Why kids are named after dads

Feminists sometimes say that it is unfair that they are expected to take their husband's name, but men do not change their names when marrying. Millennium-old customs usually have reasons for them, that would be obvious if you were not brainwashed with feminism.

SatoshiKanazawa explains Why Children Must Inherit Their Last Names from Their Father, Not Their Mother

Patrilineal inheritance of family names, where children inherit their last names from the father, not from the mother, evolved as a social institution as one of the mechanisms to alleviate paternity uncertainty. Like all mammalian males, human fathers can never be completely certain of their paternity, but, unlike most mammalian males, they are asked to invest very heavily in their offspring. Therein lies the possibility of cuckoldry – unwittingly investing their precious limited resources in the genetic offspring of another man. Males of only a very few species in nature (humans, and many avian species) face the danger of cuckoldry because male parental investment among these species is high. Males of most species in nature don’t care if they are really the genetic fathers of the offspring that their mates produce because their male parental investment is limited to the sperm deposited inside the female during copulation. ... As a result, males of most species in nature do not experience sexual jealousy, only humans and birds do.

Males of these few species – human fathers in particular – therefore need to be reasonably convinced that they are indeed the genetic fathers of their putative offspring before they would agree to invest heavily in them. Both nature and social institutions aid in such an effort. There is some evidence to suggest that newborn babies are born looking more like the father, not the mother (because maternity is always certain and mothers don’t need to be convinced), and mothers and maternal relatives often allege paternal resemblance of babies in order to assure their fathers that they are indeed their genetic fathers and thus they should invest in them. (Remember, mothers and maternal relatives don’t really care what the genetic truth is, because they are guaranteed to be equally related to the children whoever the genetic father might be.)

Patrilineal inheritance of family names is another social institution that emerged to convince the fathers of their paternity, by saying (if social institutions have a vocal cord) “The baby’s really yours, because it has your last name!” Russians take it one step further, by giving their children – both their sons and daughters – middle and last names after the father.

So the kids are named after the father, as a way of formalizing his investment in them. The mother is already invested. She does not have to change her name, but she usually wants the same surname as her kids, so she adopts a married name.

Arias trial on TV

I posted below about the Jodi Arias trial, but I did not realize that the trial was televised on Tru-TV.

I still think that Arias will be convicted of first-degree murder, but I am not as impressed with the prosecutor as the TV commentators. Arias has been testifying in her own defense for 2 weeks. The prosecutor keeps pressuring her, asking argumentative and tricky questions, and trying to put words in her mouth. She is holding up under the pressure pretty well. If he gets her to crack, then I guess it will have been a good strategy, but I don't think she is going to crack.

Arias admits to shooting and stabbing her lover, and her excuses are lame and contradictory. If I were the prosecutor, I would just let her tell her story, and try to extract as many details as possible. There is no story she can tell that makes her innocent.

Update: Here is a sample of the argumentative cross-examination:>

Martinez: And you don't know what he is doing in this period of time that he is out there, right?
Arias: Uhmm.
Martinez: Yes, or no, do you know what he is doing when he is out there?
Arias: Specify which period of time which you are referring to.
Martinez: The period of time you're not seeing him -- you don't know what he is doing.
Arias: That is correct.
Martinez: And this is a period of time that allows you for comtemplation, or to think, right?
Arias: If I was in my right mind, yes.
Martinez: Well, I am not asking you whether or not you were in your right mind, was I?
Arias: No.
Martinez: I was asking you whether or not you had time to think?
Aria lawyer: Objection, asked and answered.
Judge: Overruled.
Arias: I may have had time -
Martinez: (interrupting) Did you just tell us ...

Prosecutor Martinez should have gotten a lot more objections. This is sloppy questioning.

Daddy bloggers

I didn't even know that there was an annual conference of daddy bloggers. Fortunately I read the newspaper with all the news that's fit to print. The NY Times reports:

THE hapless, bumbling father is a stock character in product marketing. He makes breakfast for dinner and is incapable of handling, or sometimes even noticing, a soggy diaper. He tries desperately to hide the crumb-strewn, dirt-streaked evidence of his poor parenting before the mother gets home.

This is an image that many fathers who attended the Dad 2.0 Summit — a meeting of so-called daddy bloggers and the marketers who want to reach them — have come to revile. They are proud to be involved in domestic life and do not want to serve as the comic foil to the supercompetent mother. ...

Last year, the daddy blogosphere erupted when Huggies released a commercial that showed a group of fathers and their babies, with a voice-over that said, “To prove Huggies diapers and wipes can handle anything, we put them to the toughest test imaginable: Dads, alone with their babies, in one house, for five days.” ...

Huggies replaced the commercial with a spot that had already been shot, with a different voice-over: “To prove Huggies diapers can handle anything, we asked real dads to put them to the test — with their own babies, at naptime, after a very full feeding.” The subtle difference in wording implied that fathers were discerning diaper experts, rather than neglectful idiots.

That's an improvement?! It is too subtle for me.

As mommy bloggers and their readers can attest, sponsorships carry risks. The Federal Trade Commission can fine the blogger and the sponsoring company for not revealing the relationship. And bloggers perceived as simply shilling for companies without regard for quality will lose respect.

Okay, I will be sure to reveal any diaper sponsors.

ACLU supports Brewington

Fellow angry dad has more support for his appeal. He is a political prisoner. He is serving a 5-year prison sentence for merely speaking up against family court official injustice, and in favor of his kids. Here is the gist of the case against him, as stated by the Indiana appeals court:

Brewington argues he was merely stating his opinion that, in constraining his right to see his children, Judge Humphrey was essentially committing child abuse. ... Without the element of knowing falsity, Brewington claims, the statute is unconstitutionally overbroad because it can punish reasonable criticism of government officials. ... Such conduct is of no value to public discourse and is, in fact, harmful to the administration of justice when the victim is a judicial officer.

Yes, his criticism has great value because it is the only way to hold these corrupt officials accountable. This is a case of judges trying to shelter other judges from legitimate criticism.

When you hear of political prisoners in other countries, remember that we have them in the USA also.

The legal support for him is for his free speech rights and against his imprisonment, but the injustice goes far beyond that. His kids were taken away without due cause.

Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court is hearing the relatively trivial complaints of the LGBTQIA lobby. A California gay couple complains that California gives them all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, but does not call it marriage. A NY lesbian complains that she has to pay an inheritance tax on a multi-million dollar estate left by her friend. That's all. If these folks really favored equality, then they would say that Dan Brewington has a equal right to his kids. But I have never heard anyone from the LGBTQIA lobby advocate equality for parents. Their leaders are dominated by lesbians who are opposed to fathers rights.

Mom used duct tape on head

Here is an Ohio story about the latest police overreaction to a harmless parenting practice:

A MOTHER who posted a text message with a picture of her son with his head covered in duct-tape says she has done nothing wrong.

Tiffany Ennis, 31, of Sandusky, Ohio, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of child endangerment.

Ennis allegedly wrapped duct-tape around the forehead, eyes and mouth of her son, eight - which she posted to the boy's father Rudy Yado who contacted police - and to the head of an 11-year-old girl, ABC News reported. ...

According to the report, Ennis told police the children were not hurt and no marks were found on them. Ennis said it was not meant to be hurtful and they were joking around. ...

