I've now donated these tapes to be archived at the
University of Mississippi which seems to have the largest library of accounting
history, particularly history of accounting in the U.S.
The tapes include some classic presentations and some
real duds. In some cases the speakers like Ray Sommerfeld are now dead. Their
presentations bring tears to the eyes of some old professors like me.
It may take a while for Dale to get these tapes
cataloged, and eventually he may have digital copies of selected presentations
available for distribution. In other cases, scholars may have to travel to
Mississippi to view the presentations.
Except in the areas of technology, it's amazing how many
problems in accounting are recycled without being able to solve systemic
problems such as those illustrations listed at the following two links:
-----Original Message-----
From: Dale Flesher [mailto:acdlf@olemiss.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 2:20 PM
To: Jensen, Robert
Subject: RE: AAA Videos
Bob:
I have just received two boxes
of videotapes from you (144 tapes to supplement the 50+ you sent a couple of
months ago). This looks like a gold mine of information. You had mentioned
earlier that you would recommend some for digitization. I have discussed
this possibility with the librarian in charge of our AICPA National Library
of the Accounting Profession and he indicates there are no major problems in
digitizing the videos and making them available to the general public,
although he wasn't sure about copyright restrictions.
To ease his initial fears
about copyright, we might begin with some videos of you speaking, since you
could grant copyright release from both the photographer and the provider of
information.
Let me know your thoughts, and
thanks for the donation.
The Critical Shortage of Doctoral Graduates in Business and Accountancy in
Particular
Quotations from a New Report Published in May 2006
An overview of doctoral program graduation rates is provided at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#DoctoralPrograms There is a Ph.D. glut reported in some disciplines and shortages in other
disciplines, especially in business education programs. The AACSB business
education accrediting agency reports that doctoral graduate output is critically
short in all specializations. The shortage is especially acute in accountancy.
In the 1960s huge catalysts for change in accounting research occurred when
the Ford Foundationpoured millions of dollars into the
study of collegiate business schools and the funding of doctoral programs and
students in business studies. Gordon and Howell (1959) reported that business
faculty in colleges lacked research skills and academic esteem when compared to
their colleagues in the sciences. The Ford Foundation thereafter provided
funding for doctoral programs and for top quality graduate students to pursue
doctoral degrees in business and accountancy. The Foundation even funded
publication of selected doctoral dissertations to give doctoral studies in
business more visibility. Great pressures were also brought to bear on academic
associations like the AAA to increase the scientific standards for publications
in journals like TAR. A perfect storm for change in accounting research arose in
the late 1950s and early1960s. First came the critical Pierson Carnegie Report
(1959) and the Gordon and Howell Ford Foundation Report (1959). Shortly
thereafter, the AACSB introduced a requirement requiring that a certain
percentage of faculty possess doctoral degrees for business education programs
seeking accreditation (Bricker and Previtts 1990).
Soon afterwards, both a doctorate and publication in top accounting research
journals became necessary for tenure (Langenderfer 1987).
Supply of doctoral graduates in accountancy rose sharply between 1960 and
1989 to where over 200 graduates per year were entering academe from over 100
doctoral programs. The largest programs were such as those at the Universities
of Illinois and Texas were beginning to cut back by 1989. Subsequently, numbers
of doctoral graduates nationwide began to taper off in spite of assorted newer
doctoral programs.
The numbers of accountancy doctoral graduates in the past few years are
critically short to meet increases in demand in college accountancy programs in
virtually all states of the United States. Increasing salary levels to the
highest levels in many colleges has not seemed to attract more entrants into
doctoral programs. Rodgers and Williams (1996, 67-68) list 56 newer
U.S.
doctoral programs and some have been added since 1996. But these increases in
the number of doctoral programs failed to alleviate the dramatic declines in
graduation rates in larger and older programs.
As baby boomers from the World War
II era begin to retire, we may experience a shortage of new faculty to take
their place and meet the growing demand for business programs at universities.
In August 2002, the AACSB International Management Education Task Force (METF)
issued a landmark report, “Management Education at Risk.” The following is a
quotation from the Foreword on Page 4 that appeals to a wide-ranging scholarship
of “incredibly complex and dynamic environments”:
Let’s be clear about the
real doctoral faculty issue. It’s not about day-to-day recruiting challenges,
escalating faculty salaries, adhering to accreditation standards, or protecting
the professoriate. The real threat is to the very core of collegiate business
schools and institutions of higher education—scholarship. Doctoral faculty
produces the body of knowledge that sustains intellectual inquiry and the
ongoing development of a discipline. Any diminishment of our shared objective to
advance such knowledge and ground education in solid conceptual frameworks will
be a threat to the eventual academic legitimacy of our discipline. At a time
when organizations operate in incredibly complex and dynamic environments, when
different norms are colliding, and leadership credibility is at the lowest, such
a retreat will compromise our ability to serve students and other constituents.
Data are provided in the above report about the serious
decline in the number of doctoral degrees granted in recent years. Demand is
more than double the projected supply of new doctoral faculty. For accounting in
particular, Hasselback (2006) reports that the number of accounting doctoral
degrees plunged from 212 in 1989 to 96 in 2004. Even if he missed some in his
count, the trend is clearly critical.Fewer and fewer
accounting undergraduate and master’s degree graduates are returning to earn
doctoral degrees. The reasons for this are complex, but there is considerable
anecdotal evidence that some potential doctoral candidates are not interested in
the narrow scientific methodology curriculum offered at most doctoral programs.
In 2004 American Accounting Association President Bill Felix formed an ad hoc
Committee to Assess the Supply and Demand for Accounting Ph.D.s. The Committee
conducted an exhaustive survey and published a report in May 2006 in the
following reference:
"Assessing the Shortage of Accounting Faculty," by R. David Plumlee
(Chairman), Steven J. Kachelmeier, Silvia A. Madeo, Jamie H. Pratt, and
George Krull, Issues in Accounting Education, Vol. 21, No. 2, May
2006, pp. 113-126.
Some of the highlights of this report are quoted below.
QUOTATION FROM PAGE 114 The AACSB predicts a major shortage of all business
faculty with Ph.D.s over the next ten years (AACSB 2003). Within accounting,
there is substantial anecdotal evidence that a shortage of Ph.D.-qualified
accounting faculty already exists and may grow. Referring to the recent
increase in accounting majors, the Wall Street Journal (2004) noted that
"some universities face a problem: a shortage of professors to teach these young
beancounters." The article continues by stating that:
the comeback of the
accounting career occurs as the number of business doctorates produced is at
a 17-year low and universities struggle to recruit new accounting
professors. That leaves many wondering who will be left to teach all the
new rules and regulations to the growing student pool. While many academic
fields are suffering from professor shortages, the issue is more acute in
accounting because of the pull toward high-paying public-accounting jobs. (Wall
Street Journal 2004)
QUOTATION FROM PAGES 115-117 Table 1 details the estimated demand for new
accounting faculty for the academic years 2005-08 at the three types of schools
by rank. We estimated that program leaders expected to hire 1,174 new
accounting faculty in 2005-06. However, new doctoral graduates represent only
30.0 percent of the faculty demand for 2005-06. The demand for experienced
Ph.D.s. (Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors) represents 35.5 percent of
the total, and it remains at about the same level for the subsequent two years.
Demand for faculty whose primary responsibility is teaching (whether or not they
have a doctoral degree) amounts to 36.6 percent of the total faculty demand.
When viewed at the school-category level, 56.0 percent of the "teaching only"
faculty are expected to be hired by Undergrad Schools.
Table 2 shows sample responses indicating
the number of faculty expected to be hired for each specialty, by both type of
school and year. The number of teachers that the three types of schools expect
to hire within each teaching specialty differs substantially. While financial
accounting is the specialty in highest demand across all three types of schools,
it is in highest relative demand for the Ph.D. Schools, with 40.3 percent of
their expected hiring in financial accounting. Master's Schools have a somewhat
more balanced approach to hiring across specialties and have the highest demand
for tax and systems teaching. The category with the most surprising number of
anticipated hires is the multiple-specialty category. Table 2 indicates that
the Master's and Undergrad Schools expect approximately one-fourth of their new
Ph.D.s hires to teach in multiple areas. The results of the Ph.D. program
directors' survey found that none of the students are preparing themselves for
multiple teaching specialties. When asked about hiring strategies, Master's
Schools had a strong preference for hiring to meet specific teaching needs,
while schools in the other two categories showed a slight tendency to recruit
the best candidate regardless of specialization.
TABLE 1
Estimated Accounting Faculty Demand for the Academic Year 2005-06
and the Subsequent Two Years, 2006-07 and 2007-08
2006 and 2007
2005
Ph.D.
Master's
Undergrad
Only
2005
Totals
Ph.D.
Master's
Undergrad
2006 and
2007
Totals
New
Ph.D.
74
186
92
352
30.0%
99
342
149
590
42.6%
Experienced
Assistant
Associate
Full Professor
36
31
21
131
46
25
57
46
0
224
123
46
19.1%
10.5%
3.8%
28
30
6
150
52
49
115
11
11
293
93
66
21.2%
6.7%
4.8%
Teaching only
Ph.D./ABD
Other
12
26
22
128
92
149
126
303
10.7%
25.9%
13
28
8
98
80
115
101
241
7.3%
17.4%
TOTAL
200
538
436
1174
100.0%
204
699
481
1384
100.0%
TABLE 2
Anticipated Demand for Teaching Specialties among
New Ph.D.s Hires for 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2007-08 Academic Years
Ph.D. Schools
Master's Schools
Undergrad Schools
2005
2006
2007
Total
Percent
of Total
2005
2006
2007
Total
Percent
of Total
2005
2006
2007
Total
Percent
of Total
Audit
11
8
1
19
12.3%
19
11
10
40
10.7%
1
4
0
5
10.6%
Cost
14
9
8
23
14.9%
15
22
16
53
14.2%
3
4
2
9
19.2%
Financial
31
31
20
62
40.3%
44
38
19
101
27.0%
9
5
1
15
31.9%
Tax
8
4
4
12
7.8%
21
13
9
43
11.5%
2
0
1
3
6.4%
Systems
4
4
1
8
5.2%
13
11
12
36
9.6%
1
0
0
1
2.1%
Multiple
14
10
8
24
15.6%
31
29
31
91
24.3%
5
6
2
13
27.7%
Other
5
1
4
6
3.9%
5
1
4
10
2.7%
0
1
0
1
2.1%
154
100.0%
374
100.0%
6
47
100.0%
QUOTATION FROM PAGES 118-120 We estimate a total of 141 students will earn their
Ph.D.s in 2005-06, 145 in 2006-07, and 187 in 2007-08. Since some attrition in
student numbers is likely, the supply may be overestimated for later years. As
shown in Table 3, 234 out of 391 students described in the responses (59.8
percent) have financial accounting as their teaching specialty. The two
identifiable specialties with the fewest students are auditing and tax with 7.4
percent and 5.9 percent of the students, respectively.
TABLE 3
Ph.D. Program Director's Estimates of the Number of Current Ph.D. Students
in Various
Teaching Specialties Extrapolated to the Population of Schools with Ph.D.
Programs
Sample Responses
Estimated Number of
Ph.D.s Graduating
1st yr
2nd yr
3rd yr
4th yr
5th yr
Sample
Totals
Est.
Pop.a
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
Audit
9
6
4
8
2
29
49
7
12
8
Financial
37
62
45
52
38
234
396
91
85
108
Cost
8
13
18
17
11
67
113
27
29
37
Systems
11
10
8
5
3
37
63
8
10
19
Tax
4
4
7
5
3
23
39
8
9
14
Other
0
1
0
0
0
1
2
0
0
1
Totals
69
96
82
87
57
391
662
141
145
187
a A linear extrapolation from the
sample of 49 respondents to the population of 83 schools with accounting
Ph.D. programs.
Estimated Shortages
One of the Committee's most critical tasks
was to estimated the shortage of new Ph.D.-qualified faculty members. Using the
data collected from both the accounting program leaders and the Ph.D. program
directors, we estimated the shortages in each teaching specialty--as well as
overall shortages--by combining the program directors' estimates of students
graduating and the accounting program leaders' estimates of the number they need
to hire. The shortages were estimated by taking the percentage demanded by
specialty from the sample and multiplying those percentages by the estimated
total supply of new Ph.D.-qualified faculty for two periods: (1) 2005-06 and (2)
2006-08. For example, in Table 4, the demand for 43 new auditing Ph.D.s in
2005-06 is found by taking the percentage demanded for the audit specialty (12.3
percent as shown in Table 2) reported by the department heads who do hiring and
multiplying that percentage by the estimated total supply of new Ph.D.s (352) in
that year (shown in Table 4).
Table 4 shows that, across all specialties
for 2005-08, the overall supply of new accounting faculty is only 49.9 percent
of the number demanded. Focusing just on the shortages estimated for 2005-06,
the supply for every specialty falls short of the demand. The two categories
with the greatest shortages are multiple specialties and the "other" category,
estimated to have none of their demand met.4 Nonetheless, we must acknowledge that many Ph.D. students will be
expected to teach across specialties when they assume their first faculty
position. Financial accounting will have 79.1 percent of its demand met. Tax
will have only eight students graduating and auditing will only have seven,
which is only 18.6 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively, of the expected
demand for 2005-06. Looking at the subsequent two years, shortages remain
across all specialties; however, these shortages are less severe in most cases.
Figure 1 shows that over the three-year
period 2005-2008, we expect substantial variation across specialties in the
proportion of demand met. As before, the "multiple" and the "other" categories
fall well short in percentage terms. For the "other" category, the
characteristics of the faculty members demanded and the students being supplied
are unlikely to match. In the more defined specialties, graduate candidates are
expected to supply only 27.1 percent of the tax faculty and 22.8 percent of the
audit faculty demand, viewed cumulatively over the three years. On the other
hand, graduates interested in teaching financial accounting almost reach the
level demanded (91.6 percent). These shortages need to be considered with
respect to the significant demand for experienced Ph.D.s; this demand can only
be met in the short run by faculty moving from one school to another, creating
more demand to replace those faculty members.
4 Note, however, that the program directors were not given
multiple specialties as a reporting option and "other" may have been perceived
as too vague an option.
TABLE 4
Estimates of the Excess or Shortage of the Supply of New Ph.D.-Qualified
Accounting Faculty Relative to the
Demand the Three Academic Years 2005-2008
Estimates for 2005-06
Estimates for 2006-08
Cumulative
Demand
Supply
Excess
(Shortage)
Percent of Demand
Met
Demand
Supply
Excess
(Shortage)
Percent of
Demand
Met
Cumulative
Excess
(Shortage)
Percent of
Demand
Met
Audit
43
7
(36)
16.4%
71
19
(52)
26.6%
(88)
22.8%
Cost
44
27
(17)
61.4%
74
66
(8)
89.5%
(25)
79.0%
Financial
115
91
(24)
79.1%
194
192
(2)
99.2%
(26)
91.6%
Tax
43
8
(35)
18.6%
71
23
(48)
32.3%
(83)
27.1%
Systems
25
8
(17)
31.9%
41
29
(12)
69.9%
(29)
55.7%
Multiple
69
0
(69)
0.0%
115
0
(115)
0.0%
(184)
0.0%
Other
13
0
(13)
0.0%
24
1
(23)%
2.3
(36)
1.4%
TOTALS
352
141
(211)
40.0%
590
330
(260)
55.9%
(471)
49.9%
QUOTATION FROM PAGE 125 Diversifying Training across Teaching Specialties
The Committee believes the dire shortages
in tax and audit areas warrant particular focus. One possible solution to these
specific shortages is for Ph.D. programs to create new tracks targeted toward
developing high-quality faculty specifically in these areas. These tracks
should be considered part of a well-rounded Ph.D. program in which students
develop specialized knowledge in one area of accounting, but gain substantive
exposure to other accounting research areas. In addition, Master's Schools that
do not currently offer a doctorate could develop accounting doctoral programs
that support tax and audit education as part of an overall doctoral program.
A possible explanation for the shortages
in these areas is that Ph.D. students perceive that publishing audit and tax
research in top accounting journals is more difficult, which might have the
unintended consequence of reducing the supply of Ph.D.-qualified faculty to
teach in those specialties. Given that promotion and tenure requirements at
major universities require publication in to-tier journals, students are likely
drawn to financial accounting in hopes of getting the necessary publications for
career success. While the Committee has no evidence that bears directly on this
point, it believes that the possibility deserves further consideration.
CONCLUSIONS
The Committee has uncovered some valuable
information about the nature of the demand for accounting faculty, the state of
Ph.D. programs, and perceptions of current accounting Ph.D. students. While
there is surely some estimation error in determining the existence of a shortage
of new accounting faculty, it is clear that particularly in the tax and auditing
teaching specialties a shortage exists. At this point there is neither an
organized strategy to recruit more accounting Ph.D. students, nor is it evident
that current accounting Ph.D. programs have the capacity to absorb additional
students. Despite the Committee's efforts, many questions and a great deal of
work remain to be done in areas such as developing sources of information useful
in recruiting new accounting Ph.D. students and developing creative ways to
lower the costs to students of getting a Ph.D. and the costs to schools of
offering doctoral programs. Assuring an adequate supply of qualified accounting
faculty in the future will require broad and dedicated efforts by Ph.D.-granting
schools, the AAA, and other entities with a vested interest in the academic
accounting profession.
Jensen Opinions
Although the reasons for the decline in doctoral students
in accountancy are very complex, Bob Jensen's opinion is that the leading factor
is that virtually all accountancy programs in the U.S. stripped most accounting
courses from these programs in the shift toward mathematics, statistics,
econometrics, finance, sociometrics, and psychometrics. In some programs the
doctoral studies courses are not even taught in the business school. Students
with high aptitudes and professional experience in accounting are discouraged
from entering into doctoral programs unless they want to become economists or
other social scientists.
It is also Bob Jensen's opinion that accountancy doctoral
programs became social science programs due to the positivism biases of top
accounting research journals that forced positivism research methods on
virtually all accounting faculty seeking to publish in those leading journals.
See
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
PG. #390 NONAKA The chapter argues that building the
theory of knowledge creation needs to an epistemological and ontological
discussion, instead of just relying on a positivist approach, which has been
the implicit paradigm of social science. The
positivist rationality has become identified with analytical thinking that
focuses on generating and testing hypotheses through formal logic. While
providing a clear guideline for theory building and empirical examinations,
it poses problems for the investigation of complex and dynamic social
phenomena, such as knowledge creation. In positivist-based research,
knowledge is still often treated as an exogenous variable or distraction
against linear economic rationale. The relative lack of alternative
conceptualization has meant that management science has slowly been detached
from the surrounding societal reality. The understanding of social systems
cannot be based entirely on natural scientific facts. Ikujiro Nonaka as quoted at Great Minds in Management: The Process
of Theory Development ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
Leading accounting research journal biases for accountics in the past three
decades illustrate the process of Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaftwhere the "process eventually
went too far." The
Heck and Jensen (2006) paper is highly supportive of President Judy
Rayburn's TAR Diversity Initiative. This is important not only for improved
accounting research, it's important for expanded curricula of doctoral programs
that more closely align academe with the accounting profession much in the same
way that schools of law and medicine are aligned with their practicing
professions.
For the good of the
AAA membership and the profession of accountancy in general, one hopes that the
changes in publication and editorial policies at TAR proposed by President
Rayburn will result in the “opening up” of topics and research methods produced
by "leading scholars." I might add that Paul Williams at North Carolina State
University is a long-time advocate of such changes, and I thank Paul for some
helpful input to the early stages of the Heck and Jensen paper.
An "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and practitioners to
actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR) Diversity
Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President Judy
Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Rigor in accounting doctoral programs has resulted in a critical shortage
leading to more non-doctoral instructors of accounting in colleges nationwide.
"Teaching for the Love of It: The joy of being an educator—eight career
changers tell their stories," by Randy Myers, Journal of Accountancy,
June 2006 ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jun2006/myers2.htm
Once they earn their college degrees
and embark on careers, many CPAs are perfectly happy never to see the inside
of a classroom again. But others can’t wait to return. What happens when
they follow their hearts and minds back to campus? To find out, we
interviewed eight professionals—seven CPAs and one tax attorney—who gave up
successful business careers in favor of academia. Some moved directly into
the classroom and are now teaching as professionally qualified faculty
(see “Emerging
Opportunities for Professionally Qualified Faculty”).
Others are students again, pursuing PhDs in accounting
with an eye toward becoming university professors. Still others have already
earned their PhDs and are working as senior faculty at some of the country’s
leading business schools, where they divide their time between teaching and
academic research. If you are considering a career in academia—or are simply
curious about how the other half lives—this article is for you.
This article reveals what
these eight professionals have come to learn, love and yes, question, about
academia. It shows the road to the academic life has many forks, which can
be pursued at almost any stage of a career in accounting. And it shows that
even more than in the business world, CPAs in academia can tailor their
careers to match their own interests and objectives.
Supply and Demand
Over the next three years, U.S. and
Canadian universities will try to hire 942 new PhDs.
Unfortunately, the number of graduates available to fill those
slots is expected to total only 621.
Source: American Accounting
Association.
Jensen Comment
Keep in mind that this does not mean that shortages are equally spread across
all education programs. Some programs face far more difficulties than others for
a variety of reasons. For example, some educators just do not want to relocate
from Knee Deep, North Dakota to New York City and vice versa.
Property and Damage Costs of Schools
Something to consider in the design and implementation of AIS courses
From THEJournal Newsletter on June 28, 2006
Asset loss
and damage costs the average district nearly a quarter of a million
dollars a year. Larger districts lose even more, some topping $1.4
million in loss and damage annually. These are among the results of
a recent study of district asset management, conducted in
conjunction with Quality Education Data (QED). The study, which was
co-sponsored by Follett Software Co., provides a picture of how
districts manage their assets and the growing challenges they face.
Its findings illustrate the importance of the emerging category of
Educational Resource Management (ERM) solutions-products that
centralize the management of district resources. The study surveyed
479 district business managers, administrators and technology chiefs
in all 48 contiguous states. Respondents were asked about the
problems they faced in managing assets, and about the systems they
used to keep track of everything from laptops to band uniforms. They
were also asked to estimate the cost of loss, damage, and redundant
purchases of these assets. Other major findings of the study
included:
Investments in educational technology (primarily computer and AV
equipment) are among the assets most at risk, averaging more
than $80,000 in loss annually per district.
Districts that used manual tracking for computers reported a 41%
greater annual cost of loss/damage than those that used a
commercial asset tracking program, and 32% greater loss than
those that used a spreadsheet/database program.
Something remarkable and salutary happened in a
Manhattan courtroom this week: U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
upheld the logic and meaning of the Constitution's Due Process Clause and
the Sixth Amendment.
The case involves the Justice Department's
prosecution of 16 former KPMG executives, accused of having engineered
fraudulent tax shelters for their clients. We have our doubts about just how
"fraudulent" those shelters were, seeing that they were never banned by the
IRS, their legality was never tested in court, and KPMG stopped marketing
them long before the IRS listed them as suspect. The criminal trial will be
no slam dunk.
But the real whopper was the decision by KPMG to
stop paying the legal fees of its former executives, largely to satisfy the
requirements of the so-called Thompson memo. That 2002 document, written by
then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson amid corporate scandal fever,
laid out the measures that companies facing prosecution could take to
demonstrate cooperation and thereby avoid firm-wide indictment. Not wishing
to share the fate of bankrupted Arthur Andersen, KPMG complied with the
Thompson diktat and hung its executives out to dry while negotiating a
deferred prosecution accord.
Enter Judge Kaplan, who on Monday delivered a
scathing 83-page rebuke of the government's case. Noting that Constitutional
rights to a fair trial and competent counsel were at stake here, he went on
to limn a third principle, "not of constitutional dimension," but "very much
a part of American life." To wit:
"Bus drivers sued for accidents, cops sued for
allegedly wrongful arrests, nurses named in malpractice cases, news
reporters sued in libel cases, and corporate chieftains embroiled in
securities litigation generally have [the right] to have their employers pay
their legal expenses." By holding "the proverbial gun to [KPMG's] head" with
the threat of a company-wide indictment, the Judge wrote, the government had
used the company as a proxy to violate the defendants' rights.
The 16 defendants must still contend with the
charges of the indictment. But with KPMG now required to foot their legal
bills, at least they don't face the bleak choice between financial ruin or
copping a plea. As for the Justice Department, now is the time for Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales to reinterpret, or better yet rewrite, those parts
of the Thompson memo that his too-zealous prosecutors have been using in
violation of defendants' due process rights.
A Break Lurks in College Tuition If you're writing a college-tuition check this summer,
there may be a backdoor way to deduct a chunk of the payment that's perfectly
legal yet utterly underutilized. The trick is to make a contribution to your
state's "529" college-savings plan, as long as it's one of the 26 states (plus
the District of Columbia) that give you a tax deduction or credit when you
deposit money. Then, simply withdraw the money and use it to pay the college
bill. Veteran users of 529 plans know all about the state tax breaks. But plenty
of others don't -- and could benefit from the quick in-and-out. "This makes a
lot of sense for wealthy people who don't need to save," says tax partner
Bernard S. Kent of PricewaterhouseCoopers, who has advised both individuals and
savings plans.
Ron Lieber, "A Break Lurks in College Tuition: Some '529' Plans Offer
Underused Move For Tax Deductions," The Wall Street Journal, June 10,
2006; Page B1 ---
Click Here
"Efficient Markets The Welfare of American Investors," by Henry G. Manne, The
Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2006; Page A16 ---
Click Here
Behavioral finance, a
developing field of academic research that emphasizes investor
irrationality (and ignorance) and the inefficiency of markets, has been
hailed by defenders of the SEC as offering a solid economic
rationalization for our vast scheme of federal securities regulations.
Even apart from the obvious implications for the regulatory system of
ignorance and irrationality on the part of regulators, a closer
examination of the logic of behavioral finance leaves little for the
pro-regulation crowd to crow about.
Initially, behavioral finance emerged
as an academic antidote to a claim of substantial market perfection in the
finance field, the well-known "efficient market" theory of stock prices.
Numerous "anomalies" or irrationalities were discovered in the market for
securities, such as various kinds of over- or under-reactions to new
information, herding behavior, endowment effects, January effects, weekend
effects, small-firm or distressed-firm effects, bubbles and crashes -- to
name a few.
Faulty Data
Most of these alleged peculiarities
proved in time to be far less anomalous than was first thought. The data on
which they were based were often faulty, or the econometric models were
measuring the wrong thing, or various kinds of relevant transactions costs
were ignored. The effects of irrational or uninformed behavior were often
canceled out by opposite forces, and much of it was simply irrelevant.
Furthermore, the behavioralists did not -- and do not -- have a general
theory that can explain why financial markets work as well as they do. Some
close approximation of the efficient market theory is still the most
accurate and useful model of the stock market that we have.
Still, some of the behavioralists'
criticisms stuck, especially in regard to crashes and bubbles, events that
arguably should not occur in perfectly efficient markets. In this connection
the efficient market theorists had no choice but to reexamine and refine
their own models, which they have now done with some success. Perhaps the
most important behavioralist contribution to economics has been their
reminder that the market-model claim of rationality often does not comport
with actual human behavior.
Economists frequently failed to
qualify economic pronouncements as being limited in application to aggregate
behavior. Too many assumed that if markets in the aggregate behave
rationally, it must be because the "marginal" participant -- the trader who
has the correct information about what a price should be -- was himself a
perfectly rational maximizer. This better-informed and rational trader would
always arbitrage away any discrepancies from efficiency that a market
displayed.
But there is a vast difference
between economics and psychology, and we can thank the behavioralists for
forcing economics back into its correct posture of dealing with aggregate
behavior. We can also thank the behavioralists for demonstrating that the
marginal trader/arbitrage theory cannot explain all price formation, since
we have no way, a priori, of knowing that this hypothetical
individual will be rational. Nor can we any longer assume that the
arbitrageur (apart from a purchaser of 100% of the securities of a given
company) will have all the information necessary to set the correct price.
That discovery left a serious gap in
economic theory. The efficient market mavens were indeed correct in their
conclusions about aggregate market behavior -- but how could they explain
this near perfection of functioning markets while irrational and
less-than-fully informed individuals (so-called "noise" traders) were known
to abound?
Traditional economics did contain the
start of an answer to this question, most notably in F.A. Hayek's classic
"The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945). There, Hayek (addressing the
then-pressing problem of countering socialist doctrine) made the astute
observation that centralized or socialist planning can never be economically
efficient because it was impossible for a central planner to accumulate all
the information needed for correct economic decisions ("correct" in the
sense of displaying efficient market allocations of goods). The critical
information, he noted, is too scattered in bits and pieces throughout the
population ever to be assembled in one person's mind (or computer). Diffused
markets, on the other hand, function well because the totality of relevant
information, even subjective preferences, can be aggregated through the
price mechanism into a correct market valuation.
This insight of Hayek's has been a
mainstay of market theory ever since it was advanced, but it remains merely
an observation and a conclusion. It does not detail how new information gets
so effectively impacted into the prices of goods and services. In other
words, how does this "weighted averaging" get done? And why should we assume
that the impact of rational participants would dominate that of irrational
ones in markets?
Similarly, the efficient market
theory was based almost entirely on empirical observations and did not offer
a theory of how the market came to be so efficient. Subsequent literature
examined the mechanisms of market efficiency (including insider trading),
but these were again observational and descriptive works that did not even
recognize the absence of a good theory of how new information gets properly
integrated into a price. The implicit and often explicit theory of price
formation was always the "arbitrage" notion, with the marginal trader
calling the shots.
Enter now financial journalist James
Suroweicki and his charming and insightful book, "The Wisdom of Crowds"
(2004). The book opens with the story of a contest at a county fair in
England in 1906 to guess the weight of an ox on display after slaughter and
dressing. There were about 800 guesses entered in the contest both by
knowledgeable people and by those who had no expertise in such matters. We
are not told what the winning guess was, but we are told that the average of
all the guesses (1,197 pounds) was virtually identical to the actual weight
(1,198 pounds).
Similar results show up regularly in
the relatively new use of so-called "prediction" or "virtual" markets,
primarily employed today in predicting outcomes of political elections,
sporting events, new product introductions or new movies. Though there are
still some problems with the technique, these "markets" have proved in the
main to be much more accurate than traditional interview polls. And these
various illustrations of the wisdom of crowds suggest a solution to the
problem of how correct prices are formed in financial markets beset by
irrational and poorly informed traders.
* * *
Weighted-average results are similar
to "correct prices," since informed investors can be assumed to invest more
money if their confidence in the validity of their information -- or the
intensity of their desire for the product -- is higher, thus imparting a
weighted average element to each price. And while the actual weight of an ox
is a more objective measure than the "correct" price of a security, the main
difference may be between a static and a dynamic figure with the "correct
price" of a stock being a kind of moving target.
The literature on prediction markets
makes clear that the more participants in a contest and the better informed
they are, the more likely is the weighted average of their guesses to be the
correct one. That is true, ironically, even though the additional
participants have even less knowledge than the earlier ones. The only
requirements for these markets to work well are that the various traders be
diverse and that their judgments be independent of one another. Clearly,
there is still a lot more work of a statistical and mathematical nature to
be done before the idea of the wisdom of crowds is turned into a
full-fledged theory of price formation, but at least we have identified the
problem and made a start towards a solution.
'Wisdom of Crowds'
The implications of what we already
know of this "wisdom of crowds" approach to price formation, as against the
traditional marginal pricing/arbitrage approach, are apt to be startling. We
should rethink any current policies based on a view of pricing in which we
exclude the best-informed traders and discard the wisdom of the many. For
instance, we now have a new and more powerful argument than we had in the
past for legalizing most insider or informed trading.
Since such trading clearly makes the
market process work more efficiently, it aids capital allocation decisions
and informs business executives through market-price feedback of the best
predictions about the value of new plans. Furthermore, the Supreme Court's
"fraud on the market" theory of civil liability under the federal securities
laws and Congress's ideas of correct civil damage claims for insider trading
no longer have any intellectual merit. The same is true of any other part of
our securities laws implicitly based on the notion of the marginal trader as
a rational arbitrageur of price.
The new approach would suggest that
it is undesirable to have laws discouraging stock trading by anyone who has
any knowledge relevant to the valuation of a security. Thus, assembly-line
workers, administrative assistants, office boys, accountants, lawyers,
salespeople, competitors, financial analysts and, of course, corporate
executives (government officials are another story) should all be encouraged
to buy or sell stocks based on any new information they might have. Only
those privately enjoined by contract or other legal duty from trading should
be excluded. The "wisdom of crowds" can do far more for the welfare of
American investors than all the mandated disclosures and insider trading
laws that the SEC and Congress can think up.
Mr. Manne, a resident of Naples, Fla., is dean emeritus
of George Mason University School of Law. This is the first of a two-part
series.
Jensen Comment
Henry Manne's theory might fly if so many insiders were not rotten to the core
with back dating of options and other exploitations of existing shareholders and
potential investors. Bob Jensen's threads on "Rotten to the Core" are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Deloitte's Concept of Pricing Options is Legally and Ethically
Questionable
(Recall that Deloitte is the Only Big 4 Firm that Did Not Sell its Consulting
Division)
So when new hires began complaining that the
company's volatile share price meant that colleagues who had arrived just
days earlier were receiving stock options worth thousands of dollars more,
Micrel executives moved to satisfy the troops. They raised with their
auditor, Deloitte & Touche, the idea of adopting a new options pricing
strategy similar to one that other tech companies, including Microsoft, used
at the time.
Instead of granting options at the market price on
a new employee's hire date, Micrel proposed setting the price at the lowest
point in the 30 days from when the grant was approved.
It seemed like an ideal solution. The 30-day window
could help Micrel attract and reward new hires on a more equal footing,
while helping to retain existing employees. And if it were extended up the
corporate ladder, the prospect of built-in gains and tax breaks, worth
millions of dollars, could enrich senior executives.
But the 30-day pricing method, which Micrel adopted
in mid-1996, was an aggressive move legally and financially. In hindsight,
it was also a major misstep.
Nearly five years later, Deloitte reversed its
opinion and urged Micrel to restate its financial reports. The Internal
Revenue Service came banging on its door. And today, Micrel and Deloitte are
passing blame back and forth in court.
Micrel is hardly the only firm ensnared in such a
mess. What began as a creative solution among a handful of technology firms
to address recruitment issues soon became common practice in Silicon Valley.
It appears the practice also became a way to enrich chief executives and
other top managers.
The result is a nationwide scandal with major
accounting, corporate governance, tax and disclosure ramifications. Dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of companies are caught up in a giant civil and criminal
law enforcement sweep by the Justice Department, the I.R.S. and the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
It is no coincidence that stock option abuses are
once again taking center stage in an unfolding scandal. The easy money that
options can rain down on recipients motivated many of the numbers games that
companies played with their quarterly earnings during the stock market boom,
leading to numerous accounting fraud prosecutions at Enron, WorldCom and
others.
In the latest scandal, companies seem to have
handed out stock options that were already "in the money" on the date of
grant, undermining the idea of using options as a pay-for-performance tool.
The practice appears to have been widespread from the early 1990's to 2002,
and possibly beyond.
Handing out in-the-money options is not illegal as
long as the grants are disclosed to shareholders. At the time, in-the-money
options had to be counted as an expense on the company's books. (New rules
now require companies to routinely deduct options as an expense.) Failure to
disclose or to deduct in-the-money options from income could lead to
securities fraud charges. And because such options do not qualify for tax
breaks once they are exercised, such grants raise tax fraud issues, too.
The Micrel case and others raise troubling
questions about how companies that were pushing the envelope of accounting
and tax practice were able to get the blessings of auditors and lawyers. And
the widening scandal reveals the extent to which boards of directors,
especially the compensation committees that approve option grants, may have
failed to do their jobs.
"It appears, from the S.E.C. and a number of
reports that are coming up daily, that there was a systemic problem at a lot
of companies," said Bradley E. Beckworth, a plaintiffs' attorney who has
filed one of the first class-action lawsuits against Brocade Communications
and KPMG, its auditor, for options backdating. "If these accounts turn out
to be true, you have to ask the question, Who was the gatekeeper here?"
Micrel, by most accounts, is one of the last
technology companies where one might expect to find problems. While the chip
manufacturer was one of the high-flying growth businesses of the 1990's, it
was different in several respects from most of the era's fledgling public
companies.
Its founder and longtime chief executive, Raymond
D. Zinn, a 68-year-old engineer, is a Mormon who calls honesty his guiding
rule. And unlike many of its technology rivals, Micrel's own profits, not
venture financing, fueled its growth until it went public in 1994.
But like many high-tech firms in the mid-1990's,
Micrel went on a hiring binge. The Bay Area was booming with opportunities
for ambitious people. Companies were growing at astronomical rates and
desperately needed talent to fill new jobs. And instead of higher salaries,
companies preferred to grant stock options to lure new employees.
Micrel, a company that had a few hundred employees
but was adding two or three new people a week, began facing a fairness
problem in its options awards in mid-1996.
When controversial options-timing
practices were rippling through U.S. companies during the late 1990s, why
didn't companies' own accounting systems spot anything odd?
Some clues can be found in the rise
of an especially popular piece of options-tracking software, known as
EquityEdge. Cheap and easy to use, it became a record-keeping backbone for
thousands of companies. It logged in details of each options grant, it
calculated their overall impact on a company's financial statements and it
generated filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But when EquityEdge was catching on a
decade or more ago, it didn't offer much in the way of audit-trail
capabilities aimed at spotting people tinkering with grant dates. Such
systems would have been costly, and clients weren't asking for them. As a
result, wrong or inconvenient data could be swept away while leaving hardly
a trace.
Now, the SEC is focusing on the possibility that
dozens of companies in the 1990s fiddled with options-grant dates so that
executives could get the right to purchase stock at unusually cheap prices.
Forensic accountants -- often hired by companies' independent directors --
are poring over EquityEdge databases, trying to see whether options grants
were done properly or whether companies might need to address irregularities
by restating earnings or paying additional taxes.
Ernest Ten Eyck, a forensic accountant based in
King of Prussia, Pa., who is a senior managing director at FTI Consulting
Inc., says his firm is reviewing at least 10 companies' historical
EquityEdge records as part of a detailed look into possible cases of options
backdating. What has been preserved is useful, he says, but not everything
he would like.
That is because older versions of EquityEdge were
designed to be simple and low-cost, he says, when it was assumed that no one
was trying to game the system. "If everyone had been playing it right," he
adds, "there would be no need for a lot of extra audit data."
EquityEdge got started in 1983 in Sunnyvale,
Calif., by Cheryl Breetwor. She had worked at a Silicon Valley company whose
efforts to handle stock-options accounting by hand got so badly snarled that
it was forced to amend its proxy statement one year. "I figured there had to
be a better way," she recalls. So she and a small team built EquityEdge as a
desktop software product and sold it for as little as $3,000 per corporate
customer. They named their company ShareData Inc.
ShareData's early clients included Microsoft Corp.
and Oracle Corp. ShareData also signed up some companies that have received
SEC inquiries about their options-timing practices, including Intuit Inc.,
KLA-Tencor Corp. and McAfee Inc. Representatives for all three client
companies declined to comment on those probes.
Ms. Breetwor sold ShareData to E*Trade Financial
Corp. in 1998 for about $35 million. She has since retired. But she remains
an enthusiastic supporter of Silicon Valley's pro-options culture, which
seeks to get more stock of fast-growing young companies into the hands of
both executives and rank-and-file employees. The current probes into
options-timing schemes amount to "a witch hunt," Ms. Breetwor contended in a
phone interview this week.
Ms. Breetwor also said that while ShareData tried
to educate its customers about the right ways to do options accounting, it
wasn't her job to opine on legal issues or to flag regulators if she saw
variations in the ways customers were handling certain issues.
Vito Palmieri, head of Equity Administration
Solutions Inc., an options-software vendor in Pleasanton, Calif., says that
the routine annoyances of data-entry errors were a bigger concern a decade
ago. Glitches were common enough that customers wanted the freedom to revise
or rework numbers with little interference. "The ability to be flexible was
highly valued -- more so than auditability," Mr. Palmieri recalls.
Only after Sarbanes-Oxley legislation passed in
2002, tightening up corporate-governance requirements, did options-software
vendors start focusing on audit-related issues. Since then, vendors have
been retooling their programs so they can capture -- and highlight -- any
tinkering with options-grant terms, for whatever reason.
EquityEdge's new owner, E*Trade, is beefing up the
software to provide better auditing tools. Product manager Elizabeth Dodge
says that when EquityEdge 7.0 is launched near year end, it will record any
changes in individual options records and show which user made the change.
Rejiggering data without leaving clear traces will be essentially
impossible.
Similar changes have already been made to
options-software packages sold by Computershare Ltd.
"Our systems don't prevent people from backdating
options," says Gary Scrofani, a senior product manager at Computershare.
"But the audit tool provides a clear record if anyone wants to try it."
While the options-backdating probe is still in its
early days, inquiries in at least a half-dozen cases have led to executive
departures or pledges to restate earnings. Some maneuvers may be traceable
through options-tracking software; others may leave a paper trail only in
the boardroom, where executives' options grants are approved. And in some
cases, corporate lawyers say, ambiguous records may make it hard to tell
exactly how grant dates were established.
For all the software vendors' current vigilance,
their new changes amount to an attack on a problem that has largely been put
to rest by other means.
Sarbanes-Oxley now requires executive options to be
publicly disclosed within two business days of their granting. Under the old
system, options grants didn't need to be disclosed for weeks or even months
after they were made, creating much more maneuvering room for people wanting
to pick favorable grant dates, after the fact.
As the current options probes play out,
EquityEdge's founder, Ms. Breetwor, hopes that the uproar won't ruin stock
options' image. "Used appropriately, options are a wonderful thing," she
says. "Unfortunately, for some people, there came to be an expectation that
they would be rewarded if the stock went down, as well as up."
"The thing I think that is more problematic is there
have been some allegations that auditors knew about this and counseled their
clients to do it," said Joseph Carcello, director of research for the
corporate-governance center at the University of Tennessee. "If that turns out
to be true, they will have problems."
That question, frequently heard during financial
scandals earlier this decade, is being asked again as an increasing number
of companies are being probed about the practice of backdating employee
stock options, which in some cases allowed executives to profit by
retroactively locking in low purchase prices for stock.
For the accounting industry, the question raises
the possibility that the big audit firms didn't live up to their watchdog
role, and presents the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the
regulator created in response to the past scandals, its first big test.
"Whenever the audit firms get caught in a situation
like this, their response is, 'It wasn't in the scope of our work to find
out that these things are going on,' " said Damon Silvers, associate general
counsel at the AFL-CIO and a member of PCAOB's advisory group. "But that
logic leads an investor to say, 'What are we hiring them for?' "
Others, including accounting professionals, aren't
so certain bookkeepers are part of the problem. "We're still trying to
figure out what the auditors needed to be doing about this," said Ann Yerger,
executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a trade group.
"We're hearing lots of things about breakdowns all through the
professional-advisor chains. But we can't expect audit firms to look at
everything."
One pressing issue: Should an auditor have had
reason to doubt the veracity of legal documents showing the grant date of an
option? If not, it is tough for many observers to see how auditors could be
held responsible for not spotting false grant dates.
