Letters to the Editor
Herself
Published Letters: 182 Editor's Choice: 17
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Laws and Human Nature
[Read the article: Egypt outlaws female circumcision]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some of the practices make menstruation, childbirth and procreative sex very problematic. Instead of telling Muslims what to do, tell them the effects of their actions. Any religion supports procreation. Does the Koran support the practice? I don't know. I don't have a copy of that book. If it does not support the practice, why not point that out?
However, one thing I wonder about is the effect of a patchwork of laws in various countries. If it is illegal in Egypt, then won't people take their kids to neighboring countries to do it? It may go underground and kids would die from "back alley" procedures. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?
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Why Even Worry About It?
[Read the article: Rudy can fail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rudy's not going to be a serious contender for the Presidency. He is not even going to me Miss Congeniality. The Republicans are not going to put their money or time behind him. Why? He's had a juicy personal life. He had a messy and public divorce. He'll never get the vote of the southern pious who the Republicans have been courting all these years. Can you see an embedded Republican campaigner telling a bunch of folks in a backwoods church to vote for this guy? I can't.
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Saw it coming
[Read the article: Egypt outlaws female circumcision]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is. Its just that this article is not about that.
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The real solution
[Read the article: Shopping for carbon credits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As "Anonymous" said, buying carbon credits is like the medieval practice of buying indulgences. You write a check, which takes no real effort, and walk away with your soul cleansed.
The true solution is population reduction. There are too many people. Birth control should be free on demand all over the globe. I understand that men lined up for free vasectomies in Thailand some time ago. Wouldn't it be great if there was a free snip clinic on every corner?
One may argue that a potential child might be the one to solve the problem of global warming. That's the kind of conceit that makes me snort coffee through my nose. No one person is going to solve that problem, and in a world of six billion people, the odds are really long that one given child is going to be the M.K. Ghandi of the environment.
I was with a group of women and one had just had a child. She was sitting there mooning about how she's environmentally conscious, but still wanted one more child because "What could one little baby do?" She drove off in her SUV after the meeting. A year later, she'd proudly announced that she had a second child. She sat there mooning about how much she loved babies and mused on having a third, because "What could one little baby do?" If I were not an atheist, I would have prayed for a general strike by her municipal santitation department, so she could see what one little baby could do.
Buying land and trees is a feel good solution, but future generations of people who just want money or subsistence are going to cut those trees down, buy that land, and chuckle at what a bunch of chumps those carbon credit people are.
If you want to help the planet, do everything you can to make birth control and good medical care for children* worldwide available, preferably for free.
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* If people know their children will live to adulthood, they're more likely to stop at 2, rather than 8.
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It isn't just the money
[Read the article: Bangalore offshores to Silicon Valley]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The job market in India is so frothy right now, that recent university grads are snapped up very quickly. They stay at an employer for six months and then jump ship for a hearty raise. Then, they keep jumping each year or six months to get their salaries up. I honestly don't blame them.
The real problem is that American companies are dealing with high turnover among their overseas brethren and a low skill level. Here you are with a mission critical resource in Mumbai and the server goes down. You stay up late, call their IT guy and find out he's gone and has been replaced with someone right out of university or, worse, they have not found a new guy. So, you wake up your IT guy to call him on the phone and walk him through the reboot sequence. This is not pretty.
That brings me to the notion of 24 hour support. I don't believe management cares about 24 hour support. They want "cheap". You can always pay local people to work the night shift, but the key word is "pay".
Lots of companies do not know in the slightest how to spec out a project, either. 75 percent of a programming job is that initial design phase, where you document out what you want and how to do it. The language should be unambiguous and readily accessible. Let's face it, most people like to noodle along and pull an all-nighter. This is great when you have a bullpen full of cowboy coders with 5 years experience each and a case of Red Bull. This is not great when you have a rapidly changing group of folks with 6 months to 4 years experience and a vague design document. "Make it so" does not fly when you have people who need supervision.
It is interesting that jobs are returning to the U.S., but you know there are managers who think they're doing themselves a favor by finding the cheapest talent they can. Right now, it is heading into China and, from there, to Russia. I'm looking forward to it all moving to Mexico, so when a server crashes there, our IT guys are awake and at their desks to coach the newbie in Mexico City.
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A Kettle Of Worms
[Read the article: Attack of the 5-year-old moms!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wow. Don't forget that those mothers who had their babies late in life and are going through menopause while the kid's going through chemo can use those eggs themselves. It'd make that scene in "Chinatown" sound like a nursery rhyme.
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"Don't Be Evil"
[Read the article: Google vs. Michael Moore's "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd type something lucid, but I'm laughing too hard.