Upon investigating the complaint, Newell said Ennis was subsequently arrested for duct-taping the children's heads and eyes, and transported to the Sandusky police department. She is scheduled to reappear before on May 30.

It is becoming illegal for a kid to have any fun, if there is a bitter ex-spouse with an itchy 911 finger.

Here is today's bad NY Times Ethicist advice:

I’m a middle-aged, never-been-married woman. I rarely, if ever, bring up an interest in men during therapy sessions. Still, my therapist diverts the conversation to cross-examine my efforts to find a husband. I am unsure ... Is it unethical ...?

... But if she continues to force an ethnocentric, inapplicable version of self-actualization onto a person who is not troubled (or even interested) by the problem she imagines, it’s not serving your needs. Find a new therapist.

No, it is not ethnocentric to assume that a single middle-aged woman might be interested in finding a man. Women of all ethnic groups do. The therapist is trying to help. If she does not want help, why is she seeing a therapist? The therapist is just doing what he is paid to do.

I was behind a woman at the supermarket who was trying to buy a precooked chicken with food stamps. The register rejected the purchase. The store manager explained that there was nothing she could do: the law says that food stamps cannot be used on hot-food items like this. The chicken was $8 — I suppose a raw one is half the price. ... I offered to swap items: If she paid for $8 worth of my food with her stamps, I’d pay for her chicken with my cash. I know this is breaking the law (and a law that I think is a fair and sensible law, in principle). ...

This is an ideal case for those who like to debate the semantic difference between “ethical” and “moral.” A strict interpretation of this act would suggest that you behaved unethically (by ignoring the law) but morally (by doing something good for a person in need). ... When forced to choose between the letter of the law and its spirit, the spirit is preferable. To justify this program’s central purpose, you had to defy its regulatory technicalities.

No, this is welfare fraud. The program’s central purpose is to supply free food, not to pay the store $4 extra dollars to cook it. You cannot buy restaurant food with food stamps, and it doesn't matter if the recipient says that she is too lazy to cook the chicken. It is immoral to steal from the taxpayers in order to save some welfare queen the trouble of turning on the oven for 30 minutes. The NY Times is promoting a culture of law-breaking, stealing parasites.

Update: And now there is the ridiculous lawsuit:

A suburban Chicago school board member has filed a lawsuit accusing a teacher in her district of duct taping her 11-year-old son's face after telling him to stop talking in class.

The lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court by Princess Dempsey on behalf of her son says the Lindrop School teacher put an index card on the boy's mouth, then wrapped duct tape around his head.

Law against offering a ride to a kid

I have often argued against overbroad criminal laws, together with assumptions that the authorities will apply reasonable discretion in prosecuting such laws. I am glad to see an Ohio court has struck down such a law:

Mr. Goode was convicted of violating R.C. 2905.05(A), which provides,

No person, by any means and without privilege to do so, shall knowingly solicit, coax, entice, or lure any child under fourteen years of age to accompany the person in any manner, including entering into any vehicle or onto any vessel, whether or not the offender knows the age of the child, if both of the following apply:

(1) The actor does not have the express or implied permission of the parent, guardian, or other legal custodian of the child in undertaking the activity.

(2) The actor is not a law enforcement officer, medic, firefighter, or other person who regularly provides emergency services, and is not an employee or agent of, or a volunteer acting under the direction of, any board of education, or the actor is any of such persons, but, at the time the actor undertakes the activity, the actor is not acting within the scope of the actor’s lawful duties in that capacity.

... Undoubtedly, R.C. 2905.05(A) has an admirable purpose, which is “to prevent child abductions or the commission of lewd acts with children.” However, ... “[t]he common, ordinary meaning of the word ‘solicit’ encompasses ‘merely asking.’” “R.C. 2905.05(A) fails to require that the prohibited solicitation occur with the intent to commit any unlawful act.”

For example, parents picking up their child from school would theoretically violate R.C. 2905.05(A) merely by asking their child’s friend if he or she wanted a ride home. Because there is no requirement that a person have ill-intent when asking the child to accompany him or her, R.C. 2905.05(A) prohibits a wide variety of speech and association far beyond the statute’s purpose of safeguarding children. Other states with similar statutes at least require illicit intent. For example, a Florida statute prohibits a person from luring a child “into a structure, dwelling, or conveyance for other than a lawful purpose ....” ...

Nevertheless, the State argues that the sweeping nature of R.C. 2905.05(A) is not problematic because “a police officer can distinguish between innocent behavior and criminal behavior under the statute.” In other words, the State urges us to ignore the breadth of the statute because it can be selectively enforced. Even if the statute did grant the police the discretion to determine what was illegal and what was legal, similar grants of discretion to police officers have consistently been found to be unconstitutional....

No, cops cannot make that distinction.

While this law is out, the San Francisco sheriff was prosecuted for grabbing his wife's arm. The authorities somehow decided that his marriage was not right, and should be busted up.

His wife is his half-sister

Today's bad advice comes from Slate about the brave new world of lesbian reproduction:

Q. Nasty Surprise: When my wife and I met in college, the attraction was immediate, and we quickly became inseparable. We had a number of things in common, we came from the same large metropolitan area, and we both wanted to return there after school, so everything was very natural between us. We married soon after graduation, moved back closer to our families, and had three children by the time we were 30. We were both born to lesbians, she to a couple, and me to a single woman. She had sought out her biological father as soon as she turned 18, as the sperm bank her parents used allowed contact once the children were 18 if both parties consented. I never was interested in learning about that for myself, but she felt we were cheating our future children by not learning everything we could about my past, too. Well, our anniversary is coming up and I decided to go ahead and, as a present to my wife, see if my biological father was interested in contact as well. He was, and even though our parents had used different sperm banks, it appears so did our father, as he is the same person. ...

A: ... I don't see how you can keep this information to yourself. She's bound to sense something off in your behavior and you simply can't say, "I'm struggling with father issues." I think you have to sit her down and show you what you've discovered. Then you two should likely seek out a counselor who deals with reproductive technology to help you sort through your emotions. I don't see why your healthy children should ever be informed of this.

Tell the wife and the counselor but not the kids? This will not work. Gene sequencing is becoming cheap and common, and these kids will show up an inbred freaks, even if they are healthy. They have a right know the consequences of their grandparent lesbian foolishness.

Slate does not verify these letters, and the story is very unlikely, so it is probably fake. I post it for the bad advice, which is serious.

US Supreme Court recognizes Army dad

A reader reminds me that I wrote about this international child custody case in Dec. 3 and Dec. 12, and sends this decision:

The fight isn’t over for U.S. Army Sgt. Jeff Chafin, who is seeking custody of his daughter, Eris, in an international dispute.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Chafin’s case is not moot, though his daughter, now 6 years old, is in Scotland with her mother pursuant to a federal judge’s ruling under an international treaty. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the unanimous opinion (PDF) for the court.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction generally requires U.S. courts to order children returned to their countries of habitual residence. A federal judge in Huntsville, Ala., had ruled that Eris Chafin’s habitual residence was in Scotland and ordered that she be returned there. Eris is now living with mother, Lynne Chafin, in Scotland.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Jeff Chafin’s appeal as moot last year. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed. “This dispute is still very much alive,” Roberts wrote.

