Take a look at the Wikipedia page on the topic. There are literally HUNDREDS of studies on this from countries all over the world. And they all show the same thing--women get shafted on salary pretty much whether they live in the developed or developing world.

It's interesting you bring up the video game industry example, because I'm sure you're aware of the huge controversy in the games industry right now about the general lack of female designers, programmers, etc. as well as the misogyny that often rears its ugly head in the industry (and among gamers). I worked in games 5 years and I saw this first-hand.

On one team I worked with we had a female programmer (the only female programmer I met while working in the industry) and she was pretty good. But you know what? These rumors started going around that she used to be a man and got a sex change. Because, you know, a woman couldn't possibly be that good of a programmer.

It has been argued before that women "choose" lower paying jobs (like being game artists, or teachers, etc.) but this begs two important questions. First, why are jobs that are traditionally associated with women paid less than those traditionally associated with men and second, can we really say women "chose" those jobs if they were actively discouraged from pursuing anything else due to societal pressure, discriminatory hiring practices, or hostility (both thinly veiled and open) in the male-dominated workplaces?

@bobknight33

At least have the courage to own it Bob... don't be a bigot AND a coward!... no one here is going to misinterpret your thinly veiled euphemism for anything other than the blatant bigotry you all to frequently display... just be brave enough to actually own it!...

Truly disgusting....

Whomever initiates war is as complicit as the poor manipulated cattle that fight in it. American journalism is thinly veiled political-corporate propaganda and needs to be held accountable.

Yeah, it is wrong. But the people demanded it and the people got it (Ie., corporations with the consent of regular folks.)

I guess there is a thinly veiled point in the policies defense, and the defense doesn't amount to shit. How dare a criminal work for me when there is liability to myself or customers! Yeah...

Clear, but I considered it unnecessary. Until the majority of alternative media starts speaking clearly as to the source of the disinformation disease that has created the world we live in, no news is real news.

Until the veil is lifted to expose the criminality of world governments and the families and complicit lackeys responsible for the amalgamation of power into a single world governing body all the endless banter over particular recent political and economic events without reaching farther back historically, for me negates all reasonable context for what's happening now.

It's the powers behind the puppets and pawns who need to have their shit scrutinized and reported upon, until they have nowhere to hide.

Follow the goddamn money, the entire collection of the world's ill's reside in monopolistic control by assholes, of the worldwide financial system.

Banks, insurance companies, lawyers, doctors, all work well when there is a healthy atmosphere of fear and dread, THIS is the only real power geopolitical manipulators have.

The world's fear they have and continue to instill. They do it by manipulating economies, enforcing laws with soldiers, and through complex and not-so-complex, continual distraction and disinformation.

Like Herbert said, "Fear is the mind-killer."

Actually, the proof that something did not end up in the hands of the Chinese, the Russians, or myself for that matter, is quite difficult, given that evidence of absence is impossible to obtain. However, the absence of evidence to the claim that they have gained access to information through Snowden himself is reason enough for me.

You want proof that nothing was transfered to them? Might as well try to prove the non-existance of the famous tea pot in orbit.

So the basic argument boils down to motivation as well as credibility of claims.

His motivation to keep access to his material restricted to the selected group of journalists is apparent from his own interviews. They are supposed to be the check on the government, they lack the information to fullfil the role, they need access to correct (what he perceived to be) a wrong, namely a grave breach of your consitution on a previously unheard of scale.
Providing access to Russia or China would instantly negate all hope of ever not drawing the short straw in this mess, as the US is the only country on the planet who can provide him with amnesty and therefore safety.

So why would he do it? For a shot at asylum? You know as well as I do that (permanent) asylum in China/Russia is worthless if the US is after you. Europe could guarantee one's safety, but given the lack of sovereignty vis-a-vis the US, it would not be an option.

That leaves credibility of claims. And that's where my first reason comes into play, the one you put down as "naive". His opponents, those in positions of power, be it inside government or the press, have a track record of being... let's not mince words here, lying sacks of shit. James Clapper's act of perjury on front of Congress is just the most prominent manifestation of it. The entire bunch lied their asses off during the preparation of the invasion of Iraq, they lied their asses off during the revelations triggered by Chelsea Manning and they lied their asses off about the total und unrelenting surveillance of American citizens in violation of their constitutional rights.

