Posted on 10/14/2004 9:34:14 AM PDT by No Surrender Monkey
We all know it?
Really. The opinion of anyone that has Libertarian as part of their name matters not a twit to me.
And you are simply ignorant.
You are no dream mate yourself.
Do you keep the little woman tied to the stove? Do you allow her to have any thoughts of her own? Do you tell her how to vote? Who would marry you?
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf20041018_8340_db013.htm
WORKFORCE REVOLUTION. In many ways it's still a man's world when it comes to the in the division of labor. And women struggle disproportionately to balance work and raise a family, let alone battle the glass ceiling and unequal pay policies.
Nevertheless, the labor-force participation rate among women with children is around 72%, up from 47% in 1975. Employers value educated workers in the New Economy, and that increasingly means women. They have been the majority of college students since 1979, and according to the Census Bureau, 56% of college students today are female.
"Since education is a key determinant of earnings, the income of women will rise relative to that of men, and the proportion of women with earnings greater than those of their spouse or potential spouse will also increase to unprecedented levels," writes Richard B. Freeman, a Harvard University labor economist, in The Feminization of Work in the USA: A New Era of (Man)Kind?
= = = = =
well lookie here:
"battle the glass ceiling and unequal pay policies"
Newsweek appears to agree with my comments.
You're right. A lot of people have no idea what the person in the next office makes. They'd be shocked if they knew. In my last job somebody got ahold of a list of salaries, ran off hundreds of copies, and stuck them in everybody's mailbox. We almost had a class action discrimination suit. The situation was addressed fast.
Really? The opinion of stupid people like you matters not a whit to me. All you did on this post was whine and bitch and basically prove that no matter what, there will always be women who leap to claim sexism without any foundation, besides utter disappointment in their sorry careers.
I like to think women are better than you, but by your lousy example, I'm sure you've reinforced sexist attitudes in many here. Congratulations. You're a real credit to your sex.
As if this hasn't been going on since time began! How anyone could think this is Bush's fault is a stretch.
Stupid people like me? Well, losing our temper because you have been proven wrong I see. Typical of someone who doesn't really know the facts.
Name calling says more about you than it does about me.
Again, Newsweek says the salaries aren't equal. Get over it.
Thank you for your comments. Apparently some people don't work in the real world.
If you are a man, I guess one of the posters on this thread can't use his abusive anti-female language with you.
Yes, in my company, the computer group from headquarters accidentally sent salaries to our branch. I got a 16% raise from that little incident.
Must be using the butcher shop "MEAT LINE AGAIN"
BWA HA HA HA!
Losing my temper because I have been 'proven wrong!' You made me laugh so hard I can barely type! I still chortle thinking about you typing your 'victory post.'
Here you are with that NewsWeak crap, posting to no one but yourself to ensure you get no response so you don't FEEL wrong and stupid. You're still both wrong and stupid, and you say you've 'proven me wrong.' Citing the b.s. that NewsWeak spouts is further evidence you don't know how to support an argument.
Let me explain how logical arguments work. When you argue, you're supposed to have an opinion and at least one fact to back up that opinion.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence, but only insofar as it actually applies to the opinion! In this case, you claim to have anecdotal evidence to prove your point, but you refuse to answer questions which would clarify that your experienced 'discrimination' has anything to do with your point. Additionally, anecdotal evidence is particularly weak when used to prove an opinion about society as a whole, since all one has to do is claim opposing anecdotal evidence (and there already has been such a claim posted) to rebut it personally. And here you have made no correlation between yourself and other women whatsoever. In light of your obvious stupidity, I find that there is little correlation besides the chromosome.
Now you cite authority, NewsWeak, for your claim. However, since NewsWeak is making a claim like yours, without ANY reason for that claim (so it's further similar to your claim), it isn't evidence--you can't support an opinion with an opinion. NewsWeak does not provide any evidence for its 'glass ceiling/unequal pay' aside. It merely accepts these things as fact, just as you do.
You have given us no reason to believe this stuff other than you feel unhappy about YOUR job.
Dr. Warren Farrell is an author who has done WELL by the Sexual Revolution and feminism, who fully supports womens' rights, and yet, knows you're WRONG about a 'pay gap.' He also understands how statistics work and how to support an argument. You might learn from him. Here's a book of his directly on point and a quick summary. Try reading it, or any of his articles instead of spouting PC horseshit as an excuse for your failures.