"I don't blame the auditors for this," said Nell
Minow, editor of The Corporate Library, a governance research company. "My
question is, 'Where were the compensation committees?' "
To sort out the issue, the PCAOB advisory group --
comprising investor advocates, accounting experts and members of firms --
last week suggested the agency provide guidance to accounting firms on
backdating of stock options. A spokeswoman for the board said, "We are
looking to see what action they may be able to take."
To date, more than 40 companies have been put under
the microscope by authorities over the timing of options issued to top
executives. Federal authorities are investigating whether companies that
retroactively applied the grant date of options violated securities laws,
failed to properly disclose compensation and in some cases improperly stated
financial results. A number of companies have said they will restate
financial statements because compensation costs related to backdated options
in questions weren't properly booked.
All of the Big Four accounting firms --
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, KPMG LLP and Ernst &
Young LLP -- have had clients implicated. None of these top accounting firms
apparently spotted anything wrong at the companies involved. One firm,
Deloitte & Touche, has been directly accused of wrongdoing in relation to
options backdating. A former client, Micrel Inc., has sued the firm in state
court in California for its alleged blessing of a variation of backdating.
Deloitte is fighting that suit.
The big accounting firms haven't said whether they
believe there was a problem on their end. Speaking at the PCAOB advisory
group's recent meeting, Vincent P. Colman, U.S. national office professional
practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said his firm was taking the
issue "seriously," but more time is needed "to work this through" both
"forensically" and to insure this is "not going to happen going forward."
Robert J. Kueppers, deputy chief executive at
Deloitte, said in an interview: "It is one of the most challenging things,
to sort out the difference in these [backdating] practices. At the end of
the day, auditors are principally concerned that investors are getting
financial statements that are not materially misstated, but we also have
responsibilities in the event that there are potential illegal acts."
While the Securities and Exchange Commission has
contacted the Big Four accounting firms about backdating at some companies,
the inquiries have been of a fact-finding nature and are related to specific
clients rather than firmwide auditing practices, according to people
familiar with the matter. Class-action lawsuits filed against companies and
directors involved in the scandal haven't yet targeted auditors.
Backdating of options appears to have largely
stopped after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-reform law in
2002, which requires companies to disclose stock-option grants within two
days of their occurrence.
Backdating practices from earlier years took a
variety of forms and raised different potential issues for auditors. At
UnitedHealth Group Inc., for example, executives repeatedly received grants
at low points ahead of sharp run-ups in the company's stock. The insurer has
said it may need to restate three years of financial results. Other
companies, such as Microsoft Corp., used a monthly low share price as an
exercise price for options and as a result may have failed to properly book
an expense for them.
At the PCAOB advisory group meeting, Scott Taub,
acting chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said
there is a "danger that we end up lumping together various issues that
relate to a grant date of stock options." Backdating options so an executive
can get a bigger paycheck is "an intentional lie," he said. In other
instances where there might be, for example, a difference of a day or two in
the date when a board approved a grant, there might not have been an intent
to backdate, he added.
"The thing I think that is more problematic is
there have been some allegations that auditors knew about this and counseled
their clients to do it," said Joseph Carcello, director of research for the
corporate-governance center at the University of Tennessee. "If that turns
out to be true, they will have problems."
Deep in the weeds of Turtle Bay, U.S. Ambassador
John Bolton has been hacking a path toward United Nations reform -- an
effort about as fraught as Marlow's quest for Captain Kurtz in Conrad's
"Heart of Darkness," and no less horrifying.
But here's the good news: Two reports, released
late last month by Congress's Government Accountability Office, are shedding
light on how the U.N. mismanages its procurement and auditing functions.
U.N. bureaucrats may be trying to downplay the findings, but the rest of us
should pay attention.
Consider procurement. Thanks to various Oil for
Food investigations, we learned that Alexander Yakovlev, a middle-ranking
U.N. procurement officer, siphoned $1 million in bribes from $79 million
worth of U.N. contract work. Mr. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to
three counts of fraud and money laundering last August.
But that's just the beginning. In January,
Secretary General Kofi Annan placed eight top procurement officials on
special leave, pending investigations by the U.N. and U.S. One of these
officials is Sanjaya Bahel, former head of the U.N.'s Commercial Activities
Services as well as its Post Office. Among other charges, Mr. Bahel, who
also worked for the Indian Defense Ministry while at the U.N., is alleged to
have improperly steered U.N. peacekeeping contracts to several Indian
companies, one of them government-owned.
Also in January, the U.N.'s Office of Internal
Oversight Services conducted an audit of U.N. peacekeeping procurement, the
value of which has quadrupled over the last decade to $1.6 billion. The
Office found that $110 million worth of expenditures had "insufficient"
justification; another $61 million bypassed U.N. procedures; $82 million had
been lost to various kinds of mismanagement; close to $50 million in
contracts had shown indications of "bid rigging"; and $7 million were
squandered through overpayment. That's a total of more than $300 million.
Senior U.N. management has responded with denial:
"Not a penny was lost from the organization," insists Deputy Secretary
General Mark Malloch Brown. But that point is hard to credit in light of the
GAO's findings. Among them: The U.N. has set no training requirements for
its procurement staff; has no independent process to address vendor
protests; and has no internal mechanisms either to monitor procurement or
identify areas prone to fraud or mismanagement.
On auditing, too, corruption starts at the top:
Along with Mr. Yakovlev, the other U.N. official to have been recently
indicted in the U.S. for bribery is Vladimir Kuznetsov, formerly head of the
U.N.'s budget oversight committee. In theory, the oversight office is
supposed to be an independent agency. In practice, it relies for its funding
on the very U.N. agencies it is supposed to monitor and investigate.
The result, the GAO notes, is that "by denying OIOS
[oversight office] funding, U.N. entities could avoid OIOS audits or
investigations." A case in point was Benon Sevan's refusal to fund an audit
of the $100 billion Oil for Food program, which he administered and from
which he is alleged to have personally profited. That behavior is only
symptomatic of ongoing U.N. practices: Oversight officials tell GAO
investigators that they have "no authority to enforce payment for services
rendered and there is no appeal process, no supporting administrative
structure, and no adverse impact on an agency that does not pay or pays only
a portion of the bill."
There's more of this, and we urge readers to see
for themselves at www.gao.gov. Meantime, it would help if the Bush
Administration paid more than lip service to holding the world body to
account, not least by holding up its U.N. dues until meaningful reform is
achieved. Until that happens, the world body will continue to breed
corruption without remedy or consequence, in plain sight.
Fake Invoice Fraud The owner of the nation's largest computerized machine
tool maker was arrested yesterday morning at his California home and charged
with orchestrating a tax fraud that cost the government nearly $20 million as
well as intimidating witnesses and a federal agent investigating the case.Gene
F. Haas, 54, of Camarillo, Calif., the owner of Haas Automation and other
companies, was accused in a 52-page indictment of running a bogus invoicing
scheme to create fake tax deductions. Mr. Haas was held without bail after his
arraignment in Federal District Court in Los Angeles.
David Cay Johnston, "Executive Accused of Tax Fraud and Witness Intimidation,"
The New York Times, June 20, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/business/20tax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has
begun reviewing its guidance on one of the most complex areas of off-balance
sheet reporting, accounting for leases, Chairman Robert Herz told Forbes.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had requested that FASB review
off-balance sheet arrangements, special purpose entities and related issues
in a staff report issued in June 2005. The most prominent topics for review
were pension disclosure and accounting for leases.
Having issued its Exposure Draft to Improve
Accounting of Pensions and other Postretirement Benefits, FASB is now
considering moving lease obligations from the current footnote disclosure to
the balance sheet. But the sheer number of rules and regulations that relate
to leases – hundreds, according to Business Week – offers experts plenty of
opportunities to keep disclosure off the books and presents FASB with an
enormous challenge.
Companies are currently required to record future
lease obligations in a footnote, but actual rent payments are deducted in
quarterly income statements. Approximately 10 percent of leases are already
disclosed on the balance sheet as liabilities because the company can
purchase the equipment at the end of the lease, and therefore the lease is
treated as a loan, or because lease payments add up to 90 percent of the
value of the leased property.
Robert Herz says, according to Business Week, that
“cookie-cutter templates” have been created to design leases so that they
don’t add up to more than 89 percent of the value of the property. And to
add to the complexity, the AP says, if the contract describes a more
temporary rental-type arrangement, it can be treated as an operating lease
and recorded in the footnote.
Leasing footnotes do not reveal the interest
portion of future payments and require the analyst or investor to make
assumptions about the number of years over which the debt needs to be paid,
the AP says, as well as the interest rate the company will be paying. David
Zion, an analyst from Credit Suisse told the AP that many professionals
interpret the footnotes by multiplying a company’s annual rental costs by
eight.
Thomas J. Linsmeier, recently named a member of the
FASB, said that the current rule for accounting for leases needed to be
changed because it sets such specific criteria. “It is a poster child for
bright-line tests,” he said, according to the New York Times.
The SEC requested the review it said in a press
release because “the current accounting for leases takes an “all or nothing”
approach to recognizing leases on the balance sheet. This results in a
clustering of lease arrangements such that their terms approach, but do not
cross, “the bright lines” in the accounting guidance that would require a
liability to be recognized. As a consequence, arrangements with similar
economic outcomes are accounted for very differently.”
Finding a way to define a lease for accounting
purposes presents additional problems. Some accountants argue that since the
lessor does not own the property and cannot sell it, the property should not
be viewed as an asset, Business Week says. Others say that the promise to
pay a rent is equal to any other liability.
Of 200 companies reviewed by SEC staffers in 2005,
77 percent had off-balance-sheet operating leases, totaling about $1.25
trillion, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Among the companies with the biggest lease
obligations are Walgreen Co. with $15.2 billion, CVS Corp with $11.1 billion
and Fedex Corp. with $10.5 billion, the AP reports. Walgreens owns less that
one-fifth of its store locations and leases the rest. Fedex leases
airplanes, land and facilities.
Robert Herz, in an editorial response in Forbes to
Harvey Pitt, former SEC chairman, acknowledged that FASB’s current projects,
including the review of lease accounting, could generate controversy. But he
says that the complexity and volume of standards impedes transparency, and
that the FASB is working jointly with the IASB to develop more principles
based standards.
“Complexity has impeded the overall usefulness of
financial statements and added to the costs of preparing and auditing
financial statements – particularly for small and private enterprises – and
it is also viewed as a contributory factor to the unacceptably high number
of restatements,” Herz writes in Forbes.
Herz does not expect the new rules to be completed
before 2008 or 2009, Business Week says.
The Big Internet Pipelines Want to Rip Off Consumers
Forwarded by David Spener
"War On The Web Robert B. Reich," May 11, 2006
Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda
Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.
This week, the House
is expected to vote on something termed, in perfect Orwellian prose, the
"Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006." It will
be the first real battle in the coming War of Internet Democracy.
On one side are the companies that pipe the
Internet into our homes and businesses. These include telecom giants like
AT&T and Verizon and cable companies like Comcast. Call them the pipe
companies.
On the other side are the people and businesses
that send Internet content through the pipes. Some are big outfits like
Yahoo, Google and Amazon, big financial institutions like Bank of America
and Citigroup and giant media companies soon to pump lots of movies and TV
shows on to the Internet.
But most content providers are little guys. They’re
mom-and-pop operations specializing in, say, antique egg-beaters or Brooklyn
Dodgers memorabilia. They’re anarchists, kooks and zealots peddling all
sorts of crank ideas They’re personal publishers and small-time
investigators. They include my son’s comedy troupe—streaming new videos on
the Internet every week. They also include gazillions of bloggers—including
my humble little blog and maybe even yours.
Until now, a basic principle of the Internet has
been that the pipe companies can’t discriminate among content providers.
Everyone who puts stuff up on the Internet is treated exactly the same. The
net is neutral.
But now the pipe companies want to charge the
content providers, depending on how fast and reliably the pipes deliver the
content. Presumably, the biggest content providers would pay the most money,
leaving the little content people in the slowest and least-reliable parts of
the pipe. (It will take you five minutes to download my blog.)
The pipe companies claim unless they start charge
for speed and reliability, they won’t have enough money to invest in the
next generation of networks. This is an absurd argument. The pipes are
already making lots of money off consumers who pay them for being connected
to the Internet.
The pipes figure they can make even more money
discriminating between big and small content providers because the big guys
have deep pockets and will pay a lot to travel first class. The small guys
who pay little or nothing will just have to settle for what’s left.
The House bill to be voted on this week would in
effect give the pipes the green light to go ahead with their plan.
Price discrimination is as old as capitalism. Instead of charging everyone
the same for the same product or service, sellers divide things up according
to grade or quality. Buyers willing to pay the most can get the best, while
other buyers get lesser quality, according to how much they pay.
Theoretically, this is efficient. Sellers who also have something of a
monopoly (as do the Internet pipe companies) can make a killing.
But even if it’s efficient, it’s not democratic.
And here’s the rub. The Internet has been the place where Davids can take on
Goliaths, where someone without resources but with brains and guts and
information can skewer the high and mighty. At a time in our nation’s
history when wealth and power are becoming more and more concentrated in
fewer and fewer hands, it’s been the one forum in which all voices are
equal.
Will the pipe companies be able to end Internet
democracy? Perhaps if enough of the small guys make enough of a fuss,
Congress may listen. But don’t bet on it. This Congress is not in the habit
of listening to small guys. The best hope is that big content providers will
use their formidable lobbying clout to demand net neutrality. The financial
services sector, for example, is already spending billions on information
technology, including online banking. Why would they want to spend billions
more paying the pipe companies for the Internet access they already have?
The pipe companies are busily trying to persuade
big content providers that it’s in their interest to pay for faster and more
reliable Internet deliveries. Verizon’s chief Washington lobbyist recently
warned the financial services industry that if it supports net neutrality,
it won’t get the sophisticated data links it will need in the future. The
pipes are also quietly reassuring the big content providers that they can
pass along the fees to their customers.
Will the big content providers fall for it? Stay
tuned for the next episode of Internet democracy versus monopoly capitalism.
Hold on to your seats folks,
this one gets exciting! Definitely I^3!
It starts off so easy: Are
dividend policy and capital structure related? And if so how?
Surprisingly for two topics
that have been central to corporate finance for decades, we still really
do not have very good explanations to either.A new
paper by
Faulkender, Milbourn, and Thackor
attempts to solve both problems with a new theory that suggests not only
are dividends and debt related, and tied to investor uncertainty.
Moreover, it appears the theory actually fits the data!
Super short version:
When managers and shareholders agree on the things stock prices rise.Moreover, debt levels and dividend payout ratios drop.This key insight is shown both theoretically and empirically.
Longer version:
While often studied, capital structure and dividend policy have many
unanswered questions and none of our models fit the evidence very
well.Hence the need to new thinking on the matter and that is what by
Faulkender, Milbourn, and Thackor
have brought to the table (computer screen?) in
Does Corporate Performance Determine Capital
Structure and Dividend Policy?
A few quick look-ins:
“..troubling is the fact that existing
theories also do not explain why some firms never pay dividends
whereas others consistently do, why the payment of dividends seems
dependent on the firm’s stock price, and why there seem to be
correlations between firms’ capital structure and dividend
policy...We are thus left without a theory of dividends that squares
well with these stylized facts. The evidence on capital structure is
even more troubling.”
“In this paper, we address this question by
developing a fresh approach with a simple model that departs from
the usual agency and signaling stories. We assume that the manager
wishes to maximize a weighted average of the stock prices at the
initial and terminal points in time. At the initial point in time he
raises the funds needed for a future project with either debt or
equity, and thereby determines the firm’s capital structure.
Moreover, he also decides how large a dividend to promise to pay at
the next point in time. At the time that the manager makes his
financial policy choices, he is aware that investors may not agree
with his future project choice… project-choice disagreement arises
solely from potentially different beliefs about project value rather
than agency or private information problems."
* Their main point:
“higher agreement between the manager and the
investors implies a higher stock price, so the model predicts
leverage and dividend payout ratios to be inversely related to the
firm’s stock price."
After theoretically modeling the problems, the
authors empirically test their predictions and find strong support.
Again in their words:
"We find that firms for which there is greater
agreement (i.e., lower analyst forecast dispersion and greater
performance-based compensation) have significantly less debt in
their capital structure – as measured by either market or book
leverage, or interest coverage – and pay out a significantly smaller
fraction of the earnings in the form of dividends, measured using
both the dividend payout ratio and the dividend yield.”
Good stuff!!
You probably do want to read the whole thing on this one (indeed the
literature review (disguised in the introduction) is excellent and is
definitely understandable for even undergraduates!)
Cite: Faulkender, Michael W.,
Milbourn, Todd T. and Thakor, Anjan V., "Does Corporate Performance
Determine Capital Structure and Dividend Policy?"
(March
9, 2006).
Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=686865
An Interview with Jack Treynor
FEN = Financial Engineering News
Jack Treynor is one of the river gods of finance.
He helped develop the Capital Asset Pricing Model, which relates risk and
expected return, in the early 1960s and spearheaded the field of performance
measurement for investment funds. Over the decades Treynor’s reputation as a
fearless, maverick thinker who clears his own path into topics that catch
his interest has become legendary. Treynor developed a version of what
became the Capital Asset Pricing Model in 1962, before the 1964 publication
of William Sharpe’s paper laying out what became the CAPM. Treynor never
published his paper. John Lintner, an economist at Harvard Business School,
published a version of the CAPM in 1965. Sharpe won the 1990 Nobel Prize in
Economics for the development of the CAPM (he shared the prize with Harry
Markowitz and Merton Miller for contributions to financial economics).
In 1965 Treynor published “How to Rate Management
of Investment Funds” in the Harvard Business Review, the first paper to
spell out a method for evaluating the performance of money managers on a
risk-adjusted basis. Treynor had an early and profound influence on Fischer
Black, who, with Myron Scholes, developed the Black-Scholes option-pricing
model. (Scholes and Robert C. Merton won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for
developing a method to value options; Fischer Black was deceased by then.)
Treynor studied math at Haverford College and
received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1955. He worked at Arthur D.
Little in Boston from 1956 to 1966, with a sabbatical year, 1962-63,
studying economics at MIT. In 1966 he was hired by Don Regan at Merrill
Lynch to start Wall Street’s first quantitative research group to help
clients measure systematic risk and specific risk in stocks. He stayed at
Merrill for three years. Treynor served as the editor of the Financial
Analysts Journal from 1969 to 1981, and has run Treynor Capital Management
since the mid-1980s. He has published more than 50 papers on a range of
investment topics and consistently produces papers that flout conventional
assumptions. In 1976 Treynor, William Priest and Patrick Regan wrote The
Financial Reality of Pension Funding under ERISA. Richard Vancil and Treynor
co-authored Machine Tool Leasing in 1956 while at Harvard Business School.
Treynor’s 1962 paper on the CAPM has long been one of the most widely
circulated unpublished papers in modern finance.
FEN: How did you get interested in finance? JT: I
went to a small college, Haverford College, in Philadelphia’s Main Line. My
real love was physics. The department at that time consisted of a man who
was about to retire and a young man who was blind — so blind that when he
went to blackboard to write an equation he’d hold the chalk in one hand and
with the other hand he’d keep a finger on the first point of the thing he
was writing to orient himself. I enjoyed both teachers, but thought this
would be a limited education in physics. Actually it would have been limited
to Newtonian physics. So I decided to major in math instead. Given that
fondness for the apparent precisions of physics and the experience with
math, maybe it was predictable that when I got exposed to the various skills
Harvard Business School was exposing its first-year students to, I was
probably more comfortable with the quantitative stuff.
FEN: What did your family think of your decision to
go to business school? JT: My dad was a doctor, his brother was a doctor and
their father was a doctor. My father was not sure about my qualifications or
my promise as a doctor. One day, during a summer vacation between my college
years when he had an operation, he invited me to come in and hold the head
of the patient while he operated on the patient’s head. You can imagine my
irrational reaction to that experience. I probably would have overcome this
by working with cadavers, but that experience was sufficiently negative for
me. I think I reacted the way my father expected and hoped I would react,
and that the experience would turn me away from medicine.
FEN: I’ve been reading Perry Mehrling’s book,
Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance. He says that Fischer
Black saw finance as fundamentally different from physics, with its fixed
laws of nature, and more like anthropology or psychology. Do you see finance
in a similar way? JT: I have a neighbor who teaches in the social sciences,
and he says that in the social sciences ideas progress one funeral at a
time. There are several economists I admire tremendously, but the relation
between economics and finance is peculiar. In my view economics today is
where physics was in the fifteenth century. Before Francis Bacon, before the
Royal Society, the main obstacle to progress in physics was academic – it
was the teachers who had a big investment in the way they had been taught to
think about the subject and couldn’t let go. That’s why the Keynesians and
monetarists can go on year after year disagreeing about the most fundamental
issues without ever finding any common ground to resolve those issues, and
it’s why Fischer couldn’t get published in economic journals.
FEN: Has that relationship improved in recent
years? JT: It’s gotten better but not much better. Professor Mehrling is one
of the few economists who take finance seriously. He’s not the only one.
Obviously Franco Modigliani did, Paul Samuelson did. You’d have to say James
Tobin did. In his way, John Lintner did. There are probably some important
people I’m overlooking. But these guys are a handful in a profession that
certainly numbers in the hundreds, even if you include only tenured
professors.
FEN: You came at the CAPM by way of corporate
finance. JT: At Harvard Business School I hadn’t begun to think about the
CAPM problem except that I was dissatisfied with the answer the finance
guys, especially the corporate finance guys, were giving me for the choice
of discount rate for evaluating long-term corporate projects. The notion of
using the company’s internal rate of return was clearly an idea that
isolated the company from the capital market.
After I graduated I stayed on to write cases for
Bob Anthony, who was an accounting professor. He sent me to manufacturing
companies to sit down with the accounting staff and write up a problem that
they had told Professor Anthony would make a good case. I’d come back with
my notes, and he reviewed them and we’d go from there. But the choice of
discount rates for projects never came up.
At Arthur D. Little I had two different kinds of
experience. I did a lot of work for senior people in the Operations Research
Group. There were some brilliant people there. The Management Services
Division had another, separate group called the Business Research Group,
which did more conventional management consulting for companies like Philco,
British Aircraft Corp. and Irish Sugar Company. Nobody said, “Hey Jack, we
brought you on this case to compute the present value of a plant proposal.”
In each case the business research people simply brought me in as the
finance guy.
FEN: Were you keeping abreast of academic papers
that were being published in finance? JT: The simple answer is no. But every
summer I visited my parents who were living on the western side of Iowa and
who tried to escape the summer heat by going to a little cabin in the Rocky
Mountains. I remember going down to the University of Denver to read the
1958 paper by Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller. It was then and still is
now a wonderful paper. It just thrilled me.
FEN: Did that paper have a direct impact on your
research? JT: I came back from that three-week vacation [in 1958] with 44
pages of mathematical notes on this problem of how to discount corporate
project proposals. After that I’d go into the office on Saturdays and
Sundays to work on it. There was almost nobody there and it was quiet.
FEN: Those 44 pages become your 1961 paper, “Market
Value, Time, and Risk,” right? JT: Yes. I think it was typed in 1960 but I’m
not certain.
FEN: Who did you first show the paper to? JT:
Probably John Lintner at Harvard. He was the only economist I knew, which is
why I gave him my paper. He didn’t give me any encouragement. I suppose my
paper seemed like a bunch of gobbledygook to John.
FEN: Eventually a colleague sent the paper to
Merton Miller, who sent it to Franco Modigliani. JT: Franco was hired by
MIT. Weeks or months after, he called me up and invited me to lunch. When we
met he said, “Merton Miller gave me your paper, I’ve read it and frankly you
need to study economics.” I accepted his assessment. I took a sabbatical
year from Little in 1962-1963. Franco chose the courses I was to take –
price theory, macroeconomics, econometrics, his course on capital theory,
and so on, and he chose the teachers for me.
He did one other thing that was an enormous favor
to me. He took my paper and broke it in two, and said from now on these are
two separate papers. He called the first paper “Toward a Theory of Market
Value of Risky Assets” (1962), which is kind of funny in the context of what
we discussed before, because that’s a social-sciencey title. The second
paper was called “Implications for the Theory of Finance” (1963). I
presented both in separate presentations to the finance faculty seminar in
MIT. The second paper was a failure. It wasn’t right. But the first paper
was the CAPM. So basically Franco rescued the part of paper that was valid
from the rest.
FEN: I know people who have dog-eared,
20th-generation copies of that 1962 paper. Why weren’t you more aggressive
about publishing it? JT: After I left MIT I went back to Little. About three
months later, I got a call from Franco. He said Sharpe was working on the
same subject and asked me to send Sharpe a draft copy of my paper. He did
the same with Sharpe, so we got a copy of each other’s paper. I thought that
if Sharpe was going to publish, what’s the point of my publishing my paper?
That represents my reaction then.
FEN: I’ve read that Franco Modigliani for his whole
life regretted not having encouraged you more and not seeing that paper for
what it was. JT: I’ve heard that too. We can look back now and talk about
the significance of the CAPM, but if it has any real significance, it wasn’t
evident at that time to anybody, so it’s not fair to Franco to have expected
that.
FEN: What was the significance of the paper for
you? JT: One thing I was trying to do in the original paper, which then
became two papers, was approach the problem for the plant with a 40-year
life by solving the problem for one year, then converting that solution into
a partial differential equation and taking that down to the instantaneous
limit; then I integrated that PDE, applying boundary conditions such as the
cash flows for the project and whatever variables they depended on. That was
the approach Black-Scholes later took to the option valuation problem – they
solved the one-period problem, derived a PDE, then integrated that out over
time to solve the finite time problem.
FEN: Looking back over the years, what’s most
interesting and most powerful about the CAPM you developed? JT: To me the
interesting thing about the CAPM is not the assumption I made about everyone
having the same information, but rather the general equilibrium — the fact
that the CAPM is a theory about risk-bearing that permits you and me to
apply the same theory without conflict. There’s no fallacy of composition in
applying the CAPM to decisions relating to investment risk. It may have
problems, but it doesn’t have that problem.
FEN: Did you initially see that as important? JT:
I’m sure I didn’t see that at the beginning.
FEN: How would you describe the differences between
your version of the CAPM and Sharpe’s and Lintner’s? JT: I can say some
things about how it looks to me. Bill came to the CAPM from his association
with Harry Markowitz and their emphasis on constructing portfolios using
linear programming. His CAPM quite understandably and predictably shows that
influence. Mine is comparatively simple and uncomplicated and doesn’t say
anything about linear programming. There are other differences between
Sharpe and me, but I don’t think they’re important.
Lintner’s paper apparently went through many
versions, and the final version introduces a sophistication that’s absent in
my paper and in Sharpe’s paper — namely, disagreement among investors.
Sharpe and I assumed that complexity away by attributing the same
information to all investors. According to Professor Mehrling’s book,
Lintner was uneasy with the idea of covariance and preferred the idea of
variance. I think it’s easy to forget the environment Lintner was working
in. Basically he was the only economist at Harvard Business School. The
ideas that people were coping with at the time included judging a new
project by using the company’s internal rate of return, which was dumb. If
Lintner had started talking about covariance with a market portfolio with
those guys, they wouldn’t have understood anything he was talking about and
he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.
FEN: What has been the main challenge to the CAPM?
JT: One of the challenges to the CAPM is the idea that the market factor is
not the only systematic factor in the market. However, the CAPM is utterly
silent on whether there’s one systematic factor in the market or two or
three or 10. The CAPM still holds if there are other systematic factors, but
it does say that if there are systematic factors they will have risk
premiums that are proportional to their covariance with the market
portfolio.
FEN: How does the arbitrage pricing theory of
Stephen Ross fit into this discussion of CAPM? JT: APT is a theory about
systematic factors. What is a systematic factor? It’s a factor that has a
big covariance with the market portfolio. But APT can’t get off the ground
without that definition of a systematic factor. You need CAPM to define
what’s systematic and what’s not. So APT is not a challenge to the CAPM. It
needs the CAPM.
FEN: How would you describe the different
approaches to thinking about problems you absorbed from Harvard Business
School and MIT? JT: Looking back and trying to understand the two
experiences, Harvard Business School was about seeing connections that other
people didn’t see, maybe even that your teachers didn’t see. MIT was about
learning. Without ever saying so explicitly, MIT was about learning abstract
truths that were useful and powerful. At HBS there was no abstraction at
all. The cases never required you to deal with abstractions; every case was
sui generis.
FEN: Would you say you veered more toward the MIT
approach? JT: I don’t know that that’s right. It certainly was a very
important influence on my life — the opportunity to get to know Franco and
the whole experience. I might have tended to say that Harvard Business
School was the greater influence.
FEN: After your MIT year, when you returned to
Arthur D. Little, you switched gears and focused on investment management
issues. JT: My boss by then was Martin Ernst. Ernst called me up and said,
ADL just spent a considerable amount of money on your sabbatical when you
were at MIT. Is there anything in this stuff you’re working on that has any
commercial value? I went away and came back with a list after a couple days.
He went down this quite short list of four or five items and his finger
stopped at performance measurement. He said, “Show me you can actually do
something on this one, on performance measurement.” So I went away for a
couple more days again and came back with a proposal. That became my first
Harvard Business Review paper in 1965, called “How to Rate Management of
Investment Funds.” My second Harvard Business Review paper was called “Can
Mutual Funds Outguess the Market?” (1966). It was co-authored with Kay Mazuy,
a statistics expert at Little.
FEN: You overlapped with Fischer Black for a year
and a half at ADL. How did you meet? JT: He didn’t get there until 1965.
This is embarrassing but I can’t remember how we met. Maybe Fischer walked
into my office, introduced himself and said, “Hey I’m the new boy, what do
you do?” That would be possible. Maybe we met at the lunch table.
FEN: How did your relationship develop? Did you
become friends? JT: We never worked on a case together at Little. He was
working on stuff when he first arrived that was unrelated to my interests in
risk management and performance measurement. But I was interested in telling
people about the two Harvard Business Review papers, and Fischer showed a
lot more interest than anybody else. By the time I left for Merrill Lynch in
New York we were certainly friends. After I left, Ernst eventually gave my
casework to Fischer. We had a lot of phone conversations between Boston and
New York.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting
Weekly Review on June 2, 2006
TITLE: Tribune's Response to the News Blues: a Buyback
REPORTER: Sarah Ellison and Dennis K. Berman
DATE: May 31, 2006
PAGE: A3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114900492721266404.html TOPICS:
Accounting, Asset Disposal, Bonds, Financial Accounting, Stock Price Effects
SUMMARY: This article introduces many topics in corporate restructuring,
debt-to-equity ratios, and treasury stock transactions
QUESTIONS:
1.) Why is Tribune Co. planning to nearly double the amount of debt is has
outstanding? Are you surprised by the expected use of the proceeds from issuance
of the debt?
2.) What types of assets is the company considering selling? What types of
transactions might be undertaken to effect those sales? What do you think the
company might intend to do with any expected proceeds or profits from the sales
of assets?
3.) Overall, what will be the combined effect on Tribune Company's balance
sheet of all transactions described in the article? Answer this question in
terms of increases and decreases to major balance sheet classifications.
4.) Compare reactions to the companies' announced plan by equity market
participants and by bond market participants. Explain these reactions in terms
of the company's debt to equity ratio, the company's prospects for future
business, and any other relevant factors you note from the article. You may
refer also to the related article to assist in developing your answer.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
From PwC: Current Developments for
Audit Committees ---
Click Here
Current Developments for Audit
Committees 2006 is
PricewaterhouseCoopers' annual
update. It informs audit committee
members of current business and
regulatory developments affecting
their responsibilities. Of
particular interest in 2006 are:
landmark court decisions
dealing with investors who may
have conflicting objectives
404 and efforts to achieve
sustainable compliance going
forward
SEC areas of focus, emphasizing
transparency
developments in the
international arena, marked by
accelerating progress toward
convergence
I have been busy and did a good deal on this and
you may be interested in this information, please see below. Pleae post this
for us.
1. The Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG -
www.oceg.org) has released a new 88 page internal audit guide for use in
auditing compliance & ethics programs.
2. The press release with all the details is
available at:
Mr. Seward's paper, as co-author on "Protecting
Client-CPA-Attorney Information in the Electronic Age" will be included in
the Research Forum Session of the International Meeting of the American
Accounting Association 2006 Annual Meeting on August 6-9 in Washington, D.C.
Riches Without Restraint: The Sad State of Corporate Governance
"Gilded Paychecks: Ties That Bind With Links to Board, Chief Saw His
Pay Soar," by Julie Creswell, The New York Times, May 24, 2006
Every October, some 50 former Home Depot managers,
calling themselves the Former Orange-Blooded Executives, after the
home-improvement chain's trademark bright orange color, gather in Atlanta to
reminisce, chat about new jobs and pass around pictures of their children.
The discussion inevitably turns to the changes at
Home Depot under its chief executive, Robert L. Nardelli. A growing source
of resentment among some is Mr. Nardelli's pay package. The Home Depot board
has awarded him $245 million in his five years there. Yet during that time,
the company's stock has slid 12 percent while shares of its archrival,
Lowe's, have climbed 173 percent.
Why would a company award a chief executive that
much money at a time when the company's shareholders are arguably faring far
less well? Some of the former Home Depot managers think they know the
reason, and compensation experts and shareholder advocates agree: the
clubbiness of the six-member committee of the company's board that
recommends Mr. Nardelli's pay.
Two of those members have ties to Mr. Nardelli's
former employer, General Electric. One used Mr. Nardelli's lawyer in
negotiating his own salary. And three either sat on other boards with Home
Depot's influential lead director, Kenneth G. Langone, or were former
executives at companies with significant business relationships with Mr.
Langone.
In addition, five of the six members of the
compensation committee are active or former chief executives, including one
whose compensation dwarfs Mr. Nardelli's. Governance experts say people who
are or have been in the top job have a harder time saying no to the salary
demands of fellow chief executives. Moreover, chief executives indirectly
benefit from one another's pay increases because compensation packages are
often based on surveys detailing what their peers are earning.
To its critics, the panel exemplifies the close
personal and professional ties among board members and executives at many
companies � ties that can make it harder for a board to restrain executive
pay. They say this can occur even though all of a board's compensation
committee members technically meet the legal definition of independent, as
is the case at Home Depot.
"When you have a situation like this where it is so
incestuous, it creates uncertainty whether Nardelli's pay is a reflection of
these relationships or from his performance," said Jesse M. Fried, a
professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of
a book on executive compensation, "Pay Without Performance."
A showdown could occur at the annual meeting
tomorrow as firms that advise large shareholders and activist groups are
urging shareholders to withhold votes from several directors. The
shareholder groups are also seeking the right to vote on the compensation
committee's annual report and plan a rally outside the meeting in
Wilmington, Del., to protest Mr. Nardelli's pay.
None of the current or former members of the
compensation committee returned calls seeking comment, and the company would
not make Mr. Nardelli available.
In an e-mail statement, Mr. Langone said: "Each and
every board member at Home Depot is totally independent. Candidates for
service have been suggested and put through the nominating process by a wide
variety of directors, myself included. That is why there is such a diversity
of thought, opinion and experience on the board and why our discussions are
open, robust and objective."
Mr. Langone was instrumental in bringing the former
G.E. star into the company. While he is not on the compensation committee,
he has led the committee that nominates directors for the last seven years.
No stranger to controversy, Mr. Langone is
currently under fire for his role as head of the compensation committee at
the New York Stock Exchange, which granted the former chief executive
Richard A. Grasso a pay package worth more than $140 million. Mr. Grasso sat
on Home Depot's board from 2002 to 2004, including a stint on the
compensation committee.
Mr. Langone "created the Home Depot board in his
own philosophical image," said Richard Ferlauto, director of pension
investment policy for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, whose pension fund owns shares in the company. "Arguably, Langone
is the ringleader and the one who pulls the strings in this network," he
added.
Riches With Restraint
The co-founders of Home Depot, Arthur M. Blank and
Bernard Marcus, grew very rich on company stock that soared in value. But
under them, Home Depot embraced a culture of restraint when it came to pay,
said Paul D. Lapides, a corporate governance expert at Kennesaw State
University in Georgia. "Bernie and Art took home a salary of $1 million or
less and refused bonuses. The attitude was one of 'we're all in this
together,' " said Mr. Lapides, who has never worked at Home Depot but has
studied the company for years.
Representatives of Mr. Marcus and Mr. Blank, both
retired from Home Depot, said neither would comment for this article.
Since hiring Mr. Nardelli, 58, the board has
awarded him more than $87 million in deferred stock grants and $90 million
in stock options, according to an analysis by Brian Foley, a compensation
consultant in White Plains. Mr. Nardelli's salary, bonuses and a company
loan make up most of the rest of his $245 million compensation.
Even last year, when Home Depot's stock was
unchanged, the board raised his salary 8 percent, to $2.164 million, and
increased his bonus 22 percent, to $7 million.
By contrast, from 2000 until his retirement early
last year, the former chief executive of Lowe's, Robert L. Tillman, was
awarded less than a quarter of what Mr. Nardelli was awarded through the end
of last year, according to Mr. Foley. The many connections among Home
Depot's directors cause some critics to ask whether the nominating committee
is failing in finding truly "independent" board members. "The fact that you
have so much overlapping boards here says to me: what was the nomination
process to get on the board here, how wide was the net really cast?" asked
Eleanor Bloxham, president of the Value Alliance, a group that advises
companies on corporate governance issues.
The net may not have been cast much farther than
Mr. Langone's circle of friends and associates, critics say. For instance,
there is Bonnie G. Hill, who leads the Home Depot compensation committee.
The owner of a corporate-governance consulting
firm, Ms. Hill is on the board of Yum Brands with Mr. Langone. Until
recently, she served on the board of ChoicePoint, another company with which
Mr. Langone has deep ties, including serving as a director. Mr. Langone's
statement defending the ties of board members said the idea that they could
not share friendships was ridiculous: "It not only sets up a make-believe
standard but it is designed to please an agenda driven by activists with
ulterior motives."
Ms. Hill is also on the compensation committee of
Albertson's, the grocery chain, where she is determining the pay for the
chief executive, Lawrence R. Johnston, who is also a Home Depot director.
"Would Johnston be as eager to promote strict pay practices on the Home
Depot board, where one of his pay setters is in a position to apply the same
pay principles to his own pay package?" asked Jackie Cook, a senior research
associate at the Corporate Library, an institutional advisory firm in
Portland, Me.
Mr. Johnston was at G.E. at the same time as Mr.
Nardelli, running the appliances unit.
Mr. Johnston turned to a well-known compensation
lawyer, Robert J. Stucker, to negotiate his compensation package at
Albertson's when he joined in 2001. Mr. Stucker had negotiated Mr.
Nardelli's package at Home Depot just months earlier.
When it comes time for Mr. Nardelli to renegotiate
his own contract, Mr. Johnston, as a member of the Home Depot compensation
committee, is forced to negotiate against his own lawyer, said Charles M.
Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at
the University of Delaware. "By utilizing the same legal counsel, if there's
ever a dispute between the company and Mr. Nardelli over pay, it puts a
member of the compensation committee in a very awkward position," Mr. Elson
said. A call to Mr. Stucker was not returned.
More links to G.E. are evident with Claudio X.
Gonzalez, a board member. The longtime chairman and chief executive of
Kimberly-Clark de Mexico, a unit of Kimberly-Clark, Mr. Gonzalez has known
Mr. Langone and Mr. Nardelli for years as a G.E. director.
Besides Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Johnston, the
compensation panel includes three other current or former chief executives:
Angelo R. Mozilo, who heads Countrywide Financial; John L. Clendenin, the
former chief of BellSouth; and Richard H. Brown, the former chief of
Electronic Data Systems.
Mr. Brown also has ties to Mr. Langone, who, as an
investment banker, took Electronic Data Systems public in 1968 and was a
large E.D.S. shareholder for years. Later, at his own investment bank,
Invemed Associates, Mr. Langone underwrote security offerings by E.D.S.
while Mr. Brown was chief executive. Mr. Brown is not up for re-election to
the Home Depot board this year.
In his statement, Mr. Langone said: "Dick Brown is
one of the finest business minds this country has ever produced and I am
proud to call him my friend. He was not suggested for service on the board
by me but I heartily endorsed the idea."
This Year's ' Disney'
The ire of shareholder activists was raised even
more with the addition of Mr. Mozilo to the board in February. Mr. Mozilo
now sits on the compensation committee.
His pay package, which is bigger than Mr.
Nardelli's, already made him a target of governance groups. Last year alone,
Mr. Mozilo took home $70 million, including salary, bonus, stock options,
payments for tax- and investment-advisory services and country club
memberships. "Good grief," said Paul Hodgson, a compensation analyst at the
Corporate Library. "He's hardly likely to be an influence of restraint given
his own pay package."
Shareholder activists are taking a more aggressive
stance toward directors this year. "Home Depot, I think, is the Disney of
this shareholder season," said Mr. Ferlauto, referring to the 2004 annual
meeting of Disney shareholders at which 45 percent of the votes cast were
withheld from the chief executive, Michael D. Eisner, in part because of his
pay. Mr. Eisner later resigned.
At the Home Depot annual meeting tomorrow, several
factions are recommending that investors withhold support from most of the
directors. The dissidents include A.F.S.C.M.E.; the state pension fund of
Connecticut; the California Public Employees Retirement System, the
country's largest public pension fund; and Institutional Shareholder
Services, which advises pension funds and mutual funds.
I.S.S. claims there is a "disconnect" between Mr.
Nardelli's pay and Home Depot's performance. "Moreover, poor compensation
design, a lucrative employment agreement, and arguably egregious
compensation practices call into question the fitness of the company's
Compensation Committee members to serve as directors," the advisory firm
said in a report it issued two weeks ago.
The board disagrees, saying that it based Mr.
Nardelli's pay and bonus last year on the company's "outstanding operating
performance," his "continuing success in developing a new foundation for
long-term growth" and his "continuing superior leadership," according to a
statement from the company.
Mr. Langone concurs. "I have long felt that Bob
Nardelli's abilities are absolutely first rate," he said in his statement.
"He's doing a great job and the strong fundamentals he has built during his
tenure are proof of his keen leadership. There are a whole variety of
long-term indicators I find encouraging such as earnings growth, sales
growth, equity value in the brand as well as systematic enhancements put in
place companywide that have dramatically improved efficiency."
Last year Home Depot reported record earnings per
share, record gross and operating margins and record sales of $81.5 billion.
Yet, over the last five years, Home Depot stock has fallen 12 percent,
performing worse than its peers and the Standard & Poor's 500 index, which
fell 4 percent. Mr. Nardelli has also created a fair amount of friction
since he joined the company, say some of his critics among the Former
Orange-Blooded Executives, a few of whom were forced out once Mr. Nardelli
took over. He moved quickly to introduce G.E.-inspired performance measures;
issued edicts about store displays to managers who once enjoyed a great deal
of autonomy; and replaced several longtime Home Depot executives with former
G.E. associates.
