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... There are numerous other factors that affect pay. Most fundamentally, men and women tend to gravitate toward different industries. Feminists may charge that women are socialized into lower-paying sectors of the economy. But women considering the decisions they’ve made likely have a different view. Women tend to seek jobs with regular hours, more comfortable conditions, little travel, and greater personal fulfillment. Often times, women are willing to trade higher pay for jobs with other characteristics that they find attractive. Men, in contrast, often take jobs with less desirable characteristics in pursuit of higher pay. They work long hours and...

In short, what the Congressional Budget Office presents as increased inequality from 2003 to 2007 was actually evidence that the top 1% of earners report more taxable income when tax rates are reduced on dividends, capital gains and businesses filing under the individual tax code. If Congress raises top individual tax rates much above the corporate rate, many billions in business income would rapidly vanish from the individual tax returns the CBO uses to measure the income of the top 1%. Small businesses and professionals would revert to reporting most income on corporate tax returns as they did in 1979.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday pushed backed against those who accuse the Justice Department of enforcing civil rights laws based on race, saying people need to just "look at the facts." "The notion that we are enforcing any civil rights laws -- voting or others -- on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender is simply false," Holder said. For more than a year, Republicans and others have been questioning why the Obama administration reversed course on a federal lawsuit against two members of the New Black Panther Party, who were videotaped outside a

I'm curious to what Freepers think of Aspartame. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in diet products like diet coke. Many websites, albeit possibly kooky websites, say Aspartame produces side effects like anxiety, blurred vision, depression, etc. The medical establishment and Feds say its heavily tested and safe. Anyone with an opinion or experience?

More than ever, people are consuming large amounts of sugar as part of their daily diet according to the Mayo Clinic. But in excess, sugar can take its toll. Eating large amounts of sugar adds extra calories, which can cause weight gain. So many people opt for artificial sweeteners — also referred to as sugar substitutes or low-calorie sweeteners — as a way to enjoy their favorite foods without as many calories. According to eDocAmerica, Saccharin (Sweet 'N Low) was the first, and is perhaps the most controversial of the artificial sweeteners.

Uh oh, here is another example of screaming at the other side while Obama has his own skeletons in the closet. He keeps repeating the fact that Sarah Palin supported the bridge to nowhere before she was against it, which is a fact that no one denies, but he always supported it. He's hitting her for earmarks while he granted $3.4 million in earmarks to the clients of Joe Biden's son, who is a lobbyist. Now, as Obama criticizes Palin, saying she's not for equal pay for equal work, it appears Obama has a problem. His Senate Office only pays...

What do you call a man who sermonizes about the evils of paying women less than men but allows that very practice in his own office? While a certain unflattering noun would leap to the mind of most, we can now apply a proper one: Barack Obama. Although the Illinois senator has vowed to make pay equity between the sexes a priority in his administration, it has been revealed that he doesn't practice what he preaches. Writes CNSNEWS.com: On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator...

A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.  Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.   "This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone...

PHILADELPHIA - The marketers of Splenda have made millions by confusing consumers into thinking the yellow packets contain a natural product and not an artificial sweetener, its chief rival told a jury Tuesday. Splenda has cornered the $1.5 billion market for sugar substitutes since its 2000 debut through false advertising that implies Splenda contains sugar, the manufacturer of Equal says. The Merisant Co., which makes Equal and NutraSweet, says Splenda is misleading customers with its tag line, "Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar." Splenda contains no sugar and is instead sweetened with a synthetic compound through a complex...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The makers of Splenda and Equal on Friday settled a lawsuit over Splenda's disputed advertising slogan — "Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar." The settlement came after the jury announced that it had reached a verdict. Merisant Co., which makes Equal, accused Splenda of confusing consumers into thinking its product was healthier and more natural than other artificial sweeteners. Splenda's marketer, McNeil Nutritionals, countered that it simply has a better product backed by superior advertising. A McNeil spokeswoman in the courtroom said the amount of the settlement wouldn't be announced. The two sides planned to...

Why are politicians again championing the Equal Rights Amendment -- newly minted as the Women's Equality Amendment -- when the speaker of the House, secretary of state and the Democratic presidential front-runner are women, and when women are making gains in education and the workforce? One reason is that many claim women are systematically discriminated against at work, as the existence of the so-called wage gap proves. Talking about wage discrimination against women is a political mainstay. Last month, Sen. Hillary Clinton expressed consternation that women continue to make "just 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes" and...

