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Why should women be paid equal to men? Men have been in the working world a lot longer and deserve to be paid at a higher rate. Heck, I’m a working mom and I’m not paid a dime. I depend on my husband to provide for me and my family, as should most women… and if a woman does work, she should be happy just to be out there in the working world and quit complaining that she’s not making as much as her male counterparts. I mean really, all this wanting to be equal nonsense is going to be detrimental to the future of women everywhere. Who’s going to want to hire a woman, or for that matter, even marry a woman who thinks she is the same, if not better than a man at any job. It’s almost laughable. C’mon now ladies, are you with me on this?

Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney

[Source]

I know (or hope?) that most people most probably know this because it sounds a bit too outrageous, but this is not real quote from her.

Just to verify… because I don’t like false information that isn’t clear that it’s wrong.

[It’s from a satirical website, but here’s another source to say it’s false].

(via thefirstofoctember)

Source: gaywrites

Seriously, are American college students dumb or in denial?

socialuprooting:

President Obama is reportedly ”visiting college campuses in key states this week to rally students.” From what I’ve seen and heard online, the reception has been quite warm.

College students of America: are you in denial? Have you lost your minds?

There is reportedly a 50% unemployment rate among recent college graduates. One out of every two of you will be outrageously debt-saddled, and eventually living at home with Mom and Dad.

Success, 2012-style.

The other half will be outrageously debt-saddled, “fortunate” to have some god-awful cubicle job that barely meets the minimum payments on your student loan obligations. You’ll be in front of a screen, selling products and services you don’t believe in, making the world a slightly worse place, all so you can hang on to barebones corporate health insurance.

Hope! Change!

Obama hasn’t done a damn thing for people in our age group. This country’s wealth has been squandered on outrageous projects, like a $2 billion data center in the desert to spy on Americans’ online communications, rapid expansion of the TSA, and to defense contractors who make creepy high-speed drones designed to kill “enemy combatants” without trial or judicial review.

A police state wartime economy in overdrive.

It was one thing to support Barack Obama in 2008 (hell, I did). Hope and Change sounded pretty great after eight years of the Bush gang.

It’s another thing to support him now, if you are a college student facing one of the worst American economic environments since, well, the Great Depression. You’ll be living a life significantly less prosperous, on average, than your parents did. Not an exaggeration. Stop following the cult of personality and judge the Obama administration based on its POLICIES and ACTIONS to date, not based on the fact that he seems “down to Earth” and even has a Spotify playlist!

I’m no peacenik, but this administration is spending far too much on “defense,” and not nearly enough on bringing jobs home for smart graduates. Additionally, medical marijuana crackdowns have INCREASED under Obama (not cool) and if you still believe the campaign lie that Obama has run a “transparent” administration, consider this: “President Barack Obama has brought more charges against Americans under the Espionage Act than did all previous administrations combined, said Jesselyn Radack, director of national security and human rights for the Government Accountability Project.”

You have a life of indentured servitude to a police state ahead of you if you don’t wake up soon. Obama isn’t your friend, graduates.

(via triangleman)

Source: socialuprooting

The 3 reasons all young adults are liberal.

“Almost everyone in our age group knows someone who is unemployed.

Not because that person is lazy, but because the lowest percentage of Americans age 16 to 29 are employed since World War II, with 55% of young adults employed. If we dwell on the fact that many of those jobs are not careers, and many of those are part-time, the picture gets bleaker.

We haven’t had the time, nor reason, to develop the near-ubiquitous attitude of conservative Americans: “Well, things worked out for me. Why wouldn’t they work out for everyone?” I’m going to avoid citing various facts about how students are crushed by loans that were sold to us through brochures about high-priced colleges and unemployable career prospects fed to us by go-lucky culture that raised us in a fantasy world fueled by the belief that, if you just did what you loved, things would work out.