WHY MEN EARN MORE:
The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap and What Women Can Do About It
by WARREN FARRELL, PH.D. [www.warrenfarrell.com]
Dr. Warren Farrell, the only man ever elected three times to the Board of the National Organization for Women in NYC, once asked, “If men are paid more for the same work, why would anyone hire a man?”
He may be sorry he asked. But during the years of research that followed, the answer evolved: Men earn more than women, but not for the same work—for 25 different workplace choices. Men’s choices lead to men earning more money; women’s choices lead to women having better lives.
Men’s trade-offs include working more hours (women typically work more at home); taking more-hazardous assignments (cab-driving; construction; trucking); moving overseas or to an undesirable location on-demand (women’s greater family obligations inhibit this); and training for more-technical jobs with less people contact (e.g., engineering).
Women’s choices appear more likely to involve a balance between work and the rest of life. Women are more likely to balance income with a desire for safety, fulfillment, potential for personal growth, flexibility and proximity-to-home. These lifestyle advantages lead to more people competing for these jobs and thus lower pay.
Only when Dr. Farrell’s research journey uncovered these 25 differences, did the “holy grail” become visible: women now earn more money for the same work—that is, women earn more when they work equal hours at the same job with the same size of responsibility for the same length of time with equal productivity, etc. The women’s movement can celebrate its greatest single triumph—exceeding its goal of equal pay for equal work. A triumph that frees women to enter the next level of progress...
Since men still earn more money, Why Men Earn More introduces to women the 25 ways to higher pay, showing which trade-offs lead to how much increase in pay, creating for women an opportunity to decide which trade-offs are worth it given her individual personality and current goals.
Intro
Dr. Farrell shares his journey with us—how he saw his wife, a business owner, responding to employees who wanted a balanced life with equal pay. What he was being told by CEOs “in private” that they were unwilling to say in public. Warren shares how his discovery that never-married women have long out-earned never-married men led him on the search for factors other than the male-female factor that accounted for the pay gap, and helped him understand that men’s workplace choices were not “choices” per se, but the married man’s fulfillment of his financial responsibilities.
In the Intro, Why Men Earn More stuns us with some current data on how both part-time working women now earn more than men when they work equal hours, as well as how much more than men full-time working women make if they have never been married. He introduces us to the sources of his data (usually the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) and his research methods. But at every moment, as our sensibilities of political correctness are being shattered, we feel Dr. Farrell reconstructing our vision, allowing the discovery of opportunities for women that were missed when our binoculars were focused on discrimination against women. Thus the twenty-five opportunities to higher pay that are Part I.
Part I
Chapter One: Field of Dreams: Choose the Right Field and Higher Pay Will Come
Dr. Farrell begins with the first ten ways to higher pay—ten ways to choose both a field and sub-field that pay well: the “Field-with-Higher-Yield Formula.” He explains how almost every field has high-paying sub-fields; which fields and sub-fields are “fields of the future;” which are becoming more user-friendly to women due to changes in technology.
Did you know that no woman has died in the Marines or Air Force in the War in Iraq? Findings like this allow Dr. Farrell to guide women safely where most fear to tread—into the two secrets of hazardous occupations: first, where women can get equal pay with much less-than-equal danger; and second, how, for example, running a construction company allows a woman all the affirmative action benefits for women-owned construction companies with none of the hazards of being a construction worker.
Each approach of Dr. Farrell’s offers creative, win-win solutions. While on the one hand he explains the money we miss when we follow our bliss, he offers creative ways to earn the money to securely pursue what we love to do. In this chapter Dr. Farrell begins his push to get both sexes to look at each other and their work-family lives more creatively.