Today, two of Home Depot's four highest-paid
executives hail from G.E., including its director of human resources. A
third executive, the general counsel, Frank L. Fernandez, was a lawyer in
upstate New York who was occasionally hired as an outside counsel for G.E.
when Mr. Nardelli ran its power systems group in the area.
In his latest moves, Mr. Nardelli is trying to
retool Home Depot, snapping up lumber and building materials companies last
year in order to push into the professional contractor market.
"He has made a big decision to get into the supply
business, and Wall Street has greeted that decision with a yawn," said Eric
Bosshard, a stock analyst at FTN Midwest Securities who does not own shares
in the company. Despite these bold moves, Home Depot did not even know it
was looking for a fix-it man when Mr. Nardelli hit its radar in the fall of
2000. The chief executive at the time, Mr. Blank, one of the co-founders,
was actually on the hunt for a second-in-command, someone he could groom to
take over his job eventually.
Those plans went out the window over Thanksgiving
weekend that year when Mr. Nardelli, who had been in charge of G.E. Power
Systems for five years, learned he had lost out to Jeffrey R. Immelt to
succeed G.E.'s longtime chief executive, John F. Welch Jr. (Mr. Nardelli may
have lost the battle for the title, but he is winning in the total
compensation wars. Mr. Immelt has been awarded $108 million since taking
over as G.E.'s chief, according to Mr. Foley, while the company's stock has
fallen 19 percent.)
Mr. Langone, who sat on G.E.'s board and had
watched Mr. Nardelli's career, moved fast to avoid losing the executive
star. Hard-charging and ambitious, Mr. Nardelli was interested, but not in a
No. 2 position. Worried he would go elsewhere, the Home Depot board decided
Mr. Blank should step aside and Mr. Nardelli, who had no retail experience,
should take his place.
Luring an executive of Mr. Nardelli's repute,
however, came at a high price. Despite the fact that Mr. Nardelli had little
incentive to remain at G.E., he required that he be "made whole," meaning he
would have to be paid for what he was walking away from. He was given a
stock option grant of 3.5 million shares. One million of those shares vested
immediately and were worth $25 million.
That was just the beginning. He also received perks
like use of a company plane for personal trips; a new car every three years,
one similar in price to the Mercedes Benz S series; and a $10 million loan
with an annual interest rate of 5.8 percent that would be forgiven over five
years.
That $10 million loan wound up costing shareholders
$21 million after the board agreed to pay all taxes on it, a so-called
gross-up. Congress banned loans like this in 2002 after Mr. Nardelli joined
the company.
And when it appeared that Mr. Nardelli might not
hit one of the few performance goals the board had set to cause payment of a
long-term incentive plan, the board lowered the goalposts, according to the
Corporate Library.
The target for Mr. Nardelli had been total
shareholder return � share price increases plus reinvested dividends �
compared with a peer group, and the company was performing poorly by that
measure in 2003, according to the Corporate Library. But that year, the
board changed the target to one of growth in average diluted earnings per
share, which takes into account the per share earnings decrease that occurs
when stock options are awarded. In a report released in March of this year,
the Corporate Library labeled Home Depot one of its 11 "Pay for Failure
Companies."
A Question of Incentives
The change in the incentive target appeared to be
"designed to ensure a payout," rather than provide an incentive to improve
performance, the report said. Other critics say the new hurdle is even
easier to hit with a board-approved share-repurchase program. Since 2002,
the company has bought back nearly $10 billion of its own stock.
The one threat to Mr. Nardelli's pay is a proposal
by A.F.S.C.M.E., the government workers' union, that would allow Home Depot
shareholders to approve or reject the report from the compensation
committee. But even if the proposal is accepted, any future rejection of the
board panel's compensation report would be merely symbolic. The board can
simply ignore shareholders and pay executives what they wish.
So far, similar proposals have been rejected at two
other companies whose executive pay A.F.S.C.M.E. identified as a problem:
Merrill Lynch and U.S. Bancorp. The Home Depot board is urging its
shareholders to vote against the proposal.
Skepticism about Mr. Nardelli's strategy to move
the company away from its retailing roots and concerns about a cooling in
the housing market have caused some large investors to move out of the
stock, said Michael E. Cox, a stock analyst at Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis,
who does not personally own shares in the stock.
But like the majority of analysts on Wall Street,
Mr. Cox recommends Home Depot's stock to investors because he believes that
Mr. Nardelli's strategy will pay off in the long term for the company.
Furthermore, Mr. Nardelli's reputation has not been
tarnished, insisted Gerard R. Roche, the high-profile recruiter who helped
bring Mr. Nardelli to the retailer. "I know he has been approached by other
companies. There are a number of people interested in lifting Nardelli out,"
Mr. Roche said. "I can tell you there are a number of companies telling me
to get them another Nardelli."
The California Public Employees'
Retirement System is demanding a conference call with the
compensation committee of the board of UnitedHealth Group
Inc. over its disclosure practices, and is threatening to
withhold votes for board directors seeking re-election.
In a letter sent to James A.
Johnson, chairman of the UnitedHealth board's compensation
committee, Calpers board President Rob Feckner demanded a
conference call ahead of Tuesday's UnitedHealth shareholders
meeting to discuss what he called "serious threats to the
credibility, governance and performance of UnitedHealth."
Specifically, the letter criticized the company's failure to
explain how it determined stock option grant dates for Chief
Executive William McGuire and a handful of other executives
in past years, and its "inconsistent" disclosure of its
option-granting program.
The move by Calpers increases the
scrutiny of the process by which Dr. McGuire received some
of the $1.6 billion in unrealized gains he holds in company
stock options. Calpers holds 6.55 million shares, or 0.5%,
of UnitedHealth's outstanding stock. The pension fund, known
for its strong stances on corporate governance, could spur
other investors to join in its criticism. The move also
increases pressure on UnitedHealth's board to more fully
explain its past option-award practices soon, even though
its board only launched a probe into them earlier this
month.
Continued in article
Which brings us to Congress, the villain of this tale that the rest of the
press corps wants to ignore. Executive greed is an easier story to sell, we
suppose. But the same Members of Congress who most deplore big CEO paydays are
the same ones who created the incentive for companies to overuse options as
compensation.
"Backdate Backlash," The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2006; Page A6
---
Click Here
These columns have never joined the media pack
deploring executive pay, since wages are best determined by directors and
shareholders. But that doesn't mean every pay practice is kosher, especially
if it's done on the sly. That's where the recent news over the "backdating"
of stock options is cause for some concern -- and for more aggressive
director supervision.
CEO pay has been going up, in part because the
market is putting a premium on the skills necessary to navigate today's
legal and competitive minefields. Some of the increases also flow from the
greater use of stock options, which came into their own in the 1990s thanks
in part to Congress (more on that below). Options are supposed to align the
interests of management with those of shareholders, but they can also be
abused.
This appears to be the case with "backdating,"
which is the practice of moving the strike date for option grants to ensure
lower exercise prices and thus a bigger payday. Companies grant options
according to shareholder-approved plans, most of which require a grant to
carry the stock price on the day it was awarded. If it turns out the grant
carries a different day's price, those who do the "backdating" could be
guilty of false disclosure and securities fraud.
The number of companies doing this isn't clear,
though the SEC is investigating at least 20 and prosecutors have launched
criminal probes into a half-dozen. In the least savory instances, executives
may have been trying to pull a fast one by altering option dates without the
approval of directors. Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. recently fired three top
managers, including its CEO, because of what it called "issues related to
the integrity of documents relating to Vitesse's stock option grant
process." Never a good sign.
But some boards may also have been asleep at the
option switch. Affiliated Computer Services recently announced it will take
a charge against earnings of as much as $40 million due to accounting
problems related to option grants. Why? Well, ACS explained that its board
compensation committee has typically approved grants over the phone --
making them effective that day -- with official written consent coming
later. ACS says it believes this practice was "permitted" under law, but
shareholders might ask why they are now getting stuck with the $40 million
surprise tab.
Then there's UnitedHealth Group CEO William
McGuire, who is being pilloried for his $1.8 billion in unrealized option
gains. The health insurer has said it may have to restate three years of
results due to a "significant deficiency" in how it administered option
grants, which would suggest backdating.
But what especially caught investor eyes was the
news that the company's board had allowed Mr. McGuire to choose his own
grant dates. Directors may well have meant this as an added perk for a CEO
whose tenure has seen a 50-fold rise in UnitedHealth's share price. Yet the
practice still looks like an abdication by the board, which represents
shareholders and is supposed to guard against needless equity dilution.
Some companies have insisted that their boards
consciously pegged option grants to coincide with relatively low stock
prices. But this would seem to contradict the alleged purpose of options,
which is to give management an incentive to raise the stock price and thus
the return to shareholders. Granting options at a very low price amounts to
additional guaranteed compensation, and ought to be labeled as such.
Especially since shareholders will end up paying
for this executive privilege. UnitedHealth has lost more than $17 billion of
its market value since the backdating story broke. Several companies are
restating results, facing enormous back taxes and are already grappling with
the usual opportunistic lawsuits. * * *
Which brings us to Congress, the villain of this
tale that the rest of the press corps wants to ignore. Executive greed is an
easier story to sell, we suppose. But the same Members of Congress who most
deplore big CEO paydays are the same ones who created the incentive for
companies to overuse options as compensation.
In 1993, amid another wave of envy over CEO pay,
Congress capped the tax deductibility of salaries at $1 million. To no one's
surprise except apparently the Members who passed this law, most CEO
salaries have since had a way of staying just below $1 million year after
year. But because companies still need to compete for and retain top talent,
they have found other forms of compensation -- notably stock options.
And one of the problems with options is that they
give executives every incentive to capitalize all company profits back into
the stock price -- thus contributing to their own pay -- rather than paying
out dividends to shareholders. As SEC Chairman Chris Cox has noted, the 1993
law deserves "pride of place in the museum of unintended consequences."
In a better world -- one in which Congress kept its
nose out of wage decisions -- corporate directors could pay the salaries
they wanted and wouldn't rely so much on options to motivate executives.
This, in turn, would reduce the incentive for companies to stoop to such
dubious pay practices as option backdating. But as long-time observers of
Washington, we can say with certainty that backdating will cease as a
corporate practice long before Congress admits its mistake.
Question
What are the primary alleged causes for the rapid increase in revisions to
financial statements in the past few years?
An official in Washington DC sent me a note today
saying that he is " interested in understanding the cause for the increased
number of restatements. Can you recommend any good articles or research that
explains the root causes, trends, etc?
Can anyone suggest some good references to pass
along?
Perhaps this might help...Financial Restatements:
Causes, Consequences, and Corrections By Erik Linn, CPA, and Kori Diehl,
CPA, published in the September 2005 issue of Strategic Finance,
Vol.87, Iss. 3; pg. 34, 6 pgs.
Ganesh M. Pandit Adelphi University
June 15, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Evidence seems to be mounting that Section 404 of SOX is working in
uncovering significant errors in past financial statements. This is to be
expected in the early phases of 404 implementation. But the revisions should
subside after 404 is properly rolling. Companies like Kodak found huge
internal control weaknesses that led to reporting errors.
One of the most popular annual study if restatements is free from the
Huron Consulting Group.
"2004 Annual Review of Financial Reporting Matters - Summary" ---
Click Here
(I could not yet find the 2005 update, which is understandable since
2005 annual reports were just recently published.)
Not to discount reasons for restatements noted
earlier, I understand many restatements were also due to spreadsheet errors
and perhaps inadequacy of ERP systems for external and regulatory reporting
purposes. Even at big corporations, at the end of the year, the CFO has to
compile and integrate dozens of spreadsheets coming from various divisions
and departments and make adjusting entries; in some cases overlooking
existing Excel formulas.
In October 2002 GAO published a study of nearly
1,000 restatements "FINANCIAL STATEMENT RESTATEMENTS: Trends, Market
Impacts, Regulatory Responses, and Remaining Challenges". It covered
1997-June 2002. I may be too old for your friend, but I have the study in
PDF form (5mb, 272 pages) if you want it.
Various market watchers define earnings quality
differently, but the general idea is that the best earnings are those that
come from a company's main businesses firing on all cylinders, rather than
from ancillary factors often outside the company's control, such as a change
in accounting rules.
Michael Thompson, research director at Thomson
Financial, says the earnings "purity" of stocks in the Standard & Poor's
500-stock index has risen since 2002. He arrived at that conclusion by
taking the earnings figures presented by the companies and backing out
certain charges, fees and other figures that say nothing about whether the
company is selling more of its products or services. These days, Mr.
Thompson is finding fewer items to exclude; thus, he thinks the quality of
earnings is higher.
Question
What are the accounting and tax implications of backdating employee stock
options?
The stock-options backdating scandal
continued to intensify, with the announcement by a Silicon
Valley chip maker that its chairman and its chief financial
officer had abruptly resigned. That brought to eight the number
of officials at various companies to leave their posts amid
scrutiny of how companies grant stock options.
"Backdating Probe Widens as 2 Quit Silicon Valley Firm:
Power Integrations Officials Leave Amid Options Scandal; 10
Companies Involved So Far," by Charles Forelle and James Bandler,
The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2006; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114684512600744974.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one
Affiliated Computer Services Inc.
acknowledged that it issued executive stock options that
carried "effective dates" preceding the written approval of
the grants, saying it plans a charge of as much as $40
million to rectify its accounting related to the grants.
The announcement followed a
preliminary internal probe at ACS, a Dallas technology
outsourcer that is also under scrutiny by the Securities and
Exchange Commission for its options practices. Between 1995
and 2002, the company granted stock options to Jeffrey Rich,
its chief executive for part of that time, that were
routinely dated just before sharp run-ups in the company's
share price, and often at the nadir of big dips.
Mr. Rich left the company last
year. A rising share price helped him reap more than $60
million from options during his tenure at the company. The
timing of his grants helped, too. If his six grants had come
at the stock's average closing price during the year they
were dated, he'd have made about 15% less.
Continued in article
Is any CEO really entitled to over $ 6 billion in gains on
employee stock options? "Calpers Puts Pressure on Board of UnitedHealth: Holder
Demands a Meeting Over Option-Grant Timing; A Threat to Withhold
Votes," by Vanessa Fuhrmans, The Wall Street Journal,
April 26, 2006; Page A3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114599506269535599.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The California Public Employees'
Retirement System is demanding a conference call with the
compensation committee of the board of UnitedHealth Group
Inc. over its disclosure practices, and is threatening to
withhold votes for board directors seeking re-election.
In a letter sent to James A.
Johnson, chairman of the UnitedHealth board's compensation
committee, Calpers board President Rob Feckner demanded a
conference call ahead of Tuesday's UnitedHealth shareholders
meeting to discuss what he called "serious threats to the
credibility, governance and performance of UnitedHealth."
Specifically, the letter criticized the company's failure to
explain how it determined stock option grant dates for Chief
Executive William McGuire and a handful of other executives
in past years, and its "inconsistent" disclosure of its
option-granting program.
The move by Calpers increases the
scrutiny of the process by which Dr. McGuire received some
of the $1.6 billion in unrealized gains he holds in company
stock options. Calpers holds 6.55 million shares, or 0.5%,
of UnitedHealth's outstanding stock. The pension fund, known
for its strong stances on corporate governance, could spur
other investors to join in its criticism. The move also
increases pressure on UnitedHealth's board to more fully
explain its past option-award practices soon, even though
its board only launched a probe into them earlier this
month.
Continued in article
After the Horse is Out of the Barn: UnitedHealth Halts Executive
Options The UnitedHealth Group, under fire for the timing
of lucrative options grants to executives, said Monday that it had
discontinued equity-based awards to its two most senior managers and that it
would cease other perks like paying for personal use of corporate aircraft.
UnitedHealth’s board said it had discontinued equity-based awards for the
chief executive, William W. McGuire, who has some $1.6 billion in unrealized
gains from earlier options grants, and for the president and chief operating
officer, Stephen J. Helmsley.
"UnitedHealth Halts Executive Options," The New York Times, May 2,
2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/business/02unitedhealth.web.html
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review
on May 19, 2006
TITLE: UnitedHealth Cites 'Deficiency' in Options Grants
REPORTER: James Bandler and Charles Forelle
DATE: May 12, 2006
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114734563729450037.html
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Income Taxes, Materiality,
Securities and Exchange Commission, Stock Options, Taxation,
Accounting Changes and Error Corrections, Audit Quality,
Auditing
SUMMARY: UnitedHealth Group Inc. disclosed on May 11 that
"...a 'significant deficiency' in how it administered [stock
option] grants could force it to restate results ...[and cut]
net income by as much as $286 million over that period." The
company also disclosed that the SEC is "conducting an informal
inquiry into its options-granting
practices"...UnitedHealth...said its internal review had
indicated it had uncovered 'significant deficiency' in the way
it administered, accounted for and disclosed past option grants
and that it may be required to take certain accounting
adjustments for 'stock-based compensation expense.' It said that
could reduce operating earnings by up to $393 million in the
past three years, adding that the company's management believes
that any adjustments would not be 'material'."
QUESTIONS:
1.) Summarize the issue regarding accounting for stock options
that was uncovered in a March 18, 2006, Wall Street Journal
article and that has subsequently been the subject of SEC
scrutiny.
2.) The summary description for this review quotes a
paragraph in the article describing the financial statement
effects of potential adjustments the deficiencies in
UnitedHealth's option granting practices. The paragraph begins
"In its filing, UnitedHealth, which reported $3.3 billion in net
income last year..." Identify all of the terms in that paragraph
with specific meaning for accounting and/or auditing purposes.
Define each of those terms, explain why it has specific meaning
in its use in accounting or auditing, and, if it is a relevant
point, explain why understanding that meaning helps to analyze
the impact of these options issues on UnitedHealth.
3.) Refer again to the paragraph described in question 1. The
concluding sentence states that the company management believes
that adjustments resulting from their review of options granting
practices will not be material. Contrast this point to the
comments by Professor James Cox of Duke University that "this
isn't just a little material...for this kind of issue."
Construct arguments to support one of these positions, being
sure to refute arguments potentially in favor of your opposing
side. In your answers to this and the preceding question, be
sure to address the two components of materiality in an audit
engagement.
4.) Refer to the list of companies in the table entitled "Key
Companies in Options Probes." In what industry do most of these
companies operate? Why is there industry concentration amongst
this sample of firms?
5.) What are the potential issues facing UnitedHealth's
auditors, Deloitte and Touche, regarding these matters? What
basic audit steps do you think should be carried out in relation
to any company's accounting for stock options?
6.) Do you think the situation with UnitedHealth necessarily
indicates an audit failure on the part of Deloitte and Touche?
In your answer, define the terms "audit risk", "business risk"
in relation to audits, and "audit quality."
7.) Summarize the tax implications described in the article
regarding these matters. How might adjustments to the tax
accounting for these stock options exacerbate or reduce the
impact of the adjustments to the accounting for stock based
compensation expense?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review
on May 5, 2006
TITLE: As Options Cloud Looms, Companies May Get Tax Bill
REPORTER: Charles Forelle and James Bandler
DATE: Apr 28, 2006
PAGE: C1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114619341731038487.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Financial Accounting, Securities and
Exchange Commission, Stock Options, Taxation
SUMMARY: Tax implications of the developing issues in stock
options, covered also in a recent Weekly Review, are discussed.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the recently-developing concern with dating of
executive stock options? In your answer, comment on the
Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the issue.
You may refer to the related article for your answer.
2.) Define the terms "compensatory stock options"; "incentive
stock options";"option grant date"; and "option exercise price".
3.) Summarize the tax implications to both executives
receiving stock options and to companies issuing stock options
if option grant dates are changed to a point when the stock
price is higher than on the originally reported date, but the
exercise price is not changed.
4.) The author quotes Mr. Brian Foley as saying that one
company under SEC and IRS scrutiny for this issue, UnitedHealth,
would have a "serious and incurable problem" if options were
"backdated" and they have been exercised. What could be the
difference between options that were exercised and options that
have not been?
5.) What are the financial reporting implications of the
problems highlighted in this article? How do the tax issues
exacerbate the financial reporting problems?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Companies that backdated
stock-option grants to top executives could face a costly
reckoning with the Internal Revenue Service, with some
potentially owing large sums in back taxes, legal experts
say.
The tax problems, which could
affect the personal tax filings of hundreds of individual
employees, are the latest wrinkle in widening inquiries into
stock-option awards.
A half-dozen companies, including
insurance titan UnitedHealth Group Inc., have said their
boards, or the Securities and Exchange Commission, are
examining their past option grants amid concerns that some
may have been backdated to take advantage of lower exercise
prices. Backdating could have resulted in millions of
dollars in extra compensation for insiders, at the expense
of shareholders. Most of the probes are preliminary, and so
far the SEC hasn't charged anyone.
If the investigations turn up
backdated grants, the companies face a host of issues,
including the prospect of earnings restatements and
delistings. Such options offer the right to buy a stock at a
fixed, or exercise, price, allowing the holder to profit by
later selling the underlying shares at a higher price than
the exercise price.
One company that has acknowledged
"misdating" options, Mercury Interactive Corp., a Mountain
View, Calif., software company, has had its stock delisted
by the Nasdaq Stock Market and has said it will have to
restate financial results. Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. last
week suspended its chief executive and two other top
officials, saying the move was related to the "integrity of
documents" in its stock-option program. Late Wednesday,
Vitesse said its board had discovered additional accounting
issues and had hired a turnaround firm.
Granting an option at a price below
the current market value, while not illegal in itself, could
result in problems of wrongful disclosure under securities
laws. Companies' shareholder-approved option plans and SEC
filings often say options will carry the stock price of the
day the company awards them or the day before.
Favorable tax treatment was one
reason that options gained popularity in the 1990s as a way
to compensate employees, particularly executives. When an
option is exercised, the company typically can take any gain
pocketed by the employee as a deduction on its tax return,
because the IRS views the option profit as akin to extra
compensation paid to the employee. The employee reports the
gain on his or her personal tax return.
Tax experts say that options
backdated to a day with a lower market price don't qualify
for a deduction -- although the disqualification only
affects options exercised by the chief executive or any of
the next four most highly compensated executives. And $1
million of each of the executives' total compensation always
can be deducted. As a result, they say, companies with
backdated options could face the prospect of shelling out
cash to revise prior years' tax returns -- and could be
ineligible for the deductions they planned to take in the
future on executive option gains.
A Wall Street Journal analysis,
published in March, described a pattern of unusual
stock-option grants to a handful of chief executives,
including William McGuire, UnitedHealth's chief executive.
Twelve grants to Mr. McGuire between 1994 and 2002 were each
dated in advance of a substantial run-up in the company's
share price, and three of them fell on yearly lows. Last
week, Mr. McGuire told investors on a conference call that,
"to my knowledge, every member of management in this company
believes that at the time we collectively followed
appropriate practices."
The potential tax issues could be
big, particularly for companies whose stocks have greatly
increased since the grants. UnitedHealth, Minnetonka, Minn.,
reported $346 million in realized option gains among its
five best-paid executives from 2003 to 2005. At the end of
last year, it said its five best-paid executives had another
$2.4 billion in unrealized, exercisable options gains.
UnitedHealth's stock has soared since the 1990s, when many
of the options were granted. A board committee investigating
options granting at the company hasn't completed its work,
and it isn't known whether any option grants were backdated
at all.
"If they had a backdating problem,
and that's a big if, the tax consequences could certainly be
ugly," says Brian Foley, a compensation consultant and tax
lawyer in White Plains, N.Y. With respect to the
already-exercised options, he added, "they would have an
obvious and serious and incurable problem."
UnitedHealth had a corporate-tax
rate ranging between 34.9% and 35.7% in the past three
years. Although the company's actual payments likely were
lower, that suggests the tax savings to UnitedHealth from
exercised executive options could have been as much as $120
million from 2003 to 2005. As of end of 2005, the value of
the future tax savings was as much as $800 million.
"That's a huge number," says Robert
Willens, a tax and accounting expert at Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc.
UnitedHealth has reported
substantial tax benefits from deducting its employees' stock
option gains. Until recently, the company said in its proxy
statements that it believed its executive option grants
qualify for the tax deduction. Starting in a proxy filed in
April 2005, it said some options might not qualify, but that
the amounts involved were immaterial. Ruth Pachman, an
outside spokeswoman for UnitedHealth, said in a statement
that the company "continues to believe" that its proxy
statements were accurate and remain accurate. She said the
company "declined to speculate about hypothetical
scenarios."
Executives at other companies
reporting options investigations, including Vitesse and
Affiliated Computer Services Inc., reported substantial
options gains to top executives. ACS, which reported about
$44 million in realized options gains by its top five
executives in the most recent three fiscal years, didn't
return calls. Vitesse officials didn't return several
messages seeking comment.
S. James DiBernardo, a partner at
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP who specializes in tax issues,
says there is no easy way to make grants comply with the
terms of the tax code retroactively. A company could reprice
the options, he says, but it would have to reprice them at
the current share value, effectively erasing all of an
executive's past gains. Another route is for the top
executives to wait until after retirement to exercise the
options -- when they are no longer executive officers.
Ethan Yale, an associate professor
at Georgetown University Law Center who was retained by
UnitedHealth to look into this matter, agreed that the issue
could pose tax problems. He said this is largely uncharted
territory and ambiguities in tax rules might allow a company
to get back in compliance retroactively by repricing the
options to the actual grant-date prices.
There is a very good report issued in March 2006 by
Glass Lewis & Co. "Getting it Wrong the First Time: A look at 2005's record
breaking year for corporate restatements shows why investors can't afford a
return to pre-Enron securities regulation".
I am a current Phd student and received the report
from one of my professors. I couldn't find a copy online, so apparently my
school subscribes to the service.
There is a ton of information in the report. I have
attached a copy of a summary I found online.
CORY CASSELL
Reply from Bob Jensen
Hi
Cory,
It’s
nice to know that you still subscribe to the AECM.
Analysis and Commentary on Significant Accounting
Issues and Regulatory Developments
Glass Lewis publishes comprehensive studies on
accounting issues and regulatory developments that disproportionately affect
certain companies or industries.
Most recently, Glass Lewis published "Restatements
– Traversing Shaky Ground." This report equips investors with the
information necessary to identify restatement indicators and to deal
effectively with post-announcement tremors. Glass Lewis presented detailed
analysis of 2003 and 2004 restatements, including primary causes, relevant
trends and key questions investors should ask when a restatement is
announced.
The findings of this report include:
The number of restatements filed by U.S.
domiciled publicly-traded companies to correct accounting errors
increased 20% in 2004 over 2003, to 619 from 514 respectively.
The utility sector had the highest restatement
rate in 2004 at 13%. The services sector was second highest at 8%.
Within these sectors, natural gas, gaming and investment services
companies were most prone to restate.
Companies listed on the OTC exchanges restate
at more than twice the rate as those listed on the NYSE. The 2004
restatement rates for companies listed on the NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ and OTC
were 3%, 5%, 5% and 7%, respectively.
Smaller public companies restate twice as
often as the largest public companies. Specifically, companies with
annual revenues of less than $500 million had a 2004 restatement rate of
9%. Companies with revenues of more than $10 billion had a 2004
restatement rate of less than 4%. It is important to note, however, the
market capitalization losses caused by a restatement for a single large
company may well dwarf that of many small companies.
Expense and revenue recognition errors were
the most common errors leading to a restatement in 2004. Each category
represented 17% of total identified errors.
Other studies include:
Control Deficiencies: A study
of material weaknesses disclosed in 2005 (through the week ending May 6,
2005) by 456 companies with at least $100 million in market
capitalization). Of these, 314 companies, or almost 69 percent,
disclosed a negative opinion (i.e. adverse, disclaimer or an expected
adverse) by their auditors over the effectiveness of their internal
controls. The report summarizes the total control deficiencies disclosed
and breaks them down by type of deficiency, by auditor and by opinion.
Auditor Fees: The Price of an
Independent, Quality Audit: A two-part review of audit fees
paid by more than 2,000 companies uncovered a decline in non-audit fees
paid to audit firms.
Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEBs):
A review of 213 companies with post-retirement benefit plans, which
found them to be, in many cases, in worst shape then pension plans. The
OPEB plans of many large companies contained large, significantly
under-funded obligations that were having a meaningful impact on cash
flow. A follow-up review of 273 companies found that the situation had
worsened and continued to seriously impact companies' cash flow and
earnings.
Pharmaceutical Industry – Revenue
Recognition Policies, Practices and Disclosures: A study on
revenue recognition policies, practices and related disclosures within
the pharmaceutical industry.
Although the following does not pertain to the restatements thread, AECMers
might be interested in the following transcript by one of my heroes (Lynn always
does his homework) that is also served up by Glass Lewis ---
http://www.glasslewis.com/solutions/trends.php
The current discussion concerns most
of the same issues that were debated in the late1990’s. In fact, many of the
issues have been debated on more than one occasion in theU.S. For example
the issue of full-time versus part-time membership was debated when the
Financial Accounting Standards Board was formed in 1973 and it was also
debated as part of the comment process on the SWP discussion memorandum.
Likewise the notion of requiring a supermajority vote was debated during the
SWP process. In the U.S. the FASB, which initially had a majority vote
requirement, was forced to change to a supermajority vote in 1990 as a
result of lobbying by the business community. That, of course, was recently
changed back to a majority vote when as the result of the Enron implosion;
it was found it impeded the ability of the accounting standard setter to
issue timely standards. A move, I might add, I support.
I suspect that this debate will
continue long after those of us here today have turned to dust. Debate and
discussion is always healthy provided it focuses on improving the product
delivered to the customer. In this case, the users of the financial
statements, most often investors and creditors as well as regulators, are
the customers. For those customers, it is important that they produce a high
quality product that encompasses all of the following:
1. Financial statements that for
all companies, regardless of size or location, reflect the true
underlying economics of the transactions that have been undertaken.
2. Financial disclosures,
regardless of size or location, that are necessary to present a complete
and truthful picture of all material information necessary for an
understanding and analysis of the business. Rules must be established
that are considered by preparers as a floor and not a ceiling.
3. A product that results in
companies accounting for similar transactions in a comparable fashion,
so as to provide users with the ability to make informed decisions as to
which companies they should allocate their capital. This also requires
that companies are transparent in consistently using the same accounting
from period to period.
4. To the greatest extent
possible, financial statements and disclosures that are verifiable and
auditable.
Deloitte & Touche (USA) has updated its book of
guidance on FASB Statement No. 123(R) Share-Based Payment:
A Roadmap to Applying the Fair Value Guidance to Share-Based Payment Awards
(PDF 2220k). This second edition reflects all
authoritative guidance on FAS 123(R) issued as of 28 April 2006. It includes
over 60 new questions and answers, particularly in the areas of earnings per
share, income tax accounting, and liability classification. Our
interpretations incorporate the views in SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin Topic
14 "Share-Based Payment" (SAB 107), as well as subsequent clarifications of
EITF Topic No. D-98 "Classification and Measurement of Redeemable
Securities" (dealing with mezzanine equity treatment). The publication
contains other resource materials, including a GAAP accounting and
disclosure checklist. Note that while FAS 123 is similar to
IFRS 2
Share-based Payment, there are some measurement
differences that are
Described Here.
David Fordham's proposal for principles-based standards
and financial reporting
June 1, 2006 message from David Fordham, James Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
I'm lurking, with serious interest actually, on the
posting thread about accounting rule makers making mistakes... and the
question of rules-based vs. principles-based standards.
And I'm wondering...where is Bill McCarthy?
It would seem to me that Bill's semantic modeling
has the potential to make the entire debate somewhat moot.
If companies were to report events -- think of
transactions, the fundamental basis of accounting in the first place --
rather than preparing financial statements and annual reports, it would
eliminate the need for both "rules-based reporting" and "reporting
principles", wouldn't it?
And semantic modeling, if I understand it
correctly, makes it practical for companies to (electronically, of course)
report data on transactions rather than wasting effort on arbitrarily (or
even not so arbitrarily) contrived summations, groupings, classifications,
etc. inherent in the preparation of standardized financial statements,
whether rules- or principles-based. The notions of stuff that create the
headaches: accruals, deferrals, all the way up through derivatives, -- all
go away. The notion of "statements which present fairly the financial
position" goes away. Auditors can now enjoy the relatively simple task of
verifying that *events* are completely and accurately captured and reported.
Under the semantic modeling paradigm (if you agree
to call it that), it is the user, not the preparer, who decides what data is
relevant for his/her decision making. It is therefore the user, not the
preparer, who makes choices of what to accumulate, what to group, what to
include where, what to classify as what, etc. The preparer simply reports
the business events. Liability is now transferred to the user, as long as
the preparer reported the events in line with the model. Users would take
much more care in their application of the information (which they should
anyway!)
If events were reported (in terms of commerce), it
would seem to me that antics (SPE's, for example) would become apparent to
those decision makers sophisticated enough to care or need to care. Events
(or transactions) not involving the company's primary product or services,
for example, could be questioned more deeply. While motivations, attitudes,
and secret plans might still remain undetected, the movement of large
amounts of assets (read: equity to stockholders, liabilities to debt holders
... all of this would be determined by the user!) would at least raise
questions among those who are interested in the financials enough to learn
about those transactions. (Of course, under the semantic modeling paradigm,
there aren't really things such as assets... there are resources on which
activities occur, events which happen, agents who participate in the events,
etc.)
Not being a serious student of semantic modeling, I
have to defer to those more learned on the subject for more details. But
based on what little I do know of it, it seems like semantic modeling has
the potential to make one heckuva serious contribution to the current
debate, if there is a debate going on.
Does Bill still subscribe to this list? I admire
and respect Bill very highly, and although I historically have not been one
of the rabid adopters of semantic modeling, it seems that this thread is
beginning to reveal its wisdom and potential importance. I would be very
interested in Bill's comments on the current discussion, if he cares to
contribute. If not, perhaps another scholar much more learned than I on this
paradigm might wish to? (Cheryl? Vickie? Stephanie? etc.? Preferably not a
boot-camp graduate as much as a drill sergeant or even second lieutenant?)
David Fordham (somewhat out of my league here, and
therefore eagerly willing to retract any incorrect interpretation of
semantic modeling made above...)
James Madison University
Semantic modeling grew out of linguistics (the work
of Quillian, and then later Peter Chen) where the objective was to represent
language statements (specially those expressed in the indicative mood) in a
graph theoretic model so that the power of graph algorithms could be
harnessed to analyse them.
The formal basis for such modeling was some form
(or subset) of First Order Logic (FOL). Since then, work in knowledge
representation has been extended by the use of other logics. The one that is
now becoming very popular is Description Logics that forms the basis of the
Semantic Web initiative of W3C.
It is important to realise that FOL is static (does
not have a temporal dimension), and completeness has to be implemented by
assumptions (such as the closed world assumption as in, for example,
databases).
Accounting is not static, and it is not clear if
completeness is possible in a social discipline such as accounting (I made
this argument in my CPA paper as well as in some other papers, giving as
examples a bunch of rules in GAAP that either are partially specifies (just
the 'if' part, or definitions by example).
I am therefore not sure semantic modeling as
practiced today can do what David proposes. However, the future is certainly
not bleak. We need research in two areas: 1. introducing time explicitly in
the models, and 2. In the absence of completeness, come up with reasoning
schemes that do the job. Other disciplines (specially medicine) have done
it, and there is no reason why we can not.
However, nurturing this sort of research forces us
to look way beyond accounting that has traditionally been our turf.
Jagdish
June 2 reply from Bob Jensen
In terms of aggregation of transactions data, what you seem to be
describing is an object-oriented system of transaction database reporting.
This, in turn, might one day become the ultimate XBRL object-oriented
reporting system.
Standard setters would still have to prescribe some rules for aggregation
in order to make aggregations comparable between different reporting
entities. Then the debates regarding the brightness of lines commence all
over again. For example, can we avoid bright lines with respect to operating
versus capital leases?
And echoing your statement David, I'm "out of my league" here and happily
retired. Not having to teach AIS anymore means not
having to say you're sorry.
Definitions of object-oriented on the Web:
A software system written using classes in an object oriented
language to implement a software solution. Each class is used as a
framework to instantiate an instance of a class, known as an object.
Classes contain member functions and member data.
www.mccabe.com/iq_research_iqgloss.htm
In programming, a combination of code, which is a sequence of
instructions referred to as functions, along with data units, referred
to as structures. In the past, operating systems dealt with these
entities separately. The combination of function and structure, called
an object, allows for significant advantages to programmers as well as
the end users of software.
www.scotsmist.co.uk/glossary_o.html
In computer science, object-oriented programming, OOP for short, is
a computer programming paradigm that emphasizes the following concepts:
* Objects - Packaging data and functionality together into units within
a running computer program; objects are the basis of modularity and
structure in an object-oriented computer program.* Abstraction - The
ability for a program to ignore some aspects of the information that it
is manipulating, i.e. the ability to focus on the essential. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_oriented
I am working to put together a listing of journals
that publish accounting information systems education research. There are
two journals that I find some information about, but that I can't locate a
web page or current editorial guidance for - The Accounting Educator's
Journal and Accounting Education: A Journal of Theory, Practice and
Research. Does anyone have current information on either of these
journals? I know the Accounting Educator's Journal had ceased publication
some time ago, but it seems I saw an advertisement in the last year that the
Accounting Educator's Journal was going to be resurrected as an online
publication, but I can't seem to find a copy or other information.
For those that might be interested, the list I have come up with so far is
below. Of course, if anyone has additions, I would love to know! Thanks.
SUMMARY: Home Depot recently discontinued reporting same-store-sales data.
They have trailed rival Lowe's on this key measure of retailing performance
since 2003, but argue that they are discontinuing reporting it because of a
change in the nature of their business to focus increasingly on supplying small
businesses, making the company less of a retailing entity.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What measure is Home Depot discontinuing to report? How does that measure
provide information critical to assessing performance by retailing entities?
2.) What argument does Home Depot offer to explain discontinuing to provide
this performance measure? What is the response to that reasoning? How would Home
Depot have to categorize their sales revenue data in order to provide relevant
information to financial statement users?
3.) What other entities also are reducing the frequency of disclosure of
same-store-sales data? What are their arguments for doing so?
4.) The author notes that this information on same-store-sales is not
information that is required under generally accepted accounting principles. Why
does that lead to his argument that companies therefore "game the number"?
5.) What is the problem with relying too heavily on one measure of
performance such as same-store-sales data? What other information does that
performance statistic ignore? How can investor focus on one primary statistic
lead to less than optimal behavior?
6.) What financial statement ratios can provide information to investors to
address the problems highlighted in the article in relation to investor focus on
same-store-sales data? Specifically name the financial statement ratio, describe
how it is calculated, and explain the meaning of the ratio to financial
statement users.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Great Book by an XBRL Pioneer June 15, 2006 Message from Saeed Roohani
[sroohani@cox.net]
This XBRL book by Charles Hoffman is an excellent
resource for anyone to use - it has examples for introductory and
intermediate users. It is also a good reference book if you are teaching
XBRL as part of your course. If you are training people on XBRL, this book
is a valuable resource Also, it is reasonably priced that even your students
can purchase it.
For additional information see the following
comments from Brian.
Saeed Roohani Bryant University
To: xbrl-public@yahoogroups.com From: "briandelacey" <bdelacey@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:01:16 -0000 Subject: [xbrl-public] Excellent XBRL
Book by Charles Hoffman now available
As I was trying to learn about XBRL, I scoured the
internet for information on specifications, working details, and examples. I
found a number of great presentations and PDFs as explanatory documents.
However, I had a hard time finding a definitive and current book through
established online book retailers like Amazon. I was thrilled to recently
discover a title that provides especially good coverage of XBRL in book
form:
Financial Reporting Using XBRL: IFRS and US GAAP
Edition, by Charles Hoffman, CPA, copyright 2006 UBMatrix. (Hoffman works as
Director of Industry Solutions, Financial Reporting at UBMatrix.)
This book, written by the historic "father of XBRL"
and early visionary of its evolution, provides exhaustive and expansive
coverage. The chapters include detailed examples across a wide range of XBRL
topics. Sample files are also available for the reader's own practice and
experimentation.
You can find the book at
http://www.ubmatrix.com/xbreeze/ with a
description at the bottom of the page. This 500+ page book is presently
available for a retail price of only $14.85 + shipping and I feel makes an
enormous contribution towards improving understanding and accelerating
adoption of XBRL. I'm hoping a future edition of this book will find its way
to Amazon.com and other publishing outlets.
A U.S. government probe into stock option
grants for executives widened on Tuesday with more technology
companies being called on to explain the way these grants are
awarded.
The investigation focuses on whether
companies are giving executives backdated options after a run-up in
the stock. Backdated securities are priced at a value before a
rally, which boosts their returns.
The Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly examining the timing of
stock option awards by corporations." (BTW this is included to you
can listen to it--has several professors speaking on it.)
""The stock-option game is supposed to
confer the potential for profit, but also some risk," said John
Freeman, a professor of business ethics at the University of South
Carolina Law School who was a special counsel to the SEC during the
1970s. "When in essence the executives are betting on yesterday's
horse races, knowing the outcome, there's no risk whatever.""
What does past academic research have to say on
this? Most of the evidence suggests that backdating probably does occur.
For years there have been papers showing that
managers tend to announce bad news prior to option grants and even time
the grants prior to price run ups (see Yermack 1997) it has only been
more recently that researchers have noticed that the price appreciation
was not merely due to firm specific factors (which managers may be able
to control and time) but also market wide factors (i.e. the stock market
goes up after option grants).
Last year a paper by
Narayanan and Seyhun suggested that this may
be the result of backdating the option grants. More recently two papers
by Collins, Gong, and Li (a)
and (b)
find further evidence that backdating is (or at
least was) happening and that unscheduled grant dates (where this can
occur) tend to be found more commonly at firms whose management has
relatively more control over their board of directors.
Stay tuned!!
* A quick comment to any manager who may have done this: Why bother? Why
risk it all cheating for a few extra dollars? (Indeed it reminds me of
the Adelphia case where the firm outsourced snow plowing to a Rigas
owned firm. It just doesn't seem worth it.)
*As an aside, once again this shows that finance and accounting go hand
in hand as Collins, Gong, and Li are accounting professors!
Mr. Seward's paper, as co-author on "Protecting Client-CPA-Attorney
Information in the Electronic Age" will be included in the Research Forum
Session of the International Meeting of the American Accounting Association
2006 Annual Meeting on August 6-9 in Washington, D.C.
Is any CEO really entitled to over $6 billion in gains on
employee stock options?
The California Public Employees'
Retirement System is demanding a conference call with the
compensation committee of the board of UnitedHealth Group
Inc. over its disclosure practices, and is threatening to
withhold votes for board directors seeking re-election.
In a letter sent to James A.
Johnson, chairman of the UnitedHealth board's compensation
committee, Calpers board President Rob Feckner demanded a
conference call ahead of Tuesday's UnitedHealth shareholders
meeting to discuss what he called "serious threats to the
credibility, governance and performance of UnitedHealth."
Specifically, the letter criticized the company's failure to
explain how it determined stock option grant dates for Chief
Executive William McGuire and a handful of other executives
in past years, and its "inconsistent" disclosure of its
option-granting program.