Jeff Chafin is disputing that Scotland is his daughter’s habitual country of residence, he asserts that treaty defenses should have barred his daughter’s return to Scotland, and he contests a court order to pay $94,000 in attorney fees and costs. “On many levels,” Roberts said, “the Chafins continue to vigorously contest the question of where their daughter will be raised.” ...

Lynne Chafin’s lawyers had argued that the case is moot because Scotland could ignore a federal court order to order Eris returned to the United States. But that prospect doesn’t render the case moot, Roberts wrote. “No law of physics prevents [Eris’] return from Scotland … and Ms. Chafin might decide to comply with an order against her.” ...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer that emphasized the need for speed and certainty in decisions under the treaty.

This is very unusual for a federal court to stick up for a dad's child custody rights.

Ginsburg argued for a new federal law limiting appeals, in order to limit the prolonged uncertainty of an international child custody case. I cannot agree with that. Maybe the courts should have expedited appeals instead. Ginsburg is just a judge, and she should only be opining on the judiciary, and not tell Congress what laws to pass. The problem here was that a bad federal judge declared Scotland to be the child's habitual residence, even tho the child had never lived there. Such a ruling ought to be appealable as judges should not have that much individual power. Ginsburg would rather not have to deal with any appeals, I guess.

The ex-wife's lawyer argues:

"A Scottish court is never going to return the child to the United States after this amount of time, because it couldn't possibly be good for the child," Cullen said in a telephone interview. "It would be complete madness for the Scottish court to say, OK, it's three years later, we'll send the child back."

No, it is not madness. The mom is lucky that she is not in prison for kidnapping. Maybe the Scottish courts are so backwards that they let a woman keep a child if she has been kidnapped for 3 years, but the US courts should not turn their backs to the matter.

Update: Here is The decision, in Plain English

Under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a parent whose child is abducted to another country can file a lawsuit in that country seeking to have the child returned to her home country, so that courts in that home country can resolve any custody disputes. In this case, a Scottish mother filed a lawsuit under the Convention in the United States, asking a federal trial court to order the child’s return to Scotland. When that court did so, the mother immediately left the United States for Scotland with her daughter. The issue before the Court was whether the child’s father could appeal the trial court’s order when his daughter had already returned to Scotland. The Court unanimously held that he could. All that is required for him to do so, the Court explained, is some real stake, even a small one, in the outcome of the case, and he has that: he is simply asking the intermediate appellate court to issue an order reversing the trial court’s ruling; he is also trying to have the trial court’s order requiring him to pay the mother’s attorney’s fees and expenses overturned.

The appeals court must have had a severe anti-father bias. A lot of lawsuits are for money that is unlikely to be collected. A court is not allowed to dismiss a case just because some judge thinks that the losing party is unlikely to pay. Furthermore, it is crazy to say that this child should never see her dad just because he was in the Army and she did not see him for a couple of years.

Warren Farrell answers

Reddit has this dialog:

I am Warren Farrell, author of Why Men Are the Way They Are and chair of a commission to create a White House Council on Boys and Men AMA!

Hi, I'm Warren Farrell. I've spent my life trying to get men and women to understand each other. ...

You say in The Myth of Male Power that children raised by single dads are better off than those raised by single moms.
Did the study that concluded this control for socioeconomic factors?

It was when i was doing the research for Father and Child Reunion that i did a meta-analysis of what i felt was much of the best research worldwide on what works best for children raised in a non-intact family. comparatively, yes, it is true children raised by single dads were better off than children raised by single moms on more than 30 different measures of success (psychological, such as lack of depression; social, such as empathy; physical health; academic). However, this does not mean that men are better as dads than women are as moms, since the men who are primary caretaker dads are on average older, have more education, more income and are more self-selected. They are the 2013 equivalent of the 1950's woman who overcame all the obstacles to become a dr. or lawyer--highly motivated and self-selected. When socioeconomic factors are controlled for, the children raised by dads do better still, but not as much better, and you still have the self-selection gap. Father and Child Reunion is filled with the hundreds of studies on which this is based. Check out ones by Christoffersen, and the ones by Sandufer from Harvard and many others.

important to remember is that the children who do best are ones in an intact family. especially when the mom and dad treat each of their contributions as necessary. moms tend to protect more; dads tend to encourage "get up and try again" some more. children need both the love and empathy and the encouragement to not give up. fortunately both genders can learn both skill sets if only they begin by valuing what the other sex tends to offer.

Toddler slapped on plane

A minor airline dispute has gotten a lot of publicity. The mom was on CNN TV saying that a year in prison is not enough punishment for the perp. Here is her story:

Jessica Bennett, the mother of the toddler who was slapped on a plane trip has decided to speak out to the media.

Mrs Bennett appeared on ABC on Sunday morning to talk about what pushed an Idaho man by the name of Joe Rickey Hundley to leave his seat and approach her 19-month old son Jonah telling them “Shut that n-word baby up” and slapping him across the face.

The incident took place on February 8th on a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta.

Bennett revealed that Joe Rickey Hundley was drunk, smelled of alcohol and almost fell on her while he was hitting the child who was crying because of air pressure. ...

The reporter asked Jessica Bennett how was she able to remain calm during the ordeal – she answered by saying that she was scared and froze – her husband Josh Bennett on the other hand shared that he would have snapped at the stranger for slapping his son.

Slapping his son? Look at the pictures. The child is not his son. No DNA test is needed.

This is only a national story because of use of the N-word. Have we really gotten that sensitive?

I am curious as to why we have to rely on this woman's story. If the man's behavior was so outrageous, then it was surely observed by other passengers. Without such testimony, this should not be news.

Having had a crying baby on a plane, my biases are that everyone else should put up with the crying baby. Not everyone sees it that way. If a man punched my kid on a plane, I would be inclined to challenge him to a fist fight after we got off the plane. Not everyone sees it that way either.

The purpose of feminism

I found this comment:

the purpose of feminism is to maximize sexual opportunity for ordinary women with Alpha males.

No, the purpose of feminism is to destroy the traditional European family. You write as if young hot women a hundred years ago came up with this stuff themselves so they could have more fun. Ridiculous.

So who is right? Wikipedia defines:

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.

This is unsatisfactory because if you listen to feminist activists, very little of what they say has to do with equal opportunities. Laws requiring equal pay for equal work were passed in the 1960s without much controversy. Another encyclopedia explains:

The term ‘feminism’ has many different uses and its meanings are often contested. For example, some writers use the term ‘feminism’ to refer to a historically specific political movement in the US and Europe; other writers use it to refer to the belief that there are injustices against women, though there is no consensus on the exact list of these injustices. ...

Is there any point, then, to asking what feminism is? Given the controversies over the term and the politics of circumscribing the boundaries of a social movement, it is sometimes tempting to think that the best we can do is to articulate a set of disjuncts that capture a range of feminist beliefs.

A lot can be explained by female hypergamy. According to evolutionary psychology, this is a female instinct. Feminists are always trying to advance the interests of women somehow.

So yes, they want to maximize sexual opportunity for ordinary women with Alpha males. And they do that by destroying the traditional European nuclear family. The family court is a tool towards that end, and that is why I criticize feminists on this blog.

