Today’s Links: January 9, 2012

OPINION

ANDOR JAKAB: “This is Why I Don’t Give You a Job
“I wouldn’t hire a woman. The reason is very simple: women give birth to children. I don’t have the right to ask if she still wanted to. If I had the right, and she would answer, she could deceive me deliberately or she could change her mind. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with women giving birth to children. That’s how I was born and that’s how my child was born. I wouldn’t hire a woman because when she gets pregnant, she goes for a 3 years maternity leave, during which I can’t fire her. If she wants two children, the vacation is 6 years long. […] I wouldn’t hire people over 50 either. Not that I have any problem with the most experienced professionals. I wouldn’t hire them, because they are soon in the protected age.”

THE ECONOMIST’s BABBAGE BLOG: “The Price of Distraction
“In 2006 America’s once-dominant internet provider eliminated fees for using its custom software, an AOL e-mail address and other proprietary services. But millions of broadband subscribers didn’t get the message. Many, it seems, still haven’t. AOL continues to collect hundreds of millions of dollars a year in subscription fees. Those who retain dial-up telephone access are indeed bound by contract to pony up between $10 and $26 a month to hear those dulcet connection tones. Broadband users, though, are not. (The firm’s current subscription strategy appears to be to justify the price it charges active dial-up users and the forgetful by offering virus and identity-theft insurance, as well as other titbits.)”

R. SCOTT MOXLEY: “OC’s Happiest Pro-Tax Increase Cheerleaders Are Democrats, Right?
“Those of you who don’t believe that Orange County is loaded with ironies aren’t paying attention. We’ve got vociferously anti-gay public figures who are secretly gay or bisexual. We’ve got Democrats who are more Republican than, well, Republicans. And, perhaps most amazingly, we’ve got self-described conservative Republicans who are–drum roll–enthusiastically supportive of huge tax increases.”

NEWS

WASTE – Feds Find Failures in Cook Co. Homeland Security Project
“Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure.”

TRANSPORTATION – Florida DOT Paying Florida Highway Patrol to Patrol
“Drivers along SR-60 near Turkey Creek Rd. will want to tap the brakes as Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) has increased its enforcement near the construction area. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is paying for the troopers’ presence — and citation-writing — during the road project. But after a tip from a viewer, the 10 News Investigators discovered FDOT was covering speed limit signs with plastic bags — an apparent violation of federal guidelines that suggest speed limit signs be posted after every major intersection.”

DEATH PENALTY – Iran Sentences U.S. ‘Spy’ to Death
“Iran has sentenced a former U.S. Marine to death on charges of spying for the CIA, Iranian state media reported Monday.”