The move by Calpers increases the
scrutiny of the process by which Dr. McGuire received some
of the $1.6 billion in unrealized gains he holds in company
stock options. Calpers holds 6.55 million shares, or 0.5%,
of UnitedHealth's outstanding stock. The pension fund, known
for its strong stances on corporate governance, could spur
other investors to join in its criticism. The move also
increases pressure on UnitedHealth's board to more fully
explain its past option-award practices soon, even though
its board only launched a probe into them earlier this
month.
Continued in article
Question
What are the accounting and tax implications of backdating employee stock
options?
The stock-options backdating scandal
continued to intensify, with the announcement by a Silicon
Valley chip maker that its chairman and its chief financial
officer had abruptly resigned. That brought to eight the number
of officials at various companies to leave their posts amid
scrutiny of how companies grant stock options.
"Backdating Probe Widens as 2 Quit Silicon Valley Firm:
Power Integrations Officials Leave Amid Options Scandal; 10
Companies Involved So Far," by Charles Forelle and James Bandler,
The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2006; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114684512600744974.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one
Affiliated Computer Services Inc.
acknowledged that it issued executive stock options that
carried "effective dates" preceding the written approval of
the grants, saying it plans a charge of as much as $40
million to rectify its accounting related to the grants.
The announcement followed a
preliminary internal probe at ACS, a Dallas technology
outsourcer that is also under scrutiny by the Securities and
Exchange Commission for its options practices. Between 1995
and 2002, the company granted stock options to Jeffrey Rich,
its chief executive for part of that time, that were
routinely dated just before sharp run-ups in the company's
share price, and often at the nadir of big dips.
Mr. Rich left the company last
year. A rising share price helped him reap more than $60
million from options during his tenure at the company. The
timing of his grants helped, too. If his six grants had come
at the stock's average closing price during the year they
were dated, he'd have made about 15% less.
Continued in article
Is any CEO really entitled to over $ 6 billion in gains on
employee stock options? "Calpers Puts Pressure on Board of UnitedHealth: Holder
Demands a Meeting Over Option-Grant Timing; A Threat to Withhold
Votes," by Vanessa Fuhrmans, The Wall Street Journal,
April 26, 2006; Page A3 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114599506269535599.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The California Public Employees'
Retirement System is demanding a conference call with the
compensation committee of the board of UnitedHealth Group
Inc. over its disclosure practices, and is threatening to
withhold votes for board directors seeking re-election.
In a letter sent to James A.
Johnson, chairman of the UnitedHealth board's compensation
committee, Calpers board President Rob Feckner demanded a
conference call ahead of Tuesday's UnitedHealth shareholders
meeting to discuss what he called "serious threats to the
credibility, governance and performance of UnitedHealth."
Specifically, the letter criticized the company's failure to
explain how it determined stock option grant dates for Chief
Executive William McGuire and a handful of other executives
in past years, and its "inconsistent" disclosure of its
option-granting program.
The move by Calpers increases the
scrutiny of the process by which Dr. McGuire received some
of the $1.6 billion in unrealized gains he holds in company
stock options. Calpers holds 6.55 million shares, or 0.5%,
of UnitedHealth's outstanding stock. The pension fund, known
for its strong stances on corporate governance, could spur
other investors to join in its criticism. The move also
increases pressure on UnitedHealth's board to more fully
explain its past option-award practices soon, even though
its board only launched a probe into them earlier this
month.
Continued in article
After the Horse is Out of the Barn: UnitedHealth Halts Executive
Options The UnitedHealth Group, under fire for the timing
of lucrative options grants to executives, said Monday that it had
discontinued equity-based awards to its two most senior managers and that it
would cease other perks like paying for personal use of corporate aircraft.
UnitedHealth’s board said it had discontinued equity-based awards for the
chief executive, William W. McGuire, who has some $1.6 billion in unrealized
gains from earlier options grants, and for the president and chief operating
officer, Stephen J. Helmsley.
"UnitedHealth Halts Executive Options," The New York Times, May 2,
2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/business/02unitedhealth.web.html
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review
on May 19, 2006
TITLE: UnitedHealth Cites 'Deficiency' in Options Grants
REPORTER: James Bandler and Charles Forelle
DATE: May 12, 2006
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114734563729450037.html
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Income Taxes, Materiality, Securities and Exchange
Commission, Stock Options, Taxation, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections,
Audit Quality, Auditing
SUMMARY: UnitedHealth Group Inc. disclosed on May 11 that "...a 'significant
deficiency' in how it administered [stock option] grants could force it to
restate results ...[and cut] net income by as much as $286 million over that
period." The company also disclosed that the SEC is "conducting an informal
inquiry into its options-granting practices"...UnitedHealth...said its internal
review had indicated it had uncovered 'significant deficiency' in the way it
administered, accounted for and disclosed past option grants and that it may be
required to take certain accounting adjustments for 'stock-based compensation
expense.' It said that could reduce operating earnings by up to $393 million in
the past three years, adding that the company's management believes that any
adjustments would not be 'material'."
QUESTIONS:
1.) Summarize the issue regarding accounting for stock options that was
uncovered in a March 18, 2006, Wall Street Journal article and that has
subsequently been the subject of SEC scrutiny.
2.) The summary description for this review quotes a paragraph in the article
describing the financial statement effects of potential adjustments the
deficiencies in UnitedHealth's option granting practices. The paragraph begins
"In its filing, UnitedHealth, which reported $3.3 billion in net income last
year..." Identify all of the terms in that paragraph with specific meaning for
accounting and/or auditing purposes. Define each of those terms, explain why it
has specific meaning in its use in accounting or auditing, and, if it is a
relevant point, explain why understanding that meaning helps to analyze the
impact of these options issues on UnitedHealth.
3.) Refer again to the paragraph described in question 1. The concluding
sentence states that the company management believes that adjustments resulting
from their review of options granting practices will not be material. Contrast
this point to the comments by Professor James Cox of Duke University that "this
isn't just a little material...for this kind of issue." Construct arguments to
support one of these positions, being sure to refute arguments potentially in
favor of your opposing side. In your answers to this and the preceding question,
be sure to address the two components of materiality in an audit engagement.
4.) Refer to the list of companies in the table entitled "Key Companies in
Options Probes." In what industry do most of these companies operate? Why is
there industry concentration amongst this sample of firms?
5.) What are the potential issues facing UnitedHealth's auditors, Deloitte
and Touche, regarding these matters? What basic audit steps do you think should
be carried out in relation to any company's accounting for stock options?
6.) Do you think the situation with UnitedHealth necessarily indicates an
audit failure on the part of Deloitte and Touche? In your answer, define the
terms "audit risk", "business risk" in relation to audits, and "audit quality."
7.) Summarize the tax implications described in the article regarding these
matters. How might adjustments to the tax accounting for these stock options
exacerbate or reduce the impact of the adjustments to the accounting for stock
based compensation expense?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review
on May 5, 2006
TITLE: As Options Cloud Looms, Companies May Get Tax Bill
REPORTER: Charles Forelle and James Bandler
DATE: Apr 28, 2006
PAGE: C1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114619341731038487.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Financial Accounting, Securities and
Exchange Commission, Stock Options, Taxation
SUMMARY: Tax implications of the developing issues in stock
options, covered also in a recent Weekly Review, are discussed.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the recently-developing concern with dating of
executive stock options? In your answer, comment on the
Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the issue.
You may refer to the related article for your answer.
2.) Define the terms "compensatory stock options"; "incentive
stock options";"option grant date"; and "option exercise price".
3.) Summarize the tax implications to both executives
receiving stock options and to companies issuing stock options
if option grant dates are changed to a point when the stock
price is higher than on the originally reported date, but the
exercise price is not changed.
4.) The author quotes Mr. Brian Foley as saying that one
company under SEC and IRS scrutiny for this issue, UnitedHealth,
would have a "serious and incurable problem" if options were
"backdated" and they have been exercised. What could be the
difference between options that were exercised and options that
have not been?
5.) What are the financial reporting implications of the
problems highlighted in this article? How do the tax issues
exacerbate the financial reporting problems?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Companies that backdated
stock-option grants to top executives could face a costly
reckoning with the Internal Revenue Service, with some
potentially owing large sums in back taxes, legal experts
say.
The tax problems, which could
affect the personal tax filings of hundreds of individual
employees, are the latest wrinkle in widening inquiries into
stock-option awards.
A half-dozen companies, including
insurance titan UnitedHealth Group Inc., have said their
boards, or the Securities and Exchange Commission, are
examining their past option grants amid concerns that some
may have been backdated to take advantage of lower exercise
prices. Backdating could have resulted in millions of
dollars in extra compensation for insiders, at the expense
of shareholders. Most of the probes are preliminary, and so
far the SEC hasn't charged anyone.
If the investigations turn up
backdated grants, the companies face a host of issues,
including the prospect of earnings restatements and
delistings. Such options offer the right to buy a stock at a
fixed, or exercise, price, allowing the holder to profit by
later selling the underlying shares at a higher price than
the exercise price.
One company that has acknowledged
"misdating" options, Mercury Interactive Corp., a Mountain
View, Calif., software company, has had its stock delisted
by the Nasdaq Stock Market and has said it will have to
restate financial results. Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. last
week suspended its chief executive and two other top
officials, saying the move was related to the "integrity of
documents" in its stock-option program. Late Wednesday,
Vitesse said its board had discovered additional accounting
issues and had hired a turnaround firm.
Granting an option at a price below
the current market value, while not illegal in itself, could
result in problems of wrongful disclosure under securities
laws. Companies' shareholder-approved option plans and SEC
filings often say options will carry the stock price of the
day the company awards them or the day before.
Favorable tax treatment was one
reason that options gained popularity in the 1990s as a way
to compensate employees, particularly executives. When an
option is exercised, the company typically can take any gain
pocketed by the employee as a deduction on its tax return,
because the IRS views the option profit as akin to extra
compensation paid to the employee. The employee reports the
gain on his or her personal tax return.
Tax experts say that options
backdated to a day with a lower market price don't qualify
for a deduction -- although the disqualification only
affects options exercised by the chief executive or any of
the next four most highly compensated executives. And $1
million of each of the executives' total compensation always
can be deducted. As a result, they say, companies with
backdated options could face the prospect of shelling out
cash to revise prior years' tax returns -- and could be
ineligible for the deductions they planned to take in the
future on executive option gains.
A Wall Street Journal analysis,
published in March, described a pattern of unusual
stock-option grants to a handful of chief executives,
including William McGuire, UnitedHealth's chief executive.
Twelve grants to Mr. McGuire between 1994 and 2002 were each
dated in advance of a substantial run-up in the company's
share price, and three of them fell on yearly lows. Last
week, Mr. McGuire told investors on a conference call that,
"to my knowledge, every member of management in this company
believes that at the time we collectively followed
appropriate practices."
The potential tax issues could be
big, particularly for companies whose stocks have greatly
increased since the grants. UnitedHealth, Minnetonka, Minn.,
reported $346 million in realized option gains among its
five best-paid executives from 2003 to 2005. At the end of
last year, it said its five best-paid executives had another
$2.4 billion in unrealized, exercisable options gains.
UnitedHealth's stock has soared since the 1990s, when many
of the options were granted. A board committee investigating
options granting at the company hasn't completed its work,
and it isn't known whether any option grants were backdated
at all.
"If they had a backdating problem,
and that's a big if, the tax consequences could certainly be
ugly," says Brian Foley, a compensation consultant and tax
lawyer in White Plains, N.Y. With respect to the
already-exercised options, he added, "they would have an
obvious and serious and incurable problem."
UnitedHealth had a corporate-tax
rate ranging between 34.9% and 35.7% in the past three
years. Although the company's actual payments likely were
lower, that suggests the tax savings to UnitedHealth from
exercised executive options could have been as much as $120
million from 2003 to 2005. As of end of 2005, the value of
the future tax savings was as much as $800 million.
"That's a huge number," says Robert
Willens, a tax and accounting expert at Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc.
UnitedHealth has reported
substantial tax benefits from deducting its employees' stock
option gains. Until recently, the company said in its proxy
statements that it believed its executive option grants
qualify for the tax deduction. Starting in a proxy filed in
April 2005, it said some options might not qualify, but that
the amounts involved were immaterial. Ruth Pachman, an
outside spokeswoman for UnitedHealth, said in a statement
that the company "continues to believe" that its proxy
statements were accurate and remain accurate. She said the
company "declined to speculate about hypothetical
scenarios."
Executives at other companies
reporting options investigations, including Vitesse and
Affiliated Computer Services Inc., reported substantial
options gains to top executives. ACS, which reported about
$44 million in realized options gains by its top five
executives in the most recent three fiscal years, didn't
return calls. Vitesse officials didn't return several
messages seeking comment.
S. James DiBernardo, a partner at
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP who specializes in tax issues,
says there is no easy way to make grants comply with the
terms of the tax code retroactively. A company could reprice
the options, he says, but it would have to reprice them at
the current share value, effectively erasing all of an
executive's past gains. Another route is for the top
executives to wait until after retirement to exercise the
options -- when they are no longer executive officers.
Ethan Yale, an associate professor
at Georgetown University Law Center who was retained by
UnitedHealth to look into this matter, agreed that the issue
could pose tax problems. He said this is largely uncharted
territory and ambiguities in tax rules might allow a company
to get back in compliance retroactively by repricing the
options to the actual grant-date prices.
Deloitte & Touche (USA) has updated its book of
guidance on FASB Statement No. 123(R) Share-Based Payment:
A Roadmap to Applying the Fair Value Guidance to Share-Based Payment Awards
(PDF 2220k). This second edition reflects all
authoritative guidance on FAS 123(R) issued as of 28 April 2006. It includes
over 60 new questions and answers, particularly in the areas of earnings per
share, income tax accounting, and liability classification. Our
interpretations incorporate the views in SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin Topic
14 "Share-Based Payment" (SAB 107), as well as subsequent clarifications of
EITF Topic No. D-98 "Classification and Measurement of Redeemable
Securities" (dealing with mezzanine equity treatment). The publication
contains other resource materials, including a GAAP accounting and
disclosure checklist. Note that while FAS 123 is similar to
IFRS 2
Share-based Payment, there are some measurement
differences that are
Described Here.
Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said,
"Where did you get such a great bike?"
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my
own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the
ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."
The second engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes
probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."
Understanding Engineers - Take Two
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Understanding Engineers - Take Three
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly
slow group of golfers.
The engineer fumed, "What's with those blokes? We must have been waiting for
fifteen minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"
The priest said, "Here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."
He said, "Hello, George! what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're
rather slow, aren't they?"
The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind fire fighters. They
lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last
year, so we always let them play for free anytime."
The group fell silent for a moment.
The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them
tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague
and see if there's anything he can do for them."
The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"
Understanding Engineers - Take Four
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.
Understanding Engineers - Take Five
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
Understanding Engineers - Take Six
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible
designers of the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many
thousands of electrical connections."
The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else
would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area ?"
Understanding Engineers - Take Seven
Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Understanding Engineers - Take Eight
An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said,
"If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a
beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to
the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a Princess, I'll
stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his
pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful
princess, and that I'll stay with you for one week and do
anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend,
but a talking frog, now that's cool."
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on April 27,
2006
TITLE: Alcatel Stands to Reap Tax Benefit on Merger
REPORTER: Jesse Drucker and Sara Silver
DATE: Apr 26, 2006
PAGE: C3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114601908332236130.html
TOPICS: Accounting, International Accounting, Net Operating Losses, Taxation
SUMMARY: "Lucent's operating losses in [the] wake of [the] tech bubble may
allow big deductions" for the merged firm's U.S. operations.
QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the purpose of allowing net operating losses (NOLs) to be deducted
against other years' income amounts?
2.) Summarize the U.S. tax law provisions regarding NOLs. Why has Lucent been
unable to use up all of its NOL carryforwards since the tech bubble burst in
2000-2001?
3.) Define the term deferred tax assets. Describe how NOLs fit the definition
you provide. What other types of deferred tax assets do you think that Lucent
has available and wants to take advantage of?
4.) How is it possible that the "federal, state and local deductions" from
the deferred tax assets described in answer to question #3 "will nearly double
the U.S. net income that the combined company [of Alcatel and Lucent
Technologies] will be able to report"?
5.) How does the availability of NOL carryforwards, and the expected timing
of their deductions based on an acquirer's earnings or the recent tax law change
referred to in the article, impact the price an acquirer is willing to pay in a
merger or acquisition transaction?
6.) How did the availability of deferred tax asset deductions drive Alcatel's
choice of its location for its headquarters? What other factors do you think
drive such a choice?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
"Flat-pack accounting" May 11th 2006 From
The Economist print edition
Forget about the Gates Foundation. The world's
biggest charity owns IKEA�and is devoted to interior design
FEW tasks are more exasperating than trying to
assemble flat-pack furniture from IKEA. But even that is simple compared
with piecing together the accounts of the world's largest home-furnishing
retailer. Much has been written about IKEA's remarkably effective retail
formula. The Economist has investigated the group's no less astonishing
finances.
What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits
the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a
somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but
is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA
minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family
and makes IKEA immune to a takeover. And if that seems too good to be true,
it is: these arrangements are extremely hard to undo. The benefits from all
this ingenuity come at the price of a huge constraint on the successors to
Ingvar Kamprad, the store's founder (pictured above), to do with IKEA as
they see fit.
Although IKEA is one of Sweden's best-known
exports, it has not in a strict legal sense been Swedish since the early
1980s. The store has made its name by supplying Scandinavian designs at
Asian prices. Unusually among retailers, it has managed its international
expansion without stumbling. Indeed, its brand�which stands for clean, green
and attractive design and value for money�is as potent today as it has been
at any time in more than 50 years in business.
The parent for all IKEA companies�the operator of
207 of the 235 worldwide IKEA stores�is Ingka Holding, a private
Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to
Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt,
non-profit-making legal entity, which was given the shares of Mr Kamprad in
1982. Stichtingen, or foundations, are the most common form of
not-for-profit organisation in the Netherlands; tens of thousands of them
are registered.
Most Dutch stichtingen are tiny, but if Stichting
Ingka Foundation were listed it would be one of the Netherlands' ten largest
companies by market value. Its main asset is the Ingka Holding group, which
is conservatively financed and highly profitable: post-tax profits were €1.4
billion ($1.7 billion) � an impressive margin of nearly 11% on sales of
€12.8 billion � in the year to August 31st 2004, the latest year for which
the group has filed accounts.
Valuing the Inkga Holding group is awkward, because
IKEA has no direct competitors that operate globally. Shares in Target, a
large, successful chain of stores in the United States that makes a fifth of
its sales from home furnishings, are priced at 20 times the store's latest
full-year earnings. Using that price/earnings ratio, the Ingka Holding group
is worth €28 billion ($36 billion).
This is probably conservative, given IKEA's growth
prospects. Sales � the only financial information that IKEA releases�for the
year to August 31st 2005 were €14.8 billion, 15.6% up on a year earlier. And
there is plenty of scope for more stores. Ingka Holding has only 26 outlets
in America. By contrast, in Europe, a market of comparable size, it has over
160, accounting for more than 80% of its total turnover. In April IKEA
opened its first store in Japan.
If Stichting Ingka Foundation has net worth of at
least $36 billion it would be the world's wealthiest charity. Its value
easily exceeds the $26.9 billion shown in the latest published accounts of
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is commonly awarded that
accolade.
Measured by good works, however, the Gates
Foundation wins hands down. It devotes most of its resources to curing the
diseases of the world's poor. By contrast the Kamprad billions are dedicated
to “innovation in the field of architectural and interior design”. The
articles of association of Stichting Ingka Foundation, a public record in
the Netherlands, state that this object cannot be amended. Even a Dutch
court can make only minor changes to the stichting's aims.
If Stichting Ingka Foundation has net worth of at
least $36 billion it would be the world's wealthiest charity
The Kamprad foundations compare poorly with the
Gates Foundation in other ways, too. The American charity operates
transparently, publishing, for instance, details of every grant it makes.
But Dutch foundations are very loosely regulated and are subject to little
or no third-party oversight. They are not, for instance, legally obliged to
publish their accounts.
Under its articles, Stichting Ingka Foundation
channels its funds to Stichting IKEA Foundation, another Dutch-registered
foundation with identical aims, and which actually doles out money for
worthy interior-design ideas. But the second foundation does not publish any
information either. So just how � or whether � Stichting Ingka Foundation
has spent the €1.6 billion that it collected in dividends from Ingka Holding
in 1998-2003 remains hidden from view.
IKEA says only that this money is used for
charitable purposes and “for investing long-term in order to build a reserve
for securing the IKEA group, in case of any future capital requirements.”
IKEA adds that in the past two years donations have been concentrated on the
Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden. The Lund Institute says it has
recently received SKr12.5m ($1.7m) a year from Stichting Ikea (which also
gave the institute a lump sum of SKr55m in the late 1990s). That is barely a
rounding error in the foundation's assets. Clearly, the world of interior
design is being tragically deprived, as the foundation devotes itself to
building its own reserves in case IKEA needs capital.
Although Mr Kamprad has given up ownership of IKEA,
the stichting means that his control over the group is absolutely secure. A
five-person executive committee, chaired by Mr Kamprad, runs the foundation.
This committee appoints the boards of Ingka Holding, approves any changes to
the company's statutes, and has pre-emption rights on new share issues.
Mr Kamprad's wife and a Swiss lawyer have also been
members of this committee, which takes most of its decisions by simple
majority, since the foundation was set up. When one member of the committee
quits or dies, the remaining four appoint his replacement. In other words,
Mr Kamprad is able to exercise control of Ingka Holding as if he were still
its owner. In theory, nothing can happen at IKEA without the committee's
agreement.
That control is so tight that not even Mr Kamprad's
heirs can loosen it after his death. The foundation's objects require it to
“obtain and manage” shares in the Ingka Holding group. Other clauses of its
articles require the foundation to manage its shareholding in a way to
ensure “the continuity and growth” of the IKEA group. The shares can be sold
only to another foundation with the same objects and executive committee,
and the foundation can be dissolved only through insolvency.
Yet, though control over IKEA is locked up, the
money is not. Mr Kamprad left a trapdoor for getting funds out of the
business, even if its ownership and control cannot change. The IKEA
trademark and concept is owned by Inter IKEA Systems, another private Dutch
company, but not part of the Ingka Holding group. Its parent company is
Inter IKEA Holding, registered in Luxembourg. This, in turn, belongs to an
identically named company in the Netherlands Antilles, run by a trust
company in Cura�ao. Although the beneficial owners remain hidden from
view�IKEA refuses to identify them�they are almost certain to be members of
the Kamprad family.
Clearly, the Kamprad family pays the same
meticulous attention to tax avoidance as IKEA does to low prices in its
stores
Inter IKEA earns its money from the franchise
agreements it has with each IKEA store. These are extremely lucrative: IKEA
says that all franchisees pay 3% of sales. The Ingka Holding group, the
company owned by the Kamprad foundation, is the biggest franchisee, with its
207 stores; other franchisees run the remaining 28 stores, which are mainly
in the Middle East and Asia.
How much money does Inter IKEA Systems make? Its
results are included in its parent company's accounts filed in Luxembourg.
These show that in 2004 the Inter IKEA group collected €631m in franchise
fees and made pre-tax profits of €225m. This profit is after deducting €590m
of “other operating charges”.
Although IKEA would not explain these charges,
because its policy is not to comment on the accounts of a private group of
companies, Inter IKEA appears to make large payments to I.I. Holding,
another Luxembourg-registered group that is almost certain to be controlled
by the Kamprad family and which made a profit of €328m in 2004.
Together these companies had nearly €11.9 billion
in cash and securities at the end of 2004, even after I.I. Holding paid out
a dividend of nearly €800m during the year. Most of this money has
undoubtedly come from the collection of franchise fees. In total, these two
groups suffered tax bills of a mere €19m in 2004 on their combined profits
of €553m. Clearly, the Kamprad family pays the same meticulous attention to
tax avoidance as IKEA does to low prices in its stores.
The IKEA financial system of stichtingen and
holding companies is extremely efficient. Even so, next time you wonder how
anyone could have come up with the fiendish plans for a Hensvik storage unit
or a Bjursta sideboard, spare a thought for the Kamprads' accountants.
I recently sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and
practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR)
Diversity Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President
Judy Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Long time followers of FinanceProfessor.com
know I am a
big fan of Thomas Friedman. From his early
books to The World is Flat and most of his NY Times articles, I
think I have read everything he has written. I may not agree with
everything, but at least I have read it (or more aptly ristened to
it) and agreed with MOST of it.
Thus, I was excited when I found the following from
Google Video (one of my new favorite
sites).
From Charlie Rose (actually with guest host John Doerr):
On energy and much more. He also talks
about entrepreneurship, a gas tax, geo-green, globalization (a
little), and even a bit on social responsibility and incentives. And
much more. (BTW the link says 99 cents, but I think that is to buy,
I watched it for free) (from May 22, 2006):
For all Google Video on Thomas Friedman check out
this search.
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and
video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
From 'New False Identity' : * 'Palestine, Texas' *
'Hollywood Mecca of the Movies'
From 'Twenty Twenty': * 'Fatally Beautiful' * 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best
Friend' * 'Driving Wheel'
The Bates College Museum of Art has
put together a Web exhibition that explores the "fertile margins of the
history of science and museums, taxonomy, myth, creativity and
discovery." Cryptozoology, the search for proof of mythical creatures
such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, is itself a marginalized
science. The featured show has entries for the 15 artists, which are in
various stages of development - there is at least one work by each of
them, and additional biographical and contextual information for most.
Works submitted include installations, such as Mark Dion's Museum of
Cryptozoology Director's Office, as well as sculpture, paintings, and
prints. There is also a film series associated with the exhibition, that
will screen a 1972 film, "The Legend of Boggy Creek", a docu-drama that
looks for proof of the existence of a monster in an Arkansas swamp, and
the 2002 Discovery Channel production, "The End of Extinction: Cloning
the Tasmanian Tiger".
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
---
Click Here
Across the Plains by Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850-1894) ---
Click Here
Billy Budd by Herman Melville (1819-1891) ---
Click Here
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark
Twain (1835-1910) ---
Click Here
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
(1859-1930) ---
Click Here
Education is not to reform students or amuse them or
to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their
horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible. Robert M. Hutchins as quoted by Mark
Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-30-06.htm
Education is a private matter between the person and
the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or
college. Lillian Smith as quoted by Mark
Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-18-06.htm
Time Warner is charging more to folks who can least
afford to pay. Geneva Hurst, 82, is upset because she had to pay a dollar extra
when she paid her cable bill in person at a Texas City service center. She
doesn't have a checking account or credit card and cashes her Social Security
check to buy food and pay bills. Geneva said, "I goes there. I don't have a
checking account but I pays it in cash. And I walk in there one day and I paid
it in cash and she says when I paid--'Oh, you know, we have to charge a dollar
extra.' . . . It's a sad thing. It's so sad, 'cause poor people, we just barely
getting by with what we're already paying."
"Customers who pay their bill in person charged extra fee,"
ABC13.com, May 22, 2006 ---
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=action13&id=4195646
That sound you just heard might have been the first
piece of the sky hitting the roof.
Doug Lederman, "Ever-Expanding False Claims Act," Inside Higher Ed, May
27, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/26/false
So to appease them (environmentalists),
the pipeline was put on stilts where it crossed the caribou graze lands. What
happened? The caribou decided to gather at the spot where the pipeline came down
to the ground. Seems the caribou liked to lie against the pipeline because the
pipe was warm from the oil passing through it. Roger Hedgecock, May 28, 2006 ---
http://rogerhedgecock.com/content/view/177/77/
Louisiana will have nearly its full force of Guard
personnel at home preparing for the 2006 hurricane season. “They’re sorting all
that out [at the federal level],” Major Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard
said, according to the Independent News. “There’s no planned rotation for any
Louisiana guard brigade at this time.” AccountingWeb, May 26, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102195
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G. Smith and
Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how theory
development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions changed over
time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I proceed
through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will take some time
to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
Managing Organizational Knowledge: Theoretical and
Methodological Foundations
IKUJIRO NONAKA
PG. #376 & 377 NONAKA 18.1 KNOWLEDGE/TRUTH
Knowledge has been traditionally defined as "justified true belief." A
fundamental issue in various streams of epistemology is how one can justify
one's subjective belief as objective "truth." In other words, the issue is
whether human beings can ever achieve any form of knowledge that is independent
of their own subjective construction since they are the agents through which
knowledge is perceived or experienced (Morgan and Smircich, 1980). While the
ontological position of positivism as the world as concrete structures supports
objective knowledge, the phenomenological philosophers see part of the world
inherently subjective.
The Cartesian split and power of reasoning supports the view of
objective knowledge and truth in positivism. John Locke, among the others,
maintained that human knowledge is an inner mental presentation (or mirror
image) of the outside world that can be explained in linguistic signs and
mathematics through reasoning. All things beyond the thought/senses
consequently do not exist and/or are irrelevant. Loosely following this
conceptualization, traditional economic and psychological theories are limited
to objective knowledge, which can be processed through formal logic and tested
empirically. The advantage of this mono-dimensional notion of knowledge is that
it allows scholars further to claim that all genuine human knowledge is
contained within the boundaries of science.
In contrast, for phenomenological philosophers knowledge is
subjective, context-specific, bodily, relative, and interpretational (Heidegger,
1962; Husserl, 1970, 1977; Merleau-Ponty, 1962). They rather uniformly claim
that the mental and the physical worlds evolve in a dialectic joint advent. As
meanings emerge through experiences, the primacy is paid on subjective tacit
knowledge over objective prepositional knowledge. Practical knowledge is often
prioritized over theoretical knowledge (Hayek, 1945; Polanyi, 1952, 1966).
Tacit knowledge, accumulated in dialectic individual-environment interaction, is
very difficult to articulate (Polanyi, 1952, 1966). Husserl (1977) believed in
attaining true knowledge through "epoche" or "bracketing," that is, seeing
things as they are and grasping them through a kind of direct insight. Pure
phenomenological experience is even claimed to precede cognition (Nishida,
1970).
The identified wide and fundamental ontological and
epistemological differences in positivism and phenomenology create
methodological challenges. It can be claimed that the positivist dominance has
limited comprehensive context-specific discussions on knowledge in management
science. This problem was already noticed by Edith Penrose (1959) who argued
that the relative negligence was the result of the difficulties involved in
taking knowledge into account. This is because positivist epistemology is based
on the assumption that lived experiences can be linguistically carved up and
conventionally portioned into preexistent conceptual categories for the purposes
of systematic analysis and casual attribution. In effect, positivism-based
social science tries to freeze-frame the dynamic and living social world into a
preexisting static structure.
In contrast to the context-free positivist mirror image of human
mind and the environment, the knowledge-creating theory is rooted on the belief
that knowledge inherently includes human values and ideals. The knowledge
creation process cannot be captured solely as a normative causal model because
human values and ideals are subjective and the concept of truth depends on
values, ideals, and contexts.
However, the knowledge-creating theory does not view knowledge
as solely subjective. It treats knowledge creation as a continuous process in
which subjective tacit knowledge and objective explicit knowledge are converted
into each other (Nonaka, 1991, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). The boundaries
between explicit and tacit knowledge are porous as all knowledge and action is
rooted in the tacit component (Tsoukas, 1996). Tacit knowledge, in turn, is
built partly on the existing explicit knowledge since tacit knowledge is
acquired through experiences and observations in the physical world.
Viewing the knowledge-creating process as the conversion process
between tacit and explicit knowledge means that it is viewed as the social
process of validating truth (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
Contemporary philosophers claim that group validation produces knowledge that is
not private and subjective (Rorty, 1979). As long as the knowledge stays tacit
and subjective, it can be acquired only through direct sensory experience, and
cannot go beyond one's own values, ideals, and contexts. In such a case, it is
hard to create new knowledge or achieve universality of knowledge. Through the
knowledge conversion process, called SECI process, a personal subjective
knowledge is validated socially and synthesized with others' knowledge so that
knowledge keeps expanding (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
Unlike positivism, the knowledge-creating theory does not treat
knowledge as something absolute and infallible. The truth can be claimed to be
incomplete as any current state of knowledge is fallible and influenced by
historical factors such as ideologies, values, and interests of collectives.
The knowledge-creating theory views knowledge and truth as the result of a
permanent and unfinished questioning of the present. While absolute truth may
not be achieved, the knowledge validation leads to ever more true and fewer
false consequences, increasing plausibility. The pragmatic solution is to
accept collectively "objectified" knowledge as the "truth" because it works in a
certain time and context. Hence, knowledge-creating theory defines knowledge as
a dynamic process of justifying personal belief towards the "truth."
PG. #390 NONAKA The chapter argues that building the theory of
knowledge creation needs to an epistemological and ontological discussion,
instead of just relying on a positivist approach, which has been the implicit
paradigm of social science. The positivist rationality has become
identified with analytical thinking that focuses on generating and testing
hypotheses through formal logic. While providing a clear guideline for theory
building and empirical examinations, it poses problems for the investigation of
complex and dynamic social phenomena, such as knowledge creation. In
positivist-based research, knowledge is still often treated as an exogenous
variable or distraction against linear economic rationale. The relative lack of
alternative conceptualization has meant that management science has slowly been
detached from the surrounding societal reality. The understanding of social
systems cannot be based entirely on natural scientific facts.
Martha Launches an Old Biscuits Mixer
Last week, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. --
which already has magazines, a radio show, a television show and a line of
furnishings featuring the eponymous founder and domestic expert -- said it would
enter the social network space by launching a site in late 2007. It will be
similar to MySpace.com, the social network site hugely popular with teens and
young adults, but aimed at adult women, the company said.
"Martha's New Invitation: Your Space, Or Hers? by Frank Ahrens, The
Washington Post, May 28, 2006; Page F06 ---
Click Here
The company said . . . okay, that's it. I can't
hold a straight face any longer in this story. The mind reels with the comic
possibilities:
� It'll be just like MySpace. That is, if your
space happens to be an 8-by-10 jail cell in a federal pen.
� Why do I have a feeling it will be a lot more
like Martha's Space than MySpace?
� Further, how will she stand all of those
people in her space, clicking on things, looking at things, getting
things out of place? You people ever hear of viruses? Stop touching
everything!
� And then there is this: 2007? I bet a couple
smart guys in a garage could set up a decent-looking social network site
in about a month. By the time Stewart hangs her site, social networks
could be so 2006. We may be into anti-social networks by then, which is
what I'm looking forward to, as in, KeepOutOfMySpace.com. (Note to self:
Register that, quick.)
MySpace, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News
Corp. last year, has some 70 million users and is growing. The idea is a
proven one. Talking to investors last week, Susan Lyne -- the chief
executive of Stewart's company (and one of the ABC executives who got fired
after green-lighting "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost") -- said Stewart's
social network site will be aimed at the 25-to-45-year-old female set, and
will let them swap such things as pictures, recipes and scrapbook-making
tips.
Continued in article
And now, the Latino Jihad Four years ago, The Economist ran a cover story on the
winner of the Brazilian election, the socialist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva. It was an event of great hemispherical significance. Hence the headline:
"The Meaning Of Lula." The following week, a Canadian reader, Asif Niazi, wrote
to the magazine: "Sir, The meaning of Lula‚ in Urdu, is penis." . . . Frank
Gaffney's new book War Footing is sub-titled Ten Steps America Must Take to
Prevail in the War for the Free World and includes, as one might expect,
suggestions for the home front, the Middle East, the transnational agencies. But
it's some of the other chapters that give you pause when it comes to the bigger
picture - for example, he urges Washington to "Counteract the reemergence of
totalitarianism in Latin America." That doesn't sound like the fellows Condi and
Colin were cooing over in Quebec. Yet, as Gaffney writes, "Many Latin American
countries are imploding rather than developing. The region's most influential
leaders are thugs. It is a magnet for Islamist terrorists and a breeding ground
for hostile political movements. The key leader is Chavez, the billionaire
dictator of Venezuela, who has declared a Latino jihad against the United
States."
Mark Steyn, "And now, the Latino Jihad," Jerusalem Post, May 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
Professor Churchill found guilty of "misconduct and plagiarism"
Last week the University of Colorado panel
investigating Ward Churchill found that the controversial professor of Native
American studies
committed serious acts of researchmisconduct and
plagiarism. It’s now up to the university to decide on an appropriate punishment
for the tenured professor, who could be fired or suspended without pay. I don’t
know enough about the situation to support or challenge the panel’s unanimous
findings, or to suggest what the university should do about them, but one aspect
of the committee’s 125-page report signals a chilling warning to academics: If
you want to stay below the radar, keep your politics and your scholarship to
yourself.
Dennis Barron, "Churchill Fallout: It’s About Academic Freedom," Inside
Higher Ed, May 26, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/26/baron
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s
report
“How Many Ward Churchills?” has caused an uproar
in some corners of the Internet. Criticism has centered on two issues:
method and message. The report’s principal critics, Swarthmore history
professor Timothy Burke and The Myth of Political Correctness author
John K. Wilson, have attacked it, respectively, as a “casual, lazy,
cherrypicking survey of whatever materials the author(s) were able to access
on the Web,” and as part of “a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college
campuses.” Both critiques share confused and erroneous assumptions about the
report’s message and about ACTA’s right to criticize academic culture.
rke complains that the report’s criticisms
are ill-founded: They “see what they want to see,” they “ignore
context or specificity,” and they “avoid REAL argument of the kind
that scholars routinely engage in,” he grumbles. “The report talks
about the need to guarantee that students have unrestrained rights
to the free exchange of ideas in the classroom. Seriously, unless
you bother to get off your ass and stop reading catalogues online,
you have no idea what happens in classrooms.”
Setting aside Burke’s contemptuous tone, let’s
examine the gaps in his reasoning. Burke’s initial objections are
throw-away examples of faulty logic. The first, in which he accuses
ACTA of post ergo propter hoc thinking, is itself an example
of that logical fallacy: Burke sees ACTA seeing what ACTA wants to
see because Burke wants to see ACTA that way. But the course
descriptions ACTA cites are hardly unique or isolated. There are
hundreds of similarly tendentious descriptions published by
institutions across the country. They were chosen for their utter
typicality, not their uniqueness.
Burke’s second objection is remarkably
solipsistic — context and specificity are whatever he defines them
to be. ACTA quotes course descriptions verbatim, working from
exactly what students (and interested parents) read to select a
class. The reason? Course descriptions are designed to stand alone —
if they are all a prospective student needs to know about a class,
then they are also all tuition-paying parents, taxpayers, and
concerned citizens need in order to form a preliminary judgment.
This objection is part of Burke’s larger
criticism of the report’s reliance on course descriptions. But his
claim that these documents — the main resource students use to
decide whether or not to register for a class — do not tell us
anything about what happens in the classes in question is illogical
at best, disingenuous at worst. If true, this charge would mean
either that professors routinely engage in false advertising or that
the process by which students choose courses is a charade that fools
no one but students themselves.
In so arguing, Burke has chosen to stretch
a point ACTA freely concedes — that course descriptions are neither
courses nor perfect windows into the curriculum — in order to avoid
ACTA’s more fundamental argument about why course descriptions
matter. They matter because they are professors’ own public
representations of what happens in their classrooms. That so many
professors describe their pedagogical aims in ideologically loaded
ways raises entirely legitimate questions about accountability and
balance.
Of course, ACTA has never claimed to know
exactly what is happening in classrooms, and does not assume
authority to determine whether a class is pedagogically sound. All
ACTA’s report does is to urge college and university presidents,
deans, and faculty to examine the issue themselves. ACTA has already
outlined ways campus leaders can review departments and programs
while still being fair, respectful, and sensitive to academic
freedom and academic autonomy. Our 2005 report,
“Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action,”
was praised for its sensitivity to academic freedom and
self-governance. Burke’s hasty and intemperate critique studiously
evades these points.
Burke’s other criticism, that ACTA avoids
“REAL” argument because it does not argue in the same manner as
scholars do, is self-servingly dismissive: ACTA’s argument need not
be considered, Burke implies, because ACTA has not made its argument
as Burke thinks arguments should be made. But the truth is that
ACTA’s report is expressly not an academic paper. It is a report
designed to initiate dialogue about the college curriculum by
outlining some of the dominant terms and patterns displayed in
course offerings across the country. To condemn it, as Burke has,
for failing to maintain scholarly standards of data analysis is like
damning an apple for not being an orange.
Burke thus badly misunderstands ACTA’s
report. He both thinks ACTA isn’t qualified to judge the academic
curriculum and complains that ACTA has not framed a satisfactory
program of reform. But ACTA stresses that academics should address
the problem of self-regulation, and that they should do so now — in
the face of mounting legislative interest in controlling the
curriculum. ACTA’s report is as friendly to institutional
self-governance and academic freedom as it is possible for a
watchdog organization to be.
Now for Mr. Wilson.
Writing at
Inside Higher Ed, John K. Wilson treats
ACTA’s report as Exhibit A in “a vast new right-wing witch hunt on
college campuses”: “The far right is already pursuing leftist
academics for expressing their views in the classroom,” Wilson
writes. “ACTA threatens that academic freedom will be revoked from
colleges unless they start censoring their professors and ban
[courses that mention social justice, sex, or race].” But Wilson’s
scaremongering misrepresents the report to an audience who, he seems
to expect, will not check his sources.
Nowhere does ACTA advocate censoring
professors or banning courses. The report urges academic officials
to address — voluntarily, and in institutionally appropriate ways —
professors’ obligation to respect students’ academic freedom to
learn about controversial issues. The report recommends
institutional self-study, hiring administrators committed to
intellectual diversity, careful vetting of job candidates’ work,
review of personnel practices, post-tenure review, and — most
importantly — fostering robust debate on campus.
Here are the study’s concluding paragraphs,
which follow directly from the sentence Wilson quoted to argue that
ACTA is endorsing censorship:
Ultimately, greater accountability
means more responsible decision-making on the part of academic
administrators, more judicious hiring on the part of
departments, and more balanced, genuinely tolerant teaching on
the part of faculties. It also means acknowledging—openly and
unapologetically—that education and advocacy are not one and the
same, that the invaluable work of opening minds and honing
critical thinking skills cannot be done when professors are more
interested in seeing their own beliefs put into political
practice.Finally, it means defending the academic freedom of
even the most militantly radical academics. Our aim should not
be to fire the Ward Churchills for their views, but to insist
that they do their job—regardless of their ideological
commitments. We must insist that, in their classrooms, they
teach fairly, fostering an open and robust exchange of ideas and
refusing to succumb to a proselytizing or otherwise biased
pedagogy. Only then will their ideas be subject to debate; only
then will they and their students learn to defend their
positions in the marketplace of ideas. Only then will other
views challenge, complicate, and even displace theirs. Only then
can we hope to create a truly diverse academy.
Far from calling for censorship or the
banning of classes, ACTA urges transparency about what professors
teach; far from trying to silence politically engaged professors,
ACTA defends academic freedom while at the same time noting that 1)
academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism or freedom
from accountability; and 2) students have academic freedom too. Also
worth noting: When the Ward Churchill scandal broke in 2005,
ACTA defended Churchill
from those who sought to fire him for his speech.
Wilson mistrusts definitions of research
misconduct that include egregiously misleading citations — and no
wonder. His own argument about ACTA depends on the willful
manipulation of sources.