HOLLY SPRINGS -- A Cherokee County city plans to honor a Good Samaritan who helped a 5-foot, 4-inch female officer subdue a drug suspect who stands nearly 7 feet tall. Officer Julie Ann Welch stopped a car on May 10 on Highway 5 because the driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt. She says the passenger, Mike Schmidt, of Canton, was acting suspiciously so she told him to get out of the car. "He just continually disobeyed my commands," Welch tells WSB-TV. "He kept putting his hands in his pocket. He was shaking horribly." Welch says she found cocaine and drug paraphernalia...

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 11, 2006 – The Afghan National Police recently took major strides toward recognizing the equal rights of men and women, as well as the important contributions made by its female officers. Gen. Aziza Nazeri (center), the Afghan National Police''s most senior female officer, presides over the Gender Awareness Day conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 8, as Gen. Ahmad Madadzai and Jerilyn Glick Holsapple look on. Madadzai is head of the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Interior, and Holsapple is a special agent with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Photo by Staff...

Don't tell the Scouts of the W.D. Boyce Council in Central Illinois that you can't build an entire house from aluminum cans. They know better because they've done it—and a displaced New Orleans family who lost everything in the ravages of Hurricane Katrina last August has a brand-new home as proof. Approximately 2,000 Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts collected more than 3.5 million aluminum beverage cans worth more than $50,000. The money was presented to local Habitat for Humanity organizations. In mid-November, volunteer workers from Habitat for Humanity Greater Peoria (Ill.) began building a local Scout-sponsored house for a New...

Betty Friedan, who died at 85 on Feb. 4, issued plenty of misinformation during her long life. The author of “The Feminine Mystique,” however, would be hard-pressed to match the nonsense being written about her. Consider, for example, Marie Cocco of the Washington Post Writer’s Group. “There’s no way to thank the mother you’ve never acknowledged,” wrote Cocco, who evoked Friedan’s “deep cultural legacy.” Because of Friedan, the writer argues, millions of women opted out of the “psychic suffering” of suburban housewives during the 1950s and 1960s. More specifically: “Hers was a generation of educated women forced by the oppressive...

12/7/2005 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Take four security forces Airmen, throw them on a UH-1 Huey helicopter and what do you get? A combined defense team that is fast, efficient and keeps the country’s nuclear arsenal well protected. Helicopter aircrews and security forces at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., have integrated parts of their missions to form response teams for any alarm or threat to a nuclear missile site. The joint teams consist of security forces Airmen riding in helicopters. The pilots land and the cops are able to deploy and secure an area. This reduces their response time from...

Gulfport’s “human rights” [gay] ordinance: progress or height of hypocrisy? In a recent article titled, “A Tale of Two Counties Progress in Gulfport and another step backward in Hillsborough“ , we are told by Wayne Garcia: “As Hillsborough County again made international headlines for its gay-hating policies last week, the small and funky city of Gulfport in Pinellas County took a different route.Gulfport became just the fourth government in Florida - and the first in Tampa Bay - to adopt a human rights ordinance that protects gays, lesbians and the transgendered.” But, when one analyzes the touted “human rights ordinance”...

DEAD SEA, Jordan (Reuters) - Women face a pervasive lack of freedom in the Arab world and no country in the region meets international standards for protecting their rights, human rights activists charged on Saturday. Freedom House, a U.S.-based group, said a study of countries in the broader Middle East and North Africa had found that women were disadvantaged in nearly all areas of society, including justice, the economy, education, healthcare and media. The study, which was distributed at a World Economic Forum regional meeting in Jordan, called for Arab governments to eliminate discriminatory laws and remove barriers to women...

First, let us understand what the Terri Schiavo matter was not about: Despite ideological diatribes from David Corn at The Nation, this was not "an ugly big-government attempt to intervene in a family conflict" designed to appease "religious right crusaders." Despite ranting from Robert Scheer, also at The Nation, this was not "egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery," and the citation of dubious polls won't validate Scheer's hope that the majority of Americans want to see a helpless woman starved to death by judicial order. And despite hysteria from the Los Angeles Times, this was not "a...