Chapter Two: Doing Time
This chapter looks at the average benefit of each contribution of “Doing Time” in the workplace—from hours worked to uninterrupted work experience with the same employer, to commuting time. For example, if someone works 13% more hours in the workplace, should they expect 13% more pay? No. They should expect 44% more pay. Once we know the pay-off and the trade-off, we look at the implications of these for planning a family, or following your bliss; for traditional roles, or a reversal of roles. Do top executive women wish they had put in more hours, or fewer hours, or do they look at work time differently? Cross-culturally, which women and men are the happiest—those who work overtime or part time? And finally, what are the male-female differences in each of these areas, and how much of the pay gap is accounted for by men’s tendency to work that extra 13%, have more uninterrupted experience, and so on
Chapter Three: On the Move
In “On the Move” we discover that people who get higher pay are more willing to move to undesirable locations at the company’s behest, and, once on the job, are more willing to travel extensively (be an international sales rep versus a local sales rep). We get advice from top female executives on the importance of international experience at an early age, and how companies are developing more flexible, short-term ways for women to get that experience. We are introduced to “Carpe Diem Moving” such as construction workers and nurses moving where they’re needed when they’re needed. Since only 16% of “frequent flyers” are women, special emphasis is placed on what needs to happen for a woman who wishes to travel for the family to benefit emotionally.
Chapter Four: Responsibility, Training and Ambition
We begin this chapter by discovering “You Can’t Tell a Salary by its Title”—why, for example, a Corporate Vice President of Finance is likely to make more and be promoted more quickly than a Corporate Vice President for Human Resources. And why we can’t say “male Corporate Vice Presidents of Finance earn more than female Corporate Vice Presidents of Finance, therefore women are discriminated against” until we determine whether the men have more financial responsibilities (larger international companies, etc.) . Perhaps the most intriguing part of the chapter is the differences between the goals of men and women at every stage of life, leading to men earning more money and women having more balanced lives, to women’s visible juggling acts and men men’s invisible juggling acts.
Part I Conclusion
Part One’s goals include creating a different attitude toward the workplace—so that when we hear, “men earn a dollar for each 80 cents women earn” it will trigger for women 25 paths to higher pay rather than one path to victimhood. It hopefully uncovered not just twenty-five—but hundreds-- of little pay-offs such as the dozens of ways to be a nurse, engineer or computer specialist--with a choice tailored to each personality at every time of life. It introduces new methods of looking at the workplace—of looking not just at field of choice, but subfield; not just a field as it was or is, but a field as technology will create it to be; a field transformed by the evolution of men caring more for children and women creating more money; of how fields will adjust to economic hard times and easy times; of the importance of assessing not just pay but the trade-offs of hours invested, moves required, risks taken, so each man and woman can live a life of genuine power—the power that comes from the knowledge that leads to control of our lives.
Part II
Chapter Five: What Women Contribute to the Workplace
Drawing from his corporate workshops, Dr. Farrell tells us what men love about working with women, and why it is important to not pressure women into becoming “imitation men”. He gives many examples of how women’s and men’s differences create workplace synergy—from good cop/bad cop roles in domestic violence work to the creativity of female funeral directors to the greater family focus of female legislators. He concludes with what makes men feel threatened by some women and what both sexes can do to reduce that feeling.
Chapter Six: Why Women and Men Approach Work So Differently, Yet So Similarly
When women and men can be their own bosses, they are free to approach work by priorities that are theirs, thus a look at the differences between men-owned and women-owned businesses creates a purer picture of their priorities. For starters, female-owned businesses earn only 47% of what male-owned businesses earn. Why? The twenty-five male-female differences are not tempered by either corporate requirements or corporate egalitarianism. Pay is measured by raw productivity. But also we see how more subtle influences of female and male socialization, such as men’s tendency to pay for women, may influence men’s greater willingness to pay for employees. This chapter introduces “focused responsibilities” and “divided responsibilities” and explains how women’s tendency toward divided responsibilities will be especially viable in the 21st Century.
Chapter Seven: The Myths that Prevent Women from Knowing Why Men Earn More
When women believe they earn less than men for the same work, it makes sense for their husbands to work and women to care for the children, and thus we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of women leaving the workplace, justifying lower pay. The belief also spawns many corollary myths that breed contempt for men, such as “women are collaborative, men are hierarhical,” or “women make better managers.” Dr. Farrell shows how each of these beliefs are not only myths, but hurts women’s careers, poisons love and divides families. Other than that, they’re great!