Neither Burke nor Wilson reads ACTA’s
report objectively, choosing instead to see it as proof of that worn
professorial complaint, that no one outside the ivory tower
understands academics. But what neither grasps is that it is not the
public’s job to intuit the special worth of professors. Insofar as
Burke and Wilson represent an academic consensus that outsiders are
not qualified to judge — or scrutinize, or question — higher
education, they signal the depth of the complacent insularity ACTA’s
report takes to task.
If ACTA’s report has a take-home message
for academics, it is that they urgently need to justify to a
skeptical public why their work deserves special protections. Only
then, ironically, will they have a chance of preserving the
independence they cherish. With transparency comes respect; with
accountability comes autonomy. That’s the paradoxical point of “How
Many Ward Churchills?” — that the more open one is about one’s
practices, the more willing one is to allow one’s work to be
scrutinized, the more responsive one is to legitimate criticisms,
the more likely one is to be allowed to carry on without undue
interference. What a pity that Burke and Wilson could not take off
their ideological blinders long enough to see that.
Anne D. Neal is president of the American Council of
Trustees and Alumni.
A couple of months ago I asked for any experiences
with systems that collect faculty activity and productivity data for
multiple reporting needs (AACSB, local performance evaluation, etc.). I said
I'd get back to the list with a summary of private responses.
No one reported any significant direct experience,
but many AECMers provided names and e-mail addresses of [primarily]
associate deans who had researched products from Sedona and Digital
Measures. Since my associate dean was leading the charge, I just passed
those addresses on to her.
We ended up selecting Digital Measures mainly
because of our local faculty input, the gist of which was that it had a more
professional "feel." My recollection is that the risk of data loss with
either system is acceptable and that the university "owns" the data. I
understand that a grad student is entering our data from the past five years
to get us started.
Ed Scribner
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM, USA
Over 100 universities use Digital Measures'
customized solutions to connect administrators, faculty, staff, students,
and alumni. Take a look at a few of the schools and learn more about Digital
Measures.
And here we reach the heart of the matter. We
academics are deeply invested in our own significance. We were the smartest
ones in the class. We believe the life of the mind is sacred and we are
living it. Our ideas are our selves. When we come up against biased tenure
committees or uncongenial locations or grinding teaching loads, we convince
ourselves that this is the price we must pay for the greatness we are meant
to achieve, and we suck it up, complaining all the way.
I do know happy academics of my generation. Some
are wildly successful, living out the myth. Others have found niches in
which they can happily do work that satisfies them, giving up the myth. But
too many of us hang onto the myth and let go of satisfaction.
When people say I’m a brave role model, I have to
laugh. I don’t feel very brave. Mainly I feel shell-shocked. Giving up the
security of tenure and remaking one’s life at 41 is hard, so hard that
sometimes I ask myself why I’m doing it. Is it an act of hubris, based on
the continuing belief that I am great and only need to find the arena in
which my greatness will be appreciated, or is it an act of submission,
acquiescing to my own ordinariness? I don’t know the answer to that
question, but I do know that no longer an academic, I’m a lot happier.
Continued in article
The entire 2006 current ethics flap about climbers not rendering aid to a
supposedly dying climber on Mt. Everest was preceded by a great 1983 real world
case called the Parable of the Sadhu from the Harvard Business School ---
Click Here
The Parable of the Sadhu was and still is widely used in ethics
courses, especially regarding issues of situational ethics and group versus
individual ethics. The author Bowen H. McCoy was the managing director of the
investment banking firm Morgan Stanley & Co. After returning to New York, McCoy
was conscious stricken about leaving a dying religious man during an Everest
climb. The climbers at that time shed some clothes to keep the dying man warm.
But climbers from various nations (U.S., Switzerland, and Japan) actually moved
on and did not help the man down to shelter because they all felt that he was
going to die in any case. Also, the weather was such that the climbers could not
complete their climbing goal if they delayed to carry the dying man to shelter.
McCoy wrote the following after returning to New York:
We do not know if the sadhu lived or died. For many
of the following days and evenings Stephen and I discussed and debated our
behavior toward the sadhu. Stephen is a committed Quaker with deep moral
vision. He said, "I feel that what happened with the Sadhu is a good example
of the breakdown between the individual ethic and the corporate ethic. No
one person was willing to assume ultimate responsibility for the sadhu. Each
was willing to do his bit just so long as it was not too inconvenient. When
it got to be a bother everyone just passed the buck to someone else and took
off . . . "
. . .
Despite my arguments, I feel and continue to feel
guilt about the sadhu. I had literally walked through a classic moral
dilemma without fully thinking through the consequences. My excuses for my
actions include a high adrenaline flow, super-ordinate goal, and a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity --- factors in the usual corporate situation,
especially when one is under stress.
Real moral dilemmas are ambiguous and many of us
hike right through them, unaware that they exist. When, usually after the
fact, someone makes an issue of them, we tend to resent his or her bringing
it up. Often, when the full import of what we have done (or not done) falls
on us, we dig into a defensive position from which it is very difficult to
emerge. In rare circumstances we may contemplate what we have done from
inside a prison.
Had we mountaineers have been free of physical and
mental stress caused by the effort and the high altitude, we might have
treated the sadhu differently. Yet isn't stress the real test of personal
and corporate values? The instant decisions executives make under pressure
reveal the most about personal and corporate character.
Among the many questions that occur to me when
pondering my experience are: What are the practical limits of moral
imagination and vision? Is there a collective or institutional ethic beyond
the ethics of the individual? At what level of effor or commitment can one
discharge one's ethical responsibilities?
Continued in this 1983 Harvard Business School Case.
Jensen Comment
I might add that this 1983 case was written before the breakdown in ethics
during the 1990s high tech bubble in which investment banking, executive
compensation, corporate governance, and corporate ethics in general sometimes
become rotten to the core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Compassion and caring wins out every time in my
view over selfishness.
Andrew
Flashback from The Wall Street Journal, May 30,
1997 When "MWD" opens Monday on the Big Board, investors
will get their first chance to buy shares of the newly combined Wall Street firm
of Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co. The new firm's stock symbol will
represent each of the brands of the combined firm.
Jim Mahar's Picks for Finance Book Summer Reading
(I prefer the last three listings)
I was asked for a "summer reading list" for
finance classes so here you go: ten (non technical) finance/economics
books I would recommend.
1.
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. It has
been talked about everywhere (even the SBU graduation speaker mentioned
it by name) but it is definitely worth the read! Probably my favorite of
the bunch. Read what I wrote about it
previously.
2.
The Wisdom of Crowds by Jame Surowiecki.
Great. Tells you more about market efficiency (and the lack thereof)
than several classes could.
4.
Against the Gods--Peter Bernstein. I remember
my first reaction to this book was--Wow! It makes risk management not
only interesting but fun!
5.
The End of Poverty by Jeff Sachs. It is about
ending extreme poverty. I really liked it! An important read that covers
strategies to fight poverty from China to India to Africa. Also has an
interesting economic history of the world. Introduction is by Bono.
7.
Barbarians at the Gate--Yeah, it's outdated.
Yeah, it reads like a novel. Yeah, I like it and still use some of the
examples.
8.
Freakonomics--by Steven Levitt and Stepham
Dubner. It is an interesting and fast read. Levitt is always a
worthwhile read.
9.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
I hate to admit it but I think about this book during almost every
sporting event I watch. It may not be the best written book on the list
(and I have to agree with the Amazon review, he does come across as
arrogant) but it is still definitely a VERY worthwhile read.
10.
Worry Free Investing by Zvi Bodie. Basic idea:
invest in bonds and options. Might be a tad text-bookish, but such a
great idea. I hope more people do it!
Well there you have it. Ten Finance books to read
this summer ;) No doubt I have forgotten many others as well, but here
are a few to whet your appetite.
...bankers'
checks written in Greek on papyri appeared in ancient Egypt as far
back as 250 B.C. Papyri preserved well in Egypt thanks to its arid
climate, but Goetzmann thinks it's safe to say such checks changed
hands throughout the Mediterranean world . . . So the whole
tradition of bank checks predates the current era and has its roots
at least in Hellenistic Greek times," he says.
Bob Jensen's threads on ancient history of accounting ---
Click Here
Birthright: The easiest way to make your whole family U.S. citizens In 1970, six percent of all births in the United States
were to illegal aliens. In 2002, that figure was
23 percent. In 1994, 36
percent of the births paid for by Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid, were to
illegals. That figure has doubtless increased in the intervening 12 years as the
rate of illegal immigration has risen. Any child born in the United States
automatically becomes a U.S. citizen. He or she is instantly eligible for
panoply of social services, food stamps and other forms of aid. When the child
reaches the age of 21, he can petition to have his parents and siblings declared
permanent residents.
Mona Charin, ""Anchors" away," Townhall, May 19, 2006 ---
http://townhall.com/opinion/columns/monacharen/2006/05/19/197982.html
"SOME COMPANIES ARE SMARTER," by Jay Hammond, AccountingWeb
Newsletter, May 18, 2006
Some companies, like some people, are smarter than
others. Really. Don't believe me? A business professor at Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri, has developed a method for measuring an
organization's IQ based on the effectiveness at innovation.
"In essence, firms fall into one of two camps,"
says Anne Marie Knott, assistant professor of entrepreneurship and
management at the Olin School of Business. "Smart firms" or "high IQ firms"
produce more bang for their R&D buck and therefore spend money to do their
own research and development. Less smart firms rely on other firms rather
than spending their own money on R&D.
"Interestingly, firms that aren't smart with their
own R&D seem to be better able to use the innovations of rivals," Knott
says. "This result stands in contrast to a very popular theory in the
management literature known as absorptive capacity. That theory holds that a
firm's ability to absorb what other firms are doing is a function of how
much R&D the acquiring firms actually does itself. The notion is that you
can't understand cutting edge research unless you actually do some yourself.
"But in practice, that's not what appears to be
happening," Knott continues. "Instead, high IQ firms, those that are most
productive with their own R&D spending, actually have a lower ability to
absorb the work of others. In other words, while they are 'high IQ' with
respect to innovating, they are 'low IQ' with respect to imitating.
Conversely, firms that are 'low IQ' with respect to innovating tend to be
'high IQ' in respect to imitating."
The practical application of this finding is that
we now know why firms choose particular strategies, either innovative or
imitative. This knowledge can in turn help firms and investors make wiser
decisions regarding R&D investment.
Larry Summers' Harvard Presidency: "It isn't Pretty" Boston Magazine’s June issue offers an in-depth,
behind the scenes lookat the last days of Larry
Summers’s presidency at Harvard University. It isn’t pretty.
Inside Higher Ed, May 31, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/31/qt
Harvard announces plan to create engineering school as
Stanford and others join push toward interdisciplinary work. In a significant sign of the growth of
interdisciplinary engineering approaches — and of the profile of the discipline
of engineering itself — Harvard University is no longer content to allow that
other Cambridge institution be the only one with engineering in lights. Harvard
this week announced plans for the creation of the School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences. Harvard expects to approve the new school by the end of fall.
Harvard will add 30 faculty members to the 70 already in the Division of
Engineering and Applied Sciences. Perhaps most importantly, as Lawrence H.
Summers, president of Harvard said in a statement: “It marks our recognition of
the profound importance of technology and applied sciences for every aspect of
our society.”
David Epstein, "The Technology Mosaic," Inside Higher Ed, May 25, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/25/engineering
That sound you just heard might have been the first
piece of the sky hitting the roof.
A federal judge in California on Tuesday
cleared the way for three former adjunct
professors at Chapman University to sue the institution under the
False Claims Act, which permits lawsuits by an
individual who believes he or she has identified fraud committed against the
federal government, and who sues hoping to be joined by the U.S. Justice
Department. (The plaintiff then shares in any financial penalties, which can
include trebled damages.) In siding with those who sued Chapman, Judge James
V. Selna not only cited the Seventh Circuit’s decision in United States
of America ex. rel. Jeffrey E. Main v. Oakland City University as a key
precedent, but expanded on it in significant ways. Most notably, the judge
concludes that a college can run afoul of the False Claims Act by violating
a requirement imposed not directly by the federal government but by an
accrediting group — a position the Justice Department endorsed.
“This is exactly what we were worried about with
the Main case, and in fact it broadens it and takes it a step
further,” said Mark L. Pelesh, executive vice president at Corinthian
Colleges and a longtime higher education lawyer. “Now making false claims to
an accreditor somehow translates, through this conflationary approach, into
making false claims for money to the federal government.”
This is complicated legal terrain, so let’s back
up. First,
last October’s decision
by the Seventh Circuit was perceived as breaking new ground because it
concluded that a college or other recipient of federal funds could be held
accountable under the False Claims Act for breaking a promise or commitment
it makes to the government at one point in time or at one stage of a federal
application process, even if it does not make a similar promise at the point
at which it formally requests or receives the funds. Specifically, the court
ruled that a former admissions director could sue Oakland City for allegedly
paying recruiters based on enrollment because the initial, “phase one”
application that it and other colleges make to the Education Department for
certification to eventually award federal financial aid funds bars it from
doing that, even though no money passes hands at that point.
. . .
But lawyers who tend to sue colleges in cases like
this say that the lawyers’ “sky is falling rhetoric” overstates the threat
to the institutions. Daniel Bartley, who represents the three instructors in
the Chapman case as well as those in the pending Phoenix case, says college
lawyers are wrong to say that the new line of False Claims cases allow
colleges to be sued if they have violated any of the hundreds of regulations
that the government — or, under the Chapman ruling, an accreditor — imposes
on them. “This applies only where there is a material breach of a condition
of payment, and it’s flagrant,” Bartley said. “The only colleges that face
trouble are those that are not obeying the law and the material
accreditation standards that underlie their getting loans and grants.”
Exactly what laws, regulations and standards are
considered “material,” of course, will be one of the many issues that could
keep the courts (and colleges’ lawyers) busy for months and years to come,
if this line of False Claims Act cases continues to gather steam.
Continued in article
Why the U.S.
Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Larry Schweikart,
the co-author of A Patriot's History of the United States: From
Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror. He is a professor of
history at the University of
Dayton and has written more than 20 books on
national defense, business, and financial history. He is the author of the new
book,
America's Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror.
Jamie Glazov, "America's Victories," FrontPage Magazine, May 25, 2006 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22620
In his new book, The Great Deluge, Douglas
Brinkley describes a New Orleans ripe for disaster as Hurricane Katrina
approached. The city was crippled by poverty, corruption and the lack of a
workable disaster plan.
"'The Great Deluge': A Katrina Post-Mortem: Listen to this story...," by Farai
Chideya, NPR, May 22, 2006 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5421017
Web Extra: Hear an Extended Version of Farai Chideya's
Conversation with Douglas Brinkley
Chinese-language version of Wikipedia China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has
launched a Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference
site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web surfers from
seeing. The Chinese service, which debuted in April, carries entries written by
users, but warns that it will delete content about sex, terrorism and attacks on
the communist government. Government censors blocked access last year to
Wikipedia, whose registered users have posted more than 1.1 million entries,
apparently due to concern about its references to Tibet, Taiwan and other
topics. The emergence of Baidu's encyclopedia reflects efforts by Chinese
entrepreneurs to take advantage of conditions created by the government's
efforts to simultaneously promote and control Internet use.
"Baidu, the most popular search engine in China, has launched a Chinese-language
version of Wikipedia," MIT's Technology Review, May 18, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16896
Euston.... We Have a Problem Tomorrow night at a church in London, there will be a
gathering of several hundred people to celebrate the launch of “The Euston
Manifesto” — a short document in which one sector of the British and American
left declares itself to be in favor of pluralist and secular democracy, and
against blowing people up for the glory of Allah . . . As I was musing over all
of this, a friend pointed out a conspicuous absence from the list of signatories
to the manifesto: Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at
Columbia University. His book
The Intellectuals and the Flag, published
earlier this year by Columbia University Press, defends the idea of left-wing
American patriotism with a frank interest “in the necessary task of defeating
the jihadist enemy.” This would seem to put him in the Eustonian camp, yet he
did not endorse the manifesto. Why not? I contacted him by e-mail to ask. “I
recognize a shoddy piece of intellectual patchwork when I see one,” Gitlin
responded.
Scott McLemee, "Euston.... We Have a Problem," Inside Higher Ed, May 24,
2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/24/mclemee
Florida State Funds May Not Reimburse travel expenses to terrorist and
communist states, including
include Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea and the Sudan (nothing is said about
China) State Rep. David Rivera, a Republican who hails from a
district composed largely of Cuban Americans, has spent the past several months
garnering legislative support for
a billthat he believed would do all those things.
He not only ushered the bill through passage in the House, but he also persuaded
Sen. Mike Haridopolos, also a Republican, to take similar actions in the Senate.
Ultimately, the bill passed both chambers and made its way to Governor Jeb
Bush’s desk on Tuesday. The governor — against the advice of academic groups —
has said that he has every intention of signing the legislation. The new
legislation would, in part, prohibit “the use of state or nonstate funds made
available to state universities to implement, organize, direct, coordinate, or
administer activities related to or involving travel to a terrorist state.”
Countries deemed terrorist states by the U.S. include Cuba, Syria, Iran, North
Korea and the Sudan. The law will go into effect on July 1.Rivera said Tuesday
that many Cuban Americans he’s spoken with are pleased, especially after
recently seeing a professor and a counselor affiliated with Florida
International University indicted on charges of
spying for the Cuban government.
Rob Capriccioso, "Florida Isolationism," Inside Higher Ed, May 25, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/25/florida
Comparative Interactomics
By creating maps of the body’s complex molecular interactions, Trey Ideker
is providing new ways to find drugs.
Nanomedicine
James Baker designs nanoparticles to guide drugs directly into cancer cells,
which could lead to far safer treatments.
Epigenetics
Alexander Olek has developed tests to detect cancer early by measuring its
subtle DNA changes.
Cognitive Radio
To avoid future wireless traffic jams, Heather “Haitao” Zheng is finding
ways to exploit unused radio spectrum.
Nuclear Reprogramming
Hoping to resolve the embryonic-stem-cell debate, Markus Grompe envisions a
more ethical way to derive the cells.
Tensor Imaging
Kelvin Lim is using a new brain-imaging method to understand schizophrenia.
Universal Authentication
Leading the development of a privacy-protecting online ID system, Scott
Cantor is hoping for a safer Internet.
Nanobiomechanics
Measuring the tiny forces acting on cells, Subra Suresh believes, could
produce fresh understanding of diseases.
WebPhoto: Microsoft introduces a new picture file compression technology
According to BetaNews, a Microsoft spokesperson
claims that WMPhoto will offer the same or better image quality as JPEG at half
the file size. That's twice the compression (12:1 versus the standard 6:1 of
JPEG) with the same or better quality.
Monkey Bites, May 26, 2006 ---
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/
"Vaccine to Cut Risk of Shingles in Older People Is Approved," by
Garniner Harris, The New York Times, May 27, 2006 ---
Click Here
The vaccine, called Zostavax, is roughly equivalent to 14
doses of the pediatric chickenpox vaccine.
"US scientists back autism link to MMR," by Beezy Marsh and Sally Beck,
London Telegraph, May 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
Lesbian teens five times more likely to attempt suicide Lesbian teens are nearly five times more likely to
attempt suicide than heterosexual girls, according to a survey presented at a
national conference of public health experts in Vancouver Monday. The survey
found 38 per cent of lesbian girls and 30.4 per cent of bisexual girls said they
had attempted suicide in the previous year, compared with 8.2 per cent of
heterosexual girls. The results were from a 2003 survey of 30,000 students
between grades 7 and 12 done by the B.C.-based McCreary Centre Society, which
asked students if they had attempted suicide in the previous year.
Glenn Bohn, "Survey bares lesbian teens-suicide link: Numbers suggest lesbian
teens five times more likely to attempt killing themselves," Canada.com,
May 30, 2006 ---
Click Here
In 1822, Thomas De Quincey published a short book,
"The Confessions of an English Opium Eater." The nature of addiction to
opiates has been misunderstood ever since.
De Quincey took opiates in the form of laudanum,
which was tincture of opium in alcohol. He claimed that special
philosophical insights and emotional states were available to opium-eaters,
as they were then called, that were not available to abstainers; but he also
claimed that the effort to stop taking opium involved a titanic struggle of
almost superhuman misery. Thus, those who wanted to know the heights had
also to plumb the depths.
This romantic nonsense has been accepted wholesale
by doctors and litterateurs for nearly two centuries. It has given rise to
an orthodoxy about opiate addiction, including heroin addiction, that the
general public likewise takes for granted: To wit, a person takes a little
of a drug, and is hooked; the drug renders him incapable of work, but since
withdrawal from the drug is such a terrible experience, and since the drug
is expensive, the addict is virtually forced into criminal activity to fund
his habit. He cannot abandon the habit except under medical supervision,
often by means of a substitute drug.
In each and every particular, this picture is not
only mistaken, but obviously mistaken. It actually takes some considerable
effort to addict oneself to opiates: The average heroin addict has been
taking it for a year before he develops an addiction. Like many people who
are able to take opiates intermittently, De Quincey took opium every week
for several years before becoming habituated to it. William Burroughs, who
lied about many things, admitted truthfully that you may take heroin many
times, and for quite a long period, before becoming addicted.
Heroin doesn't hook people; rather, people hook
heroin. It is quite untrue that withdrawal from heroin or other opiates is a
serious business, so serious that it would justify or at least mitigate the
commission of crimes such as mugging. Withdrawal effects from opiates are
trivial, medically speaking (unlike those from alcohol, barbiturates or
even, on occasion, benzodiazepines such as valium), and experiment
demonstrates that they are largely, though not entirely, psychological in
origin. Lurid descriptions in books and depictions in films exaggerate them
� la De Quincey (and also Coleridge, who was a chronic self-dramatizer).
“The future of our profession is built on the
quality and the number of the young people who join us,” Leslie Murphy,
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Chair explained
while presenting the Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award
to Karen V. Pincus, Chair of the Department of Accounting at the University
of Arkansas. “That, in turn, depends on whether quality people decide to
study accounting and how well they are trained in their collegiate and
post-collegiate education. The Institute annually selects a member of the
academic community who best serves these truths to receive the award.”
Pincus has received numerous recognitions for
teaching excellence, curriculum development and service to the accounting
academic and practicing professions. Most notably, she received the American
Accounting Association Innovation in Accounting Education Award for
designing and implementing a totally new curriculum approach to accounting
education. In Arkansas, she is also the S. Robson Walton Professor of
Accounting, as well as President of Beta Alpha Psi, the student professional
association.
Pincus is currently a member of the AICPA’s
Nominations Committee. From 2002 to 2005 she was an elected member-at-large
of the AICPA governing committee. She is also past Chair of the
Pre-Certification Education Executive Committee and a past member of the
virtual Grassroots Panel and Accounting Careers Subcommittee.
She has also served as President of the Federation
of Schools of Accountancy, the association of accredited graduate accounting
programs, and Vice President of the American Accounting Association, in
addition to serving on many committees for both organizations. She is the
author of numerous professional articles and research papers.
Jensen Comment
Karen was instrumental in developing the Walton School core curriculum that has
no traditional core courses such as traditional principle of accounting courses
---
http://waltoncollege.uark.edu/
Fast Food Not Only Hooks People; It Hooks Their Incomes They found that for the initial 67-cent average
cost of upsizing a fast-food meal — and the subsequent 36-gram weight gain — the
total cost for increased energy needs, gasoline and medical care would be
between $4.06 and $7.72 for men and $3.10 and $4.53 for women, depending on
their body type. The bottom line: Although upsizing a meal brings you 73 percent
more calories for only an additional 17 percent in price, the hidden financial
costs drive the price of that meal up between 191 and 123 percent.
"Super-sizing your food takes hidden toll on pocketbook," PhysOrg, May
24, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news67704755.html
At last many credit card users are listening to us The credit-card industry has a problem: Although
Americans are deeper in debt than ever, they are paying off bigger portions of
their monthly credit-card bills. For card issuers, which profit by collecting
interest on unpaid balances, that's bad news. In the past, when interest rates
crept up, as they are doing now, fewer cardholders could afford to pay down
balances. "Normally at this point in the economic cycle, you start to see
payment rates decline. But that's not happening," says Richard Srednicki, who
runs the credit-card business at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the nation's
second-largest card issuer. "It is a tougher business if payment rates continue
to stay up and consumers continue to pay off more. It's something we've got to
understand and work at."
Robin Sidel, "As Users Juggle Their Debts, Revenues to Banks Fall; The
Home-Equity Effect Ms. Bode Seeks a Fresh Start," The Wall Street Journal,
May 25, 2006; Page A1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114852256641562637.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
For years, credit card issuers have tried to lure
consumers into using their card by offering frequent flier miles. The recent
dramatic rise in gas prices, however, has led some of these companies to
promote gas rewards and rebates instead. The question is, how does anyone
decide which card, including rewards, is best for them?
Credit cards offering gas rebates should not be
confused with the gas credit cards issued by the gas companies and that can
be used only to purchase gas at their stations. Cards offering gas rebates
are regular credit cards from MasterCard, Visa, Discover, American Express
or whomever, that offer rebates and rewards for the purchases made on the
card each month.
“Gas, like other rewards, can just be a gimmick to
get you to sign up for the card,” Scott Bilker, founder of Debtsmart.com,
told SmartMoney. The News Journal (Wilmington, Del.) reports that some cards
offer initial “teaser” rates as high as 10 percent to attract new customers,
however most rebates range from 3 to 5 percent once the “honeymoon” is over.
It’s not just the rates that vary, either. Gas
rebates come in two types, those that are tied to specific stations, like
Mobil, Chevron, etc. and those that can be earned by purchasing gas at any
station. When it comes to reducing the amount spent each month on fuel, the
non-station specific card is probably the wiser choice, as it allows the
buyer to shop around and purchase gas at the lowest available price. Paying
the full amount off every month will also help reduce the overall amount
spent on gas because the refund won’t be eaten up in interest.
“Make the credit card companies pay you,” Curtis
Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com, told the News Journal. “If you use these
cards in a savvy manner, they can be a great way to get a break on gas
prices.”
CNNMoney.com goes even further, stating that gas
rebates are a good value only if the credit score of the cardholder is 720
or higher and the gas tank needs filling at least twice a month. Even if you
fall into this category, there are a few things to know about gas rewards
cards before rushing out and signing up. Besides knowing whether a card is
tied to a specific station, consumers will want to find out:
The interest rate and annual fee. Even those
individuals who pay off their credit cards every month can get hit by
annual fees, and if something happens one month and a balance is carried
forward, the card holder can get a very nasty surprise, as high as 23
percent, if they aren’t careful which card they apply for.
Is there a limit on the rebate? Most cards,
according to CNNMoney, limit how much a cardholder can get back to
between $300 and $600.
Other limits. Are rebates given only on
purchases made at the pump? What about purchases made at stations
associated with warehouses and big box stores like Costco or Sam’s Club,
are rebates earned on those? Will the rebate be automatically deposited
in the cardholder’s account or is some additional action necessary and,
if so, what? Are rebates calculated only on fuel purchases or purchase
made at gas stations or are they calculated on all purchases?
Are all gas purchases eligible for the full
rebate or just those made at standalone stations? This one is
particularly important since the number of standalone stations has been
steadily decreasing in recent years.
“Typically, to get the full rebate, which is
generally 5 percent, you have to go to a standalone stations,” Arnold
explained to Kiplingers, further describing a standalone station as “a place
whose primary function is selling gas.”
Consumers can gather information to help them make
a wise decision about which, if any, gas reward card they should apply for.
Several sites compare credit card details including:
If the cardholder carries a balance on their card,
it is unlikely they will see significant savings from rebates on a credit
card. Most debt advisors agree such consumers are better off choosing a
credit card with the lowest possible rate and working to pay down the debt
owed as swiftly as possible. However, it doesn’t make sense to acquire more
debt in an effort to save a few dollars at the pump. Using a credit card or
gas station card can help consumers track purchases for tax purposes.
“The big question behind any reward is what’s the
cost?” Howard Dvorkin, founder of Consolidated Credit Services Inc. and
author of Credit Hell: How to Dig Out of Debt, told Florida’s
Sun-Sentinel. “Everything has a limitation. Understand what you are getting
into and don’t take it by face value.”
The Internal Revenue Service has canceled the
tax-exempt status for some of the nation's largest educational credit
counseling services after audits revealed they exist mainly to prey on
debt-ridden customers, Commissioner Mark Everson said Monday.
"These organizations have not been operating for
the public good and don't deserve tax-exempt status," Everson said. "They
have poisoned an entire sector of the charitable community."
A two-year investigation of 41 credit counseling
agencies resulted in the revocation, proposed revocation or other
termination of their tax-exempt status, he announced.
Everson said that many of those groups,
representing more than 40 percent of the revenue in a $1 billion industry,
offered little, if any, counseling or education as required of groups with
tax-exempt status.
Other such agencies will be required to report on
their activities. The IRS is sending compliance inquiries to each of the
other 740 known tax-exempt credit counseling agencies not already under
audit.
"Depending on the responses received, additional
audits may be undertaken," the agency said.
Everson said groups looking to make a profit would
secure tax exempt status and make cold phone calls to people in desperate
financial straights. They would use scare tactics to sell the people
"cookie-cutter" debt management plans that often were not geared toward
reducing the consumers' debt and often were too costly to pay.
Administrative fees, he said were sometimes collected by third parties
handling the paperwork for a profit.
Everson recommended that consumers pick one of the
150 consumer counseling organizations approved by groups like the Better
Business Bureau. But bad actors may exist even among those, because
guidelines for approval differs between agencies, he said.
Everson added that the agency is following up the
revocations with some criminal investigations, but would not detail them.
The IRS also is issuing new guidance on how to
comply with federal law to legitimate organizations which educate people on
how to maintain good credit.
The agency in recent years has tightened up its
review of new applications by credit counseling firms for tax-exempt status.
Since 2003, the IRS has reviewed 100 such applications and approved only
three.
The actions come consumers and the counseling
industry are having to learn to live under a new and more restrictive
federal bankruptcy law.
Congress last year gave the financial counseling
sector a new role in the nation's bankruptcy system by making it harder for
people to wipe out debt and requiring consumers to consult with an approved
credit counselor before they seek the protection of a bankruptcy court.
The nation's petroleum producers, badly shaken by
sliding prices and disappointing demand, are taking drastic measures to pull
out of a deepening industry slump. They're cutting payrolls and turning
increasingly to automation to pare costs.
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Male murderers with stereotypically "black-looking"
features are more than twice as likely to get the death sentence than
lighter-skinned African American defendants found guilty of killing a white
person, Stanford researchers have found. The relationship between physical
appearance and the death sentence disappears, however, when both murderers
and their victims are black.
"Race clearly matters in criminal justice in ways
in which people may or may not be consciously aware," said Jennifer
Eberhardt, associate professor of psychology. "When black defendants are
accused of killing whites, perhaps jurors use the degree to which these
defendants appear stereotypically black as a proxy for criminality, and then
punish accordingly."
Eberhardt's findings are published in the May issue
of the journal Psychological Science. "Looking Deathworthy: Perceived
Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes"
is co-authored with Paul G. Davies, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar
who is now an assistant professor at the University of California-Los
Angeles; former Stanford graduate student Valerie J. Purdie-Vaughns, now an
assistant professor at Yale University; and Cornell University law Professor
Sheri Lynn Johnson, an expert on the death penalty.
Continued in article
Forwarded on May 22, 2006 by Carl Hubbard
Accounting in the Peninsular War
MESSAGE FROM THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TO THE BRITISH
FOREIGN OFFICE IN LONDON -- written from Central Spain, August 1812
Gentlemen,
Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which
commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers
have been diligently complying with your requests which have been
sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to
our headquarters.
We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent
poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's
Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the
character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every
farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for
which I beg your indulgence.
Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence
remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and
there has been a hideous confusion as the the number of jars of
raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in
western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the
pressure of circumstance, since we are war with France, a fact which
may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.
This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request
elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that
I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren
plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative
duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of
my ability, but I cannot do both:
1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain
for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or
perchance.
2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven
out of Spain.
Your most obedient servant
Wellington
Question
What types of diversity just is not accepted by many liberal college faculty?
Douglas J. Feith's table at the Georgetown
University faculty club is shaping up as a lonely one.
The move to a teaching position at the School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown by Mr. Feith, a former Pentagon official, set
off a faculty kerfuffle, with 72 professors, administrators and graduate
students signing a letter of protest, some going as far as to accuse him of
war crimes.
Some critics complain about the process. (He was
hired without a faculty vote.)
Some complain about the war in Iraq. (Mr. Feith has
been accused of promoting it with skewed intelligence.)
All say the open protest is unusual at a place that
embraces former officials as part of its panache. A former secretary of
state, Madeleine K. Albright; a former national security adviser, Anthony
Lake; and a former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, have
joined the faculty without event.
But Mr. Feith, a former under secretary of defense
for policy planning and analysis, is another story.
"I'm not going to shake hands with the guy if he's
introduced to me," said Mark N. Lance, a philosophy professor who teaches
nonviolence in the program on Justice and Peace and who organized the
protest. "And if he asks why, I'll say because in my view you're a war
criminal and you have no place on this campus."
The dispute can be read as — take your pick — an
explosion of fury at a disastrous war, an illustration of the pettiness of
academic politics or evidence of Mr. Feith's talent for attracting
invective.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, the top commander
of the Iraq invasion, once referred to him as "the stupidest guy on the face
of the earth."
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Feith said he
welcomed debate "in a proper, civil and rigorous way." But he called the
accusations that he had politicized intelligence, advocated torture and
attacked the Geneva Conventions as "false," "flatly false" and "outrageous."
A graduate of Harvard and the Georgetown Law
School, Mr. Feith served in the Reagan administration and joined other
neoconservatives in 1998 in calling on President Bill Clinton to overthrow
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Joining the Bush administration in 2001, he set up
two Defense Department units that have drawn scrutiny. One was the Office of
Special Plans, which took the lead in the Pentagon's preparation for a
postwar Iraq, planning that has been widely faulted.
Continued in article
Running Out of Russians In his state of the union address recently, Vladimir
Putin divided his attention between his country's strategic forces and its
alarming demographics. The former is a familiar matter of Western commentary and
concern, but the latter is not; and this was the first time a Russian president
had raised the topic on such an occasion. While Mr. Putin confronted this
critical issue, however, he failed to provide a compelling set of solutions. The
key problem he addressed was the decline in the Russian population, which has
dropped from 148.7 million in 1992 to 143.5 million in 2003. The U.N. estimates
that it could fall to 101.5 million by 2050. Earlier contractions of Russia's
population were brought about by the massive losses associated with World War I,
the civil war, famine, the repression and purges of the 1930s, and World War II.
The current demographic decline is the result of a declining birth rate and a
high mortality rate.
Padma Desai, "Running Out of Russians," The Wall Street Journal, May 22,
2006; Page A13 ---
Click Here
Imagine Russia in 2050! According to Paul Goble, a
specialist on ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation has predicted that
within the next several decades, Russia will become a Muslim majority state.
There is another bad news with fast decline in country’s population. This
has already become a headache for Russian politicians and policy makers.
President Vladimir Putin has called already for Russian women to have more
children, because demographers predict that Russia’s population will fall
from 143 million to 100 million by 2050. This situation has alarmed Russians
as well Western leaders, more so because analysts estimate that Muslims will
comprise the majority group in Russia’s population in few decades.
The Muslim population growth rate since 1989 is
between 40 and 50 percent, depending on ethnic groups. Today Russia has
about 8,000 mosques while 15 years there were only 300 mosques. According to
statistics, by the end of 2015, number of mosques in Russia will cross
25,000. These statistics are frightening for many ethnic Russians who
associate Islam with the Kremlin’s war against insurgents in Chechnya.
Russia is shrinking. Alarmed by the situation, Putin has offered incentives
to women who will have more children.
He said that the government would offer 1,500
roubles for the first child, and 3,000 roubles for the second child. He
further said that the government will offer financial incentives to those
couples who will adopt Russian orphans. But, response to Vladimir Putin’s
call is almost zero. Main reason behind fast decline in non-Muslim
population in Russia is, particularly larger section of young females in the
country is not in favor of having even any child. If someone has, that is
also limited within one only. On the other hand, almost all the Muslim
couples have at least three children. The number generally ranges between
3-5.
Talking to Blitz, a leader of Moscow’s most
populated area said, if the growth of Muslim population continues in the
present trend, with the serious decline in population of other religious
communities, Russian might ultimately end up as a Muslim state in next two
decades. He suggested massive propaganda in favor of having more children in
country’s mass media as well increase in the amount of incentives. He also
pointed to the fact that, in most cases, such incentives might again go to
the Muslim mothers, who generally have more than one child. This is not the
question of incentives; it is a matter of realization for the entire
non-Muslim Russian population. They should understand that by limited number
of children, they are gradually pushing the fate of the country towards an
Islamic federation.
Commenting on the issue, a former diplomat said,
after the fall of Soviet Union, unfortunately, the entire Russian nation has
lost their nationalist spirit, because of poverty and other socio-political
adversities. Now they fear in having more than a single child in the family
as the cost of living has become extremely expensive, while in most cases,
female members of the families are rather forced to work in various fields
to bring extra money for their families.
Continued in article
"Cannes sex films question role of porn, Internet," Rueters,
May 24, 2006 ---
Click Here
Directors at the Cannes film festival this year say
they are using radical images of sex to challenge mainstream pornography and
its widespread availability on the Internet.
A series of filmmakers say Internet porn alone now
shapes many young people's perception of sex and, in many cases, replaces
the experience of real physical relationships.
"There are kids who have seen pornography from a
very early age, before they are ever gonna have sex," said Larry Clark, one
of the directors of the eccentric "Destricted" -- a compilation of explicit
sex-centered stories.
In his own short film, Clark interviews young men
about their sexual preferences and then allows one candidate to appear with
his favorite porn-star.
"When I was a kid noone told me nothing. Now you
can go onto the Internet and find out anything ... (Young people) are
looking at pornography and they are thinking that this is the way to have
sex," Clark said, noting his film was educational.
U.S. director John Cameron Mitchell, who has
brought "Shortbus" to Cannes, agrees that young people are increasingly
using the Internet to replace real sex.
In Shortbus, he has collected an ensemble of
non-professional actors who engage in real on-screen sex and masturbation in
an attempt to de-mystify the subject. He does not consider his film to be
pornography.
He said that the United States had a puritanical
view of sex which turned it into an issue in young people's minds. In one
particularly provocative scene in his film, three gay men engage in a sex
session while singing "The Star-Spangled Banner".
'Antique' Phone Tax Dropped Treasury to Refund $13
Billion Collected on Long-Distance By Albert B. Crenshaw Washington Post
Staff Writer Friday, May 26, 2006; D02
The Treasury Department, conceding that it has no
right to continue collecting a 108-year-old tax on long-distance telephone
calls, announced yesterday that it will drop its legal battle for the tax
and instead refund some $13 billion to callers who have paid the tax in the
past three years.
The 3 percent tax, enacted in 1898 to help pay for
the Spanish-American War and revised in 1965, has been declared illegal by
five federal courts of appeal during the past year as the result of
challenges brought by companies forced to pay it.
Long-distance carriers have been required to bill
customers for the tax and remit it to the government.
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow yesterday called it
"an outdated, antiquated tax that has survived a century beyond its original
purpose, and by now should have been ancient history."
The tax, which was originally considered a luxury
tax because only wealthy people had telephones at the time, will go out of
existence on July 31.
With two sons, each attending public school for 13
years, added to my own 13 years as a public school student and a decade plus
as a public school teacher, I proudly announce that I am finally done! The
light at the end of the tunnel is so near that I need sunglasses. As my
younger son joins the rest of his graduating senior class next month,
tossing his cap high into the air, I may bring a cap of my own so I can toss
mine as well. "No more pencils. No more books. No more teachers' dirty
looks!" "School's out for summer! School's out forever!"
It has been a long sentence. I tried to serve it
diligently, holding up my end of the bargain at each intersection where
students, teachers, and parents collide. At times, I played the role of
student; at other times, I played the role of teacher; and on this final leg
of my journey, I have uncomfortably played the role of parent. Each role was
different and difficult, especially this last stretch since I have been
watching from the wings while having a very difficult time keeping my trap
shut. I am exhausted. I have so much to say and so many people to say it to,
but it does not matter anymore. I am ready to head off into the Pacific to
retire with my husband on a desert island where I never have to see another
school cafeteria, another auditorium, another classroom, or another front
office again. I no longer have to be politically correct in fear that
someone will take it out on my kid. True, we cannot actually head off into
the sunset until our younger son completes his studies at one of our state
universities. He still needs us here in order to qualify for in-state
tuition. However, that is just temporary. The island is out there, and the
sails on our sailboat are hoisted and ready for a good strong wind.
. . .
When I was a senior in high school, I could not
wait until I was finished. Senior year seemed endless, and I discovered many
creative ways to do my work and get good grades by making as few personal
appearances in the school building as possible. I was a rebel, but more
importantly, I was already mentally in college. I had shopped for college
clothes, had a new 8-track player that would be small enough for the dorm,
and my boyfriend-of-the-month was a college student. High school was boring.
High school guys were immature. In high school, they said they treated us
like adults, but they did not. All I wanted was the diploma so I could get
on with my life. I did not want to go to my own high school graduation
ceremony, but I made a deal with my parents that involved use of my mother's
car for the summer if I would wear a cap and gown and take part in what I
thought at the time was a silly, meaningless ceremony. At 18 years old, I
had an answer for everything, just like the two young men who have lived in
my house and have had their own share of answers. I do not remember any of
my high school graduation ceremony except I gave my dad a hard time over
taking pictures of me, and I was annoyed that I had to get out of my jeans
to wear something nice beneath my cap and gown that no one would ever see. I
did not go to my prom. I was not into that, and even if I were, I would have
been embarrassed asking my college boyfriend-of-the-month to go with me. I
do not remember if there were any parties after graduation. If there had
been, I did not go because I was already driving my mom's new Oldsmobile
Cutlass Supreme from New Jersey to my summer job in New Hampshire where I
was going to be a counselor at a sleep-away camp for a whopping $800. The
whopping $800 was for the entire summer, not per week.
Continued in article
May 18, 2006 message about middle school technology from John L. Hubisz
[hubisz@mindspring.com]
I have not looked at this site thoroughly enough to
strongly recommend it yet, but what I have seen is very good.
I would like to have your thoughts on a part of the
site that you have visited (It is huge and free!) Use
hubisz@unity.ncsu.edu rather than sending to
everyone on the list.
I will collect your thoughts and report to the
listserv or add it to my recommended sites.
Happy hunting!
John Hubisz
Moral of the Story: In Australia Short Criminals Get Lighter Sentences
There has to be moral hazard here: Is the Roo Mafia already training short hit
men?
"Judge: Man is too short for prison," Yahoo News, May 25, 2006 ---
Click Here
A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually
assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years
of probation instead.
His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge
Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be
especially imperiled by prison dangers.
"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a
child," she said.
But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You
do not fit in that category."
Thompson will be electronically monitored the first
four months of his probation, and he was told to never be alone with someone
under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18.
Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.
He faces 30 days of jail each year of his probation
unless he follows its conditions closely.
