Well, I am not trying to be flippant, but it is really hard to fathom the darkness in the hearts of people who prefer killing their “unwated” babies (a sort of post-birth abortion) because they couldn’t be bothered to visit a doctor and get contraceptives. What?!!! They don’t sell condoms in France? You don’t need a prescription for that, you know!

France infanticide mother’s ‘relief’ after confession

Dominique Cottrez has been placed under investigation over the deaths, which happened between 1989 and 2006.

Frank Berton said his client was “tired, worn out and battered down” after her questioning.

“She doesn’t have to carry this on her conscience any more, and that’s a kind of relief,” he added.

My heart goes out to the poor lady… it must have been so hard to go through eight actual pregnancies and give birth, so you could finally strangle the crap out of the little unwanted kids. The clincher in this heartwarmer of a story is that this demon had a husband – who apprently was released – once again, why is he also not being held responsible? You really mean to tell me he was not exactly aware of EIGHT full-term pregnancies, EIGHT live births and no kids to show for it?

Speaking of it all, what of the neighbors? The relatives? Doesn’t anybody care anymore?

Update: Apparently, previously mentioned monster has two “surviving” daughters and they love their mom. Awww…makes me feel better already!

Ousted USDA Employee Sherrod Plans to Sue Blogger – ABC News.

Yeah – we all have heard the story by now -

woman makes speech…man puts “partial” speech online…WH forces her to resign…NAACP condemns her before they uncondemn her…woman sues…the dude who put a video online? How does that even make any sense? Breitbart linked to a video that has been available online for a while before it exploded in everyone’s faces. He didn’t fire her – he didn’t pressure her to resign. On what basis can Shirley Sherrod even think of suing the only person in the whole saga who had no direct or indirect power over her? Baffles my mind!

She won’t sue Vilsack? Not the White House? not the NAACP? Because Breitbart is the only “other” in this case?

A good technical book for an experienced developer is one that makes the person feel dumb for not knowing something seemingly common sense and that too preferably within the first chapter. That to me provides value that goes beyond helping someone simply starting out learning something. “SQL Antipatterns” is a good book for beginners who do not want to start off the wrong way – but it is a great book for those who have been coding for a while now and want to look back with a few battle scars under their belt (how is that for mixed metaphors?) and consolidate their hard-earned knowledge into concise takeaways.

This book did show me an antipattern I was using in my most recent project, in the very first chapter. As the book also explains though, there definitely is room for antipatterns in a programmer’s life – the difference between a good antipatter(??!) and a bad antipattern is that you walk into a good antipattern eyes wide open. You implement it knowing it is not a generally accepted good solution, but is possibly the best solution for your need, right here and right now.

All in all, this has been a very interesting read – especially when you are frequently going “doh!” after reading a few of the examples that highlight mistakes you likes committed some point in your programming life –  and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in a good list of do’s and don’ts of database programming, explained clearly and with precise examples that relate very well to real-world examples.

(I thank the O’Reilly folks for providing me a free review copy).

I have to spread the word around – if you live around the DFW area, here is your chance to sample the food at some of the best restaurants for a $35 prixe fix menu, thanks to the restaurant week. The dude and I already made reservations at Steel – where will you guys go?

Long, long ago, there were two women who were interested in running a group blog for women – they wanted it to be for all women regardless of ideas, afflictions and ideologies (yeah, ideologies might as well be diseases, thankyouverymuch!). They wanted to call the site “Real Women Online” – their manifesto was very clear – they wanted to represent all women without any censorship. There was one point in their manifesto that elicited a lot of comments from readers male and female – the women did NOT want to be called “feminists”. They rejected the notion brought forth by the label (I wish I had the archives to dig through). They thought the word was too restrictive and carried way too much baggage – in case you are still wondering, those women were me and another good friend of mine.

The reason why I bring this up is the latest big debate on how to keep conservative women from calling themselves “feminists” as can be evidenced by the rants, fainting spells and extreme outrage being exhibited by certain feminist bloggers (Google them, they irritate me way too much to be linked) – these ladies are really, really upset that those uppity conservative women led by Sarah Palin dare to call themselves “feminist” – soon they will want to drink at the feminist water fountain and pollute it, don’cha see?

