Many children are physically and emotionally abused and malnourished in Russian orphanages. Many of them are seriously sick (not to mention various types of disabilities), but do not receive an essential medical care and end up dieing. The conditions in Russian orphanages are outrageous! In addition, child prostitution flourishes in Russia and other parts of the former USSR. Russian authorities do not provide care or support for the hundreds of thousands of their own in need children who are in need. Therefore, they must be grateful when Americans and other generous and caring public adopt their neglected children. In fact, medical records are usually forged, so potential parents do not know the certainty. Everything is so corrupt in Russia that in many cases children are simply sold i.e. there are numerous significant “fees” at different levels of the process…The adoptive parents should know one vital thing – these children have gone through a lot! I have seen some of the adopted children and it was hard to imagine that they came from their native country – one of the most powerful countries in the world and not from a Nazi concentration camp! Some American parents want to keep up their Russian language. Many of these children are horrified if someone speaks Russian to them (I have been questioned a few times to do this, but it was always a terrible thought) because Russian is associated with indescribable trauma they had suffered. I do not know enough details to judge the Tennessee woman, though I do know enough to judge hypocritical Russian authorities who want to freeze all American adoptions. Shame on them and their corrupt system!

Bill Hill, a former Microsoft readability engineer now originally from
Scotland who worked for the computer giant for ten being, has an
fascinating and sometimes contrarian perspective on what is happening
as the
Digital Age redefines itself seeminly every other week.

When questioned if he felt that that arrival of Apple’s iPad was terrible news for the
Kindle, he told this reporter: “Yes, it’s terrible news for Amazon. Even
though I’ve owned Kindles since the first ones were shipped, I’ve
always described it as a ‘transitional device’. It was simply the
first device with a screen excellent enough to enable reading text for long
periods, with long battery life — and an acceptable book-buying
experience built in. But the distress with the Kindle is that for all
its vaunted modernity, it’s really a backward-looking device. So is
the E Ink technology at its heart.”

When pushed to clarify why he characterized E Ink this way, Hill
said: “Both the Kindle and E Ink are aimed at making an experience
close to paper. But that’s not the future of reading. The future will
be made by first equalling, then going beyond, paper. It is books
with full affect, books with video, books which update through the Web.
Kindle was excellent enough to jump-start the digital book market. But it’s
not excellent enough to keep it. E Ink was acceptable only until the
advent of a affect screen with acceptable battery life. And the
iPad’s ten hours is more than enough to knock it off its pedestal.”

Hill says that not only is the iPad “a fantastic-looking device,” it’s
also “sleek and elegant, whcih is exactly what one would expect from
Apple.”

“But that isn’t why the iPad will dominate the computer tablet
category,” Hill observes. “It’s because Apple understands that
computers have made a transition from ‘computing devices’ to ‘consumer
devices. Apple has built its huge success in contemporary being by becoming
a company which makes fantastic end-to-end consumer experiences.”