Continued in article
Moral of the Story: In Massachusetts it pays to live in luxury at
taxpayer expense and steal underwear
A brazen lingerie hustler who lived luxuriously for
years in an Andover gated community while bilking $117,500 in welfare from
taxpayers is still tooling around in a sleek $40,000 Mercedes SUV despite
pleading guilty this week to defrauding the government.
“It just ticks
me off because we work and we’re still struggling,” said Joyce Sheehan,
whose neighbor, Jennifer Stevanovich, 32, escaped jail time Tuesday after
admitting to swindling state and federal authorities out of $117,555.11 in
housing vouchers, health care, food stamps and cash aid.
The
state Department of Transitional Assistance, who gave Stevanovich $57,790 in
cash, food stamps and health care from January 2000 to January 2005, refused
yesterday to explain how the mother of three deceived them except to say its
investigators closed 6,400 welfare accounts and referred another 2,400
accounts to fraud investigators last year.
“I think the six perjury convictions speak volumes
about her MO,” DTA spokesman Dick Powers said.
Stevanovich has taken a hard fall, going from a
comfortable Andover apartment complex with a pool, tennis courts and
clubhouse to living with her mother in a Lawrence duplex where the white
paint is chipping, the gate is rusting and the screen door is busted.
Stevanovich, a hairdresser at Super Cuts in
Burlington, was nabbed for welfare fraud after Andover police snagged her
performing a panty raid on a Victoria’s Secret shop that cost the business
some $14,000 in slinky lingerie.
She secreted the scants from the shops by using a
sack lined with foil that foiled the metal detectors.
“It’s kind of weird that she’s on Section 8 and on welfare and driving a
Mercedes,” said Andover police Detective David Carriere, who brought down
Stevanovich in the undies scam with Detective Mike Lane. The silver 2005
Mercedes ML 350 parked in Stevanovich’s driveway yesterday was valued at
$39,350, state investigators said.
Investigators for State Auditor Joe DeNucci found
Stevanovich was paying just $113 monthy rent in 2004 while her bank account
ballooned to $76,468 that year from cash made selling the stolen lingerie
and goods pilfered from other swanks shops on eBay.
Continued in article
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on May 19, 2006
TITLE: With Special Effects the Star, Hollywood Faces New Reality
REPORTER: Merissa Marr and Kate Kelly
DATE: May 12, 2006
PAGE: A1
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114739949943750995.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Budgeting, Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis, Managerial
Accounting
SUMMARY: Special effects are driving a lot of movies to become box office
hits. However, "in the area of special effects, technology can't deliver the
kind of efficiencies to Hollywood that it generally provides to other
industries...Amid the excitement, studios are beginning to realize that relying
on special effects is financially risky. Such big budget films tend to be
bonanzas or busts."
QUESTIONS:
1.) The author notes that studios are beginning to realize that films utilizing
a lot of special effects might tend to be "bonanzas or busts." In terms of
costs, why is this the case? In your answer, refer to the high level of costs
associated with special effects work.
2.) Why do special effects teams tend to amass significant costs? In your
answer, define the terms "cost management" and "costs of quality" and explain
how these cost concepts, that are typically associated with product
manufacturing, can be applied to movie production.
3.) Define the term "fixed cost." How does this concept relate to the
financial riskiness of movies with significant special effects and resultant
high cost? Also include in your answer a discussion of the formula for breaking
even under cost-volume-profit analysis.
4.) Define the term "variable cost." Cite some examples of variable costs you
expect are incurred by studios such as Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, and
others.
5.) Now consider firms such as Industrial Light & Magic, "a company set up by
director George Lucas in 1975 to handle the special effects for his 'Star Wars'
movies." Based on the discussion in the article, describe what you think are
these firms' fixed and variable costs.
6.) What manager do you think is responsible for costs of quality and cost
control in producing movies? Suppose you are filling that role. What steps would
you undertake to ensure that your hoped-for blockbuster film will have the
greatest possible chance of financial success?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
She says, “He continued to [quiz international
students about their understanding of English] in other classes,
singling out the international students and making them look inferior to
the rest of the class.”
If the student had listened to the quality of
her international classmates’ answers to my questions, she would have
realized that they were academically superior to the vast majority of
their classmates. Indeed, their median grade was 4.0; they all spoke
English fluently; and, their essays had fewer grammatical errors than
most of their classmates. It seems implausible to me that any rational
observer would infer that they were inferior based on my questions about
their knowledge of a few English words.
But even Nora looked embarrassed when she
“confessed” that she didn’t know what gutters were. She had no reason to
be embarrassed, yet she was. Why?
Perhaps, it has to do with the power of gut
feelings, which allow people to quickly categorize experiences without
having to think too deeply about them. Following them can even save your
life in situations where you need to make quick decisions, implying that
gut feelings are probably hard-wired into us via evolution. Hence, gut
feelings probably can’t easily be turned off, implying that Nora could
have been embarrassed by the gutters episode regardless of whether it
was justified. And this is a shame — because good class interactions
should be full of professors and students going in any number of
directions, some of them uncomfortable, without worrying about
appearances or comfort levels (or whether some comment is going to make
you a poster child for the Academic Bill of Rights).
I was in a gray area with Nora, one that I did
not perceive as being gray until I thought about the comments of this
student. I feel badly that I might have embarrassed Nora — it was
certainly not my intention. Nevertheless, asking Nora whether she knew
the word for gutter in Bulgarian was the highlight of the course for me.
My intuition screamed at me to ask it and her answer rewarded the
impulse — not because I was happy to discover that she didn’t know the
word, but because it made me think more deeply about the way in which
languages compete with one another for survival. Indeed, many languages
face extinction because they are cluttered with words that people no
longer find useful. For example, some languages have dozens and dozens
of different words for ice, which may not be a selling point in the
coming age of global warming.
Nobel laureate Robert Solow argues that the
most difficult thing to teach students is how to be creative in
economics, followed closely by critical judgment. It is much easier to
teach tools, such as demand and supply, than how to use them creatively,
or critically. The first step in using economics creatively is to ask
interesting questions, ones that naturally arise during genuine
conversations sparked by observing differences like those concerning the
acquisition of language. While these conversations are crucial in
teaching students to be creative, they are also likely to tumble into
gray areas and sometimes produce dry holes, two things that make some
students uncomfortable.
Another way to be creative in economics is to
apply economic reasoning to topics commonly thought to lie outside the
realm of economics. Hence, I want my students to learn that there are no
boundaries to the usefulness of economic reasoning. I mean NO
boundaries, absolutely none. Boundaries smother creativity because they
encourage students to turn off their economic reasoning skills whenever
they cross them.
Last semester, I described how a San Diego
abortion cartel in the late 1940s charged women different prices
depending on the quality of their clothing and the characteristics of
the person accompanying them, a practice that economists call price
discrimination. For example, a young woman who was brought to the clinic
by an unrelated, well-dressed Sacramento businessman was charged $2,600
for an abortion. If the woman had come alone, she would have paid
something closer to $200. Four students have come to my office or
e-mailed me with concerns over the use of examples like this one. For
example, one student argued that abortion is too morally charged to be
used as fodder for examples, especially ones that are so narrowly drawn.
Crossing the border into conversations about
race is especially dangerous, because the border is patrolled by guards
searching for insensitive comments. It takes courage and tolerance on
the part of both students and professors to have genuine conversations
about race. However, no topic is more important to discuss in economics
courses given the glaring disparities in economic outcomes between
African-Americans and whites. For another course I teach, students are
required to read an article about the controversy that erupted when
members of one middle-class community proposed naming a “nice street”
after Martin Luther King Jr. The proponents wanted to weaken the
correlation of his name with poverty and crime, while the opponents
feared that naming a street after him would cause their neighborhood to
decay. I admire the proposal yet empathize with the opponents. Since
streets bearing his name are more commonly found in poor neighborhoods,
(even unprejudiced) people might rationally “steer clear” of the area if
they name a street after Martin Luther King Jr., a phenomenon economists
call statistical discrimination.
Teaching students to use economics creatively
requires having conversations that are not smothered by fears of saying
something wrong or of stepping over some boundary beyond which economic
reasoning is prohibited. But genuine conversations require that students
have done enough of the reading to participate with intelligence — and
checking on that may also make students uncomfortable.
A student last fall accused me in his or her
course evaluation of picking on students, saying that “if it was obvious
a student was unprepared or had not done the assigned reading [Professor
Harrington] would call them out on it.” It’s true. I admit it. Failing
to read the assigned articles imposes spillover costs on other students
that can be corrected by imposing penalties on unprepared students. For
example, one student could not answer straightforward questions about
the readings in two consecutive classes, prompting me to ask him whether
he had ever heard of the expression, “three strikes and you’re out.” At
the beginning of the third class, he joined the conversation, easily
answering my initial questions and making a few comments of his own.
Smart blonde joke forwarded by Paula
A Blonde walks into a bank in New York City and ask for the loan officer.
She says she's going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow
$5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for
the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is
parked on the street in front of the bank, she has the title and everything
checks out. The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the
blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An
employee of the bank then proceeds to drive the Rolls into the bank's
underground garage and parks it there.
Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest,
which comes to $15.41. The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to
have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but
we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found
that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to
borrow $5,000?"
The blond replies, "Where else in New York City can I park my car for two
weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
I recently sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and
practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR)
Diversity Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President
Judy Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
I released the June 6 edition of Tidbits a day early because June 6
is the 666 day of apocalypse!
Is tomorrow's date -- 6-6-6 -- merely a curious
number, or could it mean our number is up?
There's a devilishly odd nexus of theology, mathematics and
commercialism on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. OK,
it's just the sixth year of this millennium, but insisting on calling it
2006 takes the devil-may-care fun out of calendar-gazing.
Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even
the humor in people, said the Rev. Felix Just, a professor of theology and
religious studies at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest,
Father Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains
a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contains history, theology, math
and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.
One can even make sport of it, betting online if the apocalypse will
happen on that date. The good news is that one online oddsmaker has made the
world a 100,000-to-1 favorite to survive tomorrow -- something that Father
Just said is supported by theology.
"Many people avoid the number. They're afraid of it almost, and there's
absolutely no reason to be afraid of it," he said. "It is not a prediction
of future events. It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the
world is going to end."
It all started with Revelation 13:18 in the Bible: "This calls for
wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it
is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six."
The beast is also known as the Antichrist, according to some apocalyptic
theories.
Many scholars, such as Father Just, say the beast is really a coded
reference -- using Hebrew letters for numbers -- for the despotic Roman
emperor Nero, and 616 appears instead of 666 in some ancient manuscripts.
The Book of Revelation isn't prophesying a specific end of times but "is
about the overall cosmic struggle of good versus evil," Father Just said.
But for some more apocalyptic theologians, the end of times is coming,
even if not specifically tomorrow. The evangelical Raptureready.com Web site
puts its "rapture index" at 156, calling that "fasten your seat belts" time.
It's not the date June 6 that's worrisome, but the signs in our society
of the approach of the 666 Antichrist, said the Rev. Tim LaHaye, founder of
a self-named ministry and co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" series
of apocalyptic novels.
"I don't think that people understand that 666 is not a good time," Mr.
LaHaye said. He said he sees signs of an upcoming "tribulation period" that
leads to the Antichrist's arrival in a movement toward one-world government,
a single economic system and single religion.
Apocalyptic culture and theology, especially those surrounding 666, "is
especially appealing for people in an underdog situation," said Father Just.
So people have looked for -- and found -- 666 in all sorts of places.
Believers in the number's power have used a biblical letter-numeric code to
convert the names of countless political leaders, including many popes, to
come out 666, marking them as that generation's Antichrist. That includes
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
The math of 666 is also open to biblical interpretation and
manipulation. Father Just points out that 666 is the sum of all the numbers
on a roulette wheel. Other oddities include variations on pi and products of
prime number multiplication.
There's also something special about the number 6, which in the Bible
stands for man, said Brian C. Jones, a religion professor at Wartburg
College in Iowa.
"People need to lighten up about this," Mr. Jones said, adding that it's
hard to take tomorrow seriously as a day of reckoning. "Monday, we always
hate Mondays. Wednesday is hump day. Friday sometimes has the 13th attached
to it. But Tuesdays and Thursdays, they don't ring for me as days when bad
things happen or good things happen. They're filler days."
As usual, so-called "religious" wackos have it
wrong: today is 6/6/2006 -- or, in the way of Excel defaults, 06/06/2006. As
I explained it to my 15- year-old yesterday -- after some of her peers tried
to impress that 'point' upon her, despite the fact that she's performed a
Bat Mitzvah -- there are four "haloes" trumping those three 6's (plus a 2 I
just don't know what to make of, having given numerology as much credence as
astrology for all my adult life). My daughter enjoyed learning this
quasi-numerological rebuttal to offensively proselyte peers -- and I
confidently expect she'll enjoy asking every one of them, today, "so why
aren't we toast yet?" I still have no hope that my daughter would like to
learn to play bridge, but I am quite satisfied that she appreciates that
analogy. Secularly, hopefully yours,
Online Video and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
From The New Yorker
The New Yorker publishes a selection of letters, journal entries, and personal
essays by soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines who served in the current war
in Iraq. Here, five of the servicemen read from their work, accompanied by their
photographs.
"The Home Front" The New Yorker, June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/060612on_onlineonly01
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and
video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
From Time Magazine (What do people look out upon
from inside their houses around the world?)
Readers of Andrew Sullivan’s Blog, The Daily Dish, sent him images of the
views from their windows ---
Through the Looking Glass
Photographer James Nachtwey shows how the health crises
created by the war in Congo
can kill long after the shooting stops ---
The Congo's Hidden Killers
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Rewards And Fairies - Rudyard Kipling (1865 1936) ---
Click Here
The Dynamiter by Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850 1894) ---
Click Here
Pride and Prejudice by Jane
Austen (1775-1817) ---
Click Here
Enjoy two types of daily quotes Search
quotes by topic View quotes by author Explore quotes by title Email quotes
to yourself or to a friend Search by word or phrase
Gilberts, Illinois- David Thomson and Jim Bourassa
of the Quantum AetherDynamics Institute (QADI) released a new theory which
mathematically predicts and explains the measured values of physics with
striking precision. Their Aether Physics Model includes the "Holy Grail" of
physics sought by Albert Einstein; the Unified Force Theory. "Our model shows
the forces are unified by a simple set of general laws explainable as the fabric
of space-time itself, which is a dynamic, quantum-scale Aether," said Bourassa.
Jim D. Bourassa (listed as the contact), "New unified force theory predicts
measured values of physics," Eurekalert, June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/qai-nuf060106.php
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G. Smith
and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how theory
development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions changed
over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will take
some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
The Experience of Theorizing: Sensemaking as Topic and
Resource
KARL E. WEICK
PG. #395 WEICK 19.1 ON SENSEMAKING
Sensemaking, viewed as central both to the process of theorizing and to the
conduct of everyday organizational life, is a sprawling collection of
ongoing interpretive actions. To define this "sprawl" is to walk a thin
line between trying to put plausible boundaries around a diverse set of
actions that seem to cohere, while also trying to include enough properties
so that the coherence is seen as distinctive and significant but something
less than the totality of the human condition. This bounding is a crucial
move in theory construction. It starts early, but it never stops.
Theorizing involves continuously resetting the boundaries of the phenomenon
and continuously rejustifying what has newly been included and excluded. In
theorizing, as in everyday life, meanings always seem to become clear a
little too late. Accounts, cognitions, and categories all lie in the path
of earlier action, which means that definitions and theories tend to be
retrospective summaries of ongoing inquiring rather than definitive
constraints on future inquiring. These complications are evident in efforts
to define sensemaking.
Some portraits of sensemaking suggest that it resembles an evolutionary
process of blind variation and selective retention. "An evolutionary
epistemology is implicit in organizational sensemaking, which consists of
retrospective interpretations built during interaction" (Weick 1995b:
67). Hence we see sensemaking being aligned with the insight that "a system
can respond adaptively to its environment by mimicking inside itself the
basic dynamics of evolutionary processes" (Warglien, 2002, 110), an insight
that is tied directly to theory development when theorizing is described as
"disciplined imagination" (Weick, 1989).
PG. #405 WEICK
The "known facts" and "empirical findings" that theories "explain" can
precede theory construction or follow it. The fact that theory construction
is a form of retrospective sensemaking, does not decouple it from facts.
Rather, it means that facticity is often an achievement. Having first said
something, theorists discover what they have been thinking about when they
look more closely at that talk. A close look at the talk often suggests
that the talk is about examples, experiences, and stories that had
previously been understood though not articulated. The talk enacts facts
because it makes that understanding visible, explicit, and available for
reflective thinking, but the talk doesn't create the understanding.
Instead, it articulates the understanding by converting "know how" into
"know that." Sensemaking, with its insistence on retrospective sensemaking,
is a valuable standpoint for theorizing because it preserves the proper
order for understanding and explanation (understanding precedes explanation:
Sandelands, 1990: 241-247). It reminds the investigator to keep saying and
writing so that he or she can have something to see in order then to think
theoretically.
PG. #406 WEICK
This is not haphazard as it sounds. Instead, these stop rules for theory
simply recognize that theories are coherent orientations to events, sets of
abstractions, consensually validated explanations and embodiments of
aphoristic thinking.
Reber's definition is also intriguing because it talks about theory as a
label that is "awarded" to almost any honest attempt at
explanation. Here we get a hint that theory is a continuum and an
approximation. The image of theory as continuum comes from Runkel.
Theory belongs to the family of words that includes
guess, speculation, supposition, conjecture, proposition, hypothesis,
conception, explanation, model. The dictionaries permit us to use
theory for anything from "guess" to a system of assumptions...(Social
scientists) will naturally want to underpin their theories with more
empirical data than they need for a speculation. They will naturally
want a theory to incorporate more than one hypothesis. We
plead only that they do not save theory to label their ultimate
triumph, but use it as well to label their interim struggles. Runkel and
Runkel, 1984; 130)
As we have seen, most products that are labeled theory actually
approximate theory. Robert Merton (1967: 143-149) was sensitive to this
point and suggested that there were at least four ways in which theory was
approximated. These were (1) general orientation in which broad frameworks
specify types of variables people should take into account without any
specification of relationships among these variables (e.g., Scott, 1998
analyzes rational, natural, and open systems); (2) analysis of concepts in
which concepts are specified but not interrelated (Perrow, 1984 analyzes the
concept of normal accident); (3) post factum interpretation in which ad hoc
hypotheses are derived from a single observation, with no effort to explore
new observations or alternative explanations (e.g., Weick, 1990 analyzes
behavioral regression in the Tenerife air disaster); and (4) empirical
generalization in which an isolated proposition summarizes the relationship
between two variables, but further interrelations are not attempted (e.g.,
Pfeffer and Salancik, 1977) analyze how power flows to those who reduce
significant uncertainties.
Jeffrey Pfeffer,
PhD ’72, and Robert I. Sutton would like to foment a little
revolution—one in which leaders in business and the world at large base
their decisions on facts and logic, not ideology, hunches, management
fads or poorly understood experience. Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II
Professor of Organizational Behavior, and Sutton, a professor of
management science and engineering and, by courtesy, of organizational
behavior in the Graduate School of Business, are the authors of Hard
Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from
Evidence-Based Management (Harvard Business School Press, 2006). STANFORD
asked them about bringing more reason to organizational life.
What’s some of the
total nonsense that occurs in companies?
Sutton: Probably the biggest single
problem for human decision making is that when people have ingrained
beliefs, they will put a much higher bar for evidence for things they
don’t believe than for things they do believe. Confirmation-seeking
bias, I think, is what social psychologists call it. Organizations can
have amazingly good evidence, but it has no effect on the decisions they
make if it conflicts with their ideology.
Do you have a
favorite unsupported belief?
Pfeffer: One would be stock options.
There are more than 200 studies that show no evidence that there is a
relationship between the amount of equity senior executives have and a
company’s financial performance. . . . Just as you would never bet on a
point spread on a football game because it encourages bad behavior, you
should not reward people for increasing the spread in an expectations
market.
Overreliance on financial incentives of all
sorts drives all kinds of counterproductive behavior.
Evidence-based
management derives from evidence-based medicine. Explain what kind of
decision making we’re talking about.
Continued in interview
Question
Is education suffering from a self-injury epidemic?
17% of Students at Cornell and Princeton Practice Self Abuse Nearly 1 in 5 students at two Ivy League schools
say they have purposely injured themselves by cutting, burning or other
methods, a disturbing phenomenon that psychologists say they are hearing
about more often. For some young people, self-abuse is an extreme coping
mechanism that seems to help relieve stress; for others it's a way to make
deep emotional wounds more visible. The results of the survey at Cornell and
Princeton are similar to other estimates on this frightening behavior.
Counselors say it's happening at colleges, high schools and middle schools
across the country.
Lindsey Tanner, "17 Pct. at 2 Schools Practice Self-Abuse," ABC News,
June 5, 2006 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2039503
According to a new study, published today in the
June issue of Pediatrics, the Real World alum is just one of thousands of
college-aged individuals — both males and females — who are engaging in
self-injurious behavior, including cutting, biting, bruising, breaking one’s
own bones, and ripping off one’s skin or hair. Clinicians and researchers
say that there’s a need to promote awareness about this seemingly growing
problem, and to treat the underlying causes.
Rob Capriccioso, "Self-Injury Epidemic," Inside Higher Ed,June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/05/injury
While the annual American College Health
Association conference in New York City was filled with many questions this
year –
where the profession is headedand
how to assist mentally ill studentslooming
large among them – the problem that is attracting ever more attention from
many health professionals continues to be the ever-present risk of suicide
on campus.
Rob Capriccioso, "Suicide on the Mind," Inside Higher Ed,June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/05/acha
Jensen Comment
This indicates that grade inflation is not relieving stress, although there
are more complicated and interactive causes beyond stress to attain perfect
grade averages.
Author John Updike asserts "liberals will never understand this age in
which we live" The New York Times recently conducted an interview
with author John Updike about his newest novel. This interview was revealing
of why liberals will never understand this age in which we live. It is
indicative of how they just don’t understand the evil we face in
Islamofascism. (See story -
Click here) Updike, as obsessed with fallen
Christianity as he is with prurient sex scenes, must have seen the writing
on the wall while in the midst of penning his newest novel, a sort of
thriller titled Terrorist.
Charles McGrath, "In 'Terrorist,' a Cautious Novelist Takes On a New Fear,"
Newsbusters, June 5, 2006 ---
http://newsbusters.org/node/5677
I wish legislators themselves all had to read all 24,000 pages of GE's
Tax Return
General Electric Corp. and the Internal Revenue
Service offered each other a mutual pat on the back for their joint
efforts in getting the company's tax return filed, and accepted,
electronically. On paper, the return would have been approximately
24,000 pages long. Instead, GE submitted the return as a 237 MB file.
Over the past few years, a number of colleges
and universities have created initiatives to place some of their course
materials online for the general public. MIT was one of the first to do
so, and Berkeley has also started to offer a number of webcasts and
podcasts of select courses on this website.
Drawing on the strengths of the Berkeley
Multimedia Research Center, they have begun to place some of these
excellent materials on this site. On their well-designed homepage,
visitors can either look at an archive of course webcasts and podcasts
or take a gander at the archived webcasts that feature prominent
speakers who have visited the campus. The events archive dates back to a
January 2002 appearance by Bill Clinton, and includes dozens of
interesting talks and lectures. Visitors can learn about each event in
the information section, and for some, they have the option to download
the audio portion of each event. The course section is equally
delightful, as visitors can view webcasts here, and also download
podcasts. The range of courses here is quite broad, and includes
lectures on general chemistry, wildlife ecology, and surprise, surprise:
foundations of American cyberculture. Finally, visitors can also
subscribe to event and course podcasts.
I did not see any accounting or business courses listed at this point in
time. Economics 100A (Micro) is available.
Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing of college course materials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
New Technology for Proctoring Distance Education Examinations
It’s time for final exams. You’re a student in
Tokyo and your professor works in Alabama. It’s after midnight and
you’re ready to take the test from your bedroom. No problem. Flip open
your laptop, plug in special hardware, take a fingerprint, answer the
questions and you’re good to go.
Just know this: Your professor can watch your
every move ... and see the pile of laundry building up in the corner of
the room.
Distance learning programs – no matter their
structure or locations – have always wrestled with the issue of student
authentication. How do you verify that the person who signed up for a
class is the one taking the test if that student is hundreds, often
thousands, of miles away?
Human oversight, in the form of proctors who
administer exams from a variety of places, has long been the solution.
But for some of the larger distance education programs — such as Troy
University, with about 17,000 eCampus students in 13 time zones —
finding willing proctors and centralized testing locations has become
cumbersome.
New hardware being developed for Troy would
allow faculty members to monitor online test takers and give students
the freedom to take the exam anywhere and at any time. In principle, it
is intended to defend against cheating. But some say the technology is
going overboard.
Sallie Johnson, director of instructional
design and education technologies for Troy’s eCampus, approached
Cambridge, Mass.-based Software Secure Inc. less than two years ago to
develop a unit that would eliminate the need for a human proctor.
Johnson said the hardware is the university’s response to the urgings of
both Congress and regional accrediting boards to make authentication a
priority.
The product, called Securexam Remote Proctor,
would likely cost students about $200. The unit hooks into a USB port
and does not contain the student’s personal information, allowing people
to share the product. The authentication is done through a server, so
once a student is in the database, he or she can take an exam from any
computer that is hardware compatible.
A fingerprint sensor is built into the base of
the remote proctor, and professors can choose when and how often they
want students to identify themselves during the test, Johnson said. In
the prototype, a small camera with 360-degree-view capabilities is
attached to the base of the unit. Real-time audio and video is taken
from the test taker’s room, and any unusual activity — another person
walking into the room, an unfamiliar voice speaking — leads to a
red-flag message that something might be awry.
Professors need not watch students taking the
test live; they can view the streaming audio or video at any time.
“We can see them and hear them, periodically do
a thumb print and have voice verification,” Johnson said. “This allows
faculty members to have total control over their exams.”
Douglas Winneg, president of Software Secure,
said the new hardware is the first the company has developed with the
distance learning market in mind. It has developed software tools that
filter material so that students taking tests can’t access any
unauthorized material.
Winneg, whose company works with a range of
colleges, said authentication is “a painful issue for institutions, both
traditional brick-and-mortar schools and distance learning programs.”
Troy is conducting beta tests of the product at
its home campus. Johnson said by next spring, the Securexam Remote
Proctor could commonly be used in distance learning classes at the
university, with the eventual expectation that it will be mandatory for
students enrolled in eCampus classes.
Harvard Law School, the world’s
self-described “premier center for legal education and research,” may
ban Internet use in the classroom this fall because so many students are
frittering away time surfing the Web.
The school’s faculty has yet to vote on the
proposal. But several professors, fed up with students shopping online
or checking Red Sox scores when they should be heeding lectures, have
gone so far as to outlaw laptops in class.
“They interfere with discussion,” Harvard law
professor Bruce L. Hay said. “When you add to that the fact that many
students have trouble resisting the temptation to check their e-mail or
cruise the Internet, laptops become intolerable.”
The electronic paper chase has become enough
of a problem that Harvard Health Services has added “computer and
Internet distraction and overuse” to its list of leading health
concerns, alongside depression, stress, eating disorders and alcohol and
drug abuse.
In a 2004 National College Health Assessment,
in fact, nearly 1 out of 4 Harvard undergraduates reported that computer
or Internet use was an impediment to their academic performance.
In this respect, Harvard is hardly unique.
“Students on the Web in class is a bane of
professors everywhere,” said David Olson, a 2000 Harvard Law School
graduate and fellow at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and
Society. “Stanford professors would love a ban. But as one faculty
member said, they’re afraid of the riot that would ensue if they tried
to impose one.”
In a recent survey by the Harvard Law School
Student Council, nearly 2 out of 3 students opposed a ban. And nearly 1
in 4 said they would actually attend class less often if the faculty
instituted one.
“People are already talking about how to get
around it,” said council President Michael Sevi. If all else fails, he
said, they could always fall back on that old standby: passing notes in
class.
“People will always find something to distract
themselves,” said Regina Fitzpatrick, 26, who just finished her first
year at Harvard Law. “If they aren’t paying attention, that’s their own
fault. We’re adults, and people should be free to make their own
choice.”
But while the majority of students may not
like the idea of having to give up the Web during class, 39 percent of
those surveyed admitted they would probably pay more attention in class.
Continued in article
The Condition of Education 2006 The Education Department on Thursday released
“The Condition of Education 2006,”this year’s
version of an annual compilation of statistics on a range of issues at all
levels of education. The report provides the latest data on enrollment
trends, most of them consistent with previous projections about enrollment
increases and about the growing gender gap in which more women than men
enroll. Inside Higher Ed, June 2, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/02/qt
I just stumbled across some very interesting
tools for visualizing data that I can't resist sharing. There's a wild
play-with-it-yourself tool at
http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ , and some
prepackaged presentations at
http://www.gapminder.org
I went through the "Human Development Trends
2005" presentation at the second link above and found it fascinating and
informative (and also helpful for developing a sense of the significance
of the images in the do-it-yourself tool at the first link).
A minor frustration: toward the end, the
presentation includes data on income and child mortality distribution
within 42 different countries (it gives the income and child mortality
rates of the poorest 20% of the population of the country, the next
richest 20%, etc.), but it only has average data for the United States
(as far as I could see). I wonder why? Anyone know how to find
comparable data for the US?
Curtis
Curtis Brown
Philosophy Department
Trinity University
One Trinity Place
San Antonio, TX 78212
If you are left with the impression that the
dead bodies on the ground were massacred by our Marines, that is exactly
what the Times intends. Note the caption: "Victims in al-Haditha. The US
is carrying out two inquiries (AP)."
Now, look at this photo closely:
Insert Photo Here
It is clearly the same location. The same set
of dead bodies. The second is a wider shot with three additional bodies
in the foreground.
But guess what? The photo, according to this
Newsweek caption of the scene, is not of the Nov. 19 incident in Haditha
involving our Marines, as the UK Times would have you believe.
Read the caption:
"Insurgents in Haditha executed 19 Shiite
fishermen and National Guardsmen in a sports stadium."
Our Marines did not kill these people.
The terrorists did.
Here's more from the Newsweek article from last
May--that is, six months before the incident involving our Marines:
Hussein Hashimi has a CD-ROM full of pictures
of the dead. For the last two months, the young Shiite says, Sunni
extremists rampaged through his hometown of Madaen. They torched the
local police stations, abducted dozens of members of the local Shiite
minority, burned down the mosque and killed not only the imam but his
8-year-old son. Many Shiite families fled; others barricaded themselves
in their homes. Last week Iraqi security forces finally came in and
restored order. Hashimi has lists of the missing and of the dead who
have been identified. He has the names of the alleged perpetrators and a
map showing the home of the Sunni he accuses of being responsible for
the atrocities.
So is Hashimi fighting back? Not at all. "We
just ran away," he says without a trace of embarrassment. "Sistani and
the religious authorities in Najaf decided not to use force, so we
couldn't do anything." To the Shiites of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali
Sistani's word is law. "We must obey."
Their obedience was tested yet again last
week—and again it held firm. In Madaen and villages nearby, corpses
bobbed to the surface of the Tigris River until police counted 60.
Hashimi and his friends photographed 55 of the bodies and delivered the
pictures and lists to Baghdad. Shiite politicians accused the insurgents
of ethnic cleansing, and demanded that the caretaker government act.
Insurgents in another town near Baghdad, Haditha, responded by
kidnapping 19 Shiite fishermen and National Guardsmen, lining them up
against a wall in a sports stadium and shooting them dead.
And more from an LA Times article from April
2005 (reprinted at SFGate.com):
In Baghdad, the Ministry of Defense said that
19 Iraqis who were kidnapped, taken to a soccer stadium in Haditha,
lined up against the wall and fatally shot on Wednesday were actually
Shiite fishermen, and not Iraqi troops, as previously described by an
Interior Ministry official.
Saleh Sarhan, the ministry's chief spokesman,
described the victims as fishermen from the Shiite cities of Najaf and
Diwaniya who had traveled to the huge Lake Tharthar in the
Sunni-dominated Anbar province, northwest of Baghdad and east of
Haditha. He offered no explanation for why insurgents would target the
fishermen, or how they had been identified.
As Joe G., who blogged his discovery of this
obvious, unconscionable error, writes:
"I think this goes beyond a slant, this is
slander."
Reader Eric. T adds:
Notice in the photo that the slain people have
their hands tied i.e. murdered assassination style. This makes it seem
even more of an outrage against the Marines!
This must not stand. And the Times must not be
allowed to make a covert correction without a public acknowledgement.
The editors must apologize for this blatant smear.
Send a letter to the editor here (include
postal address and daytime telephone number for publication):
As the Internet changed the nature of higher
education in the last decade or so, considerable research has examined
the question of whether students were changing enrollment patterns. But
three scholars whose findings were just published by the National Bureau
of Economic Research suggest that there has been a significant and
largely overlooked relocation going on since learning went online: among
faculty members.
n “Are Elite Universities Losing Their
Competitive Edge?,” the scholars examine evidence that the Internet — by
allowing professors to work with ease with scholars across the country
and not just across the quad — is leading to a spreading of academic
talent at many more institutions than has been the case in the past.
The research by E. Han Kim, Adair Morse and
Luigi Zingales is based on an analysis of faculty members in economics
and finance departments, but many of the conclusions do not appear to be
factors that would apply only in those disciplines. (
An abstract of
the findings is available online, where the full paper may be ordered
for $5).
The basic approach of the research was to
examine the productivity of professors at elite universities (defined as
the top 25 in economics and finance) in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. What
the scholars found isn’t good news for those top departments. In the
1970s, a faculty member moving from a non-top 25 university to Harvard
University would nearly double in productivity (based on various
measures of journal publishing, which is where most economics research
appears). By the 1990s, this impact had almost entirely disappeared.
Beyond Harvard, the study found that moving to
17 of the top economics departments would have had a significant
positive impact on productivity during the 1970s, while moving only to 5
of them had a significant negative impact on productivity. By the 1990s,
only 2 such departments were having a positive impact on productivity
while 9 had a significant negative impact. Finance departments also saw
a decline in productivity impact.
The findings do not necessarily mean that top
economics departments are full of deadwood. But they do suggest a
“de-localization of the externality produced by more productive
researchers.” In other words, these days professors are no longer likely
to be more productive just because there is a genius down the hall. The
cultural norms of departments still matter, the authors write, and being
surrounded by non-productive colleagues has a negative impact on
productivity.
But you no longer need a critical mass on your
own campus to do good work. Part of this, the authors suggest, is that
databases can now be shared more easily across campuses, and so there is
less of a distinct advantage to being physically located at the top
universities, which also tend to be the places where more databases,
library collections, etc., reside.
And as more people are spread out at more
institutions, the elite professors work with them. At the start of the
1970s, the authors write, only 32 percent of the articles in top
economics journals that were written by a professor at an elite
institution had a co-author from a non-elite institution. That
percentage had increased to 61 percent by 2004.
The implications of these shifts, the authors
write, can be seen at both non-elite and elite departments. Faculty
members are now “more mobile,” the authors write, “making it easier for
a new place to attract away the most talented researchers with higher
salary.”
But the “universal access to knowledge” is also
having a benefit for faculty members at the top 25 departments. Prior to
the Internet, the authors write, the benefits of working in a top
department were greater, so professors might accept slightly lower pay
because of such benefits. With the disappearance of such benefits, data
on salaries indicate greater increases at the top 25 institutions that
experienced the greatest losses in productivity.
The authors of the piece work at top
universities. Kim is professor of business administration at the
University of Michigan. Morse is a graduate student in business at
Michigan. Zingales is a visiting professor of economics at Harvard.
In a study of economics and finance faculty
affiliated with the top 25 U.S. universities, E. Han Kim, Adair Morse,
and Luigi Zingales looked at the changes on scholarly research brought
about by the Internet. They sought answers to several questions: "How
did these changes modify the nature of the production of academic
research? Did local interaction become less important? If so, how does
this decline affect the value added of elite universities and hence
their competitive edge?" Their findings are published in the report "Are
Elite Universities Losing Their Competitive Edge?" (National Bureau of
Economic Research Working Paper No. 12245, May 2006). The complete
report is available online at
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W12245
Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER) is a "private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research
organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the
economy works." For more information, contact: National Bureau of
Economic Research, Inc., 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
02138-5398 USA; tel: 617-868-3900; fax: 617-868-2742;
email:
info@nber.org
Web:
http://www.nber.org/
Stanford University Experiments With
the Latest Classroom Technology and Building Design
Each Wallenberg
Hall classroom offers a platform for a new level of teaching, at the
same time serving as a laboratory for testing and analyzing the value
and potential of new technology. Some of the tools will prove
invaluable, SCIL researchers believe, while other tools may not be worth
their expense. Such information could prove useful to everyone, from an
academic department deciding whether to invest a small amount of money
in several tablet PCs for the classroom, to a university redesigning or
creating a new multimedia auditorium, to a college seeking funding to
reinvent its learning spaces.
“The teaching
and research happening here in Wallenberg Hall could be of enormous
value to our colleagues at all levels of education regardless of their
geography,” says Steinhardt. “Wallenberg Hall represents the
university’s commitment to explore new ways of enhancing learning and
education through targeted investments in technology.”
Research and
Teaching at Wallenberg
Research
The broad
range of multidisciplinary projects includes:
High-Performance Learning Spaces: A
multidisciplinary team of researchers is examining two years’
worth of audio and video records of Wallenberg classes, related
interviews, activity surveys, and focus group data to assess the
effects of technology on teaching and learning. Results will
assist educators at all levels in how to best employ technology
in the classroom.
DIVER: Created by a team led by SCIL
co-director Roy Pea, DIVER software enables users to focus
attention on relevant portions of any video footage, then
annotate and analyze the video to share it with colleagues and
peers. This year, student teachers utilized DIVER to reflect on
tapings of their own teaching to evaluate their performances
through “guided noticing.” DIVER also has promising applications
in the fields of law, medicine, film study, and architecture.
Folio Thinking: Based on the hypothesis that
documenting and tracking learning through the use of an
electronic portfolio deepens learning, students in an
engineering class in Wallenberg Hall are the focus of SCIL’s
current research on ePortfolios. Findings will help researchers
understand more about how students learn and what tools most
complement their experience.
Virtual Video Collaboratory: Supported by a
grant from the National Science Foundation, a team of SCIL
researchers is creating the world’s first Digital Video
Collaboratory—a multimedia library that will be available on the
Internet. The library will allow the viewing, annotating, and
editing of a vast array of useful footage collected and
catalogued from sources around the world.
Teachable agents: The CAT2 Lab at SCIL, which
has developed its own “learn by teaching” software, is studying
the idea that a powerful way to learn is by teaching.
Interactive toys and robots: This broad project
involves the development and testing of interactive toys and
robots that teach and entertain, utilizing concepts and ideas
from psychology, sociology, linguistics, computer science,
robotics, communication, and education.
Social responses to communication technology:
This new research is examining the extent to which human
interactions with computers, television, and new communication
technologies are conditioned by real social relationships and
the navigation of real physical spaces.
Teaching
Since
Wallenberg Hall first opened its doors to classes in 2002, it has
grown from a magnet for early adopters to a widely sought-after
learning center for faculty and students from more than 20
departments and schools at Stanford University. Courses offered in
the high-performance learning spaces of the hall have included
anthropology, history, biochemistry, classic Greek, engineering, and
Hebrew, reflecting the fact that virtually any subject can benefit
from a well-designed, technology-enriched environment.
Every day
from early in the morning until late into the evening, teachers and
students utilize the frequently updated classroom equipment such as
interactive Webster boards, video conferencing tools, in-class
laptops, tablet PCs, and reconfigurable furnishings to create a
seamless multimedia experience. As faculty and students employ these
technologies, researchers from the Stanford Center for Innovations
in Learning (SCIL), who also reside in Wallenberg Hall, evaluate and
analyze the impact in an ongoing study of technology in education.
Highlights
from some of the innovative courses taught in Wallenberg Hall
include:
Using
iRoom software, Prof. Russ Altman had his students download Web
pages on particular diseases each was studying, then asked them
to share the material with the class. PointRight, experimental
software, allowed them to “beam” their material to the
computerized Webster white board. During discussion, the Webster
screens were jointly controlled by the students from their own
computers so that anyone could point out highlights and issues
without passing around a keyboard or leaving their seats.
In her
course, “Introduction to Hebrew,” instructor Vered Shemtov used
the three large screens in the Peter Wallenberg Learning Theater
to present diverse content, from written poems, to music, to
video clips, maps, and artwork. One screen could display the
course outline for the day, while another showed a piece of
literature and a third ran a related video clip. Moving from one
medium to another occurred without hesitation, all controlled by
one remote computer mouse.
The
Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR), directed by Prof. Andrea
Lunsford, is a requirement of all freshmen and sophomores at
Stanford. Freshmen practice everything from working individually
on their laptops, to working collaboratively in small groups
with one computer and a large plasma display, to whole class
discussions utilizing the Webster smart boards. The PWR program
is an excellent example of how Wallenberg Hall allows teaching
and learning to keep pace with technological advances.
A recent report released by the
Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education
recommends some major changes in the way
accreditation operates in the United States. Perhaps the most
significant of these is a proposal that a new accrediting framework
“require institutions and programs to move toward world-class quality”
using best practices and peer institution comparisons on a national and
world basis. Lovely words, and utterly fatal to the proposal.
he principal difficulty with this lofty goal is
that outside of a few rarefied contexts, most people do not want our
educational standards to get higher. They want the standards to get
lower. The difficulty faced by the commission is that public commissions
are not allowed to say this out loud because we who make policy and
serve in leadership roles are supposed to pretend that people want
higher standards.
In fact, postsecondary education for most
people is becoming a commodity. Degrees are all but generic, except for
those people who want to become professors or enter high-income
professions and who therefore need to get their degrees from a
name-brand graduate school.
The brutal truth is that higher standards,
applied without regard for politics or any kind of screeching in the
hinterlands, would result in fewer colleges, fewer programs, and an
enormous decrease in the number and size of the schools now accredited
by national accreditors. The commission’s report pretends that the
concept of regional accreditation is outmoded and that accreditors ought
to in essence be lumped together in the new Great Big Accreditor, which
is really Congress in drag.
This idea, when combined with the commitment to
uniform high standards set at a national or international level, results
in an educational cul-de-sac: It is not possible to put the Wharton
School into the same category as a nationally accredited degree-granting
business college and say “aspire to the same goals.”
The commission attempts to build a paper wall
around this problem by paying nominal rhetorical attention to the notion
of differing institutional missions. However, this is a classic
question-begging situation: if the missions are so different, why should
the accreditor be the same for the sake of sameness? And if all business
schools should aspire to the same high standards based on national and
international norms, do we need the smaller and the nationally
accredited business colleges at all?
The state of Oregon made a similar attempt to
establish genuine, meaningful standards for all high school graduates
starting in 1991 and ending, for most purposes, in 2006, with little but
wasted money and damaged reputations to show for it. Why did it fail?
