The FBI Has Faith
"High Tech's High Stakes At The FBI" [April 17] missed the point. The recently announced Sentinel information management system will transform the way the FBI does business, how we manage investigative, administrative, and intelligence information and work flow, and how we share information. And it will do that because we have an unprecedented structure in place to oversee a successful major investment, beginning with a chief information officer who is an experienced information-technology professional with a track record of success. Despite what the article suggests, the cornerstone of Sentinel is openness and accountability. Reporting that "imprudent ... cost cutting" of operations is funding Sentinel, or that the FBI is hiding the real costs, is absurd. Director Robert Mueller, the Congress, and the American public demand and will get accountability at every step.
JOHN MILLER
Assistant Director for Public Affairs
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C.
Grading Grad
As a third-year law student, I could not agree more with the study from the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research that states "law students are increasingly disengaged and work less as grad school progresses" ["Rethinking Law School," April 10]. The old adage is that the first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death. Most students I know have stopped reading for classes and are studying for the bar exam instead.
BRETT BUCHHEIT
Grundy, Va.
I bet there's a sizable group of talented women done with child rearing who would jump at the chance to complete an M.B.A. program that would get them back in the career mainstream ["Looking for Ms. M.B.A."]. An M.B.A. tailored as a re-entry degree could prove attractive to women eager to start the next phase of their career.
CHRISTINA KAMPMAN
Springfield, Ohio
I am disappointed that rankings of "The Sciences" Ph.D. programs classified statistics as a "specialty" in mathematics. Like physics and computer science, statistics is a discipline that is separate from but uses mathematics. Most major universities have separate departments of statistics. And, in those universities that combine mathematics and statistics administratively, separate degrees are usually offered.
WILLIAM B. SMITH, PH.D.
Executive Director
American Statistical Association
Alexandria, Va.
Supreme Salaries
After their appointment, how loudly Supreme Court justices proclaim indignity with respect to their pay [Washington Whispers, April 17].The value of free medical services should be added to the fact that justices may retire at full salary with cost-of-living increases after only 10 to 15 years. The total value of present and retirement benefits should determine the adequacy of their remuneration.
RICHARD D. GILMAN
Lexington, Mass.
Warm Enough for You?
If current meteorological observations can't accurately predict weather, then I hardly trust information about our climate in 20 to 30 years ["Turning Up the Heat," April 10].
Newsweek had an article called "The Cooling World" in 1975. Then in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, it was acid rain. Now it's global warming. Climatologists pronouncing the coming calamity of climate change must have a hidden agenda, such as signing the Kyoto Protocol, thus taxing our economy. To promote penalizing our efficient economy is as unsupportable as the global-warming theory.
SERGE WING
Alexandria, Va.
Michael Mann's graph of temperature spikes looks like part of a proposal for research funding. The horizontal axis is 10 centuries. The vertical axis is about 1 degree Celsius. The temperature rise is only about one-half degree in the past century. In my opinion, the primary cause of warming is the expanding human population.
ROBERT E. LEFFLER
Pleasant Hills, Pa.
I live on the southern shore of Lake Erie, one of many depressions gouged out by a massive glacier thousands of years ago. I'm told that 2,000 feet of ice covered the place where my home is standing. Might the current global warming be a part of the same system that melted that glacier and left us with the Great Lakes?
CLINT WILBER
Lakewood, Ohio
Clarification: In "Playing With a Fine Fury" [April 24], David Maraniss did not say Curt Flood won his lawsuit against Major League Baseball--Flood actually lost--but rather that Flood's case helped beat baseball's reserve clause system.
This story appears in the May 8, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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