'Our top priority remains providing our customers with the contemporary styles and value they expect from us.'

'I crashed and got hurt bad'

'We are writing to urge respect for basic rule-of-law values that ought to govern our University'

The State Department hopes to set off a 'ripple effect'

Few artists possess the fortitude to follow their passions like Leslie Mandoki does. From an early age‚ Mandoki fell in love with music across the board and coupled that passion with an ambitious vision to succeed outside of his homeland of Hungary. After escaping his communist-ruled homeland‚ Mandoki found himself a refugee with no money‚ instruments‚ or a place to call home. But he soon became embroiled in the ’70s American disco scene as a member of Dschinghis Khan‚ though it never scratched his deepest musical itches. Still‚ for two years‚ Mandoki toiled away as a pop artist‚ raking in The post An Interview With Leslie Mandoki Of The Mandoki Soulmates appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

When many people hear about treasure-hunters and archaeological findings their minds automatically go to Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. That's not to say regular people can't become real-life treasure hunters&;#33; It just takes a bit more work. That is unless you're Brad Martin of Green Mountain Metal Detecting. This metal detector enthusiast has made a living out of the hobby. What he found one day... Source

What’s behind the wage gap between men and women&;#63; It has narrowed recently. In 2023‚ women’s median weekly wages of $1‚005 equaled 84% of men’s $1‚202 in weekly wages. That’s an all-time high‚ and a distinct uptick from a fairly steady 80% to 82% between 2004 and 2020. Yet 84% is still not 100%‚ even though equal pay for equal work has been the law of the land since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So‚ what gives&;#63; Are women really being paid only 84 cents on the dollar to do the exact same jobs as men&;#63; Of course not. In this day and age‚ that simply wouldn’t fly. For starters‚ there are currently 2.3 million more job openings than there are unemployed workers. So‚ any woman who is being paid less than a male co-worker for the exact same job has a good shot at finding a new job where she will be paid equally. And even if workers didn’t have the upper hand in the labor market‚ it never profits employers to underpay women or overpay men. Employers who discriminate based on sex—or age‚ or eye color‚ or shoe size‚ or any other biological factor—will disproportionately attract the types of workers who they overpay. Excessive employee costs translate to lower profits‚ less investment and higher prices for customers‚ who will flock to businesses with lower prices. Then‚ what’s behind the significant difference in pay between men and women&;#63; The short answer is that the pay gap is a choice gap. The data cited in the gender pay gap looks only at the median earnings of full-time wage and salaried workers. It doesn’t account for important factors such as education‚ occupation‚ experience and hours‚ which account for nearly all the difference in earnings between men and women. Accounting for all these measurable factors all but eliminates the pay gap to a mere 1-cent differential. Even that “controlled pay gap” doesn’t account for difficult-to-measure factors‚ such as workplace flexibility—which women‚ and particularly mothers‚ tend to prioritize. An analysis of Uber drivers estimated that they value the flexibility the platform provides at $150 per week. Although the true pay gap is minuscule‚ some policymakers still want to see women earning the same amounts as men. The problem with trying to force equal earnings is that it could only be done by forcing women to make the same choices as men‚ or vice versa. Take the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority‚ for example. Despite rigid pay scales that precluded pay discrimination‚ the transit agency had an 11% pay gap‚ because women took more unpaid leave and worked fewer overtime hours. When the agency restricted flexibility in hours worked‚ the pay gap fell to 6%‚ but the lost flexibility was “especially costly” for women. Both Sweden and Norway tried to help women by passing “daddy quotas” intended to push men to take on more of the responsibilities of parenthood. Norway’s daddy quota had “strong and statistically significant negative effects on women’s labor market outcomes.” Sweden’s daddy quota didn’t increase men’s household roles or improve women’s labor market outcomes‚ but it did increase the probability of divorce and reduce household incomes because women took more unpaid time off. Google‚ in an attempt to remedy pay gaps‚ began conducting a pay audit every year and established a fund to compensate employees who it found had been unfairly compensated. Google’s analysis had a surprising result: The company was underpaying men. Consequently‚ the majority of Google’s $9.7 million in gender-compensation awards in 2019 went to men. While it can be tempting for policymakers to try to “help” women or minorities by imposing top-down government controls that attempt to equalize pay across gender or race‚ those policies could end up hurting the people they intend to help. At the end of the day‚ most workers—men and women alike—want to be paid based on what they produce‚ and they want job opportunities that align with their personal and career priorities. Instead of telling companies how much to pay their workers‚ and limiting the types of jobs available‚ lawmakers should work to reduce barriers to work and burdens on job creators so that more women and men