Jeremy Paxman, a pretty outspoken British TV presenter, has spoken out and said that he thinks the TV industry in the UK is biased against middle aged white men. The BBC reports it here. Excerpt:

'Paxman, 58, said: "Do I think it's a man's world in television? That is the most ridiculous question I have been asked all week.

"The worst thing you can be in this industry is a middle class white male.

"If any middle class white male I come across says he wants to enter television, I say 'give up all hope' - they've no chance."'

The journalist then named five women TV executives including BBC One controller Jay Hunt, Channel 4 head of news Dorothy Byrne and Dawn Airey, who will soon become Channel Five's chief executive.

"Is this evidence of some male conspiracy keeping women down?" he said.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A CELEBRITY plastic surgeon who allowed a patient to perform oral sex on him before he gave her a nose job is fighting to keep his medical licence.
...
Dr Mendelsohn, 50, admitted he did not attempt to stop a 22-year-old patient performing oral sex on him during an after-hours consultation in May 2005.
...
After the woman left the surgery, she asked her boyfriend to take her to the police, where she pressed sexual assault charges against the doctor.

The NSW Director of Public Prosecution later dropped the charges, on the basis there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction.'

Saturday, Barack Obama named Joseph Biden as his vice presidential running mate. It was thanks to Sen. Biden’s tireless efforts that the Violence Against Women Act was first passed in 1994.

So the choice is clear: Either we speak out now about the colossal injustice that VAWA has become, or we learn to accept the consequences.

Yesterday we asked you to get on the blog of your local newspaper – or any blog for that matter – and make sure everyone knows that, in Biden’s own words, "What I’m most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act."

And word is already getting out! Yesterday Marc Rudov published an edgy column titled, Will YOU Elect GynObama & VAWA Joe?.

Between now and the beginning of the Democratic convention Monday afternoon, we have an incredible opportunity to get our message out.

So today, we are asking you to think of any mailing lists you have, or any of the listservs you are on, and pump out this critical message:

Via Marc A. Article here. Excerpt:

'SCOTTISH men who are attacked by their violent partners are being left with nowhere to turn, failed by an under-resourced system, victims and campaigners have told The Scotsman.

There is no tailored facility for male victims of domestic abuse north of the Border, and many are instead being shunted to unsuitable services.

And the Scottish Government insists that general counselling services, such as Victim Support, are enough – even though female sufferers have bespoke services.

Now a new organisation, Men's Aid Scotland, is seeking charitable status to secure funding to provide the counselling and advice services which currently do not exist.'

---

Ed. note: bespoke = "custom-made". Mr. Editor here had to look that one up himself. :)

Story here. Excerpt:

'A binge-drinking mother has been jailed after falsely accusing an innocent taxi driver of raping her. Joanne Rye, who kept up the lie for 20 months, was told by a judge her behaviour was despicable and was handed an eight-month prison sentence.
...
The mother-of-one caused great shame and disgrace to devout Muslim Sherekhan Kali and his family after claiming that he dragged her down an alleyway and assaulted her.
...
The court also heard the week before she made the rape allegation, she had used racially insulting language to Mr Kali.
...
But jailing Rye for a 'modest' eight months, Judge Crawford Lindsay, QC, said he had no doubt the matter was so serious there had to be an immediate prison sentence.'

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, whether you plan to vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, or none of the above, this message is of vital importance.

Sen. Barack Obama recently released an announcement naming Sen. Joseph Biden as his vice presidential running mate. As we know, VAWA is Sen. Biden’s signature legislation. Biden has bragged, “What I’m most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act.”

Oddly, most members of the voting public don’t know that important fact. So it’s up to us to turn that around.

The next 72 hours – between now and the beginning of the Democratic convention on Monday afternoon – offer an extraordinary opportunity for us to get that message out. So we are asking each and every person reading this Alert to take 10 minutes today, Sunday, and Monday.

Today, we are asking you do the following:

Practically every newspaper in the country has set up a blog on its website. Today, we’d like you to go to the blog and made sure everyone on the blog knows the Violence Against Women Act is Biden’s brainchild. Then explain why VAWA has been so harmful to families and children.

