The article does not seem to mention the impact of the virus on existing treatments. Is the new virus a hiv version of MDR-TB?

The United States has a veto on israeli military foreign sales decisions(as most israeli military technology have american contribution in the form of money or tech). Case in point the arrow system was not sold to china over US objections. Same is the case with advanced anti-ballistic system for india (as the US believed it would skew the military balance too much towards india in south asia).

Basing security on statistics like .0001% is a very flawed way of approaching the problem. What about the future? What if the terrorists get hold of chemical weapons or nukes. Thats a whole different ball-game ain't it? State has a responsibility to protect its citizens from terrorists. With nukes there won't be many zeros after the dot. And with the passage of time the odds of terrorists getting their hands on WMDs only increases.

The sixth generation aircraft is already in the drawing boards. Check this link.
The fighters are not going anywhere and the only thing going to the sidelines is manned fighters and that is not about to happen anytime soon (given the present state of technology).

5 years of experience should surely count something. People usually "progress" in their career path. If you are replaced by a "new grad" either the management is making a mistake or you deserve it (for the sheer reason that its actually possible to replace you with a new grad inspite of 5 years of experience). There are many firms that exploit h1b but Microsoft is more likely interested in an expanded talent pool rather than lowering wages. Of course your whole post reeks of "they took our jobs" mentality but thats a different issue.

India has enough freedoms especially for a third-world country. Most Indians come to the US for a better life and not from fear of persecution or lack of rights.

When I was into web-design, I found grids very useful. It made the positioning of elements in the page much easier.

This offer may sound attractive to those who love to travel or just experience the "other" world. Such a shift could also entail moving a notch up in skills or management ladder which they can later market in the United States.

It could end up being a strategic choice.

Just because they botched vista/longhorn once does not mean they will never again be able to manage the code-in house.

Programmers at Microsoft will be facing challenges that are quite similar to the ones faced by their linux counterparts. Their might as well be programmers in Mircrosoft who love what they do. So your statement generalizes (incorrectly) a parochial scenario as representative of the whole orgainzation and its mores.

Yes its true but a whole lot of development in the OS world (especially linux) is made possible by developers in corporations(ibm,red-hat..etc) who going by your logic are likely to be equally susceptible to just the "paycheck" itch .

Your argument is reflective of the romanticization of the "hacker" lifestyle that seems to be quite popular here in slashdot.

This line of thinking is completely flawed. The "mullahs" may be religious but they are certainly not trigger happy fanatics. Iranian leaders are concerned about maintaining their own power. For example their support for hezbollah is a geo-political calculation serving as an insurance against hostile powers and certainly not driven by extremist Islamic ideologies. A good article about the 2006 war that gives an insight into iranian intentions is here

Iran in fact has a (relatively) fair degree of political freedom. Iranian leaders (in spite of ahmedijenad's rants about israel) are primarily concerned about their own power and survival and that is more rational and markedly different from the virulent islamic ideologies found in wahhabism and sunni/saudi world.

Your argument would fit the taliban but not Iran.

Take a look at Doctors without borders. They have got a new york field office. More info here
I offered to volunteer for web-design work and I got a mail stating that they will get in touch with me if they require one in the future.

If you are into eclipse RCP I would recommend Eclipse: Building Commercial-Quality Plug-Ins
And then there is this superb newsgroup.
For algorithms I found "Algorithms in C" by Robert Sedgewick very useful.

In many Islamic countries proselytising is banned so for many muslims in these countries being muslim is not a choice.