Several points to add here, one of which is contingent on circumstances, two of which are not.

First, there is the long term to think of. LetterWriter indicates that she does want to re-engage her career -- or at least re-enter the work-force -- at some point in the future. Doing so is tough enough for returning mothers -- we've all seen the stats, including right here at Salon. Won't make it any easier to have a time-bomb waiting to go off in the resume.

Second, one's word does mean something -- at least it should, and it is to LW's credit that she is thinking along those lines. And attached to this is the third issue -- the impact it will have on the boss, the other staffers, and the enterprise itself.

If the organization and the boss have made it clear through their behaviors in the past that employment there is "at will," and that they do not take very seriously their responsibilities to their employees, that makes a unilateral move such as Cary suggests much more defensible. But if they have behaved responsibly in the labor market -- if they have, for instance, made efforts to keep employed people whose specific tasks had been made redundant, or anything at all like that -- that is a very different matter. It also matters how important LW's job is in the enterprise, and how quick and easy it would be to replace her with someone equally qualified.

What I might suggest, depending on the answers to those questions, is that LW consider offering some compromise positions -- at the very least, for example, being willing to leave her job earlier than she otherwise might have wanted, if that will make it easier to fill the spot. Or making her departure date contingent on exactly when a replacement of equal capacity can be found -- and agreeing to stay on while training the replacement. Or agreeing to take on some part-time or work-from-home responsiblities for some time after the birth of the child (after the necessary break of course), if that were possible.

Some of these options, and others that I'm sure LW could come up with, might go a long way toward making LW's position more ethically defensible -- and ultimately redound to her own benefit when it comes time to re-enter the full-time working world, if she winds up wanting to do so. (As LW knows only too well -- things change.)

And yes, I am an employer -- one who works very hard to fulfill my moral responsibilities to those people who have made the choice to work for my firm, and one who has been burned several times in the past (fortunately, rarely) by indivduals who did not take their accepted, committed responsibilities as seriously as they might have.

The funny thing is, this is actually a rational, defensible technique for the protection of our country, its institutions, and its citizens -- or at least, it might have been if it weren't in the hands of an administration that has already repeatedly proven its utter faithlessness, its total corruption, and its willingness to abuse its powers not in defense of its citizens from outside threats, but in defense of its own powers and prerogatives against domestic political opposition.

I hate that they have put us in the position where the default presumption is that they're abusing it.

And if some spook is reading this, fuck you too. My America -- the America that stood for the reality, not the rhetoric, of freedom -- is stronger and more resilient than you, and will outlast you.

We don't have to look halfway around the world, nor to "other" religions for examples of this kind of obscenity. Just last month, Pat Robertson -- who was a Presidential candidate not too long ago -- warned the residents of Dover PA not to turn to God if there were some kind of devastation, as they had "turned their backs" on Him by rejecting creationism in their science classrooms.

And of course there was Franklin Graham (son of Billy), among others, blaming Hurricane Katrina on the wickedness and "perversion" of New Orleans.

Same shit, different disaster.

"Lawyers for the men who have been charged with the Jose Padilla..."

The smartalek thinks it would be real cool to be referred to with the definite article before his name.

Plese, what must the smartalek do to earn this honor from Salon? The smartalek would rather not become an alleged terrorist -- is there anything short of that that would suffice? Please let the smartalek know as soon as piossible; the smartalek is not a patient person.

Thank you.

If I were on a jury, I might be persuaded to write it off as justifiable homicide... The "necessity" defense and all that.

Then she could sell the story to Fox, and retire wealthy. Everybody wins -- 'cept Doug, but he doesn't sound like too nice a guy anyway.