Chapter Eight: Discrimination Against Women
Does this mean there’s no discrimination against women? No. There is. Dr. Farrell demonstrates the subtle ways in which, when a mother works, we unwittingly “guilt trip da mama;” he explains to men the unconscious mechanisms of the buddy-boy network, and explores how women’s mentorship advantage is backfiring as today’s climate of women suing men has turned men’s instinct to protect women into the need to protect themselves. A chapter rich with solutions to these discriminations.
Chapter Nine: Discrimination In Favor of Women: Why Women Are Now Paid More Than Men for the Same Work
If women are now paid more than men for the same work, why is that? Dr. Farrell begins with the legal mechanisms of discrimination in favor of women: the “affirmative action tax” and “psychological affirmative action” that together make it possible to pay a woman more even if she produces less. Warren then looks at the social mechanisms—contrasting “female comfort power” that works for women with the fear of male sexuality that works against men; together, they create the “caste system” of the touchable and untouchable male. He concludes with some of the ways this discrimination in favor of women forces men to develop skills to be paid equally, which skills eventually lead men earning more (for different work).
Chapter Ten: The Genetic Celebrity Pay Gap
When a woman’s genes offer her enough beauty that men who know nothing about her except her beauty nevertheless follow her—as we might follow a celebrity—Dr. Farrell calls her a genetic celebrity. In this chapter, we discover the “genetic celebrity pay gap”—how the man “earns” his way to her attention by paying for dinners, drinks, dates and diamonds; by creating career opportunities and sharing his future earnings with her in marriage. We are introduced to “Genetic Celebrity Hiring Discrimination” and “Access Discrimination” as well as myriad forms of “invisible income” the genetic celebrity generates, such as her power as a tip magnet. The results? The man earns more money; the genetic celebrity often has more money, has more time to spend it, and lives longer. But all is not roses as the pedals of her genetic celebrity power wilts...
Chapter 11. Some Nagging Questions....
This brief chapter deals with two nagging questions: “When women enter men’s occupations, doesn’t the pay go down?” and “Isn’t the issue more than equal pay—isn’t it comparable worth?” In a sense, the lessons of the entire book are the answer to both questions, and Dr. Farrell concludes this chapter with a humorous view of what comparable worth might look like were it proposed by men.
Chapter 12. Conclusions
Why Men Earn More concludes by connecting the dots between the goals it hopes it fulfilled and the changes that we need to make if the future is to be better for both ourselves and our children; between our monetary futures and our emotional future; and between our personal futures and our future within a global economy.
Appendix: Why Women Earn More: The Statistical Breakdown of the Pay Paradox
An appendix that creates a starting point for the best estimates Dr. Farrell can make as to how much pay each way to higher pay may generate. For economists, statisticians and other academics, to be used in professional journals and in law suits.
----END Farrell comments
Don't trust a NOW fan? How about Thomas Sowell?
The Grand Fallacy: Equating Male-Female Differences in Salary with Discrimination
by Thomas Sowell (July 21, 2004)
[www.CapitalismMagazine.com]
A record-breaking new class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart claims that this retail chain discriminates against women, for which of course vast millions of dollars are being demanded. The New York Times aptly summarized the case -- "about 65 percent of the company's hourly-paid workers are women, but only 33 percent of its managers are."
The grand fallacy of our times is that various groups would be equally represented in institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination. This preconception has undermined, if not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser.
Wal-Mart is only the latest in a long series of employers who have been hit with charges of discrimination on the basis of statistical differences among members of their workforce -- differences between women and men in this case.
Back during the 1980s a similar charge was brought against Sears, even though no one could find a single woman in all the hundreds of Sears stores who had been discriminated against -- just numbers that were different as between women and men.
When you broke down the numbers, it turned out that women were not equally represented among people who sold automotive equipment or construction materials. It also turned out that many women had no interest in selling automotive equipment or construction materials, and had turned down opportunities to do so.
In many other situations, women have avoided jobs that demand such long hours of work, or so much travel, that it would make taking care of their children virtually impossible. The biggest difference in income is between married women and everyone else. Women who never married have long held their own economically.
The most blatant fact about male-female differences is often ignored by those on the hunt for discrimination: Women have babies.
That usually means interruptions in careers and different choices of careers beforehand, because some occupations can stand interruptions better than others.
It is hardly surprising that women work part-time more often than men, drop out of the labor force more often than men, specialize in a different mix of jobs, and major in a different mix of subjects in college and postgraduate education.
