Compensate with Volume

Each unit of Sony's Playstation 3 is expected to cost the company about $900 to produce, but will likely be priced around $300 to compete with Microsoft's Xbox 360. I wonder if they will pay me $600 to not buy one.

Finally an Ugly Teacher

For some reason all the female teachers who have had sex with students are blonde. More troubling, they have, until now, all been pretty damned good looking. It makes it hard to have the proper reaction that this is sexual assault when they are hot. So I'm glad that Ms. Schweikert, pictured above, has joined this ignoble club. How dare she!

Seven Things You Don't Know About the United Arab Emirates

With the UAE in the news following a deal to have their government owned company manage US ports, it is a good time to learn a few things about this unusual country.

1: The border demarcation treaties of 1974 and 1977 between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were never made public so the exact border of the two countries is only known to their governments.

2: Among various human rights violations the UAE has been accused of (including child sex trade) is the use of children as jockeys in camel races. In part in response to this criticism they have developed robotic camel jockeys. In your face Sony!

3: About 80% of the population is non-native, with the majority of foreigners coming from India and Pakistan.

4: Due to extreme oil wealth, the average income for the 20% of the population that are citizens is nearly as high as Western European democracies.

5: You can go skiing in Dubai thanks to the worlds largest indoor snow park. The "Mall of the Emirates" is connected to " Ski Dubai which covers an area about the size of three football fields. One run is over 1200 feet long and admission is $35 which includes Winter clothing

6: They were previously known as the "Trucial States" or "Trucial Oman" where "Trucial" referred to a truce between Great Britain and a number of Arab Sheikhs.

7: There are seven emirates in the UAE. They are: Abu Dhabi, Ajm?n, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Qaiwain.

This Just in....75% of Americans Make up Three Quarters of the Population

Why undercut a legitimate point by relying on meaning less statistics?

One statistic you hear over and over is that women make only 75 cents for every dollar a man earns. This ratio gives the false impression woman working in the same position as a man makes 25% less.

All the wage-gap ratio reflects is a comparison of the median earnings of all working women and men. It doesn't compare those with equal work, equal training, equal education or equal tenure.

So, the while the wage gap is a measure of inequality, it does not measure discrimination per se. It does not provide an understanding of reasons for disparity which may include factors such as that more women choose lower-paying professions than men; they move in and out of the workforce more frequently; and they work fewer paid hours on average.

It is estimated that about a quarter of the wage gap, or 6-7% results from actual discrimination. This is an important issue on its own, and doesn't need to be supported by contorted math.