ACLU supports Brewington

Fellow angry dad has more support for his appeal. He is a political prisoner. He is serving a 5-year prison sentence for merely speaking up against family court official injustice, and in favor of his kids. Here is the gist of the case against him, as stated by the Indiana appeals court:

Brewington argues he was merely stating his opinion that, in constraining his right to see his children, Judge Humphrey was essentially committing child abuse. ... Without the element of knowing falsity, Brewington claims, the statute is unconstitutionally overbroad because it can punish reasonable criticism of government officials. ... Such conduct is of no value to public discourse and is, in fact, harmful to the administration of justice when the victim is a judicial officer.

Yes, his criticism has great value because it is the only way to hold these corrupt officials accountable. This is a case of judges trying to shelter other judges from legitimate criticism.

Florida first lady loses kids

A reader sends this Florida story:

The ex-husband of former Florida first lady Carole Crist has been granted full custody of their two daughters, after alleging that she abandoned them and hasn't returned messages in nearly two years.

"She's completely abandoned them," Todd Rome said of his former wife of 14 years in a brief telephone interview Friday.

He said Mrs. Crist, married for four years to former Gov. Charlie Crist, has not seen or spoken to her 14- and 16-year-old daughters since June 8, 2011, and that even simple tasks like getting her signature on documents have become a challenge.

Mrs. Crist and ex-husband Rome had joint custody until Feb. 1 when a family court judge in New York granted him temporary full custody. Rome said he may seek full custody permanently.

I get the impression that Mrs. Crist is more interested in being a big-shot politician wife, than a mom to teenaged girls. That may be true, but it seems a little fishy to me.

My ex-wife only needed my signature once several years ago, when she wanted to take our kids on a trip to Mexico. The law requires permission of both parents, and I gave her a notarized statement. But last time she went to Mexico with our kids, she did not ask for my signature. I guess she just lied to the Mexican authorities, I don't know. I would have thought that they would be suspicious about an adult couple with one surname, taking kids with a completely different surname. But if she had to bribe someone, she did not tell me about it.

I haven't seen my daughters in a couple of years either. I have had no choice.

Charlie Crist was a Republican governor of Florida, but lost to fellow Republican Marco Rubio. After that, Crist endorsed Pres. Barack Obama and became a Democrat. Crist has been accused of having a sham married to cover up being a closeted gay. Now Crist is a personal injury lawyer. If he is really gay, he probably thinks that it is bad enough that he has be married to a woman for the sake of his political image. Putting up with someone else's teenaged bratty girls would be too much.

I don't want to speculate. We do not have the full story.

Truth is a defense

I have harshly criticized many people on this blog. Besides my ex-wife, I attacked CPS social worker Sally Mitchell, commissioner Irwin H. Joseph, judges William Kelsay, Heather D. Morse, Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian, and court psychologists Kenneth Barry Perlmutter PSY 7053, Faren Ray Akins PSY 7110, and Bret Kale Johnson PSY 10630. I have described them as greedy, incompetent, corrupt, evil, and generally unworthy of their official jobs.

So why haven't any of them sued me for libel?

Several reasons. First, truth is a complete defense to a claim of defamation. What I said was true, and I would prove it in court. Furthermore, I would surely prove that they were much worse than I said, because they surely misbehaved in many other cases that I do not even know about.

Second, I am entitled to my opinions.

Third, the California anti-SLAPP law would very likely require them to pay attorney fees for trying to interfere with my free speech rights.

Fourth, California has a one-year statute of limitation on defamation actions. Their silence for one year effectively admits that everything I said was true.

When Hollywood makes a movie about a real-life story, it waits at least a year after a published book in order to eliminate possible claims. Even the Osama bin Laden movie, Zero Dark Thirty, was released 13 months after the first book on the killing, even tho there were hardly any concerns about libel.

I do believe that when the taxpayers pay for irresponsible conduct by public officials, that conduct should be exposed.

Unfortunately, fellow angry dad Dan Brewington is serving a 5-year prison term for saying similar things. He posted on his blog:

that “Public awareness is the only way to fight this kind of corruption”

“In case there is any doubt about the unethical/illegal behavior of Judge Humphrey and Dr. Edward J. Connor ...”

His blog demonstrated the unethical/illegal behavior, and that was not disputed at his trial. He was convicted because Indiana law makes it a crime to threaten to subject public officials to ridicule.

He was also convicted of perjury for failing to make the inference that state ethics adviser Heidi Humphrey was the wife of Judge James D. Humphrey, even tho a web search revealed that they had the same home address. And he was convicted of obstruction of justice for making repeated discovery request for Connor's notes and evidence support his one-sided opinion, even tho the court ultimately said that it was not necessary for him to know why he lost custody of his kid.

I don't see how failing to make an inference could ever be perjury, or how making a discovery request could ever be obstruction of justice. The Indiana judges and prosecutors were crooks to send him to prison for this.

He was convicted of threatening Heidi Humphrey and Edward J. Connor, but those counts were reversed on appeal.

The court authorities could not sue Brewington for telling the truth, and they could not get him to shut up by taking his kid away. So they put him in prison on bogus charges.

Update: The UK Guardian reports:

Google may have to act quicker to remove potentially libellous posts from its Blogger platform following a court of appeal ruling in London.

The court ruled that a gap of five weeks between a complaint being made and the removal of allegedly defamatory comments on a blogpost could leave it open to a libel action, overturning a finding in the high court last year.

This could be a concern because Google Blogger hosts this blog, and truth is not always a complete defense in England.

Texas prosecutor in denial

A Texas newspaper reports:

You may remember the case of Michael Morton. He is the Georgetown man who spent 25 years in prison for killing his wife before DNA on a bandana found behind his house showed his wife's blood and skin cells from a man who was not Morton.

A search of a nationwide criminal database found a match for that DNA. Mark Norwood, a dishwasher from Bastrop, has been indicted not only for Christine Morton's brutal murder, but also for the murder of an Austin woman a year and a half later.

Last week something unprecedented happened in the case. The district attorney who persuaded a jury of Morton's guilt suffered through five grueling days in a Georgetown courtroom as a judge heard evidence and argument that he had illegally covered up evidence of Morton's innocence. ...

But as far as Anderson was concerned, he made no mistakes. When his attorney asked him to tell Morton how he felt, he turned to Morton and said: “I apologize that the system screwed up. It obviously screwed up. And I beat myself up on what could have been done differently, and I frankly don't know.”

Here are some things that could have been done differently.

He could have told the sheriff's office to pursue the neighbors' accounts of a suspicious man nosing about early in the morning.

He could have taken the 3-year-old boy seriously and laughed at the lead investigator's preposterous theory. Instead, Anderson joined the investigator in believing that Morton had flown into a murderous rage when his wife fell asleep while he sought to have sex. But before killing her, he put on his scuba diving wet suit to disguise himself from his son.

And Anderson could have chosen not to take the extraordinary step of keeping his lead investigator from testifying at trial. Under the rules he would have had to turn over to the defense the report of the stranger and the transcript of the grandmother's account of what the boy saw.

It wasn't that “the system screwed up.” Anderson did. He may or may not be found to have committed a crime, but he clearly did not commit justice.

