I moved out to the LA area from Chicago to go to school last fall. I'm not going to say that Chicago is a model for the environment; we produce a hefty amount of pollution and waste comparable to any other big city. But LA is really something different. Something that has frustrated me to no end out here is that not only are people completely unconscious of the harm caused by their habits (as most people are, at least to some extent), when they do know what they're doing, they just don't care.

At home during the summer, there are ordinances on watering one's lawn, with it only being allowed every other night (i.e., odd-numbered houses MWF, even-numbered TThS). Out here, there are ordinances requiring that you keep your lawn green - in the middle of, if not quite the desert, a very arid area that is struggling, and at current growth rates will soon fail, to provide enough water for its residents. And no one cares. A friend of mine commented that limits on watering one's lawn would never work because people would think it was stupid, and they can water whenever they damn well please. I see a very similar attitude about pollution and smog as well.

I think a lot of the problem comes from something you said in your article - that even the best, most efficient desalinazation schemes would cost more than California residents currently pay for water, even before the cost of using alternative energy sources is factored in. The problem is that people don't think they should have to pay for the water they use. While people are certainly entitled to the water they need to survive, if we had to bear the market cost of the water we use for unneccessary purposes (like watering our lawns), I think it would be safe to predict a sharp drop in water demand. And I don't think that would be a bad thing. So saying that desalinization costs a lot is hardly a good reason not to do it.

Not that there aren't plenty of good reasons not to do it... but that isn't what I'm worried about here.

is that there was a press conference yesterday.

The Prolife Aliance and the chrity LIFE are both mentioned in all three articles, and they all use virtually identical quotes. They probably found out about this and decided to hold a press conference complaining about it.

Also, the article in The Sun stated that the product was available for purchase online for the first time in the last week. (But the one in the BBC said that it's been available in America since 2006.)

I doubt it's anything very mysterious. But if there was a press conference held by people who are opposed, the makers probably don't want to make a big deal about it, so they are evading questions a little.

As for the product itself... I feel like this isn't necessarily a good idea or a bad idea. I think it will be mostly used for benign purposes, as some people want to know as soon as possible so they can start buying presents or redecorating or whatever. Some people may use it to decide whether or not to have an abortion, but I doubt they'll make up the majority of purchasers. I probably wouldn't buy it, because I think there's something to be said for surprises. But to each his (her) own.

If typesetting is so much cheaper now, why do I still have to pay $400-$500 a semester on my textbooks?

That aside, I agree with many of the points you make. It's so easy to be angry at the foreign countries taking outsourced jobs away from Americans. I've seen this firsthand since my dad was laid off by the company he had worked for for ten years when it shipped the majority of its programming and analysis work to India. When there is no justifiable reason for firing a longtime employee except that they cost more than an Asian worker would, it's hard to accept. Several years later, and my dad still can't get through The World Is Flat because it upsets him so much to hear a defense of globalization, which cost him his job.

But ultimately, globalization is going to benefit far more people than it harms - standards of living will finally rise in India, China, and throughout the developing world as work comes to them. And America will adapt as people are trained and retrained to find jobs that are staying here. I'm not saying it will be an easy transition, and I'm not saying that many people won't be hurt by the loss of their jobs - my family is among the casualties - but eventually we'll adapt.

Hmm. Could be interesting.

No. The count starts with the thumb. If the thumb is the first finger, then the second finger is the index and the fourth finger is the ring.

"If you have a lot more testosterone than estrogen in the womb, it is going to build a longer fourth finger than second finger. If you've got a lot more estrogen in the womb, the pointer finger will be longer."

In this case there is no contradiction.

"If you have a lot more testosterone than estrogen in the womb, it is going to build a longer [ring] finger than [index] finger. If you've got a lot more estrogen in the womb, the [index] finger will be longer."