Seldom are the data sufficiently detailed to permit comparisons of women and men who are the same on all the variables that matter. But the more detailed the data, the higher is a woman's income relative to that of a comparable man, sometimes surpassing that of men.
Male-female differences in incomes and occupations rose or fell throughout the 20th century as women's age of marriage and childbearing rose and fell. But such mundane facts carry little weight with lawyers or social crusaders on the hunt for discrimination.
Once a lawsuit is under way, the pressure is on the accused employer to settle, rather than risk bad publicity that could hurt profits. And, once they settle, that is taken as proof of guilt, no matter what anybody says.
People without the slightest knowledge of economics or the slightest experience running a business will boldly assert that women are paid only 75 percent -- or some other percent -- of what men make for doing exactly the same work.
Think about it. If an employer could hire four women for the price of hiring three men, why would he ever hire men at all?
Even if the employer was the world's biggest sexist, he could still not survive in business if his competitors were getting one-third more output from their employees for the same money.
Sheer dogmatic repetition has pounded into our minds the notion that all groups have similar capabilities, when in fact they do not necessarily have even the same interest in developing the same capabilities.
Potential may be the same but developed capabilities depend on a lot more, including interest and circumstances. Yet those who start with the preconception of equal capabilities are quick to seize upon numbers showing group differences in results as proof that someone else has done something wrong. That is the grand fallacy of our time.
---END SOWELL
Or what about a woman? How about Linda Chavez?
How to spend Equal Pay Day
by LINDA CHAVEZ
[www.jewishworldreview.com]
ATTENTION WORKING WOMEN: 1999 won't begin for you officially until April 8. That's the day feminists have decreed Equal Pay Day -- the number of days into the new calendar year the typical woman will have to work to catch up with the average man's earnings of the previous year.
Confused? Don't worry. So are the feminists who thought up the cockamamie observance.
They claim that women earn, on average, 74 cents for every dollar men earn and consequently must work more than 15 months to earn what the average man makes in 12. What they don't bother to mention is that women, on average, work fewer hours per week, have less work experience and work at different -- often less demanding and less dangerous -- jobs than men.
These differences alone account for a substantial portion of the 'pay gap' between men and women.
For years, left-wing feminists have been misusing statistics to demonstrate broad-scale economic discrimination against women, and the press and a great many politicians have been happily regurgitating their propaganda. Rarely, outside of academic economics journals, have the feminists' data engendered much skepticism.
Now comes "Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America," published by the establishment American Enterprise Press and the feisty Independent Women's Forum, to debunk much of the feminists' voodoo economics. Written by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba, the short monograph details the rapid upward mobility of American women in a series of easy-to-read charts and graphs.
Among the most enlightening figures they present: Young, childless women between the ages of 27 and 33 earn 98 percent of the average earnings of childless men their age. The pay gap simply doesn't exist for this group of women. Why? A number of factors come into play.
First, younger men and women are more likely to have similar educational experience than older cohorts. Women now earn more than half of all undergraduate and master's degrees, as well as about 40 percent of professional degrees.
But this is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Before 1980, women earned fewer than half of all four-year and master's degrees, and only one quarter of professional degrees. Older female workers' pay thus reflects their lower educational attainment, while younger women earn higher salaries commensurate with their greater education.
Motherhood is even more important in explaining pay differences between men and women. Although most mothers now work outside the home, they are still more likely than fathers to take extended time off when their children are born. These interruptions, which can amount from a few weeks to several years, have consequences, which are reflected in the lower average earnings of women .
But the decision to have children doesn't just reduce the number of consecutive years of work experience for most working mothers, it also influences the types of jobs women choose in the first place. Most mothers reject jobs that require very long or unpredictable hours or extensive travel, even though they may be higher paying.
One study cited in Women's Figures notes that among the highest earning women, about half are childless. Another study shows that the most common reason female associates give for leaving their law firms before attaining partnership is the difficulty they encounter in meeting the demands of their job after they have children.
Feminists have traditionally blamed discrimination for the high concentration of women in certain jobs -- which they've dubbed the "pink collar ghetto." But is it really discrimination that drives more women to become secretaries, elementary school teachers and retail clerks than, say, pest controllers, truck drivers or loggers? The authors of Women's Figures don't think so.