Michael Morton summed it up best: “I think we saw someone who is still struggling with denial and anger, a man who has spent at least three decades in power who for the first time is having to answer for his actions.”

The system did screw up. A man's trial for murder should not depend on the honesty of one unaccountable prosecutor. Texas could have required him to list all his evidence under oath, and prosecute him if he lies. As it is, prosecutors and judges are almost never held accountable for illegal behavior.

Separate us from our parents

The 1990 movie Lord of the Flies has this dialog between stranded kids:

"I bet you out past the reef, there's lots of boats that come by every day, and one of them could rescue us." Ralph said.

"Yeah? Well, suppose it didn't. Suppose it was Russian. Then what? We'd be taken prisoner."

"The Russians wouldn't take us prisoner." Julie said.

"I don't know. Major Dingledine, my new dad, told me-" Piggy started.

"Major Dingledine?" Ralph asked, amused.

"Yeah. He said if the Russians invaded the U.S., they would take the kids and separate us from our parents, and I know it sounds weird, but they might make us go into the Olympics or something like that."

Separating kids from their parents was seen as something that evil invading Commie Russians might do. Or maybe family court judges or psychologists.

More on brandishing

I got a lot of criticism for my comments on the dad charged for pointing a gun.

One reader points out that you could get kicked off a gun range for pointing an unloaded rifle at someone. I have no quarrel with that. As I said, "I agree that pointing guns is bad practice".

Another reader points to California Penal Code 417, against "brandishing":

(2) Every person who, except in self-defense, in the presence of any other person, draws or exhibits any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, in a rude, angry, or threatening manner, or who in any manner, unlawfully uses a firearm in any fight or quarrel is punishable as follows:
(A) If the violation occurs in a public place and the firearm is a pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person, by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than three months and not more than one year, by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(B) In all cases other than that set forth in subparagraph (A), a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than three months.

Brandishing in public does not seem to be punished much differently from private. I don't know what that is all about.

So I guess that the dad could be charged if he did it in California, and if the daughter or some other witness filed a complaint that he pointed the gun "in a rude, angry, or threatening manner". According to the story, no witness made a police complaint, and the daughter denied that she was threatened. Perhaps she could be coaxed into saying that her dad was rude.

A lot of people don't approve of civilians owning guns, or having guns in the home, or having AK-47 style rifles, or dads pressuring kids to get straight As. But even if he is guilty of brandishing, our lawmakers have decided that it is just a misdemeanor, and not a felony.

My quarrel is with (1) making an arrest when no witness made a complaint and no one was harmed; (2) charging the dad with two terrorist felonies; (3) putting the daughter in a shelter; (4) using spies to intercept personal messages; and (5) forbidding family communication.

I am a believer in freedom and family autonomy. 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago, the govt authorities did not actively try to bust up families as they do today. Maybe if a cop heard some hearsay about some unsafe gun handling, he might knock on the door and suggest that the dad take a gun safety class. And that would be all, because the cops and prosecutors would realize that they don't have any admissable evidence and they would not have a policy directive to bust up families.

Yes, I know that gun accidents occur, and a common cause is a mistake about the gun being loaded. But swimming pool accidents occur at a much higher rate. Suppose a dad permitted an unsafe swimming pool practice like letting a child swim alone? Would you charge him with a felony and bust up the family?

If the authorities have the power to bust up this family, then they have the power to bust up every family in the USA. There is no bigger threat to freedom today.

Scan of severe testicular pain

This is an ultrasound image of a Canadian man's vital part, and was published:

“The residents and staff alike were amazed to see the outline of a man’s face staring up out of the image, his mouth agape as if the face seen on the ultrasound scan itself was also experiencing severe epididymo-orchitis,” they wrote. “A brief debate ensued on whether the image could have been a sign from a deity (perhaps ‘Min,’ the Egyptian god of male virility); however, the consensus deemed it a mere coincidental occurrence rather than a divine proclamation.”

The poor guy must be spooked.

Arguing emotional abuse at murder trial

Occasionally I see a story about some wife killing her husband, and giving the excuse that she had to do it after years of abuse. Someone the woman gets some sympathy, while never having a good answer for why she did not leave if she was so unhappy.

One of the more famous examples was the Scarsdale diet doctor mistress, who died recently. Her 1980 trial was national news, and she was convicted of murder. Feminists all over the country were arguing for an acquittal.

Now this case is much sillier. Reuters reports:

An Arizona woman charged with stabbing and shooting her lover to death - and whose graphic testimony has gripped viewers across the United States - described in court a relationship based around sex that left her feeling "like a prostitute."

Lawyers for Jodi Arias, who could face the death penalty if convicted, argue she acted in self-defense when she killed her lover. He was found in the shower of his Phoenix valley home, shot in the face, stabbed 27 times and with his throat slit.

"I just felt ... a little bit, I hate to put it this way, but I felt a little bit used," Arias, a petite, bespectacled woman with long brown hair, told the court on Wednesday in a calm, measured tone, describing a relationship she said was based around sex.

"He gets a hotel room, I show up, we hang out, we have sex ... He's not really mentally present. I'm getting a lot of attention, but only while we're engaging in sexual activity, and then we check out and he takes off. I kind of felt like a prostitute, sort of," Arias told the court.

Arias, dressed in a dark jacket and wearing glasses, was taking the stand for a third day on Wednesday at the Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix where she is on trial accused of murdering 30-year-old Travis Alexander in 2008.

Her counsel says Arias killed Alexander after years of emotional abuse and mistreatment. In her testimony, she described a sexual relationship with him that was "missing the emotional part, the mental connection, being on the same page."

I don't know how anyone could argue with a straight face that concentrating attention during sexual activity is emotional abuse.

Keep in mind that they were not married, and did not have kids. She was free to go at any time.

Arias, 32, recalled one occasion at a banquet in Oklahoma City, where she hid in a bathroom to cry after she saw Alexander flirting with a woman who was wearing a revealing dress.

"I didn't think the behavior was appropriate ... It hurt my feelings ... I was appalled that he was doing it in front of me." ...

Describing their first kiss in response to questions from defense attorney Kirk Nurmi, she said: "He got right in my face, maybe four inches, five," adding, "He licked his lips and said 'I wish you didn't have a boyfriend.'"

Alexander had been dead for five days when he was found with a slit throat, a bullet wound in his head and 27 stab wounds, the Arizona Republic newspaper reported. His death was connected to Arias after sexually explicit photos were found on the memory card of his camera.

Wow, she kisses him while dating another man, and cries when he flirts with another woman? And that is her defense? She will surely be convicted.

Update: In case you think that no one could take the side of Jodi Arias, the killer, check out JodiAriasIsInnocent.com. SJ has a lot of info about the case, and is predicting a jury acquittal, just like in the Casey Anthony case.

Miami kid has 3 legal parents

I have argued before that the LGBTQIA and same-sex marriage movement will inevitably lead to kids having 3 or more legal parents, and the destruction of the family as we know it.

FoxNews reports:

A Miami-Dade circuit judge has reportedly approved an adoption allowing three people — a gay man and a married lesbian couple — to be listed on the birth certificate of their 23-month-old daughter.