If you think supervision of the NSA by the Select Committee on Intelligence is actually working, I suggest you take a look at statements by Senator Wyden. The NSA even plays them for fools. Hell, Bruce Schneier was recently approached by members of Congress to explain to them what the NSA was doing, because the NSA refused to. Great oversight, works like a charm. By the way, it's the same fucking deal with GCHQ and the BND.

So yes, the fella who "stole" data is actually a trustworthy figure, because a) his claims were true and b) his actions pulled off the veil that covered the fact that 320 million Americans had their private data stolen and were sold out by agencies of their own government in conjunction with private intelligence contractors.

What else...

Ah, yeah. "Sloppy" and "stupid". Again, if he was sloppy and stupid, what does that say about the internal control structure of the intelligence industry? They didn't notice shit, they still claim to be unaware of what precisely he took with him. Great security, fellas.

"He could have allowed the press to do it's job without disclosing a much of what has been released."

He disclosed nothing. He is not an experienced journalist and therefore, by his own admission, not qualified to make the call what to publish and how. That's why he handed it over to Barton Gellman at the WaPo, Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian and Laura Poitras, who worked closely with Der Spiegel.

If Spiegel, WaPo and Guardian are not reputable institutions of journalism, none are. So he did precisely what you claim he should have done: he allowed the press to do its bloody job and released fuck all himself.

As for the cheap shot at not being an American: seventy years ago, your folks liberated us from the plague of fascism, brought us freedom. Am I supposed to just sit here and watch my brothers and sisters in the US become the subjects of total surveillance, the kind my country suffered from during two dictatorships in the last century?

Ironically, that would be un-American, at least the way I understand it.

And there's nothing gleeful about my concerns. I am deeply furious about this shit and even more so about the apathy of people all around the world. You think I want Americans to suffer from the same shit we went through as a petty form of payback?

Fuck that. It's the intelligence industry that I'm gunning for. Your nationality doesn't mean squat, some intelligence agency has its crosshairs on you wherever you live. It just happens to be an American citizen who had the balls to provide us with the info to finally try and protect citizens in all countries from the overreaching abuse by the intelligence industry.

In fact, I'd rather worry about our own massive problems within Europe (rise of fascism in Greece, 60% youth unemployment, unelected governments, etc). So can we please just dismantle all these spy agencies and get on with our lives?

Sorry if this is incoherent, but it's late and I'm even more pissed off than usual.

@Trancecoach: We're not going to agree, and that's fine. This'll be my last reply.

Retailer strong-arming: Imagine Apple makes up 95% of Best Buy's tablet sales. Off-brand-X wants to sell tablets at Best Buy. Apple says: If you sell Off-brand-X tablets, we will not let you sell our tablets. Off-brand-X is likely to only provide a tiny profit to Best Buy, compared to Apple, so they comply. (This actually happened, in a different form, with Intel paying computer manufacturers to not use AMD processors. See here). Also see price-fixing.

Widget-distribution-prevention: This is just an extension of the previous point.

Buying up all of the competitors: Ma Bell. Old AT&T. That should be enough said. But, if that's not enough, now Ma Bell is nearly entirely re-formed. The US was one government approval away from having cell carriers limited to Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. That's been spoiled, now, but I don't think it's hard to imagine that future continuing on to two carriers colluding and price-fixing (as Verizon and AT&T pretty much have freedom to do anyway). This is another quasi-natural-monopoly situation (or at least a tragedy of the commons situation), in that the radio spectrum is not infinite. To keep the spectrum usable at all, blocks of frequencies are doled out to radio/TV/cellular/military/etc. etc. with stiff penalties for interference.

Patents: Patents present a litany of problems, but the world without them is even worse. You have two things happen, both of which are bad:
1) New technology remains veiled in secrecy indefinitely; no one else can riff on it even after patents would normally have expired
2) My previous point. The marginal utility of R&D decreases drastically based on the likelihood of a competitor being able to get hold of your secrets before you can profit on them sufficiently.
This is exactly why patents were created. It's a temporary monopoly granted by the government in exchange for the promise that the knowledge will be released to the universe after X years.

Predatory pricing: If excessive, it's illegal. That's why it doesn't happen very often. In a country with anti-trust laws, you just want to hurt your competitor, you don't want to drive them out of the market.

Natural monopolies: Since you brought this one up, you can choose your energy service because the government forces the utility to lease its lines and to decouple distribution from production. That is to say, you have a free market in production because the distribution is not free. See here. My state is the same way.

Misinformation: Who vets marketing claims in a free market? My competitor says that their food is organic. Well--hell, so is mine! They're environmentally conscientious? So am I! Their drug cures cancer? Mine cures it even better!