Statements of educational quality goals issued by the central
bureaucracy collided with the desire of communities to have every
student get good grades and a diploma, whether or not they could read,
write or meet minimal standards. Woe to any who challenge the Lake
Wobegon Effect.
So let us watch the commission, and its
Congressional handlers, as it posits a nation and world in which the
desire for higher standards represents what Americans want. This amiable
fiction follows in a long history of such romans a clef written by the
elite, for the elite and of the elite while pretending to be what most
people want. They have no choice but to declare victory, but the playing
field will not change.
Manchester B-school grads are enjoying higher
salaries and more opportunity, thanks to an improving economy and new
opportunities to work in Britain
"Manchester's Mojo Rising," Business Week, May 26, 2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
Large international accounting firms are among the active list of
recruiters.
"Your Photos, Your Rights, and the Law: Answers to questions about
copyright and your rights as a photographer," by Dave Johnson, PC World
via The Washington Post, May 31, 2006 ---
Click Here
Ironically, the answer to this simple question
is not so simple anymore. But for almost any digital photo you take
today, you can count on the copyright lasting for 70 years.
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization
that has pioneered a new way to share creative works. The group offers a
number of licenses with names like Attribution, NoDerivs, NonCommercial,
and ShareAlike.
If you choose to share your photos with a
Creative Commons license, you're telling the world that you're offering
to let other people use your photos in ways that are traditionally not
supported by standard copyright law. Using an Attribution license, for
example, is like releasing your photo in the public domain, though it
requires anyone using your photo to give you credit.
Attribution-NonCommercial is similar, but specifically prohibits people
from using your photo for commercial use.
While using a Creative Commons license is a
nice idea, and you'll find a lot of people using them on sites like
Flickr.com, keep in mind that Creative Commons has no legal teeth. Only
copyright law has that.
There are three ways to copyright a photo (or
any other creative work).
Here's the easy way: Any work you create is
automatically copyrighted. In other words, you don't need to do anything
at all to receive some protection under copyright law.
However, there are copyrights--and then there
are copyrights. While technically you never have to take action to
copyright a creative work, simply putting a copyright notice on your
work strengthens your copyright protection. To assert your claim to a
digital photo, for example, just place a copyright notice somewhere on
the picture. Commonly, photographers use the text tool in a photo
editing program to do this in the lower-right corner.
The most aggressive copyright action you can
take is to register your photo with the Registrar of Copyrights in
Washington, DC. There is a form to fill out and a $30 fee to pay, but
this approach provides you with the highest level of protection
available. For more info go to the U.S. Copyright Office's
Web site.
The 100 Best Products of the Year This year's edition--"The 100 Best Products of the
Year" --starts
here . Once again, the festivities span both
print and online. to see an expanded version offering extras such as video
clips and, on June 6, a live chat session with Senior Writer Alan Stafford,
who edited the feature and spearheaded the weeks of meetings, ballots, and
impromptu hallway dialogues that determined our winners.
"How the 100 Best Products Got That Way Eclectic. Inventive. Essential. Our
World Class winners are all that and more," by Harry McCracken, PC World
via The Washington Post, May 31, 2006 ---
Click Here
Questions
What should you do if you think you're a possible victim of ID theft?
What are the best things you can do to prevent ID theft?
Answer
There are a number of things to do, especially the following:
Fill out an identity theft report with your local, state or federal law
enforcement agency. It's unclear if the mere loss or theft of personal
information constitutes identity theft, but filing a report may offer
additional protections. The FTC makes an affidavit available at
http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/pdf/affidavit.pdf
"Tips for Preventing or Catching Identity Theft: Contacting one of three
credit reporting agencies is the key to monitoring possible fraud," MIT's
Technology Review, May 24, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16923
Consumer advocates have some advice for the
26.5 million veterans whose personal information was stolen from the
home of a Veterans Affairs employee: Don't panic.
Identity theft may be a growing problem that
affected 9.3 million Americans last year, according to Javelin Strategy
and Research. But consumer advocates say a few precautions can lessen
the chances of becoming a victim, even for people whose personal
information has been stolen.
The first thing to do if you think your Social
Security number, birth date or other sensitive data has fallen into the
wrong hands is to place an initial fraud alert on your credit reports.
There are three major credit reporting agencies, but a call to one --
for instance, Equifax at 800-525-6285 -- will ensure the other two are
notified.
A fraud alert entitles you to a free copy of
your credit report from each of the three companies. Order one from each
and scrutinize them carefully for accounts you didn't open or debts you
don't recognize. Also, make sure that information such as your Social
Security number and employer are correct on each report.
If you discover accounts or transactions you
didn't authorize, call and speak with someone in the fraud department of
each company involved. Keep a log of each person contacted, along with
the date, time and topics discussed on each call.
An initial fraud alert also requires businesses
to take additional steps to confirm your identity before issuing loans
or opening accounts in your name. Be prepared for loan and credit card
applications to take slightly longer to be processed.
It's important to understand that an initial
fraud alert, as the name implies, is only a temporary fix. That's
because it remains in effect for only 90 days. To prevent becoming a
victim after the three months are up, you'll need to take additional
steps.
Next, fill out an identity theft report with
your local, state or federal law enforcement agency. It's unclear if the
mere loss or theft of personal information constitutes identity theft,
but filing a report may offer additional protections. The FTC makes an
affidavit available at
http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/pdf/affidavit.pdf
Ask each of the three credit reporting
companies to place a freeze or extended alert on your account. Seventeen
states have enacted laws that require the reporting companies to block
access to your files in most instances. Check with the Consumers Union
Web site or attorney general in your state to see if this is available
where you live.
Even if your state doesn't offer this
protection, ask Equifax, TransUnion and Experian to give you an extended
alert anyway. This option will entitle you to two free credit reports
per year, and it will also require the credit reporting companies to
remove you from lists marketers use to send prescreened credit offers
for five years.
To qualify for an extended alert, the reporting
companies will require you to prove you've been the victim of identity
theft, even though it is not always clear how the law defines a victim
in this case. Be sure to include the FTC affidavit or other law
enforcement report you filed. It is legal documentation that your
personal identification has been stolen.
Finally, recognize that safeguarding your
privacy is a never-ending task, even for people who have no reason to
believe their personal information has been stolen. A little education
and prevention, say consumer advocates, can go a long way.
''You need an ongoing vigilance,'' says Paul
Stephens, a policy analyst with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San
Diego. ''We want people to be proactive, to be vigilant, but we also
don't want to have people panicking.''
"The Dangerous Side of Search Engines: Popular search engines may
lead you to rogue sites. Here's what you need to know to avoid dangerous
downloads, bogus sites, and spam," by Tom Spring, PC World via
The Washington Post, May 27, 2006 ---
Click Here
Who knew an innocent search for "screensavers"
could be so dangerous? It may actually be the riskiest word to type into
Google's search engine. Odds are, more than half of the links that
Google returns take you to Web sites loaded with either spyware or
adware. You might also face getting bombarded with spam if you register
at one of those sites with your e-mail address.
A recently released study, coauthored by McAfee
and anti-spyware activist
Ben Edelman , found that sponsored results
from top search engines AOL, Ask.com, Google, MSN, and Yahoo can often
lead to Web sites that contain spyware and scams, and are operated by
people who love to send out spam.
The
study concluded that an average of 9 percent
of sponsored results and 3 of organic search results link to
questionable Web sites. The study was based on analysis of the first
five pages of search results for each keyword tested.
According to the results of the study, the top
four most dangerous searches on Google are:
The study defined dangerous sites as those that
have one or a combination of the following characteristics: its
downloads contain spyware and/or adware; its pages contain embedded code
that performs browser exploits; the content is meant to deceive visitors
in some way; it sends out inordinate amounts of spam to e-mail accounts
registered at the site.
These results are a sobering wake-up call to
Web surfers, and they illustrate the changing nature of Internet threats
today. It used to be that most viruses and scams made their way to our
PCs
via our inboxes . But thanks to security
software that's getting better at filtering out viruses, spam, and
phishing attacks from our e-mail, rogue elements are
having a difficult time booby-trapping our
PCs.
"Scammers and spammers have clearly turned to
search engines to practice their trade," says Shane Keats, market
strategist for McAfee.
McAfee says that of the 1394 popular keywords
it typed into Google and AOL alone, 5 percent of the results returned
links to dangerous Web sites. Overall, MSN search results had the lowest
percentage of dangerous sites (3.9 percent) while Ask search results had
the highest percentage (6.1 percent).
Given the study's findings, it shouldn't come
as a big surprise that the company has a free tool, called McAfee
SiteAdvisor, for tackling the problems. In my tests I found it does a
great job of protecting you from the Web's dark side.
Since March McAfee has been offering a
browser plug-in that works with Mozilla
Firefox and
Microsoft Internet Explorer. SiteAdvisor puts
a little rectangular button in the bottom corner of the browser. If a
site you're visiting is safe, the SiteAdvisor button stays green. When
you visit a questionable Web site the button turns red or yellow
(depending on the risk level) and a little balloon expands with details
on why SiteAdvisor has rated the site as such.
SiteAdvisor ratings are based on threats that
include software downloads loaded with adware or spyware, malicious code
embedded in Web pages, phishing attempts and scams, and the amount of
spam that a registered user gets.
SiteAdvisor takes it a step further with
Google, MSN, and Yahoo. With these search engines, it puts a rating icon
next to individual results. This is a great safety feature and time
saver, steering you clear of dangerous sites before you make the mistake
of clicking on a link.
Q. What can browsers tell me about how safe an
e-commerce site is?
A. Security experts have long recommended that
you look for the closed padlock at the bottom of the browser window to
make sure your transactions are safe.
Unfortunately, the presence of a padlock is no
longer enough.
Sites wishing to enable the padlock must obtain
a digital certificate from any number of private companies known as
certificate authorities.
In the early days, the certificate authority
performed a series of checks to make sure sites were really who they
said they were. The authority may have asked for ID or a copy of a
business license, or it may have checked information a site submitted
against state business databases.
Older authorities still do that, but some newer
ones try to cut costs and corners by checking only that the site owns
the domain name -- not the business said to run on that domain, said
Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer with the SANS Institute's
Internet Storm Center.
The difference in cost can be significant:
Ullrich said a site may spend $20 for the domain-only check, compared
with $100 or more for a traditional certificate. Consumers have no easy
way to tell the difference.
That doesn't mean the cheaper certificates are
all suspect -- Ullrich's group even has one. But the variation opens the
door for scammers known as phishers to easily obtain one and create a
site that mimics a real bank's. Customers can then be tricked into
revealing passwords and other sensitive details.
Scammers ''realize that as awareness of
phishing increases, one thing customers are doing is looking for a
lock,'' said Tim Callan, group product marketing manager for VeriSign
Inc., one of the old-style certificate authorities. ''As an
anti-phishing measure, the padlock has become increasingly
unimportant.''
Melih Abdulhayoglu, chief executive of Comodo,
another issuer of traditional certificates, said the padlock is still a
good sign that a site is encrypted so sensitive information won't be
leaked in transit, but ''you could be encrypting for the fraudsters for
all you know.''
So all certificates -- those with and without
thorough checks -- are being put into question, because a customer is
not likely to know what went on behind the scenes.
Fortunately, change is on the way.
Later this year, the certificate authorities
that undergo thorough checks will mark their certificates differently.
Browsers could then highlight sites with such high-assurance
certificates. The address bar might turn green, for instance, when
visiting such sites, distinguishing them from ones that carry only a
padlock.
Until then, still look for the closed padlock.
If it's missing, or if a warning appears about
a missing or expired certificate, that's a sign that something could be
wrong. Newer browsers are trying to make the padlock easier to see -- in
Firefox and Opera, for instance, the padlock is moved up top, next to
the address bar.
''Just because you see the padlock, it doesn't
mean it's meaningful, but it's not meaningless,'' said Greg Hughes,
chief security executive at Corillian Corp., a provider of online
banking technology.
Comodo, meanwhile, has a free tool at
http://www.vengine.com to help identify legitimate sites.
But ultimately, it comes down to common sense.
Ask yourself, is it a site you've done business
with before? Is it a big operation located in the United States? Did you
type in the Web address directly into the browser rather than click on
an e-mail link? Is the address a familiar one, one that appears in a
bank's brochure?
Beau Brendler, director of Consumer Reports
WebWatch, suggests that people also look for ''https'' -- the ''s'' for
secure -- instead of just ''http'' in the address bar.
''If you see the padlock and more importantly
the https, you've got a fairly good indication that the page is
secure,'' he said. ''They are one element of several things to possibly
look for.''
But of course, he said, ''you're never
necessarily guaranteed anything. There's a certain amount of risk in any
transaction.''
Global Principles for College Rankings by the Media Higher education officials from more than a dozen
countries have crafted
a set of principles designed to standardize
what they call “the global phenomenon of college and university rankings.”
The “Berlin Principles,” as the series of good practices are called, touch
on the purposes and goals of such rankings, the design and weighting of the
measures used, collection and processing of data, and presentation. The
principles were drafted at a meeting in Berlin this month convened by the
UNESCO-European Center for Higher Education and the Institute for Higher
Education Policy. Inside Higher Ed, May 31, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/31/qt
Best Academic Program Does Not Always Equate to Highest Media Ranking
Program
Companies pay higher salaries to graduates of
the most prominent business schools, even when they believe that
lesser-known schools offer better educations, according to a study
described in the December/January issue of the Academy of Management
Journal.
The study, conducted by researchers at the
University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, found that
those two variables do not always go hand in hand. In their analysis of
data from a poll of 1,600 professional recruiters, the researchers found
that the business schools considered to be the most prominent didn't
always get top marks for quality.
The biggest bucks went to graduates of
high-profile schools -- the kind that top the charts in national
magazine ratings or have faculty members with lofty pedigrees. A report
on the study does not give the names of any of the schools mentioned by
the recruiters.
"There's an old clich� that nobody got fired
for buying from IBM," said Violina P. Rindova, an assistant professor of
strategy at the Maryland business school and one of the study's authors.
"There's a certain reassurance that if you recruit someone from a
prominent school, the boss won't be upset and that you'll have a
stronger guarantee."
XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. says it
won't reach its subscriber target this year, and will likely end 2006 with
8.5 million subscribers. Approximately how many subscribers does its rival,
Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., have now?
Student Plagiarism, Faculty Responsibility A review by two Ohio University officials has found
“rampant and flagrant plagiarism” by graduate students in the institution’s
mechanical engineering department — and concluded that three faculty members
either “failed to monitor” their advisees’ writing or “basically supported
academic fraudulence” by ignoring the dishonesty.
The report by the two-person review team called
for the dismissal of two professors, and university officials said they
would bring in a national expert on plagiarism to advise them.
Doug Lederman, "Student Plagiarism, Faculty Responsibility," Inside
Higher Ed, June 1, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/01/plagiarism
June 2, 2006 reply from Linda Kidwell, University of Wyoming
[lkidwell@UWYO.EDU]
Bob's post reminded me of an interesting
article I recently read:
Woessner, M.C. (2004). "Beating the house: How
inadequate penalties for cheating make plagiarism an excellent gamble."
PS: Political Science & Politics, 37 (2): 313 – 320.
His article is interesting in two ways. First,
he argues that "it is unethical for faculty to knowingly entice students
to plagiarize by promoting policies that actually reward dishonesty." He
maintains that we may entice our students by anything from active
neglect to ineffective enforcement, and he even throws in some Biblical
support from Leviticus: You shall not place a stumbling block before the
blind.
Second, he uses expected value functions to
illustrate how ineffective policies make it an excellent gamble for
students to plagiarize, using different combinations of probabilities of
being caught, severities of punishment, and weighting of plagiarized
assignments. I fault the paper for assuming all students are value
neutral, in that he does not include any factor for the cost of
compromising your standards (internal social control in some studies)
or, for that matter, the benefit of going along with the crowd (culture
conflict theory in others).
Nonetheless, if we assume away any moral or
ethical component to the decision to cheat, he demonstrates that unless
probabilities of detection are high due to vigilence and penalities are
severe (F in the course, not just on the assignment), students have a
strong incentive to cheat.
So back to Bob's post, Woessner certainly
implies that the faculty are at least as culpable as the students when
massive cheating such as that in the engineering department at Ohio
University takes place.
I'm not sure I agree on an individual student
level, but it's food for thought.
Faculty are only culpable if you accept the
premise that students are inherently amoral. If our accounting students
are amoral then Enron is the tip of the iceberg as they will all behave
the same way in a similar circumstance (you would have to assume they
are just waiting on the ideal time to pull shenaigans).
[We do have a fairly decent honor code with
reasonable penalties for those judged guilty by a jury of their peers (4
students 1 faculty member). The peers are typically very willing to find
for guilt in the juries I have served on.]
John
June 3, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Trinity University adopted an honor code that has a student court
investigate cheating and assess penalties. The students are more apt to
be tougher on cheating students.
But for faculty it has been a little like rape in that the hassle
involved in reporting it discourages the reporting in some suspected
instances of cheating (in truth I've not made a formal study of this).
On several occasions in the past (before the new Honor Code) I've
simply flunked the student and reported the incident to the Academic
Vice President who maintained a file of reported incidents and could,
for repeat offenders, inflict more serious punishments. Now faculty must
appear in "court." More significantly, the authority to sign the F grade
for cheating is thereby taken out of the hands of the faculty member
responsible for grades in a course.
I have been following this thread with some
interest.
Medical schools have a pompous ceremony for
orientation for all entering students. It is usually called "white coat"
ceremony.
While the pomp and circumstance at such a
ceremony is incidental, the main objective is to make sure that the
students are being inducted into a noble and learned profession, that
their behaviour after should be different, that they have
responsibilities that transcend averything else, life is precious, their
ethical behaviour determines the future of the profession, etc., etc.,,,
In my own department, I have for a long time
suggested that we desperately need something like that. This is
especially important to accounting, since unlike medical schools that
get mature adults (22-30+ years old), we get juveniles who are less
worldly experienced and more prone to making wrong choices simply
because they are younger (if one agrees with Kohlberg).
The question is, what do we do in such a
pompous but solemn ceremony? What do we call it? Where is our equivalent
of the Hippocratic oath?
I reproduce below both the classic oath and the
modern oaths below. May be we can come up with one of our own.
Jagdish
____________________________________________________
Hippocratic Oath -- Classical Version
"I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and
Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my
witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this
oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal
to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is
in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his
offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this
art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a
share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my
sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have
signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law,
but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit
of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from
harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody
who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly
I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I
will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers
from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in
this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for
the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of
all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and
male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the
treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men,
which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself,
holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it,
may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame
among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear
falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot."
Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein.
From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by
Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Hippocratic Oath—Modern Version
"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability
and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of
those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge
as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all
measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment
and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine
as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may
outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor
will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are
needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for
their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most
especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is
given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power
to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great
humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play
at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever
chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may
affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility
includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the
sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for
prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of
society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those
sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life
and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection
thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of
my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek
my help."
Disabled Iraq veteran sues Michael Moore over 9/11 film A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is
suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used
snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray
him as anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11." Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman
from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of "loss of reputation,
emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," according to
the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week. Damon, 33, claims
that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon
did with NBC's "Nightly News." He lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk
helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the
aircraft on the ground. Another reservist was killed in the explosion. In
his interview with NBC, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military
was using on wounded veterans. He claims in his lawsuit that the way Moore
used the film clip in "Fahrenheit 9/11" - Moore's scathing 2004 documentary
criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - makes him appear
to "voice a complaint about the war effort" when he was actually complaining
about "the excruciating type of pain" that comes with the injury he
suffered.
Denise Lavois, "Iraq veteran sues Moore over 9/11 film," TheState.com,
May 31, 2006 ---
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/entertainment/movies/14709855.htm
It's called
"Michael
& Me," and, as you might imagine, it emulates
the style of Michael Moore's documentaries and turns the tables on the
filmmaker responsible for "Bowling for Columbine." This time it's Moore who
is hunted down for an ambush interview the way he famously stalked Roger
Smith, the chief executive officer of General Motors, in "Roger & Me," and
an ailing Charlton Heston in "Columbine." This time it's Elder scoring all
the propaganda points – with the truth and facts, rather than distortions
and cinematic gimmicks.
"Michael & Me', by Joseph Farah," WorldNetDaily ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46707
The truth about America’s oil refineries Unfortunately, the lack of capacity that Washington
sees as a crisis looks like an ideal business model to oil refiners. There
are so few refineries in the U.S. now that they are run tight to the bone,
typically using about ninety per cent of their total capacity. The result is
that refining—which, until recently, was a tough, low-margin business—has
become tremendously lucrative. Last year, refiners’ profits jumped
thirty-nine per cent, to twenty-four billion dollars, and this year should
be even better. In California, gasoline prices have risen forty-eight per
cent since the end of last year, even though crude-oil prices are up just
seventeen per cent. Most of that difference has gone straight into refiners’
pockets.
James Surowiecki, "The truth about America’s oil refineries," The New
Yorker, June 12, 2006 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060612ta_talk_surowiecki
"Ultrasensitive Test for Heart Attacks, Alzheimer's: A powerful
but cheap tool available this year could test for everything from genetic
diseases to heart-attack signs," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology
Review, May 31, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16938&ch=biztech
An ultrasensitive DNA and protein detector,
expected to be widely available later this year, could save lives by
detecting genetic and infectious diseases early, before they turn deadly
or spread. Its relatively low cost and simplicity will make diagnostic
tests that today can be done only in specialized labs available at local
hospitals. Furthermore, because it's extremely sensitive, it could
detect signs of disease invisible to current tools.
The device, which has been developed by
Nanosphere, Northbrook, IL, based on research
by
Chad Mirkin, professor of chemistry at
Northwestern University, is already being in used in several research
labs and is awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval before it
enters general use.
[Click
here for illustrations of the process used by the Nanosphere protein
and DNA detector.]
In its first application, the gold
nanoparticle-based detector will tell doctors whether patients have a
genetic trait that makes them likely to develop blood clots during
surgery, helping doctors prevent strokes. Soon after, pending the
results of ongoing clinical trials, it could diagnose previously
undetected heart disease and help researchers diagnose and develop
treatments for Alzheimer's disease by detecting levels of telltale
proteins in the blood at concentrations "undetectable by any other
technology," says Bill Moffitt, CEO of Nanosphere.
Each year 100,000 patients complaining of heart
attack-like symptoms are sent home without treatment because current
methods cannot diagnose some heart attacks, Moffitt says. Of these
people, 20 percent die within a month, he says. And the rest have a much
greater risk of dying from a heart attack in the coming year. Moffitt
says that by detecting concentrations a thousand times lower that
current methods of a protein released in the body during a heart attack,
the Nanosphere technology may help doctors diagnose and treat these
attacks.
For those who enjoy a run of some distance
across a variety of terrains, this application is definitely worth a
look. With Trail Runner, users can create a geographic display of their
workout area, plan routes interactively, and also export route
descriptions onto their iPod. While the application does not actually
contain digital maps itself, it does offer ample directions and
instructions on where to obtain such maps online. This version of Trail
Runner is compatible with all computers running Mac OS X 10.4 and newer.
Dashboards on a car are essential. Dashboards
on one’s computer screen aren’t always essential, but they can certainly
make monitoring different sets of information quite a bit easier.
Essentially users of this program create a collection of “klips”, which
collect and display weather information, email notifications, and
stocks. And in an age of user- interface customization, it is not
surprising to find that the program also contains a number of skins
which can be used at the users’ discretion. Finally, the program can be
used in a variety of different languages, including German, Dutch, and
Spanish. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000
and XP.
Education – what a mess! Everyone is looking
for someone to blame and for a quick fix to improve the system. In my
view there's only one thing to blame: change. And there's only one
solution: change that solves the problem holistically.
If you have a food processor that has a faulty
power cord and you've lost the blades and broken the cover, just buying
a set of blades won't fix the problem. The same is true of education.
Requiring more standardized testing and better preparation for teachers
isn't adequate repair. Society has changed greatly in the last forty
years and those changes have affected who our students have become.
I began teaching high school in 1966. With the
draft in place, grade inflation became a way of life to avoid failing a
student who would be sent to Vietnam. After the draft ended, schools
continued to expect less of students instead of challenging them and
raising standards.
In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped
Children's Act became law. It required schools to provide a "free,
appropriate, public education to children with disabilities." These
children were given an Individualized Educational Plan, which guided
teachers in implementing the child's education. Despite this law, many
children with disabilities didn't receive "appropriate" education and
most were segregated from regular classes. After the passage of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) schools were closely
monitored to assure their compliance.
Now most disabled students are mainstreamed
into regular classes where many flourish and develop social and academic
skills that help them to function more successfully in society. But
their inclusion creates a classroom where teachers are stretched to meet
a greater diversity of student needs. Unfortunately, many teachers
aren't trained to teach these exceptional children who require methods
that are different from those used to teach the average student. In
addition to these special needs students, teachers in some schools also
may be working with large numbers of non-English speakers.
Today there are more students in the regular
classrooms who have behavior problems and who frequently disrupt
classes. They're not, by any means, all exceptional children with
behavior disorders. In the past, these were the kids who were expelled
or who dropped out because schools didn't tolerate disobedience and
disrespect, and parents supported that attitude. Too many hours of
learning time are wasted while teachers deal with such disruptive
students and the paperwork these incidents generate.
As our society has grown more legalistic and
less willing to accept personal responsibility, school administrators
have become more compliant in dealing with complaining parents. This
puts teachers in an untenable position. If the teacher insists on
disciplining a student for misbehaving, it may be seen as a challenge to
the administrator's authority and an affront to the parent. But if the
student isn't disciplined, the teacher's authority is undermined, and in
most cases the student continues to be a problem in class.
Once I was asked to adjust my grading so that a
high school senior who had attended only half my classes and had done
very few assignments could graduate. He was the son of a prominent
community leader, and the principal didn't want any "trouble." When I
refused, the principal was outraged! It's difficult to convince students
to make the effort to learn when they know someone will rescue them from
their bad decisions.
Drug and alcohol abuse and early sexual
experiences are significant problems among the young in every strata of
society. These behaviors seriously interfere with learning, impair
judgment, and create depressive and aggressive behaviors that often
disrupt the classroom. To make matters worse, students are constantly
sent messages through the media and video games that violence, overt
sexual expression, and disrespectful behaviors are "cool." To be "bad"
is good, so we have more students who seek to disrupt the learning
environment in order to get attention and earn the respect of their
peers through misbehavior. To make matters worse, the laws make it
virtually impossible to suspend or expel disruptive “exceptional
students” even when they are capable of understanding the consequences
of their actions. This creates an inequity that undermines discipline in
the classroom and teaches the students that they don't have to be
responsible.
The most significant influence on a child's
ability to learn is the parent and the home environment. Today many
parents have less time available to spend with their children monitoring
homework, teaching social skills, self-discipline and responsibility.
Many must work longer hours sometimes on multiple jobs just to make ends
meet. As the income of an increasing number of families falls below the
poverty line, more children lack the nutrition they need for normal
brain function and development. Even among those who are not poor, poor
eating and exercise habits take their toll on learning.
Continued in article
"Business Ethics Magazine Lists Top Corporate Citizens:
Environmental awareness is boon for high-tech firms," SmartPros, May
4, 2006 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x52863.xml
Business Ethics Magazine has released its
annual survey of the "100 Best Corporate Citizens," with Waterbury,
Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters topping the list.
The coffee company was cited for its
"meticulous attention to corporate social responsibility," including its
pioneering work in the fair trade movement, which pays coffee growers
stable, fair prices. Green Mountain has been among the top 10 companies
on Business Ethics' list for four years running.
Now in its seventh year, the list for 2006 is
striking because of the dominance of technology firms among the top 10,
including Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices, Motorola and Agilent
Technologies.
Why the strong showing by tech? "Surprisingly,
it's not due to financial out-performance," said Marjorie Kelly, editor
of Business Ethics, "since none of the top tech companies ranked in the
top 10 in financial returns." Instead, Kelly noted, most top tech
companies do well on environmental issues. They also tend to be active
in their communities and score high in employee relations, she said.
"These firms know that to attract and retain talent, it pays to be
socially enlightened. High-tech seems to be a genuinely socially
responsible sector."
The list saw quite a bit of turnover from 2005,
with 33 companies appearing for the first time. Newcomers Johnson &
Johnson and McGraw-Hill Companiesscore particularly high in workforce
diversity. Newcomer Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls rates high marks
because of products that help conserve energy.
The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list puts a
numerical rating on service to these various stakeholders.
Environmental, social and governance ratings are drawn from an online
social research database created by KLD Research & Analytics, Inc.
Search engines work wonderfully when you want
to find something in a long stretch of text. Just type in a word or
phrase, and the computer quickly scans through a Web page or Word
document and picks it out. But for a computer to do the same thing with
an image -- find a particular person or object somewhere in a video
recording, for instance -- is much more difficult. Whereas a human eye
instantly distinguishes a tree from a cat, it's a lot of work to teach a
computer to do the same.
That challenge is being tackled by researchers
at MIT's Center for Biological and Computational Learning (CBCL), led by
Tomaso Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor in the Brain Sciences and
Human Behavior. Some students at the center are proposing software that
could work, say, with surveillance cameras in an office building or
military base, eliminating the need for a human to watch monitors or
review videotapes. Other applications might automate computer editing of
home movies, or sort and retrieve photos from a vast database of images.
It might also be possible to train a computer to perform preliminary
medical diagnoses based on an MRI or CT scan image.
But the work to make such exciting applications
possible is daunting. "The fact that it seems so easy to do for a human
is part of our greatest illusion," says Stanley Bileschi, who this month
earned his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at the
CBCL. Processing visual data is computationally complex, he says, noting
that people use about 40 percent of their brains just on that task.
There are many variables to take into account when identifying an
object: color, lighting, spatial orientation, distance, and texture. And
vision both stimulates and is influenced by other brain functions, such
as memory and reasoning, which are not fully understood. "Evolution has
spent four billion years developing vision," Poggio says.
Scientists have traditionally used statistical
learning systems to teach computers to recognize objects. In such
systems, a scientist tells a machine that certain images are faces, then
tells it that certain other images are not faces. The computer examines
the images pixel by pixel to figure out, statistically, what the face
images have in common that the nonface images do not.
For instance, it might learn that a set of
pixels representing the brow is a brighter than the pixels representing
the pupils, and that the two sets are a standard distance apart. It
might notice that the mouth tends to be horizontal, and that there is a
sharp change in brightness where the head stops and the background
begins. Once trained, it can look at new images and see how closely they
match the rules.
Compare these numbers with the total body count in Iraq Simmering conflict in Congo has killed 4 million
people since 1998, yet few choose to cover the story. TIME looks at a
forgotten nation--and what's needed to prevent the deaths of millions more.
Simon Robinson and Vivienne Walt, "The Deadliest War In The World:
Simmering conflict in Congo has killed 4 million people since 1998, yet few
choose to cover the story," Time Magazine Cover Story, May 20, 2006
---
Click Here
There's a spouse out there for almost everyone of any age
Twenty years ago, unmarried, college-educated
women over age 30 got some bad news, and America took great pity on
them.
The impetus was a Newsweek cover story in June
1986 titled "Too Late for Prince Charming?" It showcased a study by Yale
and Harvard researchers suggesting that 30-year-old white,
college-educated single women had only a 20% chance of finding husbands.
At age 40, the probability fell to 2.6%. Using hyperbole and humor that
became infamous then, and sound far more awful today, Newsweek said
those 40-year-olds were "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than
land a mate.
A lot of us recall the hand wringing over that
study, the countless articles and TV debates, the tearful conversations
between single women and their mothers. The statistics were later
challenged by U.S. Census Bureau demographer Jeanne Moorman, who
calculated that those 30-year-olds actually had a 58% to 66% likelihood
of finding a husband; for 40-year-olds it was 17% to 23%. But the
Harvard-Yale study's core message -- that educated, career-focused women
risk spending their lives alone -- still reverberates today.
Well, it turns out that less than 10% of
college-educated women now ages 50 to 60 have never been married, census
records show. And I did something far less scientific: I checked in with
10 women who in 1986 appeared in Newsweek and other media reports about
the study. Eight of them had found a husband. Two others were single by
choice.
Dysfunctional Families: Should they run or stay and fight?
"Home Remedy," by Paul Raiburn, The New York Times, May 28, 2006
---
Click Here
Three years ago, Mary Beth Towell, a counselor
in Canton, Ohio, was assigned to a family in a crumbling neighborhood of
dilapidated houses, drug dealers and gangs. Even in that tough
neighborhood, this family stood out as desperate. In a single month,
child-protective services fielded more than 30 calls from teachers,
police officers and others demanding that the children be removed.
The mother had bipolar disorder and was a heavy
marijuana user. The children's father no longer lived in the home. Two
of the girls, 15 and 10, and a boy, 11, were violent and suicidal. They
threatened one another with knives and fought viciously. (The remaining
child, a 14-year-old girl, was somehow O.K.)
Few families in such bad shape survive intact.
The children may be sent to residential treatment centers or juvenile
corrections facilities. "These programs generate high recidivism rates,"
says Bart Lubow, director of the program for high-risk young people at
the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore. And they can cost at least
$50,000 a year per child. "That would be O.K. if you were getting a
reasonable return on your investment," Lubow says. "But the outcomes are
very poor."
Stark County in Ohio is trying something
different. Towell was part of a team using an innovative antiviolence
program called multisystemic therapy, or MST. Developed over the last 30
years by Scott Henggeler, a clinical psychologist and a professor of
psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, it is based on
the assumptions that families should remain together and that all of the
causes of antisocial behavior should be attacked at once.
Taking his cues from family therapy as well as
from social ecology, which emphasizes that behavior is shaped by
multiple aspects of the environment, Henggeler studies the ecosystem
composed by family, neighborhood, schools, peer groups and the broader
community. Instead of removing children from that ecosystem, he tries to
change it: solve the drug problems and the legal problems, get kids away
from delinquent peers and encourage academic success.
A central idea is to focus on the parents. "We
want the therapist to build the competency of the parents, because the
parents are going to be there after the therapist leaves," he says. If
the parents can't handle the job, he might ask an uncle, aunt or
grandparent to fill in.
MST therapists like Towell have small caseloads
— four to six families at a time. They visit the families every day, if
necessary, and are always on call. If the police grab a child at 2 a.m.,
the therapist can help sort things out. Because of this intensive
effort, MST isn't cheap. It typically lasts four to five months and
costs between $5,000 to $7,500 per child. To make it cost-effective, it
is directed at kids at high risk of expensive out-of-home placements. If
enough of them can be kept at home, the program can pay for itself — and
even save communities money.
MST is one of only a handful of "evidence
based" programs that have been shown to be effective for violent
children. In a recent 14-year evaluation, kids who had been through MST
programs had 54 percent fewer arrests and spent 57 percent fewer days in
jail. "These programs have a higher success rate than what else is out
there," Henggeler says. The single most important piece of the treatment
is getting children away from deviant peers.
While the program has become more popular in
recent years, it is still relatively small. Edward Latessa, head of the
division of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati, contends
that MST is one of the best programs for delinquent kids, but he adds
that it isn't for everyone. "The problem with MST is it's a difficult
model to implement," he says. "It requires a caregiver that's really
committed. It's not easy, so some agencies give up." With such concerns
in mind, Henggeler has set up a private company called MST Services to
help communities develop programs, train therapists and make sure they
stick with the program. Meanwhile, he is extending MST-style programs to
other arenas, like the treatment of sexual offenders and abused or
maltreated kids.
Towell had surprisingly good luck with the
Canton family. She discovered that the children liked to draw, and she
helped them join art classes. There they met the sort of other kids she
wanted them to associate with. With pressure from Towell, the mother
cleaned herself up and made the commitment to turn things around. It
wasn't easy, but it worked. "She was willing to do whatever it took,"
Towell says. "That's when we have the most successful cases."
Paul Raeburn is the author of "Acquainted With the Night," a
memoir of raising children who have depression and bipolar disorder.
While more than a few curmudgeons have offered
their honest opinions about statistics, we here at the Scout Report like
to provide our readers with the facts and let them decide on their own.
Fortunately, there are sites like the Economic Statistics Briefing Room
provided by the White House. Here, visitors can peruse sections that
offer information on income, output, transportation, and prices. Drawing
on the research and statistical databases of several dozen federal
agencies (including the National Agricultural Statistics Services),
visitors can view tables and charts that offer such timely material as
crude oil prices, poverty rates, and household wealth. Within each
section, visitors can view summary statistics, and then if they wish,
they can proceed to the homepage of the agency that provided each set of
information.
I
knew about this earlier but I waited until Neal gave me permission to
announce it. I think the FAF made a good choice.
From:
Neal Hannon [mailto:njhannon@f-a-f.org] Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 12:20 PM To: Jensen, Robert Subject: FAF
Hi Bob,
Here’s an update on
my new job. As of June 1, 2006, I joined the FAF as Director, Financial
Reporting Technologies. In my new role, I will guide the Foundation,
the FASB and the GASB in their efforts relating to XBRL and other
reporting technologies. The challenges in the new position are many and
I will need the support of the entire financial community to be
successful. Thank you for all your help and support and I look forward
to a continuing relationship in my new role.
Neal
Neal J. Hannon
Director, Financial Reporting Technologies
Financial Accounting Foundation
Norwalk, CT 06856
Work: 203-956-5219 Cell: 401-225-6082
Fighting Words
A former Marine's favorite books on
the military.
1. "Once an
Eagle" by Anton Myrer (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968).
Quite simply,
America's "War and Peace." "Once an Eagle" is the finest novel ever
written about what it means to spend a career in the military, and how
the military relates to the civilian world. Myrer traces the career and
personal life of a talented, often selfless career soldier from the 1916
Pershing expedition along the Mexican border to the beginnings of the
Vietnam War, skillfully blending in human foibles, political debates and
the moral dilemmas that leaders always must face. A Marine veteran of
Iwo Jima, Myrer writes with great skill about combat and with
intelligence about a variety of societal and human issues.
2. "Hell In a
Very Small Place" by Bernard Fall (Lippincott, 1966).
For anyone who
believes that France's Dien Bien Phu operation in Vietnam in 1954 was
little more than a blunder, and for anyone who believes that the French
were not capable fighters in Vietnam, this comprehensive and often
surprising nonfiction account of the siege that brought France to its
knees will be a deserved surprise. Bernard Fall, the Frenchman who was
the most perceptive observer of Vietnam's shaky march away from French
colonialism, wrote several books about Vietnam; he was killed while on a
patrol with the U.S. Marines in 1966. This book--his best--shows us the
underappreciated complexities of that war, the regional issues that
drove many local decisions and the tragic heroism of France's finest
fighting forces.
3. "History
of the Second World War" by B.H. Liddell Hart (Putnam, 1970).
Liddell Hart is
most remembered for his essays on strategy (he largely coined the
doctrine of the "indirect approach") and for his early advocacy of
armored warfare in the years following World War I. It was an advocacy
ignored by the British, studied and adapted by the Germans. But this
book, which he was still working on at his death in 1970, is his
masterpiece. Leaving politics behind, Hart gives us a splendid
chronology of the war from a military context, which allows the reader
to cover the entire global landscape of the war from beginning to end.
The book's only defect is Hart's forgivable imbalance of attention paid
to the European theater as opposed to Asia. Americans who have not read
beyond our own military experiences in World War II emphatically need to
read this book, in order to comprehend the ferocity of the
German-Russian warfare, which is too frequently overlooked in our own
discourse.
4. "The
Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer (Harper & Row, 1971).
This memoir from
the perspective of one who fought on the German side in World War II is
probably the most overwhelming book ever written about ground combat.
Guy Sajer, an Alsatian drafted into the German army, fought for three
years as an infantry soldier, mostly on the Russian front. Germany
fielded an army of 12 million soldiers and lost 3.7 million combat dead,
a preponderance of those casualties occurring in the mind-boggling,
massive engagements with the Soviets. Sajer, who had no politics and
little enthusiasm for soldiering, nonetheless demands an understanding
of the immensity of this human experience, and is the perfect voice to
ask for it.
5. "The Guns
of August" by Barbara W. Tuchman (Macmillan, 1962).
This is
the book that every policy maker pushing for the invasion of Iraq should
have read, marked, learned from and digested before sending the U.S. off
to war. Barbara Tuchman's brilliant analysis of how World War I began in
the summer of 1914 is remarkable not only for her understanding of the
issues at play among national leaders, but also for her descriptions of
how the trenches became immediately bogged down, resulting in a
four-year war from which Europe has never fully recovered. The Germans
were certain that World War I would be over in six weeks, but unforeseen
circumstances and unintended consequences are the rule in warfare.
Instead of a quick march to Paris, the summer of 1914 saw, horribly,
several nations begin the process of bleeding and spending themselves
away from greatness.
Mr. Webb, former secretary of
the Navy, is the author of eight books, including "Fields of Fire," a
novel about the Vietnam War. He is now a Democratic candidate for the
U.S. Senate in Virginia.
What gratitude is all about
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
The Whale
If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read
about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of
crab traps and lines.
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to
struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped
around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the FarraloneIslands (outside the
Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was
so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ... a
very dangerous proposition.
One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous
circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged
them, pushed gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most
incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him
the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate ... to be
surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that
are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
I pass this on to you, my friend, in the same spirit.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Here is a math trick so unbelievable that it will stump you. Personally I
would like to know who came up with this and why that person is not running
the country.
The easy way: Click on your calculator and do it while you read it.
1. Grab a calculator. (you won't be able to do this one in your head)
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)
3. Multiply by 80
4. Add 1
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
I recently sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and
practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR)
Diversity Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President
Judy Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Online Video and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Audio presentations from the Milken Institute.
These are really interesting. On everything from the economic impact of
terrorism to globalization to education to civil liberties to medicine.
I have a feeling if Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson were around today,
this is what they would be listening to!
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and
video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
SPOON PLAYING. "If you can keep the beat by tapping the
floor with your toes or by drumming on the table with your fingers, you,
too, can play the spoons," says A. Claude Ferguson.
TENNESSEE. Transcription of the "Company Store Ledger" at
the Bright Hope Furnace in western Greene County, Tennessee for the years
1834-35. Contains an index to the several hundred names found in the ledger.
http://www.kiva.net/~jeskewic/brighthope.html
From The New Yorker
The New Yorker publishes a selection of letters, journal entries, and
personal essays by soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines who served in the
current war in Iraq. Here, five of the servicemen read from their work,
accompanied by their photographs.
"The Home Front" The New Yorker, June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/060612on_onlineonly01
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose
Bierce (1842 1914) ---
Click Here
Bartleby, the Scrivener by
Melville Herman (1819-1891) ---
Click Here
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles
Dickens (1812-1870) ---
Click Here
Project Gutenberg and World eBook Library
plan to make ''a third of a million'' e-books available free for a month at the
first World eBook Fair. Downloads will be available at the fair's Web site from
July 4, the 35th anniversary of Project Gutenberg's founding, through Aug. 4.