The Miami Herald reports that Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo, who married in Connecticut, and their attorney, Kenneth Kaplan, declined to be interviewed. The women, according to Miami family attorney Karyn Begin, are longtime partners who unsuccessfully tried to become pregnant via fertility clinics.

“We’re creating entirely new concepts of families,” said Begin, who represented father Massimiliano Gerina in a two-year paternity case involving lesbian friends who had his baby. “If you have two women seeking to be listed as Parent One and Parent Two, that does not exclude listing a man as father.”

Yes, if we reject the mom-dad family, then the legal parents become just whatever names lawyers and judges conspire to put on the birth certificate.

Following a verbal agreement, Gerina gave the women his sperm and Italiano conceived. The couple planned for Filippazzo to later adopt the baby and both would raise the child.

According to Florida law, sperm donors have no legal rights in artificial inseminations. But Gerina said he considered himself a parent, not simply a donor.

The women, he claimed, “wanted a father for the baby, not just the sperm.”

Maybe the lesbians said that, but of course that is not what they mean. They became lesbians to get away from men.

Roughly seven months after learning Italiano was pregnant, the women asked Gerina to sign a contract to give up his rights to the child. He declined and hired Begin.

“My papers said I would have parental rights, a visitation schedule,” Gerina said. “They hated it. They said this wasn’t what they wanted. I said, ‘Now that you’re already pregnant, you should have thought about that before.’”

Their daughter, Emma, was born March 10, 2011. The three parents feuded in court for nearly two years. A trial was set for Jan. 31, 2013, but a week earlier, Gerina, Italiano, Filippazzo and their attorneys settled the case privately, the newspaper reports.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Antonio Marin later approved the settlement and the court adoption clerk submitted paperwork for Emma’s new birth certificate, which indicated that Italiano, a retail saleswoman, received “sole parental responsibility,” Begin told the newspaper.

Filippazzo, a financial services professional, legally adopted Emma and the state recognized Gerina as Emma’s father. He was granted time with her for the next two years and overnight visitations will be considered after she turns 4. All visits must be pre-arranged and at the mothers' discretion, the newspaper reports.

“The mothers are in charge,” Gerina said. “I’m just going to spend time with her. They are the parents.”

No, it is not true that the “mothers are in charge”. There is only one mom here, and she legally has “sole parental responsibility”. The other lesbian is just an unpaid nanny, and the gay man is legally just an occasional babysitter.

New non-romantic parenting partnerships

The NY Times reports on the latest wacky trends in destroying the family:

Neither Ms. Hope nor Mr. Williams is interested in a romantic liaison. But they both want a child, and they’re in serious discussions about having, and raising, one together. Never mind that Mr. Williams is gay and that the two did not know of each other’s existence until last October, when they met on Modamily.com, a Web site for people looking to share parenting arrangements.

Mr. Williams and Ms. Hope are among a new breed of online daters, looking not for love but rather a partner with whom to build a decidedly non-nuclear family. And several social networks, including PollenTree.com, Coparents.com, Co-ParentMatch.com, and MyAlternativeFamily.com, as well as Modamily, have sprung up over the past few years to help them. ...

They first met in person on Thanksgiving 2011. “I felt like this guy was my relative or long-lost brother, but then again he was also a stranger,” Ms. Pieke said. They continued the dialogue: reading each other’s medical charts, undergoing fertility tests. He moved into a separate bedroom in her home, and, she said, four weeks later, “He handed me a semen sample, we hugged, and I went into my bedroom and inseminated myself.” ...

They first met in person on Thanksgiving 2011. “I felt like this guy was my relative or long-lost brother, but then again he was also a stranger,” Ms. Pieke said. They continued the dialogue: reading each other’s medical charts, undergoing fertility tests. He moved into a separate bedroom in her home, and, she said, four weeks later, “He handed me a semen sample, we hugged, and I went into my bedroom and inseminated myself.” ...

Mr. Weil believes this type of parenting arrangement is completely logical.

“When you think about the concept of the village, and how the village was part of child rearing for so many cultures for so many thousands of years, it makes total sense,” he said. “The idea that two people — let alone one person — would do it without the village is really nutty.”

Yes, there is a certain logic to it. Maybe it would work in a Stone Age hunter-gatherer village. But all civilizations have used family units with a romantically involved mom and dad. There is a reason for that -- all of the alternatives have failed.

My libertarian impulses say that people should be able to make whatever contracts they want for their nonstandard arrangements. They seem committed to their kids, so why not let them pursue their goofy plans? Because the law makes it impossible:

But even a legal document is not necessarily binding. “Courts will operate on the basis of what is in the best interest of the child,” said Bill Singer, a lawyer in Belle Mead, N.J., who specializes in nontraditional families. “Although a judge might look at an agreement to see what the intention of the parties was, it is not controlling.”

So it is impossible under American law to make a binding coparenting contract. The parents will always be subject to a judge tearing it up and forcing them into a completely different arrangement.

There is no chance of states passing a law favoring coparenting contracts either. That is because our legislatures are dominated by anti-libertarian feminists, liberals, LGBTQIA sympathizers, and other statists. So this is just another trend furthering the destruction of the family.

How family court denies free speech

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh wrote a law review article a couple of years ago detailing how family courts infringe free speech rights:

Likewise, through the past decades, parents have had their rights limited or denied based partly on their racist speech, advocacy of Communism, Nazi sympathies, advocacy of pacifism and disrespect for the flag, advocacy of polygamy, defense of the propriety of homosexuality, defense of adultery, advocacy of (or inadequate condemnation of) nonmarital sex, teaching of fundamentalism, teaching of "non-mainstream" religions, teaching of religious intolerance, and attendance with their children at churches that recognize same-sex marriage. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is now reviewing the polygamy advocacy case, framing the question as, "To what extent can the courts limit parents from advocating religious beliefs that, if acted upon, would constitute criminal conduct?" -- a question that could equally apply to parents' teaching their children the propriety of refusing to fight in unjust wars, the propriety of civil disobedience, and the like.

All this is done under the rubric of the "best interests of the child" standard, the normal rule applied in custody disputes between two parents, and this standard leaves family court judges ample room to consider a parent's ideology. For instance, in a country where half the public thinks that it's necessary "to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values," has an unfavorable view of "[a]theists, that is, people who don't believe in God," and wouldn't vote for a political candidate who didn't believe in God even if he had been nominated by their own party, it makes sense that some judges would think that it's against the child's best interests for a parent to raise the child without religion.

Courts have also ordered parents to reveal their homosexuality to their children, or to conceal it. They have ordered parents not to swear in front of their children, and to install Internet filters. They have also considered, as a factor in the custody decision, parents' swearing; exposing their children to R-rated movies, a gun-themed magazine, unfiltered Internet access, photos of men in women's clothing, music with vulgar sexual content, and pornography; and viewing pornography and keeping it in a place where the children might access it. Likewise, Texas law leaves custody decisions to juries, and lets jurors consider a parent's religious "beliefs, teachings, or practices" as part of the best interests inquiry, if the jurors conclude that those "beliefs, teachings, or practices [are] illegal, immoral, or . . . harmful to the child[]." "[W]hat is immoral or harmful" is to be "left to the jury to apply community standards," and may include "gambling, playing a lottery, drinking to excess, homosexual conduct, or abortion." Constitutionally protected speech, if seen as an "illegal, immoral, or ... harmful" "belief[]" or "teaching[]," could therefore also be considered, just as constitutionally protected abortions might be. Many judges and juries are doubtless reluctant to use the best interests standard this way, especially where religious or political teaching is involved. But others may be quite willing.