Oh, shit. Someone caught me in a lie! Well, I'll just force the media to ignore it and ramp up my disinformation campaign.

@Velocity5
it appears to me you do not fully comprehend what it is to be an artist.

the argument you put forth would make sense in the context that being an artist can be quantified as a "career choice".

i assure you....it is not.

artists live in the present.
they reveal new ways of seeing,thinking and feeling in a constant parade of melodies woven together by the very fabric of humanity.

sometimes beautiful..other times horrific.
the artist rips the veil back to reveal a deeper truth.

the artist is sometimes exhalted.
many times vilified.

but it is never simply by choice.
they cant help themselves.
it is who they are.

so they live their lives according to the truth they perceive around them.
the ones who DO make it a career choice are not artists.
they have sold a talent in exchange for comfort and security and we always are the lesser for it.

*promote

Depression is chemical. You can't WILL your neurotransmitters to do anything. Depression doesnt mean you're sad. To me, it means you're realistic. Reality is depressing. Everyone is wasting time until they die and causing suffering through ignorance.

The medication makes it manageable so you can lift the veil a bit and see that your perception, like the happy person, is just that - your own. Taking medication doesnt make the world less depressing, but it gives you the strength to get enough time in to have some hope... even if its just the hope that maybe you're wrong... thats enough for me.

also exercise diet and environment. i find cities incredibly depressing.

@artician

Even if the models for the decline of empires are inexact, poorly sourced or even exaggerated, they are doing so to combat the overwhelming force of the status quo that feeds us a constant stream of comforting, mind-numbing bliss through mass media, mostly delivered though TV news, advertising and cleverly veiled in the actual entertainment that the audience enjoys.

It's hard to mount a comeback against a presupposed cultural truth supported by any form of economic interest. The tobacco industry, for example, mounted powerful misinformation and doubt as scientific evidence slowly leaked out that smoking was harmful. People just don't want to hear that the way they live and what they "know" to be true is going to change and that personal choice is going to have to be limited to some extent.

The same is true for global warming, deforestation, species extinction, pollution, etc., etc. You can resist the "ineffectual mumblings" of Hitchens, Chomsky and the like, but you do so to at your own peril. People like you are the do-do bird in this scenario. People like you are the 2 pack-a-day smoker who thinks they've been smoking for 20 years and feeling fine so why quit now. "Screw the scientists, they're all out to make themselves rich so they concoct these cackamamy experiments to 'prove' they need more research funding." Okay, it's your right to dismiss the advice of people smarter than you.

This video follows the same vein as Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist series (which I suggest you watch or rewatch for shits and giggles.) The idea of consumption tax seems a lot easier for our system to adopt than Joseph's idea of a "Resource-Based Economy." It just sounds more fair that those consuming resources pay back into the system and less airy-fairy than some socialist "to-each as to his need" idea. And let's face it, it's right on a social level. It's just too hard to get there based on our current economic and political structure.

Our wasteful way of life is just unsustainable. I don't think anyone can deny that the ponzi scheme of FIAT money is eventually going to collapse because the balance of wealth is way out of whack AND ONLY GETTING WORSE. And the USA is at the top, and yet owes trillions in funny money that they can only pay back if they stop building missiles and tanks. But I think we all know that when the shit hits the fan, we're going to want to get behind those tanks to ride out the storm of resistance from the 99%. Not the privileged 99% in the west, the 99% of destitute, impoverished poor that build the toys, sew and clothes, glue the plastic Walmart crap, and GROW THE FOOD that we want.to have cheap. We're doing this all on the backs of the "free slaves" in undeveloped countries: Columbia, Bangladesh and on and on.

Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true.

Really like this song. How do you interpret the lyrics? I've never been sure what exactly to make of them.

We saw the western coast
I saw the hospital
Nursed the shoreline like a wound
Reports of lover's tryst
Were neither clear nor descript
We kept it safe and slow
The quiet things that no one ever knows

[Chorus: x2]
So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
If today's the day it gets tired
Today's the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

I contemplate the day we wed
Your friends are boring me to death
Your veil is ruined in the rain
By then it's you I can do without
There's nothing new to talk about
And though our kids are blessed
Their parents let them shoulder all the blame

[Chorus: x2]
So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
If today's the day it gets tired
Today's the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

[Bridge: x2]
I lie for only you
And I lie well...
Hallelu...

