It should go without saying that you should not wear red today, not that there will be enough NOW women around to make any difference.

The really mind-boggling part is how NOW encourages members to celebrate:

Host an “Un-happy hour” on April 28 to signal your dissatisfaction with the wage gap. See if a local bar, club, or restaurant (try the women-owned ones first!) will give you drink specials for the night: ideas include Dollar Drinks for 78 Cents or women pay 78% of their tabs and men pay 100%. Use this social time to network and plan local activities that can lead to improved wages for women and economic health for their families.

Is that not disgusting? Let’s protest (non-existent) pay discrimination by… discriminating against men?

I encourage you to celebrate by going out tonight and buying your (male) buddy a beer… and definitely not buying any women any drinks.

To really celebrate, why not send cards to your Senators encouraging them to vote NO on the “Paycheck Fairness Act”?

Some gems:

What’s a common and accepted practice for Americans nowadays that you think we’ll look back on with regret?

Paying women less than men for the same or comparable work and making excuses for it.

Apparently it is an acceptable practice to manipulate statistics to suit your own political purposes.

Describe a few pet peeves of yours.

Phony experts. Personal attacks (as a replacement for facts or political argument). People who take credit for things they didn’t do. Meetings that are twice as long as they needed to be. Oh yes, lying blowhards who call other people lying blowhards.

In other words, you are your own pet peeve.

Read the Original Article at Politico

The bill passed the House on January 9, 2009, 256-163 (with 14 not voting) and is now headed to the Senate for a vote. (Check the status of the bill in the widget on the right.)

Some issues with this bill:

• The “findings” section takes the gender wage gap as a given — with zero factual evidence to back it up.

  (2) Despite the enactment of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, many women continue to earn significantly lower pay than men for equal work. These pay disparities exist in both the private and governmental sectors. In many instances, the pay disparities can only be due to continued intentional discrimination or the lingering effects of past discrimination.

• Rather than leaving the law at not discriminating against someone on the basis of their gender (which is fair), Section 3 requires employers to show business necessity and provide a “bona fide factor other than sex, such as education, training, or experience” whenever an employee changes positions or pay. Not only is this a significant burden on the shoulders of the employer — particularly large employers — but many employment and pay decisions are far more nuanced than the language of this bill implies, and a nuanced decision does not mean sex discrimination.

  For example, if you have two employees, and one (Bob) comes in early and stays late each day while a second (Kim) comes in exactly when her shift starts and leaves exactly when it ends, it would make sense to promote Bob and consider him for a better raise than Kim even though his attitude is not a “bona fide factor.”

• Section 5 allocates funds for the creation of negotiation skills training for girls and women — with zero funds allocated for teaching boys or men these same negotiation skills.

• Section 7 creates an award for companies that the government considers to employ fair wage practices. Because your tax dollars couldn’t be used for anything better than that.

• Section 9 reinstates the collection of data on women workers with no mention of men. How can this bill seriously have the word “Fairness” in the title?

Here’s what you can do about it:

1. Be sure to read the full text of S. 182.

2. Check to see if you are represented by one of the Senators co-sponsoring S. 182 If you are, write them a letter immediately explaining why this bill is fundamentally unfair and that they should withdraw their sponsorship.

3. If your Senators aren’t co-sponsoring the bill, that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. The bill will eventually come up for a vote, and every vote matters — so write a letter to your Senators right away explaining why the “Paycheck Fairness Act” is not about fairness at all, and urge them to vote no.

   Ask the hard questions. Why should we discriminate against boys by providing only girls with negotiations training, and why is the government only collecting data on women? In fact, why is the government getting involved at all when the “gender wage gap” doesn’t exist?

4. Share this information with your friends and encourage them to take a stand for equality, too.

Extreme irony alert: The winner of the contest doesn’t get paid at all, and in exchange for their time and effort, their caption “become[s] property of NOW and may be used for commercial purposes, with or without attribution.” Because it makes perfect sense to protest that women allegedly get paid less than men by paying (presumably) female entrants nothing at all.

Tell NOW what you think of their inability to understand math and enter the contest. (Not that I expect any reasonable entry will win.)

An excerpt:

NOW’s first order of business in their 39th year of operation is to begin preparations for the anniversary celebration next year, during which the organization is rumored to be turning 39. Although the theme, location, and guest list are still being debated, both NOW’s national and regional leadership unanimously agreed to invite ’70s heartthrob Burt Reynolds to deliver the keynote address.

Read the Original Article at The Onion

I’m a Libertarian and therefore in favor of the lowest possible level of government spending for anything, and I believe the odds are that we’re not spending our defense budget very efficiently. However, being more frugal with our budget does not (ever) mean diverting funds from the military to fund causes that NOW supports.

My favorite part:

“Every year, the Pentagon gobbles up at least half of the federal discretionary budget,” says Marie Rietmann, public policy director of WAND. “We could easily cut several weapons systems that were developed in the 1980s to fight the Cold War, and our defense capabilities would be just as strong.”

I’m no expert on military funding, but I’m positive Ms. Rietmann isn’t, either. If she’s representative of women everywhere, I don’t want any woman allowed anywhere near the military.

Not so, say members of the Oregon chapter of NOW. They’ve put out a call for new members and donations so the current leadership can be ousted. The reason for their banishment? They supported Sarah Palin.

It’s wrong to support a candidate just because they are (or are not) a woman, but it’s all sorts of messed up for NOW members — who already actively discriminate against men — to publicly ostracize fellow members for supporting a woman running for office. Pretty soon there won’t be anyone left to hate but yourselves, girls.

Snippets…

A local attorney named Todd Phillips is a major proponent of enforcing equal pricing laws. He argues that charging men higher prices is discriminatory. Phillips has several successful law suits under his belt, many of which employ rhetoric of gender discrimination to challenge pricing discrepancies.

We’re good so far.

On the surface, Phillips’ cause appears valiant. Who doesn’t support the eradication of inequality?

Ooh, ooh, let me guess. You.

Even more embarrassing is the fact that Phillips’ case was the first in Nevada to challenge a supposedly sexist business policy, on behalf of men.

What’s my prize?

If Phillips truly wanted to challenge economic inequality, why not tackle the gender wage gap? Women might get into night clubs for free, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are underpaid for equal work.

*headdesk*

I had trouble quoting directly from this article because it was so grammatically incorrect. Nice to know that even college newspaper editors can’t construct a sentence these days. Be sure to check out more grammatically-incorrect goodies from Marisa Christensen.

(click the image for a full-screen version)