand.

The site is http://www.withoutafather.com/. From the "About" page:

'Welcome to WithoutaFather.com

This site was created for teens growing up without a father or without a mother.

If was created for those who rarely see their fathers after their parents got divorced and for those who never even knew their fathers. It was created for those who lost a parent to cancer and for those who go through long periods of time without their fathers or mothers because of their service in the armed forces. It was created for those who may have a physically present, but emotionally absent father.

In all these cases and many others, this site was created for you and with you in mind. Even more, this site is for to any teen anywhere who is trying to improve their life.'