The fact is, at this point, a lot of us know that we should have majored in something differently. Or tried to somehow afford a college degree. A lot of people argue that we should have known that all along. On behalf of my generation, I extend our deepest apologies for being idealists in our adolescence and majoring in things capitalism doesn’t like, such as education, social services, and environmental studies.

We saw parents struggle with unemployment after years of working up a ladder. We saw the friends of parents devastated by the loss of a job, a home, and health insurance, all the while struggling to pay for exorbitant college tuition fees outpacing inflation by 500% and taking care of younger kids at home. In part, this experience could explain why 47 percent of millennials have a negative view of capitalism.” [Read more].

(via manicchill)

Fairness is meaningless.

Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron said: “It’s time for a new conversation about what fairness really means.” That conversation is already well under way. The Today program on Radio 4 had a week-long discussion. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has produced a report called ‘How Fair is Britain?’, and concluded that the answer is “not very.” And it is virtually impossible to hear a conversation or read an article about current political hot topics - such as cuts in Child Benefit, under-achievement at school by poor children, increases in university tuition fees or the rising retirement age - without the discussion coming round to whether or not the situation is fair.

All political parties have adopted the word: the Conservatives’ favourite phrase is currently “tough but fair,” while Gordon Brown described New Labour’s goal as “fairness” – not equality – as long ago as 1999. But given that people from across the political spectrum, and on both sides of the debate on cuts, fees, and taxation, are all now deeming their beliefs “fair,” does the word have any meaning anymore? And did it ever have any real practical or political significance? Is fairness a crucial concept which will allow the country to move forwards out of our current economic difficulties, or is it a distraction from the issues and questions that really matter?

Read the debate.

Looking up debates on Intelligence Squared.

Beware of the Dragon: Africa should not look to China.

We all know that the Chinese are the neo-colonialists of Africa. They’ve plundered the continent of its natural resources, tossing aside any concern for human rights and doing deals with some of the world’s most unsavoury regimes. The relentless pursuit of growth is China’s only spur. 

But is this picture really fair? In Angola, for example, China’s low-interest loans have been tied to a scheme that has ensured that roads, schools and other infrastructure has been built. China has an impressive track record of lifting its own millions out of poverty and can do the same for Africa. And is the West’s record in Africa as glowing as we like to think? After decades of pouring aid into Africa, how much have we actually achieved in terms of reducing poverty, corruption and war?

So which way should Africa look for salvation – to the West, to China, or perhaps to its own people? Come to the debate and decide for yourself.

Around the world right now, one billion people are trapped in poor or failing countries. How can we help them? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor.

Britain’s former colonies should stop blaming the Empire for their ills.

The British Empire has a mixed legacy. On the plus side we brought railways, the rule of law and the English language, the world’s lingua franca, to far-flung places. But it’s also true that in the aftermath of WWII our rapid retreat from Empire was a bit too hasty: colonial administrators with little understanding of local history or culture created new countries by drawing lines on the map, ignoring the affiliations of religion, tribe or language.

So it’s hardly surprising that our former colonies blame us for the subsequent wars and tensions that continue to this day in places such as Kashmir and parts of Africa. But isn’t it all too easy for corrupt and unpopular leaders to use the Empire as a scapegoat for their failings? 60 years on, isn’t it time for our former colonies to take responsibility for themselves? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Come to the debate and decide for yourself.

Watch the debate.

US government seeks extradition of UK student for file-sharing.

Comment: His actions might have been illegal in the US if they had been committed in the US, but as far as I can tell, they were not and this all happened entirely in the UK. But the US is apparently trying (and currently succeeding) to get him extradited anyway.

Extradition is supposed to be about not letting a criminal flee to another jurisdiction to escape justice. It is not supposed to be about making someone in one country guilty of any offence they commit according to the law in any other country with which an extradition treaty exists.

Just to be clear, I am utterly lacking in sympathy for this guy. … But it should be ;our book if he did this in our country. The legal principle that anyone can be extradited from a country when their actions committed in that country were not against the law in that country is very, very dangerous.

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