[Chorus: x2 (words from bridge continued in the background)]
So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
Today's the day it gets tired
Today's the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

Here's a bigger picture of mandatory " health insurance" , one that resembles another failed institution's successes and failures through extortion with the goal of diverting capitol to private coffers.

Fuck birth control, I don't feed myself as influenced by the corporate media machine's saturation diet of shit food but the majority of unhealthy, overweight, drones in sector EVERYWHERE do-The bulk of health care expenses in the U.S. are squandered on correcting or marginally forestalling the inevitable cascading failures associated with these poor diet habits fostered by the machine. The SAME machine owns the insurance companies, the medical establishment, down the fucking line.

Chicago 1921-1923- New York, Boston, hell pick a city on the east coast.
The mafia invented it, gangster fucks perfected it, it continues under the guise of the Affordable (fuck you, I have my own insurance) Care Act.

If people, were not such fucking imbeciles, they'd see through the simple veil of graft and extortion these suited, elected (joke) criminals use to continue to divert attention away from the obvious criminality of their ruse.

Get me started on eating healthy and the lack of availability and inaccessibility of the healthiest of raw materials...of how staple crops have been hijacked and genetically coded with ONE goal preeminent: To increase the profits of the monopolies that control the food supply.

The fastest way to fix the problem of affordable health care, is to fix the broken habits of dumb-ass humans who allow themselves to be bent-over and ass-fucked into thinking they need insurance AT ALL!

Teach people that their diets are being being systematically and fundamentally altered to keep them in this loop and the insurance companies and the cunts who make the laws that benefit them, will collapse under the weight of their own, orchestrated illusion.

Yeah, everyone is poor except a few rulers and their cronies, so there is "less income inequality."

How do you read that map you sent?

China is highly regulated, yet there is a lot of inequality, having the second largest number of billionaires, and millions of dirt-poor people. Does this map equate to percentages?

North Korea, on the other hand, is as highly regulated as it gets, yet they have very few billionaires, so, in this case yes, most people are equally poor, and close to starving (or are otherwise dead).

My initial post wasn't clear, in that, rather than seeking "equality," a higher standard of living seems preferable.

(Is this about envy or about having food on the table?)

Socialism promotes equality: "it's only virtue is equal misery for all" (with the exception of the rulers, of course)

Saudi Arabia is quite regulated, you can't buy alcohol and women must wear veils, yet the income disparities between the sheiks and the average workers is quite considerable.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate and explain that unreadable map to me, so I can comment.

Edit: Oh, I see: According to this CIA map, there is apparently more "inequality" in the U.S. than there is in India. And a lot more in South Africa (but I didn't know South Africa was a land of no regulations, whatever that means). And Greece apparently has considerably lower inequality (so what are they all complaining about?!) And supposedly there is no data about communist countries like Cuba and places like Saudi Arabia (why is that?). Mongolia and Canada have about the same level of inequality. I'm still trying to decipher the purpose that this map serves...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Washington post also blasts Gregory for this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/23/david-gregory-whiffs-on-greenwald-question/

David Gregory’s logic has a cursory appeal. Why wouldn’t Greenwald have the courage to take on the issues swirling around his reporting? Shouldn’t a Sunday talk show host have the latitude to pose tough questions to another journalist?
Of course. Too bad, however, Gregory didn’t do that. Rather, he seeded his question with a veiled accusation of federal criminal wrongdoing, very much in the tradition of “how long have you been beating your wife.” To repeat the question: “To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?”

So, signature strikes are those that identify 'targets' by watching for things like people who leave militant camps with guns to go cross over into Afghanistan and then come back again...

Read up on the situation in Pakistan's tribal regions before setting your position on drone strikes in stone. America is at war with the powers controlling the tribal regions of Pakistan. It's not declaring it a war because that would enrage Pakistan even further, but it is the reality. Pakistan doesn't want to admit that the tribal regions have been essentially seized from them by the Taliban and have been in all but name an independent state that is actively waging war on Pakistan by launching endless attacks on it's civilians.

The deeper truth not spoken about is that the Afghan war was never about Afghanistan, though it was about the 9/11 organizers. After 9/11, America deemed it no longer acceptable for nuclear armed Pakistan to be allied with the groups that just attacked it. The war in Afghanistan was double edged. It gave a launching ground for a land war against Pakistan if needed, and it was a direct warning to Pakistan's leadership that America fully intended to wage war and remove power any government allying itself with the jihadists behind international terrorist attacks. It's just not politically expedient to say that, so president's say more veiled things like: "Your either with us or against us".