A piece in today’s Times, emphases are ours:

A teenage schoolboy has been cleared of rape after his lawyers uncovered key evidence that proved his innocence but was missed by police and prosecutors.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has publicly blamed police officers for not discovering thousands of social media messages that proved the 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was not guilty.

He was expelled from school after his arrest by Leicestershire police in 2016, when he was 15, [J4MB: The year before he’d have taken GCSEs] and is the youngest victim of the disclosure scandal engulfing the CPS.

Yesterday the prosecution offered no evidence after deciding that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. Not guilty verdicts were entered for the 14 charges against him, which included rape against two complainants, sexual assault and sexual activity with a child.

An interesting piece by Dr Niall McCrae for TCW, the second part of his review of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

‘Professor’ Betsey Stevenson. I own plants with higher IQs.

The start of an article referencing this blithering idiot:

A University of Michigan professor recently argued that the lack of women in Economics textbooks could help explain why few females pursue the field.

Associate Economics professor Betsey Stevenson and Hanna Zlotnick, a Master of Public Policy candidate, recently reviewed the depictions women and men in eight leading economics textbooks, finding that 77 percent of people represented in those textbooks were male.

The gender disparity was even more pronounced for specific mentions of economics, Stevenson and Zlotnick discovered, reporting that male economists outnumber women 12-to-1 overall, and that in one particular textbook, there were no female economists to be found.

They also discovered that textbooks often depict men “making a decision,” while women are often illustrated as “[having] a decision made for them.”

Stevenson and Zlotnick argue that this gender-disparity could help explain why women aren’t attracted to the field…

Lamenting the fact that textbooks are overwhelmingly male, the professors also argue that textbooks should be “forward-looking” instead, representing the gender diversity they wish Economics would attract instead of reflecting the current situation.

“Additionally, one might argue [J4MB: … if one were a blithering idiot…] that all types of students should be able to see themselves and their lives reflected in the examples and discussions they see when they study economics,” they write. “Therefore, one could argue that textbooks not only should be representative of the actual world, but reflect the diversity of the student body we would ideally like to attract.”

Just published.

A piece in today’s Times by Chris Smyth, Health Editor. Emphases ours:

Deaths from prostate cancer have overtaken those from breast cancer for the first time, with a man dying of the disease every 45 minutes.

An increasing number of men are dying of Britain’s most common male cancer, whereas fewer women are succumbing to its female equivalent, official figures show.

Men’s reluctance to talk about health and embarrassing symptoms means that there is twice as much research into breast cancer, which has benefited from decades of celebrity-led awareness campaigns, experts have said. [J4MB: Ridiculous victim blaming, and utterly oblivious of the empathy gender gap.]

Prostate cancer must be taken more seriously as it becomes the third most fatal form of the disease, campaigners have said. Only cancers of the lung and bowel kill more people.

Official figures for the UK show that 11,819 men died of prostate cancer in 2015, the most recent year for which full data is available, compared with 11,442 women succumbing to breast cancer. In 2000, 9,248 men died of prostate cancer and 12,762 women died of breast cancer.

NHS screening and precision drugs have helped to cut breast cancer deaths but prostate treatment is still limited.

Angela Culhane, chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK, said: “With half the investment and half the research it’s not surprising that progress in prostate cancer is lagging behind.”

The charity calculates that £227 million has been spent on British prostate cancer research in the past 15 years compared with £529 million on breast cancer. Globally, 72,513 scientific papers have been published on prostate cancer since 1999 and 146,063 on breast cancer.

“If you judge by how serious the disease is and the impact it has then you would expect them to be at similar levels,” Ms Culhane said. “It goes back to getting women behind the cause in the Seventies and Eighties.”

The average man who dies of prostate cancer is in his early eighties, compared with the early seventies for a breast cancer death. “There has been a belief that prostate cancer is an old man’s disease only, which allowed people to ignore it,” Ms Culhane said. [J4MB: They wouldn’t ignored it if it were old WOMEN dying from the disease.]

A man is more than twice as likely to live for ten years if prostate cancer is diagnosed today than a generation ago. However, this has not been enough to offset an ageing population, with almost twice as many men getting prostate cancer today as two decades ago.

Johann de Bono, of the Institute of Cancer Research, one of the world’s leading prostate cancer scientists, said that his field was “miles behind” breast cancer. “It’s been easier in that disease. The tumour is more easily visible, there’s been a lot more investment. There’s been stronger lobbying pressure from women,” he said. “I think men are much more reticent.” [J4MB: Victim blaming again, and no sense he understands the lobbying pressure came from feminists.]

He said the field had progressed a long way in the past two decades, but said that prostate research needed to catch up with efforts to target breast cancer treatment at different molecular make-ups of tumours.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, chief executive of the charity Breast Cancer Now, said that there was no room for complacency after a study in The Lancet this week showed that British cancer survival rates are still behind the best in the world.

Analysis
If anyone doubts the power of fashion, look at breast cancer awareness. Death rates have fallen more than 40 per cent in the past 30 years, partly because of campaigns such as the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer initiative backed by Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss (Chris Smyth writes).

Prostate cancer had to make do with Bob Monkhouse — and he was dead by the time he appeared in a fundraising advert.

Women’s willingness to talk about their health has undoubtedly contributed to the success of research fundraising efforts, while men shy away from discussing problems such as incontinence and impotence. [J4MB: Again, victim blaming, and no grasp of the empathy gender gap.]

The importance of checking for breast lumps is widely understood, yet checking a prostate requires a very intimate encounter with a GP. [J4MB: It shouldn’t require that. Annual blood tests for PSA levels should be part of a national screening programme for men over 50.] As a result of the research gap, there is still no test reliable enough for prostate cancer screening, something introduced for breast cancer 30 years ago.

Yet there is reason to be optimistic. The success of the “Movember” movement in tackling men’s health issues suggests that a younger generation of men is willing to break taboos.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

Enjoy (video, 17:17).

Our thanks to Sean for this (video, 1:17).

Just published. We note Catherine will be on The Big Questions tomorrow morning (BBC1).

Our thanks to Patrick Smyth for this. Scroll down for the “Google translation”.

A piece by Kate McCann, ‘senior political correspondent’ – what times we live in! – at the Telegraph, once a fine newspaper, now a feminist-compliant cat litter liner. The start of the piece:

MPs could be allowed to nominate someone to vote on their behalf [J4MB: While the MPs in question draw their full pay, presumably] after plans to help new parents were passed in the House of Commons yesterday.

In a unanimous decision [J4MB emphasis] politicians backed the idea of baby leave to ensure communities are represented when their MP has a baby or adopts a child. A committee will now draw up proposals to make it happen.

Conservative former minister Maria Miller, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “It is 100 years on since the first woman sat in this place but it can, for many of us, still feel like we’re operating in an 18th century model of work – and that is something that really does need to change.” [J4MB: Ah yes, the 18th century model of work – when workers were expected to be present in the workplace.]

Well, Maria ‘Manatee’ Miller MP has said it “really does need to change”, and so it must, so female MPs popping out sprogs don’t have to bother with silly things like being in the House of Commons when votes are counted.