The family court judges are out to destroy civil liberties.

Paternity tests illegal in France

I had no idea that DNA paternity tests were banned in France and Germany. Wikipedia explains:

In France and Germany, any paternity testing without a court order is banned, due to fears that more families could be broken by divorce if all fathers were given access to them. Fathers sometimes circumvent these laws by sending samples of DNA to foreign labs, but risk prosecution if caught.

France and Germany have even elected leaders who are living in sin:

“In France, a first lady has no status, and therefore she isn’t supposed to do anything else,” Ms. Trierweiler said. “My perception of life is not to ask François Hollande, who isn’t the father of my children, to support me financially.” ...

Mr. Hollande and Ms. Trierweiler are the first unmarried couple to occupy the presidential Élysée Palace together, following close on the heels of the new president of Germany, Joachim Gauck, whose live-in companion is also a journalist. That these arrangements were no bar to office is a sign of how European attitudes about families have changed.

Some googling turned up some companies that will do DNA tests in France for the purpose of documenting a relationship for USA immigrations compliance. But apparently a child has no right to know who his genetic father is.

In the USA, DNA paternity tests, with the resultant humiliations, are done on daytime TV talk shows. There is even an upcoming TV show, Paternity Court specializing in such tests.

The DNA tests are so cheap and reliable that I assumed that I assumed that they would eventually become mandatory for putting a dad's name on a birth certificate. But maybe there will be opposition from places with a lot of slutty women like France, and from lesbians and others who don't believe in paternity.

Kid drives car to see dad

Here is a Pennsylania story:

Pittsburgh police say a determined 6-year-old girl didn't hurt anyone when she crashed her mother's car while trying to drive across town to visit her father.

Police haven't released the name of the girl whose mother was reportedly still sleeping when the girl took the woman's car keys about 9 a.m. Sunday.

Police Sgt. Jerry Parker tells reporters the little girl is tall for her age, but adds, "How she knew how to operate a car, your guess is as good as mine.''

Police say the girl hit two parked vehicles, pushing one of them into a third, before hitting a utility pole.

Police and the girl's father arrived to take her home after the accident.

Police are still investigating but haven't said if anyone will face charges.

If the girl had been under the custody of the dad, he would probably be charged with child neglect and the family court would use that as an excuse to take away his parental rights. In this case, they probably won't file any charges. My guess is that dad is limited to occasional visitation, and they ought to consider letting the girl spend more time with him.

Lesbian custody dispute drags on

I mentioned the Lisa Miller child custody dispute back in 2006 and 2012. The legal battle continues:

A pastor was taken back to jail Thursday for continuing to refuse to tell a [federal] grand jury what he knows about a woman who fled the country to escape a custody dispute with her former lesbian partner....

Miller told the judge that the week he has spent in jail has strengthened his resolve that his beliefs require him to follow God’s law when they conflict with civil law. He said he is willing to pay the price, even if it means more time in jail.

“If I were to bring testimony against a fellow member of Christ’s kingdom, for honoring Christ’s kingdom’s laws, I would be disloyal to his kingdom and to Christ,” Miller said.

Miller has refused to testify about another man involved in the 2009 flight of Lisa Miller and her daughter, Isabella, rather than allow the girl to spend time with Lisa Miller’s ex-partner. The Millers are not related.

The underlying dispute is between a lesbian non-parent trying to be a legal dad, and a single mom who thinks that she can ignore court orders and keep the child to herself. This is the kind of craziness that results when no dad is in charge.

In other news, our army fighting units are going coed, the Boy Scouts are going gay, and women are being allowed to wear pants in Paris. CH (Roissy) predicts:

The only known cure for a failing empire, like 2013 America, is economic and social collapse, to seed the ground for rebirth. Similarly, the only known cure for a bifurcated, winner-take-all sexual market, is collapse of equalism, that wrong-headed ideology which assumes the sexes are interchangeable. The collapse is inevitable, whether it happens all at once or slowly, because these forces, having been set in motion generations, perhaps millennia ago, perhaps even set in motion at the very beginnings of humanity, are incorruptible. One cannot manage or reason with the Gods of the Copybook Headings. The prime directive, will, once again, as it has done so many times before, shatter all illusions.

NY Law says man is not a dad

The NY Times and other leftist anti-family forces are always celebrating the replacement of TV sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet with the pro-gay Modern Family, as I have noted here and here.

Now the NY Times reports:

It is hard to imagine anyone experiencing this more viscerally right now than a man named Jonathan Sporn, a 54-year-old pharmaceuticals executive living on the Upper West Side, who in a sense has fallen prey to a system that excessively privileges the conventional family models from which there seems to be a growing exodus.

According to a custody petition Dr. Sporn filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last month, he and his girlfriend, Leann Leutner, had a baby boy — Lincoln Amory Aurelian Sporn Leutner — last July, with the help of in vitro fertilization. The couple had issues conceiving but found success with the use of an anonymous sperm donor. Dr. Sporn and Ms. Leutner, both of whom had divorced previous partners, were not married. But they had lived together since 2010 and were deeply committed to starting a family.

Then in mid-December, Ms. Leutner, a lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, left with Lincoln for New Jersey, where a few days before the end of the year she got a new apartment. On New Year’s Day, she committed suicide.

So the child only had one legal parent, and is now an orphan now that the parent is dead. Placement of the child is up to CPS, and they don't like Sporn.

But from the perspective of the law, a parent in Dr. Sporn’s situation is effectively not a parent at all. He was not married to Lincoln’s mother. He has no blood relationship to the child. And he did not take steps to legally adopt him after his birth.

The law doesn’t reflexively recognize the role you have played, or the obvious parental intent that attaches to anyone who has gone to the trouble to have a child with assisted reproductive technology, or the number of times you’ve performed 3 a.m. feedings.

The law certainly should not "reflexively recognize the role you have played". There are reasons that the law has marriage licenses, birth certificates, and adoption orders. That is how parents are legally recognized. We do not have laws that say that parental rights stem from changing diapers, or else some nannies might be acquiring parental rights.

But there is still much ground to be covered. We’re watching “Modern Family,” but certain dimensions of the legal system have yet to change the channel from the era of black and white.

I guess this is a reference to Ozzie and Harriet being in black and white. There is "still much ground to be covered" because the NY Times liberals have not yet destroyed the family.

The article acts as if our legal system needs to catch up to TV sitcoms, but the parents on Modern Family are legal parents. The NY Times leftists seem to want govt agencies to assign parental responsibilities based on their own opinions and prejudices.

This is crazy. Why is a suicidal husband-ditch woman getting an IVF sperm donor? Why didn't she marry Sporn or get him to adopt the child? Did she even leave a will explaining her intentions?

We cannot make a society that depends on CPS making good decisions. What did Dr. Sporn think would happen? I don't know what he is a doctor of, but he should have known that he was living with a suicidal woman and a child that had no legal connection to him.