You thought the modern DNC leadership just disrespected life in the womb… Now you have a chance to see these gutless wonders in real action as an innocent defenseless woman’s life hangs in the balance… Too bad Terri Schiavo isn’t a California seal, or a blue sperm whale… If she was, every tree hugging bleeding heart liberal in the country would be lining up as a human shield to protect her right to life including Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and good old Uncle Teddy. As it is, they are silent because Terri is just a useless human being who has...

It is not because Native Hawaiians should be cherished less but that equality under the law should be loved more that the Akaka Bill to create a race-based government should be opposed. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs blithely approved the legislation Wednesday without seriously examining its constitutionality. The bill previously passed the House in 2000 as a "noncontroversial," like treating South Carolina's firing on Fort Sumter as a July Fourth celebration. The proposed legislation would ordain a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity cobbled together by Native Hawaiians meeting a threshold of Native Hawaiian blood. The Entity would negotiate with the...

The Sugar Association pays for a “consumer” Web site to scare the public with pseudo-science about Splenda.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | MEETUP | C-LOG | ISSUES townhall.comPrinter-friendly versionSocialism is evilWalter E. Williams (back to web version) | Send July 28, 2004 What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and...

(AP) The U.S. Small Business Administration has been ordered to pay more than $500,000 to a former employee who said her boss forced her to quit for refusing to go along with a scheme to discriminate against male workers. A federal judge said the agency and its director, Hector Barreto, should have known about the mistreatment of Mary Conway-Jepson in the agency's Montana office, and failed to do anything. Jepson said she was asked to help in a scheme to rid the SBA office of what former district director Jo Alice Mospan considered too many male supervisors. When she refused,...

It used to be said, before gays "came out," that they were in "the closet." I wish they would go back into it. The rest of us have been in "Pandora's Box ever since. Not that long ago, in kinder, gentler times, when grown adults actually kept their private business private, and fringe rebels did not get in everyone's face to make their point, what is now considered to be an alternative lifestyle" was in fact, a deviancy. The only thing that has changed is that in 1973, (the same notorious year that also gave us Roe vs. Wade) the...

It used to be said, before gays "came out," that they were in "the closet." I wish they would go back into it. The rest of us have been in "Pandora's Box ever since. Not that long ago, in kinder, gentler times, when grown adults actually kept their private business private, and fringe rebels did not get in everyone's face to make their point, what is now considered to be an alternative lifestyle" was in fact, a deviancy. The only thing that has changed is that in 1973, (the same notorious year that also gave us Roe vs. Wade) the...

I have long contended that our socialist system of government is in fact nothing but a renovation of the ancient system of aristocracy. Whenever you have different rules and punishment for people based upon their status, in this case the status of being a government employee, you have injustice (although the ones receiving the preferential treatment would of course argue against you). A good example of this has occurred recently in Oklahoma City where John Carl Marquez was arrested for suspicion of beating his wife and faces a year in prison and a fine. During the arrest, the man also...

<p>BERKELEY, Calif. - Ward Connerly, who led the fight to drop race-based admissions at the University of California, wants the system to stop sponsoring race-themed activities such as separate ceremonies for black graduates.</p> <p>Connerly, a member of UC's governing board of regents, is proposing a ban on using UC funds for extracurricular events designed for specific race, ethnic or sexual orientation groups.</p>

Conservatives may be missing a beat by dismissing the Bush=Hitler crowd as ignoramuses. Like their fellow travelers in Hollywood, the peace crowd is not putting forth a coherent/accurate historical argument. They’re not trying to. As many conservatives have rightly said, it’s theater. It’s performance art. Bush=Hitler is ridiculous on its face as a matter of fact, but this isn’t how they’re using it. They’re using Hitler as a cultural symbol. This is how their ideas spread and, unfortunately, have an impact.

Equal protection under the Law...

<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) A woman whose parents were immigrants and who was a multicultural officer for Canada starts her work Monday helping Maine's second-largest city adjust to the arrival of about 1,100 Somali refugees.</p> <p>The atmosphere has gotten tense in the city of 36,000 since February 2001, when Somalis started arriving from other U.S. cities.</p>

<p>Local Ababda nomads dig in one of the streets in Berenike, which holds an array of artifacts that scientists say reveals an "impressive" sea trade between the Roman Empire and India.</p> <p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Spices, gems and other exotic cargo excavated from an ancient port on Egypt's Red Sea show that the sea trade 2,000 years ago between the Roman Empire and India was more extensive than previously thought and even rivaled the legendary Silk Road, archaeologists say.</p>