alike can attain the type of work that’s best for them. Originally published at Arcamax.com The post Making Sense of the Male-Female ‘Wage Gap’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Anyone who reads The Washington Post regularly knows that‚ in its view‚ the LGBTQ community can do no wrong‚ that there’s no wretched excess that the fringe elements of that special-interest group can engage in that the Post won’t defend—no matter how flamboyant‚ distasteful‚ or outrageous. To the contrary‚ the Post is more likely than not to showcase‚ glamorize‚ and even glorify it. But it surely outdid itself Sunday by devoting four full pages in the print edition of its “Arts &; Style” section to a gushing—even sycophantic—biographical profile of a drag queen who goes by the stage name of “Sasha Velour.” The article was arguably even more hagiographic than “RBG‚” the 2018 biopic of the late left-wing icon‚ Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Writer Maura Judkis’ profile‚ “Sasha Velour Sashays Into the Culture Wars‚” is so self-indulgently long that if you listen to the online version of it being read‚ it says it will take a full 16 minutes. We’re informed that in the gaudy‚ ostentatious world of drag queens‚ Velour—“dressed in head-to-toe silver‚ looking like an art deco skyscraper‚ with red lips‚ contoured cheeks‚ and catlike eyeliner”—occupies a niche of fame (or notoriety) second only to RuPaul. The print article runs a whopping 2‚600 words‚ which is only about 45 words shorter than a personal profile of a very different sort that we at The Daily Signal published—coincidentally—also on Sunday. That profile was about an 88-year-old survivor of a World War II-era Yugoslavian death camp who is currently facing prosecution—many would call it persecution—by the Biden Justice Department for her activism on behalf of the unborn. It’s extremely doubtful that the pro-abortion Washington Post would ever deign to publish an in-depth profile of South Carolinian Eva Edl‚ whose childhood experience in Josip Broz Tito’s Communist Yugoslavia made her so reverential of the sanctity of life that she says she’s mentally preparing herself for the possibility of dying in prison if convicted of alleged violations of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances‚ or FACE‚ Act. When Judkis introduces readers to Velour (referred to throughout as “she‚” despite his real name being Alexander Hedges Steinberg)‚ it’s with an account of an incident in which Velour is confronted by “a pair of anti-drag activists.” TV cameras for the HBO series “We’re Here” were rolling as‚ according to Judkis‚ “[T]he activists—a bearded father and his teenage daughter—called her (sic) ‘sir.’ They said that ‘God created man with a penis’ and ‘woman with a vagina.’ They referenced the Bible and referred to ‘the LGBTQ religion’ as a ‘cult.’ They told her: ‘Something’s wrong with you.’” In Judkis’ view‚ however‚ it’s those who are opposed to the normalization (and celebration) of the abnormal—like that gender-non-confused father and daughter—who are wrong‚ or as the writer put it‚ “ignorant” and “bigoted.” At one point‚ Judkis further laments: “In one America‚ drag is practically illegal. In another‚ it’s never been more mainstream. Some drag artists get picketed and threatened with arrest‚ while others get Super Bowl commercials and Emmy Awards. The emotional and geographical distance between the two is growing depressingly distant.” That’s because‚ in what she (and presumably almost everyone else in the Post’s ideologically insular newsroom) would disparagingly regard as “flyover country”—that is‚ between Manhattan‚ New York‚ and Manhattan Beach‚ California—drag queens are considered “curioddities” at best‚ and certainly are not to be celebrated. And even more certainly‚ are not found reading books like “Gender Queer” to prepubescents in elementary school classrooms or local library “Drag Queen Story Hours.” Today’s drag queen world of Velour is far removed from the days of campy film comedies like 1959’s Oscar-winning “Some Like It Hot” with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon‚ about two musicians who disguise themselves by dressing as women to escape from mafia mobsters who they witnessed committing a crime; or even 1982’s “Tootsie‚” in which Dustin Hoffman’s unsuccessful actor character‚ Michael Dorsey‚ pretends to be female in order to get a role on a TV soap opera. The cross-dressing wasn’t to be taken seriously‚ much less be treated as normal or else you’re somehow a “hater.” Pandering to the LGBTQ Left and thumbing one’s nose to a mass audience with novella-length articles glorifying behavior most of middle America still regards as aberrant‚ it’s small wonder that the Post has lost about 500‚000 subscribers since the end of 2020 and was set to lose $100 million last year‚ according to The New York Times. When Sally Buzbee took over as executive editor of the Post in June 2021—and more recently‚ when William Lewis became CEO and publisher in January—I was hopeful they would steer the Post to the political center ideologically. That obviously hasn’t happened.  I might soon become No. 500‚001. I already cut back my print-edition home delivery of the Post after many‚ many years from seven days a week to Sundays only. And after Judkis’ four pages of wet kisses to “Sasha Velour‚” I’m “this close” to canceling even that. The post The Washington Post’s 2‚600-Word Love Letter to a Drag Queen appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Now It's UCLA Med School That Has a Plagiarism Scandal

Court Watchers: Justices Seem Inclined to Side with Grants Pass on Regulating Homelessness