They note, for example, that men are more likely to be employed in the worst -- and most dangerous -- jobs. Twenty-three of the 25 worst jobs, from The Jobs Rated Almanac, are more than 90 percent male, and men account for 92 percent of all job-related deaths even though they are only 54 percent of the work force.
It's about time feminists started giving ordinary working women credit for making choices that suit that needs and interests. The organizers of Equal Pay Day would do better to spend April 8 reading Women's Figures instead of handing out buttons complaining about the 26-cent gap between men and women's earnings.
---END CHAVEZ
That, my dear, is how you support an argument. Read Sowell or Chavez for a lesson. Read Farrell for an education.
And re: insulting you, well, when you sidestep my questions with a typical liberal trick about my 'anger,' then respond to an actual literal answer to your stupid question by trying to insult me by saying that all Libertarians are stupid, don't be surprised when I bitchsmack you right back, because I can't think of a more appropriate response given who I'm posting to.
We agree that there are often salary discrepancies between workers in the same jobs, and many of them are sex-based. The question is whether they are appropriate or not. In your workplace, evidently they were not defensible.
But the woman you are posting to cannot even begin to support her point, which is that SHE has been unfairly discriminated against and such discrimation is rampant. And that the situation WAS addressed quickly in YOUR anecdote further supports my comment, in that if she were doing any more than bitching, she would make her case in a court of law or to her supervisor, because it is so easy to sue and win for discrimination when it does take place.
I don't believe I ever said I was discriminated against. I was given a 16% raise when someone in my company compared the numbers.
You women-hating posters need to read.
woman = bitch
Perfect example of why you probably are single or your wife is chained to the laundry room door.
bitchsmack...nice.
You are such a credit to your gender.
You need to learn how to read. I don't hate women. Just stupid women who can't understand that saying "Women are paid less than men for performing the SAME job" is a universal. You claim you are discriminated against simply for being a woman.
And your attempt to make me a woman-hater with your little equation, wherein you try to portray me as saying "woman = bitch" needs some correction. I never said any such thing. First, I was referring to women like YOU. Second, when I called you a credit to your sex, I was being sarcastic. Third, your math is wrong. It's more like:
"Woman + whining without cause + assuming she has an ability to argue without actually having one + making unfounded assertions + inability to read + acting like a liberal in defending a losing cause + being happy about affirmative action = bitch."
That 16% raise must have gotten you up to almost $6 an hour. Congratulations!
It could have been worse. Debate three could have included Kerry telling us how he finds Caribbean showers with falafels to be very sexy.
You sound like you hate women: bitches, bitchslapped.
Again, I'll repeat so even you can understand it: I never claimed to be discriminated again, my company recognized that I was being discriminated against and corrected my salary by 16%. Plus I see salaries in my company and have a basis for making that statement, do you?
Hey, keep up with the liberal approach, insulting and namecalling those you can't logically dispute. You called me stupid and then I called you what you are. Throwing stones kind of endangered your glass house.
And continue to avoid the questions I asked regarding your company 'recognition' and your co-workers qualifications, since those obviously must prove your example is silly (or you'd have addressed that issue by now).
To repeat it--though I'm sure you WON'T understand it, as unlike you, prior experience does teach ME--I do not hate women. Unlike you, who would prefer to blanket the workplace with your anti-male screed, I confine my disdain to those who have earned it. I particularly dislike shrewish types like you, those who cannot formulate a logical argument and assume that outlasting their opposition is the same as outdebating them.
To address your question (while you continue to ignore mine, of course) I do not see the salaries in your company. Nor do I see any other details you've provided that would support your claim that illegal discrimination against women is rampant, because you've provided none. Repeating the big lie is not the same as making the big lie true.
And you DID claim to be discriminated against, contrary to your asinine whining. You claimed "Women are paid less than men for performing the SAME job." In this post, you claimed your company RECOGNIZED you "were being discriminated against."
If you can't see you have claimed discrimination against people like yourself, i.e., WOMEN, both as a universal statement and now in a particularly personal way, I'm not surprised at all. It would be in keeping with your keen detection ability, that wonderful intuitive sense which lets you find "facts" where they ain't and turn opinions into facts when you feel like it.
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