ie not working in the exact same job. My issue with the statement as often trotted is out by people who seem to believe that there are men working alongside women in the same workplace where the woman is being paid less than the man. The figures are arrived at by a more complex method than that, it's the simplistic and oft-misunderstood use of the argument that annoys me. But anyway, different thread.

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Since the thread has drifted from Captain America to the Tea Party to health care to racism, I'm not clear why there was a call for the discussion to go to another thread.

Anyway, nice selective reading of the article. The quote you are referring to was for the 23% wage gap figure between men and women. There are later figures that try to adjust for differences in education, experience and occupation, and there is still a wage gap to be found. As acknowledged by the article, either side can find a statistic to latch on to, but at the very least, one can take away from the article that there is nothing supporting that the average person working across from a member of the same sex is getting paid the same wage 99.9% of the time.

A fact trumps an opinion. We know for a fact that the moon is not made of cheese.

I think Fox News and MSNBC are opposite sides of the same coin. They both contain more commentators than news reporters. At times they are barely a step avove Springer and Stern. I look at it like wrestling, they rile up a crowd, degrade the opponent, big egos, big money but very little substance.

"I think Fox News and MSNBC are opposite sides of the same coin."

What, like the Joker and Batman? Or like Two-face and Harvey Dent?

I'll concede that if you have an differing opinion on a proven fact you are wrong, on an idea, feeling or theory you have a long way to convince me. To paraphrase a comment from a previous post, I made a blanket statment and it hurt my argument and through discussion I had to change my stance on the subject.

No, I would accept that thats the way you feel and hopefully, if it was important to me, I can change that opinion with time through actions and dialog. How a person feels or his or her beliefs differs from person to person, how they act upon them is what can make a person right or wrong.

If someone thinks I'm a jerk thats fine, if they beat the crap out of me because they feel that way thats wrong.

Opinions are only "never wrong" when they refer to a completely subjective experience that cannot be objectively verified or falsified.

If I say that Glenn Beck is seriously mentally ill, I am claiming knowledge of something that can be factually determined, and which must be presumed to be not true in the absence of evidence.

If I say "I think Glenn Beck is crazy", I am offering information about what I am thinking and feeling, an opinion about something that I cannot prove.  The opinion I'm offering is simply something I think or believe to be true. Unless you can mindread, you can't prove that I don't think that.

Doesn't mean you can't prove that Glenn Beck isn't crazy. You just can't prove that I don't think "Glenn Beck is crazy. "

So that kind of completely subjective opinion cannot "be wrong". But it is also absolutely worthless. Especially in a public discussion.

Any opinion offered in a formal public discussion that cannot be proven or disproven is just pointless, worthless noise. It neither furthers debate nor serves any positive purpose.