You can count on the anti-family propagandists to keep bringing up examples like this as excuses for destroying the Ozzie-and-Harriet American family.

On another matter, here is the sick advice that the NY Times gives to a man considering sex-change operation:

I recently had my self-diagnosis confirmed, and I’m initiating a transition to living as the real me. There is a cost involved: pain to my family and stress on my career. Ethically, is it right to be “true to myself” even if that authenticity ends my otherwise happy marriage and damages the emotional stability of my three children? ...

The desire to be yourself is not a selfish impulse. ... So the question you really need to ask yourself is this: Is your psychological damage from gender dysphoria greater than the psychological damage that its restoration will inflict upon the lives of any (or all) of your children? If the answer is yes, proceed. If the answer is no, don’t do it.

No, the desire is certainly selfish. But he is not just being true to himself, or he would not be so desperate to get ideas endorsed by others.

Girlfriend on a leash

Here are some wacky new stories that are slightly off-topic for this blog, but are supporting my view that society is doomed.

A UK newspaper column advises:

The question
We live in a family-oriented neighbourhood in the heart of our city. Dozens of kids ride bikes, play soccer and so on while adults chat and watch. Last summer, one of my neighbours (with three sons) told me he saw a woman walking her girlfriend on a leash. I told him he must have been fantasizing. Sure enough, a woman with long dreads and multiple piercings (I’d seen her before; she rents a basement apartment on the street) came around the corner walking her girlfriend on a leash. We’ve seen it many times since then, in the middle of the day. My four-year old daughter asked me why the lady was wearing a leash. I told her that she was pretending to be a dog and that the other lady was playing the owner. My daughter loves inventing her own play scenarios and easily accepted my explanation. This has been going on since last summer, so it’s obviously a happy, long-term relationship. But I don’t love having to explain S&M role-play to my four-year old and would appreciate if the dog-walking happened after, say 9 p.m. What would you do?

What would I do? I might tell my 4yo that the leash is the punishment for a girl not behaving, and that when she gets a little older, I will explain the horrors of lesbianism.

FoxNews reports:

That's right. Large-breasted women are so discriminated against in North Korea they try to shrink or hide their boobs in order to boost their social standing, according to the South Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo as cited by Korea watcher Robert Koehler.

North Korea's patriarchal society apparently views nature's generosity with suspicion, defectors told JoongAng Ilbo.

The bigger your breasts, the more likely you'll be considered a slut, the women reportedly said, because you're seen as strutting your stuff — as if morality determines that development. ...

"Boob jobs" are popular in South Korea, where the people are the most cosmetically enhanced in the world, Cain said, who is based in Seoul, and they're also becoming a hot item for the new affluent women of China, Vietnam and Indonesia.

We capitalists are better because our women are proud to show off their surgically enhanced breasts. That and the fact that we do not eat our kids:

A starving man in North Korea has been executed after murdering his two children for food, reports from inside the secretive state claim.

A 'hidden famine' in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae is believed to have killed up to 10,000 people and there are fears that incidents of cannibalism have risen.

The grim story is just one to emerge as residents battle starvation after a drought hit farms and shortages were compounded by party officials confiscating food.

Here is a British woman you will want to avoid:

Lisa confessed she 'hopes to find a man who is wiling to embrace her asexuality'.

While she is willing to extend intimacy to levels of cuddling, she finds the act of sex itself completely repellent. ...

Speaking about her first sexual experience Lisa said: 'I was in a relationship with someone I trusted who was wonderful, but I saw it as a chore and I didn't want to do it. ...

'I'd love to be in a loving relationship and settle down,' she said.

'But the extent of intimacy would be cuddling.'

When asked about her hopes for the future and finding a man to settle down with, Lisa's reply reveals her fears. 'I'm an asexual vegan who doesn't want kids - I'm thinking crazy cat lady.'

'I want to get married and have a house - but no sex.'

I have switch to using the more inclusive term LGBTQIA.

For most American women, it doesn't take much to trick them into taking their clothes off:

A California man has been charged with blackmailing over 350 women into sending him nude photos after hacking into their Facebook, Skype and email accounts.

Karen 'Gary' Kazaryan, 27, is accused of hacking into the victims’ accounts and changing their passwords, locking them out of their own online accounts.

He then searched emails or other files for naked or semi-naked pictures of the victims, as well as other information, such as passwords and the names of their friends. He then posed online as the women, sent instant messages to their friends - and, somehow, persuaded those friends to get undressed so that he could view and take pictures of them.

Even when the victims discovered that they weren't actually speaking with their friends, Kazaryan was frequently able to use the photos he already had to blackmail the victims to strip on camera.

He allegedly posted nude photos of some victims on their Facebook pages when they failed to comply with his demands.

The LGBTQIA lobby is trying to stir up some controversy about the football super bowl, and so USA Today has this confusing story:

NEW ORLEANS — When four members of the San Francisco 49ers made an anti-bullying video in August for the "It Gets Better Project," they were hailed as trail blazers — big, strong athletes in a game bathed in testosterone and homophobia, who were prepared to take on the narrow minds of the NFL locker rooms.

But two of the players who took part in the video — linebacker Ahmad Brooks and nose tackle Isaac Sopoaga — strangely denied making the video. Then, when shown the video, they said they didn't realize the aim of the production was to fight the bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens.

The players were asked about the video Thursday because teammate Chris Culliver made derogatory remarks about gays in a media day interview with radio personality Artie Lange.

At first, Brooks and Sopoaga, approached by USA TODAY Sports, denied being part of the project.

"I didn't make any video," Brooks said. "This is America and if someone wants to be gay, they can be gay. It's their right. But I didn't make any video."

CULLIVER APOLOGIZES: Niners' defender backs off homophobic remarks

When told USA TODAY Sports had seen the video and he was in it, Brooks replied, "I don't remember that. I think if I made a video, I'd remember it."

He was shown the video on an iPhone.

"Oh, that. It was an anti-bullying video, not a gay (rights) video," he said.

When told that studies show that the majority of teens who are bullied are harassed over sexual identity issues, Brooks thought for a second.

"I know that. I know that," he said. "Okay, you're right and I'm wrong. Are you from one of those New York newspapers?"

Note how the USA Today insists on misquoting Brooks. He said, "Oh, that. It was an anti-bullying video, not a gay video". You can watch the anti-bullying video for yourself, and decide whether it is a gay video.

Brooks is right and wrong at the same time. He was tricked. He just made a statement against bullying and said nothing about gays. The term "anti-bullying" has become a code word for pro-LGBTQIA propaganda. It slips thru because everyone is against bullying. Even the local California public schools now all have anti-bullying programs.

The US Supreme Court is hearing cases challenging man-woman marriage, and the briefs in favor are here and here. Here is an Oregon intolerance story:

A Gresham baker is the subject of a state investigation after he refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Did Sweet Cakes owner Aaron Klein violate the law when he told the couple that he couldn’t sell them a cake because “they were abominations to the Lord?”

That’s what Oregon Attorney General's civil enforcement officers are looking into after one of the brides-to-be filed a complaint on Jan. 28. ...

“If I have to be to, I guess, be penalized for my beliefs, then I guess, well, that’ll be what it is,” he said.

Yes, he probably will be penalized for his beliefs because they stand in the way of illiberal liberals.