Reclusive Leftist’s Violet had just paved the way for me – self-proclaimed non-feminist a reasonable way to find my way back into the fold – I had almost made my peace with the term thanks to the other feminists at “The Confluence” and “Tennesse Guerilla Women”, for example. These blogs and the women who frequented them were the kind of people I wanted to associate with – we might not have agreed on everything, but at least they seemed to respect other points of view and didn’t go apoplectic over someone else wanting to join the club.

Long story short, who would really care about joning a club that was full of haters who wanted to keep the ideologically impure out of the gates? Not me! As a result, strong, independent female influencers are proudly NOT calling themselves “feminists” – the club loses, not the women.

Leaked Docs Show Apple Knows About iPhone 4’s Flaws [REPORT].

Even though the content of the article linked above is interesting enough, what really got my goat (wha?!!) last night were the comments from the kool-aid drinkers aka fanboyz. It was incredible to see the folks denying that there is an antenna issue (my husband has an IPhone 4 and vouches there is an issue) – berating the others to hold the phone right (alrighty, then – not only will they tell me how to use their content, they will now also tell me how to “hold” my phone) and in general blaming everyone but Apple for making a substandard product.

Consumers have to be on consumers’ side regardless how much one worships at the altar of the red fruit. You are paying top-shelf price for Apple products and it is really dumb to blame a consumer for “not holding the phone right”.  Hopefully. Apple does something about this before it turns into a PR nightmare or even worse, a class-action lawsuit as has been hinted in a few places.

Happy Social Media Day!.

Yep – we over here welcome our social media overlords

Marine Widow Battles Verizon Over Cancellation Fee – cbs13.com.

Oh Dear! A marine takes an “IED, full force” and pays the ultimate price in a war and Verizon wants to charge his widow an “early termination fee” – once again, a headline you wished were from The Onion – I doubt even The Onion would go to these macabre levels that businesses seem to be stooping to these days. Come on, Verizon – let it go before it is too late.

I guess I should say this upfront – I loved my Zen Creative MP3 player – used my IPOD to death – owned an IPhone (jail-broken) and currently own my second Android phone. Phew! I had to establish the credentials so I could weigh in a little bit on the debate at the link below – where Fanboyz and geeks are trying to out-geek each other.

The Growing Geek iPhone Backlash – Business – The Atlantic.

I am fan of openness – especially when it comes to content. I am not going to the extreme and say all content should be free like some people do and am perfectly willing to pay for it if it is of interest to me. I still pay for my music (what a concept!), but only for singles – no albums unless I like most of the songs. That is also the big reason I like services like eMusic and Amazon MP3 store – places that get me easy DRM-free music that I can play from anywhere with NO restrictions – isn’t that the point of paying for something? To OWN it?

This is why I won’t buy from ITunes – it will not sync with anything other than an IPod and has restrictions on where and how I can play this music. I am not willing to pay for something and then jump through hoops to use it. Incidentally, that is one reason I won’t get a Kindle and prefer my books made of paper

Ultimately, the way I see it – IPhones are definitely head and shoulders above Androids in usability with Android catching up really fast. Once the Android OS reaches more maturity and gains a bigger market share, this is sure to turn into another Mac vs. PC, IMO.

That is precisely how see the reactions of “outraged” gatekeepers of “native” civilizations who are horrified at the thought of the poverty-ridden partaking in anything other than locally grown junk as highlighted in the post below:

Nestle Barge to Ply the Amazon, Bringing Ice Cream and Rage – Business – The Atlantic.

It seems almost racist to me that all these so-called professionally “outraged” class are never really part of the indigent folks who they want to keep from being despoiled by luxuries that they take for granted.  They don’t live like the natives in the native lands and subsist on the same meager rations they wish upon the natives. It makes my blood boil the way these hypocrites operate. Aren’t they really simply perpetuating the “noble savage” stereotype in a highly condescending manner?

Onion does what I was trying to achieve in my post even better in this classic!