Interesting. An extract from near the end of the long piece:

There is little doubt that a non-trivial proportion of SIDs (Sudden Infant Deaths) are in fact homicide. Steven Kairys et al, Pediatrics February 2001, 107, Issue 2, observe,

“Recently, well-validated reports of child abuse and infanticide – perpetrated by suffocation and masqueraded as apparent life-threatening events (ALTE) and/or SIDS – have appeared in the medical literature and in the lay press.

Parents of infants with recurrent ALTEs have been observed trying to suffocate and harm their infants. In Great Britain, covert video surveillance was used to assess child abuse risk in 39 young children referred for evaluation of recurrent ALTEs. Abuse was revealed in 33 of 39 cases, with documentation of intentional suffocation observed in 30 patients. Among 41 siblings of the 39 infants in the studies, 12 had previously died suddenly and unexpectedly. Although 11 of these deaths had been classified as SIDS, 4 parents later admitted to suffocating 8 of these siblings. Other cases previously thought to be multiple SIDS deaths within a family have been revealed to be cases of multiple homicide by suffocation.”

Wolkind et al, Acta Paediatr 1993;82: 873-6 studied families with 2 or more cot deaths. They concluded that 55% of these were probably filicide (infanticide). However, it is not clear what conclusion we can draw from this as regards the frequency of homicide masquerading as SID in cases of just one SID in a family.

Three days ago Karl McCartney MP led a debate in Westminster Hall on the educational performance of boys, and we thank John for providing us with a link to the video footage on Parliament TV – here. It starts at 16:28:44.

Marco Visscher, a Dutch journalist, attended the London conference, and he wrote a lengthy article that was published in the Belgian glossy magazine Knack. Our thanks to Michael for translating it from Dutch into English, here.

We recently posted a blog piece on this matter. I’m looking forward to attending, and hopefully meeting many men interested in men’s rights for the first time, in a productive working environment.

Maybe you could promote the event by putting up posters in public places (possibly including Gents’ toilets)? My thanks to J for providing me with six poster designs:

Interesting.

In the UK in 2013/14, men paid almost three-quarters of the income tax collected by the state, and the proportion had risen for each of the previous four years (we didn’t research further back) – details here. That year, men paid £75.4 BILLION more income tax than women, much of it was then handed over to ‘strong’ women who don’t need men to financially support them.

I’m no fan of Ally Fogg – I believe the feeling may be mutual – but his latest blog piece is well worth reading. He writes:

I will leave it to you to decide whether you think this sorry story is a case of calculated skulduggery deliberately designed to cynically mislead the public about the true nature of so-called violence against women and girls, or lazy indifference to the actual facts.

Given that the ‘sorry story’ referred to here is a piece published online by the Guardian hours in advance of the publication of a CPS VAWG report and press release, thereby influencing subsequent media coverage – we saw exactly the same phenomenon with the paper’s four recent attacks on Philip Davies MP, after his talk at our conference – ‘calculated skulduggery’ is surely the more obvious explanation – lazy indifference to the actual facts being par for the course for Guardian articles on such issues. And I have little doubt that even Ally Fogg knows that.

Our thanks to Stuart for this from the International Association for Suicide Prevention ‘in official relations with the World Health Organization’. The associated factsheet declines to mention that a majority of suicide victims are male. An extract:

Experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups who experience discrimination, such as refugees and migrants; indigenous peoples; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) persons; and prisoners.

Men account for over 75% of suicides in the UK, and in most nations the proportion is somewhat higher.

The materials on offer to journalists and others include a PowerPoint presentation, World Suicide Prevention Day: Facts and Figures. It consists of 19 slides, and the fact that most suicide victims are men is not mentioned on any of them.

WHO is one of the key organizations – along with UNAIDS – behind the almost certainly futile (and possibly even counter-productive) programme of circumcising 20 million sub-Saharan Africans, in an attempt to slow the spread of HIV. The scientific justification for the programme is utterly woeful. We recommend this video (11:25) by 5hadowfax.

Our thanks to Douglas for this, a piece by Karl McCartney (C, Lincoln). His seat is our #18 target in the 20 top Tory marginals (at the 2015 general election) which we plan to contest in the 2020 general election. An extract from his piece:

We need to make sure schools and colleges are boy-friendly through inspiring them, helping them see what they can achieve and also being positive about masculinity. It is OK for boys to like cars, building sites and generally getting dirty. Boys want to be young men, and young men want to be grown men – we should celebrate and nurture this, not try and make boys something they are not. More male teachers would certainly help.

Then he lets himself down with uncritical comments such as this:

There has been much focus, policy and leadership on matters such as the lack of women on Boards and the gender pay gap.

There is, of course, no ‘lack of women on Boards’, and I don’t have the strength or inclination to write anything more about the gender pay gap right now. On the basis of merit, women are already at least five times over-represented on FTSE100 boards, and the government is driving ever-higher over-representations. 96% of women appointed to FTSE100 boards in the past five years have been appointed as non-executive directors.

Then he partly redeems himself with this, criticising ‘the shrill equal pay brigade’.

Perhaps we should just be grateful, at this stage, that a second Conservative MP, following the lead of Philip Davies MP, has strapped on a pair.

A thought-provoking piece published three days ago.

At last year’s Conservative party conference in Manchester, we created quite a stir with our anti-MGM protests, handing out leaflets, and engaging with a considerable number of conference attendees. A video (3:14) is here.

We plan to make an even bigger impact at the next conference, in Birmingham, in four weeks’ time. We’ll be outside the conference for the first two full days – Monday 3 / Tuesday 4 October. We invite you to join us, and if you’re short of funds, we may be able to help with your travel costs to and from Birmingham. Please email mike@j4mb.org.uk if you think you might be able to make it, even if it’s for only one of the days. Thank you.