Op-ed here. Excerpt:

"This week, while you were distractedly waiting for one of the presidential candidates to just go ahead and pick Michael Phelps as his running mate, a Manhattan lawyer sued Columbia University for discriminating against men.
...
His beef is not really with women's studies but with the way it spreads the "religion" of feminism, again helped by federal money, which he contends violates the establishment clause.
...
Men's studies exists in the broader academic world, although Columbia doesn't have a men's studies department. It explores such subjects as "paradigms of fatherhood" and "gendered violence." And according to Harry Brod, editor of the scholarly book "The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies," it's an outgrowth of the feminist movement. "If Roy Den Hollander really understood what men's studies was," Brod told me, "he wouldn't be in favor of it."

Video report here. Caption:

"A woman wanted in the bizarrely complicated attempted kidnapping of her former virtual boyfriend has been apprehended after a multi-state search."

Crazy is as crazy does.

Great, another chivalric blowhard sellout may get another promotion... to VP. FYI, Biden is the chief architect of VAWA.

Biden Wants Legal Brigade for Domestic Safety

http://endabuse.org/vawa/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act

Men's groups have challenged the validity of India's DV Act. Story here. Excerpt:

'CHENNAI: As many as five petitions are pending before the Madras high court, challenging 23 provisions of the Domestic Violence Act which they say are misused by women to harass innocent husbands. Now planning to join the list of petitioners is the Chennai-based Association for Protection of Men's Rights, which believes that investigation into cases filed under Domestic Violence Act are usually not fair.
...
Elangovan blames overzealous women's organisations, saying they often blow up marital disputes and make it a dowry issue, thus ruining relationships and careers.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'OKLAHOMA CITY – More men are filing sexual harassment complaints, according to data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The percentage of harassment complaints filed by Oklahoma men with EEOC and related state agencies all but doubled over a 10-year period, from 8.8 percent in 1997 to 17.4 percent last year.

Nationally, the percentage of sexual harassment cases with male complainants has doubled since 1990, from about 8 percent to 16 percent in 2007.
...
Hammons mentioned one current case in which a man whose female superior slapped him on the butt later fired him after overhearing him tell co-workers he did not like such treatment and was going to make a complaint.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'BEIJING (AP)—Lyudmila Blonska was stripped of her Olympic heptathlon silver medal Friday, the highest-profile athlete kicked out of the Beijing Games so far for doping.

The International Olympic Committee said Blonska tested positive for the steroid methyltestosterone after finishing second in the heptathlon last Saturday behind teammate Nataliia Dobrynska.

...
The IOC said she expressed “shock” at the results and couldn’t understand how the banned substance wound up in her system. Though she apologized and said she felt ashamed, Blonska blamed her husband, who has served as her coach for five years, for the failed doping test.

“She expressed that she trusted him to take care of her training and diet,” the IOC said. “She indicated that they had expressly agreed that she would not take any prohibited substances. However, her relationship with her husband was currently conflictual.”'

Story here. A Tulsa man is told by DHS that he is required to drive 200 miles to take a DNA test to prove he isn't a child's father. When he is unable to, he is made the father by default and has money docked from his Wal-Mart paycheck. He only started to get a break when a lawyer is provided to him by the church. All this happens even though the mother doesn't know the last name of the father of her baby! Excerpt:

'Tulsa athlete Micheal Thomas swears he never met Lawton drug user Tiffany Dickson.

Dickson says she never met him.

That didn't stop the Oklahoma Department of Human Services from getting Thomas declared the father of Dickson's baby daughter and badgering him until he dropped out of college, forfeiting a football scholarship.

...
"Tiffany said that she knows his first name is Michael, but she is not sure of his last name,” the report said. "Tiffany believes that Michael is running from the law.”

With the Democratic National Convention upon us I thought you guys might want to read this report (.pdf file). I certainly applaud identifying fatherhood as a necessity but we see the same rhetoric: fatherless homes are the sole result of male irresponsibility. As for the 'opportunity for women' section, its the same B.S. MANN battles on a daily basis. It's frightening this language appears in a document sponsored by our government. Excerpts:

p. 18: 'When women still earn 76 cents for every dollar that a man earns, it doesn’t just hurt women; it hurts families and children. We will pass the “Lilly Ledbetter” Act, which will make it easier to combat pay discrimination; we will pass the Fair Pay Act; and we will modernize the Equal Pay Act.

http://www.lostfathers.org/

'LostFathers.org is an online community.

Our mission is to establish contact for fathers (and mothers) who, after a divorce or separation, were denied to normal visitation rights and lost contact with their children.

On this website you can, after registration, post your own profile and we will approach your children, or you as a father, to establish new contact with each other.'