The majority of the books will be contributed by the World eBook Library. It
otherwise charges $8.95 (euro6.98) a year for access to its database of more
than 250,000 e-books, documents and articles. But the book fair will not be the
last chance for e-bookworms to devour works ranging from ''Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland'' to ''Old Indian Legends,'' not to mention dictionaries and
thesauruses, without paying for them. Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart,
who first announced the ambitious plan a month ago, said Friday the partners are
on track to make 1 million books available for the annual fair's one-month run
in 2009, with more appearing in subsequent years. About 100,000, he said, will
be permanently available at the handful of Project Gutenberg sites on the
Internet.
"Electronic book devotees may want to set aside some extra screen
time this summer, as two nonprofits are preparing to provide free access to
300,000 texts online," PhysOrg, June 2, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news68484530.html Project Gutenberg ---
http://promo.net/pg/ World eBook Library ---
http://worldlibrary.net/ World eBook Fair ---
http://worldebookfair.com/
Also see
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16956
Maybe the anti-immigrant slogan should be: "Keep
America stupid--seal the borders!" See module from the Boston Globe given below
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality,
they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to
reality. Albert Einstein as recently quoted
by Mark Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-07-06.htm
Women now make up more than 60 percent of all
accountants and auditors in the United States, according to the Clarion-Ledger.
That is an estimated 843,000 women in the accounting and auditing work force. AccountingWeb, "Number of Female
Accountants Increasing," June 2, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102218
Perhaps it was as easy to uncover the truth as it
was to demonstrate the falsehood. Author - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero
According to Census Bureau statistics from 2000,
American Indians make up 2.8 percent of the U.S. population. However, only 0.3
percent of students in medical schools and 0.5 percent of students enrolled in
schools of pharmacy are American Indians. Rob Capriccioso, "Indian Training Centers at Risk," Inside Higher Ed,
June 7, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/07/indians
Lead in to Commencement Address by Former Senator Bill Bradley at Ithaca
College President Williams, members of the faculty, members of
the class of 2006, friends and family of the class of 2006. I want to continue
my acknowledgments. I'm very sensitive, I want to make sure that I acknowledge
every element of this community. And so let me borrow from Garry Trudeau and
continue my acknowledgments: and so I recognize Chairman Bill Haines and members
of the board of trustees, bored members of the trustees, those who watch "The
Sopranos," those who watch "American Idol," those who still watch the reruns of
"Frasier," those who don't like TV. Denizens of Ithaca, denizens of the night,
knights of Tompkins County, people of class, classy people, people of height,
the vertically constrained, people of hair, the indifferently coiffed, the
optically challenged, the temporarily sighted, the insightful, the out of sight,
the out-of-towners, the Afrocentrics, the Eurocentrics, the Eurocentrics with
Eurail passes, the eccentrically inclined. The sexually disinclined, people of
sex, sexy people, earthy people, animal companions, friends of the earth,
friends of the boss, the temporarily employed, the differently employed, the
differently optioned, people with options, people with stock options, Knick
fans, Celtic fans, those who don't have the wisdom to be either Knick or Celtic
fans, the divestiturists, the deconstructionists, the home constructionists, the
homeless, the temporarily housed at home, and, God save us parents, the
permanently housed at home. Good morning!
Bill Bradly, "Graduates Get an Earful, From Left, Right and Center," The New
York Times, June 11, 2006 ---
Click Here
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G. Smith
and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how theory
development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions changed
over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will take
some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
The Development of Stakeholder Theory: An Idiosyncratic
Approach
R. EDWARD FREEMAN
PG. #422 FREEMAN
During this time, I began to work with Professor William Evan, a
distinguished sociologist at Penn. I was very flattered when Evan called me
one day and asked to meet to discuss the stakeholder idea. Evan saw this
project as a way to democratize the large corporation. Even though he was
an impeccable empirical researcher, he immediately saw the normative
implications of coming to see business as "serving stakeholders." We began
to meet weekly and talk about how to do the "next project" after
Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, even though that project
wasn't yet finished. We began an empirical study aimed at seeing how Chief
Executive Officers made trade-offs among stakeholders and we began to plan a
book that would deal with the normative implications of reconceptualizing
the corporate governance debate in stakeholder terms. While we never
finished the book, we did complete a number of essays, one of which is
reprinted countless times in business ethics textbooks. What I learned from
Bill Evan was invaluable: to be the philosopher that I was, rather than some
positivist version of a social scientist. Evan gave me the courage to
tackle the normative dimension, in an intellectual atmosphere, the modern
twentieth-century Business School that had disdain for such analysis.
In summary, I spent most of my time from 1978 until 1982
teaching executives and working with them to develop very practical ways of
understanding how they could be more effective in the relationships with key
stakeholders. In the summer of 1982, I sat down at my home in Princeton
Junction, New Jersey and drafted the initial manuscript of Strategic
Management: A Stakeholder Approach. I tried to set forth a method or
set of methods/techniques for executives to use to better understand how to
manage key stakeholder relationships. In addition, I wanted to track down
the origins of the stakeholder idea, and give credit to its originators and
the people whose work I had found so useful.
PG. #432 & 433 FREEMAN
Open questions remain. For instance:
Is there a useful typology of enterprise strategy or
answers to questions of purpose?
How can we understand the relationship between
fine-grained narratives of how firms create value for stakeholders, and
the idea of stakeholder theory as a genre or set of loosely connected
narratives?
If we understand business, broadly, as "creating value
for stakeholders' what are the appropriate background disciplines? And,
in particular what are the connections between the traditional "social
sciences" and "humanities"?
How can the traditional disciplines of business such as
marketing and finance develop conceptual schemes that do not separate
"business" from "ethics" and can the stakeholder concept be useful in
developing these schemes?
If we understand "business," broadly, as "creating value
for stakeholders," under what conditions is value creation stable over
time?
Can we take as the foundational question of political
philosophy, "how is value creation and trade sustainable over time"
rather than "how is the state justified"?
I am certain that there are many additional research
questions, and many more people working on these questions than I have
mentioned here. I hope this paper has clarified some of my own writing in
the stakeholder area, and provoked others to respond.
If I try to summarize the lessons for management theorists
of the development of stakeholder theory they would be four. First, don't
underestimate the role of serendipity and context. My role would have been
very different, indeed probably nonexistent, if a few key life events had
unfolded differently. Second, don't underestimate the contributions of
others. Really, my own contribution has been to try and synthesize the
contributions of many others. I am always amused and somewhat horrified
when I'm at a conference and am introduced as the "father of stakeholder
theory." Many others did far more work, and more important work than I did,
and that continues today as stakeholder theory unfolds in a number of
fields. Third, pay attention to the real world of what managers,
executives, and stakeholders are doing and saying. Our role as
intellectuals is to interpret what is going on, and to give better, more
coherent accounts of management practice, so that ultimately we can improve
how we create value for each other, and how we live. That, I believe is a
kind of pragmatist's credo. Finally, surely the author has a role in
management theory. Overemphasis on reviews, reviewers, revisions, and the
socialization of the paper-writing process can lead to a kind of collective
group think. I believe that I could not have published the work in
Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach as a set of A-journal
articles. By publishing a book, I managed to create a voice, building
heavily on the voices of others that could express a point of view. I
believe that in today's business school world, that is much more difficult,
and that we need to return to a more ancient idea of the author in
management theory.
Jeffrey Pfeffer,
PhD ’72, and Robert I. Sutton would like to foment a little
revolution—one in which leaders in business and the world at large base
their decisions on facts and logic, not ideology, hunches, management
fads or poorly understood experience. Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II
Professor of Organizational Behavior, and Sutton, a professor of
management science and engineering and, by courtesy, of organizational
behavior in the Graduate School of Business, are the authors of Hard
Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from
Evidence-Based Management (Harvard Business School Press, 2006). STANFORD
asked them about bringing more reason to organizational life.
What’s some of the
total nonsense that occurs in companies?
Sutton: Probably the biggest single
problem for human decision making is that when people have ingrained
beliefs, they will put a much higher bar for evidence for things they
don’t believe than for things they do believe. Confirmation-seeking
bias, I think, is what social psychologists call it. Organizations can
have amazingly good evidence, but it has no effect on the decisions they
make if it conflicts with their ideology.
Do you have a
favorite unsupported belief?
Pfeffer: One would be stock options.
There are more than 200 studies that show no evidence that there is a
relationship between the amount of equity senior executives have and a
company’s financial performance. . . . Just as you would never bet on a
point spread on a football game because it encourages bad behavior, you
should not reward people for increasing the spread in an expectations
market.
Overreliance on financial incentives of all
sorts drives all kinds of counterproductive behavior.
Evidence-based
management derives from evidence-based medicine. Explain what kind of
decision making we’re talking about.
Continued in interview
Distance Learning Today will be a quarterly supplement to
USA Today newspaper Dr. John G. Flores, CEO of The United States
Distance Learning Association, today announced his organization's
sponsorship of "Distance Learning Today," a quarterly supplement in USA
TODAY. "Distance learning is transforming the American educational
landscape, through on-line technology, video conferencing systems, satellite
delivery and other media," Flores said. "We expect this supplement to be an
invaluable guide for millions of present and potential distance learners as
well as a means for our member institutions and corporate sponsors to reach
them." The first supplement will appear in September and is expected to
exceed twenty pages. Editorial will include features on the distance
learning revolution, financing a distance education, increasing acceptance
of distance learning degrees among employers, technology requirements and,
importantly, how to evaluate the quality of a distance learning offering.
"Today, there are thousands of institutions offering degrees and
certifications for distance learners," Flores said. "It's timely to provide
the public with a reliable information resource concerning this dynamic
educational alternative." Formed in 1987, the United States Distance
Learning Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving the
needs of the distance learning community by promoting the development and
application of distance learning for education and training and by providing
advocacy, information, networking and distance learning opportunities.
PRWeb, June 9, 2006 ---
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb396750.htm
"Was Earning That Harvard M.B.A. Worth It?" by Abby Ellin, The
New York Times, June 11, 2006 ---
Click Here
THE popularity of the (MBA)
degrees has surged. In 1970, for example, business schools handed out
26,490 M.B.A.'s, according to the Department of Education. By 2004,
after a period marked by an economic boom and heightened competition for
top-flight business careers, that figure had jumped to 139,347. But
opinion and data appear divided on the tangible benefits of an M.B.A.
. . .
In 2003, Professor Mintzberg tracked the
performance of 19 students who graduated from the Harvard Business
School in 1990 and were at the top of their class academically. Ten of
the 19 were "utter failures," he said. "Another four were very
questionable, at least," he added. "So five out of 19 did well."
Research varies on the value of an M.B.A. A
2006 study by the Lubin School of Business at Pace University, looking
at 482 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, found that only
162 of them had chief executives with graduate degrees in business. The
companies with chief executives who went to more prestigious schools did
no better than those who went to less prestigious schools, according to
the study. Why this was so is unclear.
"One possibility is that if you don't have a
graduate degree from a top school then you have to work that much harder
to succeed," said Aron A. Gottesman, an associate professor at Pace and
a co-author of the study.
On the other hand, Professor Gottesman and a
colleague found in a separate study, published earlier this year in the
Journal of Empirical Finance, that mutual fund managers with M.B.A.'s
from BusinessWeek's 30 top-ranked business schools — including Harvard —
generally outperformed other mutual fund managers. Professor Gottesman
is not sure why this was so, either. "One possibility is that at
higher-quality schools they simply teach better technical skills," he
speculated. "Or students at top-tier schools have a higher I.Q."
The site would provide information about such
basics as public safety, emergency services, education, health care and
jobs. U.S. Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Barack
Obama, an Illinois Democrat, serve as honorary co-chairmen of the group.
"...the more mangers take, the less
investors make."
"If you do not believe we are we are in teh marketing business,
consider rate of fund failure....there have been 30,000 funds in
history, 11,000 of them are gone....Even in the last 5 years,
25%, actually 27% of all equity funds have vanished....I am
afraid to say, it is largely a marketing business."
It was either betray her students’ confidence
or perhaps let rape go unpunished.
Patricia O’Toole, former dean of students at
Notre Dame College, in Ohio, may have thought she was bound to stay
tight-lipped about students who confided in her, but the Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor’s Office didn’t agree.
On Tuesday, a grand jury indicted O’Toole on
three counts of failure to report a felony.
According to officials in the prosecutor’s
office, two Notre Dame students told O’Toole last October that they had
been sexually assaulted by Daniel Carl Wolfe, a 19-year-old student. The
officials said the dean then received an internal complaint in which a
third woman said Wolfe had assaulted her. That report indicated that
Wolfe had a 17-year-old woman in his room who was so drunk she had to be
taken to the hospital, according to court filings.
Jamie Dalton, a spokeswoman for the
prosecutor’s office said that, in December, police were investigating a
separate incident involving Wolfe, and came to ask O’Toole a question.
O’Toole then told campus police officers that she had knew of two other
incidents that the college should include in its filings under the
Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime
Statistics Act, a federal law that requires
colleges to make an annual report of campus crime.
O’Toole had not come forward with the
information earlier, however, and declined to give officers the names of
the accusers, because she apparently had told the students that she
would keep their identities secret. Police had to find the students on
their own.
“If she would have reported this immediately,
we might not have any other Jane Doe’s,” Dalton said, referring to other
unnamed women who were allegedly assaulted by Wolfe.
“She was concerned about their identities,”
Dalton said, “but what about the whole rest of the campus? What about
other people that could have been victimized?”
According to Ohio law, failure to report a
felony is a fourth degree misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty
of 30 days in a jail and a $250 fine.
The law grants exemptions from the reporting
requirement in specific circumstances, for members of the clergy, for
example, and for counseling services “provided in an informal setting by
a person who, by education or experience, is competent to provide those
services.”
Peter D. Brown, associate executive director of
the American College Personnel Association, said that “every student
affairs professional has to balance the confidence of students and
helping students, with, of course, legal obligations,” he said. “It’s
often a tight line to follow.”
Brown added that staff members who deal with
student conduct are often faced with students saying “Hey this happened
to me, I’m just telling you but don’t want you to do anything about it.”
Mary Ann Kovach, a spokeswoman for Notre Dame,
said that, when the allegations came to light in December, O’Toole was
placed on administrative leave “while we were trying to figure out what
was going on,” Kovach said. O’Toole then resigned. Kovach said Notre
Dame could not comment further on the matter, because of the pending
legal action.
Wolfe was suspended, and, before he could be
expelled, transferred to Defiance College in Ohio. Defiance has learned
of the allegations, and is currently preparing to expel Wolfe. He is
being charged with 22 counts of crimes, ranging from rape and assault,
to kidnapping, against six different women. Wolfe could not be reached
for comment.
O’Toole could not be reached, either, and
officials at the prosecutor’s office said that she may not have a lawyer
yet.
Carnegie-Mellon University joins the open sharing initiative
A collection of "cognitively informed," openly
available and free online courses and course materials that enact
instruction for an entire course in an online format.
Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University ---
http://www.cmu.edu/oli/index.html
Maybe the anti-immigrant slogan should be: "Keep America stupid--seal
the borders!"
From Opinion Journal on June 7, 2006
The Boston Globe website published the
pictures of each valedictorian
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/gallery/valedictorians?pg=25
in Boston's high schools and other high school
programs. As you thumb through the pictures, it is striking how many of
these students are immigrants. So many, that I decided to take some
statistics. The Globe listed the country of birth for each student. For
some US-born students I guessed that they were 2nd generation immigrants
(for instance if they were Vietnamese). Almost 2/3 of the Boston
valedictorians are either immigrants or children of immigrants. From my
analysis: here is the breakdown of the 38 valedictorians:
1st or 2nd generation US 63.2%
Later than 2nd generation US 32.8%
Born in the US 52.6%
Born overseas 47.4%
*** END QUOTE ***
Maybe the anti-immigrant slogan should be:
"Keep America stupid--seal the borders!"
Jensen Comment
The valedictorian in Princeton's Class of 2006 is an illegal immigrant who
from age four raised himself out of a NYC slum. His inspiration as a child
was a single book on the ancient world. Now he's an expert on classical
studies. His current problem is now how to remain in the U.S.
Political Correctness of the Worst Kind in a Prestigious University There are Afrocentric historians who make factual
claims that contradict existing historical evidence, such as the claim that
Aristotle stole his philosophy from the library at Alexandria when, as Mary
Lefkowitz points out, that library was not built until after Aristotle’s
death. Lefkowitz was shocked to get no support from her colleagues when she
pointed out factual errors of this kind, and even more shocked when the dean
of her college (Wellesley) told her that “each of us had a different but
equally valid view of history.” And so on (there’s a lot of the “so on” in
the book)
Scott McLemee, "The Truth? You Can’t Handle the Truth!" Inside Higher Ed,
June 7, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/07/mclemee
Fortunately, Why Truth Matters
by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, is something different. As polemics
go, it is short and adequately pugnacious. Yet the authors do not paint
their target with too broad a brush. At heart, they are old-fashioned
logical empiricists -– or, perhaps, followers of Samuel Johnson, who, upon
hearing of Bishop Berkeley’s contention that the objective world does not
exist, refuted the argument by kicking a rock. Still, Benson and Stangroom
do recognize that there are numerous varieties of contemporary suspicion
regarding the concept of truth.They bend over backwards in search of every
plausible good intention behind postmodern epistemic skepticism. And then
they kick the rock.The authors run a Web site of news and commentary,
Butterflies and Wheels.
And both are editors of The Philosophers’ Magazine,
a quarterly journal. In the spirit of full
disclosure, it bears mentioning that I write a column for the latter
publication.
Scott McLemee, "The Truth? You Can’t Handle the Truth!" Inside Higher Ed,
June 7, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/07/mclemee
Weapons of Ass Destruction Security forces thwarted a bombing in a southern
Afghan town by capturing a donkey laden with explosives and a man who was
plotting to blow up the animal in a rebel attack, a government spokesman
said Thursday. The donkey had 30 kilograms of explosives and several land
mines strapped to its back hidden in old sacks, said Ali Khail, a local
government spokesman in Qalat town. The charge was linked to a
remote-controlled detonator. Acting on a tip-off, the man and animal were
captured as they walked into the city from the surrounding countryside in
Zabul province, where Taliban rebels are believed to hide.
"Afghan donkey attack thwarted," Globe and Mail as linked in the
Opinion Journal, June 9, 2006 ---
Click Here
If top scientists can do it, why can't the American Accounting
Association (especially its new electronic publication platform) offer an
opportunity for "a peer-reviewed publication that publishes all rigorously
performed science, a vibrant online forum that encourages scientific
dialogue and debate, and will offer a hassle-free process that gets your
work online within weeks"?
As reported in the
Chronicle of Higher Education's Blog, and
Peter Suber's
Open Access Blog,
the Public Library of Science appears poised to start the publication of
PLoS OPEN. It will be "a peer-reviewed
publication that publishes all rigorously performed science, a vibrant
online forum that encourages scientific dialogue and debate, and will
offer a hassle-free process that gets your work online within weeks." It
will "offer multidisciplinary scope, rapid turn-around, open review, and
powerful personalization and discussion tools." Additional
characteristics (from the PLoS site):
Inclusive scope. The boundaries between
different scientific fields are becoming increasingly blurred. At
the same time, the bulk of the scientific literature is divided into
journals covering ever more restrictive disciplines and
subdisciplines. In contrast, PLoS ONE will be a venue for all
rigorously performed science, making it easier to uncover
connections and synergies across the research literature.
Objective peer review. Peer reviewers are
routinely asked to comment on whether papers are sufficiently novel
or immediate to justify publication. Such subjective judgements can
seriously delay the publication of good science. PLoS ONE will
concentrate on identifying those papers that are rigorously and
technically sound. Such work will be rapidly published and presented
for open and continuous review so that the whole community can be
involved in judging impact....
Interactive papers. A paper in a
traditional journal is a static marker in an ongoing process.
Authors looking back on papers written 6 months or a year ago will
see things that they might now have written differently. New data
may have arisen to strengthen or alter some of the conclusions. We
will provide authors with ways to make those changes and so
acknowledge the evolution of their ideas. This doesn't alter the
scientific record—the original paper is still the original paper—but
authors and readers can build upon it.
PLoS ONE will offer a new approach to the
way that scientific research is communicated. Like all revolutions,
this will take time, and the launch of PLoS ONE will only be the
first step. New features and functionalities will be continually
added to PLoS ONE while existing ones will be applied to an
ever-increasing body of literature. We cannot do this alone and want
to invite all members of the scientific community to help us shape
the development of PLoS ONE and the future direction of scholarly
publishing.
Business Week's Special Report on Computer Security, June 7, 2006
---
Click Here
Phisher Kings Court Your Trust
Computer-based fraudsters are finding new ways to trick people -- not
technology -- to get the information they seek
What I Learned at Hacker Camp
It's easy to create malicious code, penetrate firewalls, and steal
personal and financial information. "Ethical hacker" Andrew Whitaker can
show you how
A Guide to PC Security Products
Slide show: Concerned about your computer, but confused about how to
keep it safe? Here's a look at some helpful hardware and software
Stopping a Scam from Spreading
Thwarted by bigger banks, ID thieves are taking aim at smaller financial
institutions. One credit union provides a model for fighting back
At a flea market I just bought the hard drive you sent to Best Buy for
repairs One year ago, Hank Gerbus had his hard drive
replaced at a Best Buy store in Cincinnati. Six months ago, he received one
of the most disturbing phone calls of his life. "Mr. Gerbus," Gerbus recalls
a stranger named Ed telling him. "I just bought your hard drive in Chicago."
Gerbus, a 77-year-old retiree, was alarmed. He knew the old hard drive was
loaded with his personal information -- his Social Security number, account
numbers and details of his retirement investments. But that's not all. The
computer also included data on his wife, Roma, and their children and
grandchildren, including some of their Social Security numbers.
Bob Sullivan, The Red Tape Chronicles, MSNBC, June 5, 2006 ---
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/06/one_year_ago_ha.html#posts
Jensen Comment
Years ago I had a hard drive replaced and discovered that it had scads of
Cisco data. Evidently the vendor reconditioned a Cisco hard drive without
erasing the Cisco data when the hard drive was sent to me as a replacement
drive.
“An unknown individual” with “an ax to grind”
against the college’s president creates plagiarized documents and
affixes the president’s name to them. Later, the “ax grinder” posts the
articles on the president’s Web page without his knowledge and then
waits, patiently, for years to “spring his/her trap.” Only years later —
when critics attacking the president in ways that are “unworthy of a
Christian, church-centered institution” find the plagiarized documents
in an archive of decommissioned Web pages — do they come to light.
In language that could have been drawn from an
academic cloak and dagger novel (and a not very good one at that), an
external panel appointed by trustees at Wesley College confirmed Friday
that President Scott D. Miller’s name appeared on at least three
documents in the late 1990s that were clearly plagiarized from the work
of others. But the committee but said it was impossible to know without
“a skilled forensic scientist” whether Miller or someone “out to get”
the president had been responsible for creating and posting the
fraudulent articles. Based on the committee’s
report and recommendations (courtesy of the
Wilmington, Del. News Journal), Miller apologized to the victims
of the plagiarism and to Wesley’s students, staff and alumni Friday
(while insisting he did no wrong), and trustees said the president would
keep his job.
“The board is confident that this is a very
self-contained set of events,” said David Wilks, a lawyer who represents
the Dover, Del., liberal arts college, and to whom Miller referred all
questions. “Nothing like this has repeated itself in the last six years,
and given the undeniable success and achievement the president has had
in every area of his performance, the board is satisfied that this
matter is closed.”
. . .
Mask, the faculty member who brought forward
several of the charges against Miller, said he found aspects of the
panel’s report troubling. “If you had a faculty member who was
outrageously popular with students, unquestionably an excellent teacher,
and it was found that she or he had committed plagiarism, their career
would be over, and I don’t know why it should be different for a college
president,” he said. “What was called for here was an investigation into
plagiarism, and what we have is that close associates of Dr. Miller’s
have found there were three serious new instances of plagiarism for
which there has been no explanation.”
Continued in article
Review of plagiarism charges against Wesley president was orchestrated
by consultant who’s a mentor to the accused So when Wesley’s president, Scott D. Miller,
faced plagiarism charges this spring,for the
second time in his career, the trustees — after rallying to Miller’s defense
— agreed to conduct an independent review of the accusations and of the
college’s overall status. They asked Fisher, their trusted adviser, to put
together a review panel, and he recruited three current or former college
presidents, all of whom have worked with or for Fisher on other university
consulting jobs.
In its report last month,the review panel
concluded that plagiarism had occurred, but said it could not figure out
whether Miller or someone else had committed it. Over all, the report
praised Miller for essentially saving the college, saying he was “in the
midst of one of the most successful college presidencies in the nation.”
Fisher’s involvement, even at some distance, in the review of Miller
troubles some observers on the campus and elsewhere, given what they say are
the very close ties between Fisher and the president.
Doug Lederman, "A Question of Independence," Inside Higher Ed, June
7, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/07/wesley
Plunging proportions of African American first-year students at UCLA This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at
UCLA, but only 96, or 2%, are African American — the lowest figure in
decades and a growing concern at the Westwood campus. For several years,
students, professors and administrators at UCLA have watched with
discouragement as the numbers of black students declined. But the new
figures, released this week, have shocked many on campus and prompted school
leaders to declare the situation a crisis.
Rebecca Trounson, "A Startling Statistic at UCLA,"The Los Angeles Times,
June 3, 2006 ---
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-ucla3jun03,1,5599672.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
In a telephone interview before the meeting,
Carnesale described the preliminary numbers for black freshmen as "a
great disappointment" and said that UCLA has been trying for years to
boost those levels, within the limits allowed by law.
He and other officials at UCLA and elsewhere said the problem of
attracting, admitting and enrolling qualified black students is found at
competitive universities across the country and that its causes are
complex. In California, the problem is rooted partly in the restrictions
placed on the state's public colleges and institutions by Proposition
209, the 1996 voter initiative that banned consideration of race and
gender in admissions and hiring.
Other factors include the socioeconomic inequities that undermine
elementary and high school education in California and elsewhere, with
minority students disproportionately affected because they often attend
schools with fewer resources, including less-qualified teachers and
fewer counselors.
Many students and professors also say the declining presence of blacks
on campus discourages some prospective students from attending, thus
exacerbating the problem. Some of those interviewed, including UCLA
sociologist Darnell Hunt, said the campus could be doing more than it
is.
Hunt, who heads UCLA's Bunche Center for African American Studies, and
several colleagues have been studying the issue as part of a multiyear
research project on the challenges facing black students in California
universities.
In a draft of a report to be released this month, the researchers
compared the admissions criteria and processes at UC's three most
competitive campuses: UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. (At the
latter, the incoming black freshman class stands at 52 students, or
1.1%, even lower than the others.)
The report found that UC San Diego's admissions process relied most
heavily on numbers, while UC Berkeley's was most "holistic," allowing a
single reader to review all parts of an applicant's file, including
academic and personal achievements or challenges.
At UCLA, in what admissions officials have described as an attempt to
increase fairness and objectivity, applicants' files are divided by
academic and personal areas, and read by separate reviewers. The
researchers asserted that UC Berkeley's process may be the fairest,
because it allows students' achievements to be seen in the context of
their personal challenges.
In an interview, Hunt acknowledged the difficulty for a campus like
UCLA, which received 47,000 applications this year. Yet he criticized
the school for rejecting many black students based on what he described
as factors of questionable validity, and that he said may be linked more
to socioeconomic privilege than academic merit.
"There's a common misperception that this is a horrible problem but that
black students just need to do better," he said. "But most of the black
students who don't get in go to other top-notch schools — Harvard, Duke,
Michigan. We're losing students who could be here."
Ward Connerly, the conservative former UC regent who was an architect of
Proposition 209, countered that the issue was not the law he helped
create.
"The problem — and this is an old song, I know — starts with the small
number of black students who are academically competitive," he said,
pointing out that many also choose to attend historically black colleges
or private schools. "But I don't think we solve this problem by
tinkering with the admissions criteria to make it easier to get in."
No matter the cause, the effect is apparent on campus.
Karume James, 20, a graduating senior who led a recent student protest
on campus over the issue, said he remembered the excitement he felt when
he arrived at UCLA for student orientation in the summer of 2003.
Then just 17, James was preparing to transfer to the big-city campus
from a community college in Riverside, his hometown. And he recalled
what he felt when he looked around.
The average American consumer/homeowner has
little to no chance of getting an honest or fairly priced mortgage in
today's double standard, murky mortgage environment. That is if you are
a consumer/homeowner attempting to discover what is fair from a mortgage
fee/interst rate pricing standpoint and what is not. As a result The
Homeowners Consumer Center & its partner The Mortgage Inspection Service
are recruiting honest mortgage brokers/lenders who are ready to compete
in their local markets with an honest approach in working with
consumers/homeowners.
(PRWEB) May 31, 2006 -- The Homeowners Consumer
Center (Http://www.HomeownersConsumerCenter.Com)
along with its partner the Mortgage Inspection
service (Http://www.MortgageInspectionService.com)
have called for a national consumer alert to all
homeowners about the realities of the current US mortgage market, in the
form of five critical consumer tips they need to know. At the same time
the Homeowners Consumer Center is seeking information about locally
owned mortgage firms/lenders that are tired of trying to compete against
dishonest mortgage lenders. The targets of this campaign are as follow:
1. TV Pitchmen promising consumers/homeowners they will get numerous
mortgage firms to compete for a mortgage deal, or that someone should
have called so and so. The problem; the sales pitch does not always
measure up to what the consumer actually gets ( a much higher than
market interest rate, ridiculous fees or both).
These same types of ads often times say, or talk about a "no point"
gimmick, which is not exactly "no fees", if you are a consumer. The
actual translation is the consumer just got a higher interest rate and a
higher monthly mortgage payment.
2. National Homebuilders in many to most cases exclude borrowers from
getting a competitive quote from local mortgage lenders. Typically the
homebuilder prices the home buyers mortgage products 25 to 125 basis
points over par (par=the best available interest rate for the borrower)
and frequently these transactions are loaded with junk mortgage fees. If
the borrower wants to get a competitive quote he/she or they get told, "
the house will cost more", or they will not get a "bonus". What the
homebuilder failed to tell the consumer is that because they are a
"mortgage banker", they are not required to disclose the "yield spread
premium" to the borrower=higher monthly mortgage payment. Mortgage
brokers are required to disclose yield spreads to consumers.
A second severe problem with homebuilders is that they frequently tell
appraisers what they want their homes to sell for, rather than allow the
appraiser/appraisal firm to their job. "Either hit our values", the
homebuilder wants (real or not), or they find another
appraiser/appraisal firm that will. If there is a real estate bubble
burst this year, it will start with homebuilders slashing their in some
cases false valuations. Inflating real estate appraisals/massive
appraisal fraud is the ticking time bomb that could potentially crush
the US economy/real estate markets nationwide. Once again Wall Street
was asleep at the switch for a disaster that could be worse than the S&L
crisis of the 1980's.
3. Mortgage Lead generation scams on the Internet.: Once again the
consumer/homeowner can get taken for a ride, or ends up with a much more
expensive mortgage product. Most Internet providers have gladly sold
advertising space to just about any lender, honest or not. Do business
with local or well known mortgage firms.
4. Real Estate firms that also want to be the consumer's mortgage
lender. We feel it is the ultimate conflict of interest for a real
estate agent/firm to also be wearing the hat of mortgage lender. We
believe the functions of real estate sales & real estate financing need
to be separate. Next to national homebuilders blackmailing appraisal
firms into unrealistic valuations, are real estate agents acting as
mortgage lenders doing the same thing. Consumers are advised to steer
clear of real estate agents/brokers also acting as mortgage bankers.
5. If anyone is looking to the Bush Administration, HUD, or the US
Senate or House Banking Committees for help, don't hold your breath. In
light of the Abramoff & Duke Cunningham Congressional bribery scandals
one would hope that a consumer/homeowner friendly environment might
exist. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In reality banks and mortgage bankers are not held to the same standards
as are mortgage brokers with respect to serious consumer disclosure
issues. At the very top of this list are 'yield spread premiums" (a kick
back for increasing the mortgage interest rate).
Many have concluded, unlike mortgage brokers, banks and mortgage bankers
are not being required to disclose these kick-backs because, they are
the number one contributer to US House & Senate Banking Committees.
President Bush had his Gala re-election campaign party in part financed
by a mortgage lender that has been ordered to pay $300 million+ back to
consumers.
The Homeowners Consumer Center (Http://HomeownersConsumerCenter.Com)
and The Mortgage Inspection Service (Http://MortgageInspectionService.Com)
want consumers/homeowners to understand these realities and at the same
time they would like to partner with local, reputable mortgage
firms/lenders that are interested in advancing educational campaigns in
their communities so that consumers will be better educated when making
application for mortgages or refinances. The goal of this campaign is to
increase originations for participating mortgage firms/lenders & at the
same time give the consumer an honest mortgage product/refinance.
The Homeowners Consumer Center also think it important that states and
the federal government eliminate loop holes that prevent transparency in
a mortgage transaction, regardless of a lenders status as broker, banker
or the amount of money they contributed/paid to a politician.
Honest mortgage lenders/brokers who want to treat their customers with
honesty are encouraged to contact the Homeowners Consumer Center
(
Http://HomeownersConsumerCenter.Com ) for more
information about a state by state campaign to get the word out about
honest or hard working mortgage lenders. To join the Homeowners Consumer
Center in this campaign, mortgage firms/ lenders will be required to
agree to a realistic consumer disclosure agreement. A straight forward
approach like this is long over due in todays mortgage world. Homeowners
& consumers deserve better, and The Homeowners Consumer Center and its
partner, The Mortgage Inspection Service think this is a very solid step
to try to cure problems associated with an out of control mortgage
industry.
It pays to be an illegal If Congress adopts the Bush plan and gives amnesty
to illegal aliens, Senate Republicans will be asking President Cheney for a
pardon. Bush wants to grant illegal aliens amnesty while sounding like he's
really cracking down on them. It tells you where Americans stand on illegal
immigration that Bush has to pull the Democrat trick of hiding from the
public what he really believes when it comes to immigration. The "path to
citizenship" that Bush and the Senate are trying to pawn off on Americans
requires that illegals pay huge fines and back taxes. "Huge" is defined as a
$2,000 fine and taxes for three of the last five years. Even with the
special Two Years Tax-Free package for illegals, this is about as likely as
me paying my dad back the money I "borrowed" from him when I was in college.
Ann Coulter, "It pays to be an illegal," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
June 4, 2006 ---
Click Here
Financial Woes of Case Western Reserve University An undisclosed number of non-faculty employees lost
their jobs at Case Western Reserve University last week, as the institution
started a round of layoffs,
The Cleveland Plain Dealerreported. Large
deficits at the university led this spring to faculty anger, which in turn
led to the
resignation of Edward M. Hundertas president. Inside Higher Ed, May 30, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/30/qt
ACLU's Free Speech Advocacy Depends on Who's Doing the Speaking Meyers thinks the ACLU's backing of the Maloney
bill is an indication that the organization has strayed from its
"traditional free-speech roots" and turned to "identity politics." It's hard
to imagine the ACLU of 10 or 20 years ago asking government to monitor
advertising. But the ACLU now has issue-oriented lobbies inside it. They are
called "projects" and include the "Reproductive Freedom Project," the
"Women's Rights Project" and the "Lesbian and Gay Rights Project." The
influence of the projects, and the money they bring in, often tend to sway
the ACLU away from its once primary concern about free speech.
John Leo, "ACLU's Free Speech Advocacy Depends on Who's Doing the Speaking,"
Lifenews.com, June 4, 2006 ---
http://www.lifenews.com/nat2323.html
THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN THE DISTANCE
EDUCATION EXPERIENCE
"Presence, a sense of 'being there,' is
critical to the success of designing, teaching, and learning at a
distance using both synchronous and asynchronous (blended) technologies.
Emotions, behavior, and cognition are components of the way presence is
perceived and experienced and are essential for explaining the ways we
consciously and unconsciously perceive and experience distance
education." Rosemary Lehman, Distance Education Specialist Manager at
the University of Wisconsin-Extension, explores the idea that
understanding the part emotion plays in teaching and learning "can help
instruct us in effective teaching, instructional design, and learning
via technology." Her paper, "The Role of Emotion in Creating Instructor
and Learner Presence in the Distance Education Experience" (JOURNAL OF
COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE LEARNING, vol. 2, no. 2, 2006), is available online
at
http://www.jcal.emory.edu/viewarticle.php?id=45
Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning (JCAL)
[ISSN: 1549-6953] is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published
twice a year by Oxford College of Emory University. To access current
and back issues go to
http://www.jcal.emory.edu/ . For more
information, contact: Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, c/o Prof.
Ken Carter, Oxford College of Emory University, 100 Hamill Street,
Oxford, GA 30054 USA; tel: 770-784-8439; fax: 770-784-8408;
email:
kenneth.carter@emory.edu
USING BLOGGER TO GET STARTED WITH E-LEARNING
In "Using Blogger to Get Teachers Started with
E-Learning" (FORTNIGHTLY MAILING, May 25, 2006), Keith Burnett discusses
how "[s]imple class blogs can be used to post summaries of key points,
exercises, links to Web pages of value, and to provide a sense of
continuity and encourage engagement with the material." He includes a
link to an online blogging tutorial and to examples of how some
instructors are using blogs in their classes. The article is online at
http://fm.schmoller.net/2006/05/using_blogger_t.html
Fortnightly Mailing, focused on online
learning, is published every two weeks by Seb Schmoller, an e-learning
consultant. Current and back issues are available at
http://www.schmoller.net/mailings/index.pl. For more information,
contact: Seb Schmoller 312 Albert Road, Sheffield, S8 9RD, UK; tel: 0114
2586899; fax: 0709 2208443;
email:
seb@schmoller.net
Web:
http://www.schmoller.net/
BOOKS VS. BLOGS
"Why would I write a book and wait a year or
more to see my writing in print, when I can blog and get my words out
there immediately?" In "Books, Blogs & Style" (CITES & INSIGHTS, vol. 6,
no. 7, May 2006), Walt Crawford, both a book author and a blogger,
considers the different niches and purposes of the two communication
media. The essay is online at
http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ6i7.pdf
Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large [ISSN
1534-0937], a free online journal of libraries, policy, technology, and
media, is self-published monthly by Walt Crawford, a senior analyst at
the Research Libraries Group, Inc. Current and back issues are at
available on the Web at
http://cites.boisestate.edu/ . For more information contact: Walt
Crawford, The Research Libraries Group, Inc., 2029 Stierlin Ct., Suite
100, Mountain View, CA 94043-4684 USA; tel: 650-691-2227;
Web:
http://waltcrawford.name/
Abstract: "An effective metadata system can be
established with the participation of multiple teams each with a
different perspective, the subject matter expert (SME) teams. Each SME
team is comprised of multiple members. The SME teams are given a
carefully chosen concrete task that spans their different perspectives.
As they work on the task in facilitated joint meetings, a taxonomy team
records the comments of SME teams. The taxonomy team is comprised of
multiple, independently tasked recorders. The intent is to define and
capture metadata and taxonomy definitions from each of several different
vantage points. Each recorder provides separate reports that are
consolidated into a single report with resulting recommendations for
metadata and taxonomies. These recommendations are then validated by an
independent set of SME participants. A case study using this method is
presented. The results are compliant with SCORM, IEEE-LOM and IMS-MD
specifications."
"In discussions about the future of the
university, little has been said about how these changes will affect its
spatial layout, even though a university's physical characteristics must
complement and strengthen its mission." In "Designing the University of
the Future" (PLANNING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, vol. 34, no. 2, 2005-2006,
pp. 5-19) Rifca Hashimshony and Jacov Haina discuss several factors,
including teaching and learning technology, that may define what the
physical facilities of the university of the future will look like.
The paper is online ---
Click Here
Planning for Higher Education is published by
the Society for College and University Planning, 339 E. Liberty, Suite
300, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA; tell: 734-998-7832; fax: 734-998-6532;
email:
info@scup.org
Web:
http://www.scup.org/
According to a survey conducted by the
Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers: "Nearly three out
of 10 students spurned a college because it lacked a facility they
thought was important."
"Facilities Can Play Key Role in Students'
Enrollment Decisions, Study Finds" by Audrey Williams June THE CHRONICLE
OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 30, 2006
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/05/2006053002n.htm
(Online access requires a subscription to the Chronicle.)
>I just received this request for some sort of
ball park figure for a starting salary. My school is in Ohio, in the
midwestern part of the US.
Dear David
There are salary surveys around the place. I
would suggest hitting Google or I think it is the NACE website.
Regards
Andrew Priest
May 26, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
I tend to discourage students from putting too much emphasis on
starting salaries. The important factors are learning opportunities,
client exposures, nature of job assignments, work loads, degree of
travel, family supportiveness, and growth potential.
Salary varies by locale and by size of firm with smaller local firms
generally paying less (but possibly with greater chances for promotion
and partnership admission). Salary also varies by job security with
governmental accountants often making less but having tremendous job
security and benefits.
Liquorice compounds could be a key component for cheaper, more
effective liver cancer treatment, reports Lisa Richards in Chemistry
& Industry magazine.
See PhysOrg, June 5, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news68703822.html
Regrowing the Damaged Brain In recent years, scientists have discovered that
the brain has a remarkable capacity for self-repair. Hoping to take
advantage of this ability, researchers have developed a technology to
deliver electrical stimulation directly to brain tissue. The therapy, now
being tested in large clinical trials, could boost the brain's repair
mechanisms and improve recovery after stroke. Studies in both laboratory
animals and humans have shown that after stroke, neurons near the damaged
tissue begin to reorganize themselves in an attempt to compensate for the
injured areas. However, this healing ability can be hit or miss -- some
patients regain the ability to walk or talk while others are left
permanently disabled.
Emily Singer, "Regrowing the Damaged Brain: Electrically stimulating the
cerebral cortex could help stroke recovery," MIT's Technology Review,
June 8, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16966&ch=biotech
[Click
here for illustrations of the brain's areas and device's functions.]
Defibrillation's Alternative: A new approach would stop ventricular
fibrillation before it started Treating a failing heart by zapping it with a
painful, powerful electrical shock has become a common procedure. Now, a
medical device company, based in West Henrietta, NY, has patented a
technique that avoids the need for such dramatic treatment, by predicting
the onset of fibrillation -- the heart rhythm that can lead to sudden death
-- and treating it before it occurs. The preventative treatment does, like
defibrillation, involve electrically stimulating the heart, says Michael
Weiner, CEO of Biophan Technologies. But this new technique's weak signal
would be minuscule compared to the jolt that defibrillators normally
deliver. "I know patients with defibrillators who live in fear of that
son-of-a-gun going off," he says.
Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Defibrillation's Alternative: A new approach would stop
ventricular fibrillation before it started," MIT's Technology Review,
June 7, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16964&ch=biotech
A Huge Amount of Data on Family Comparisons ---
Click Here
Ernst & Young Computer Stolen Thousands of Hotels.com customers may be at risk
for credit card fraud after a laptop computer containing their personal
information was stolen from an auditor, a company spokesman said Saturday.
The password-protected laptop belonging to an Ernst & Young auditor was
taken in late February from a locked car, said Paul Kranhold, spokesman for
Hotels.com, a subsidiary of Expedia.com based in Bellevue, Washington. "As a
result of our ongoing communication with law enforcement, we don't have any
indication that any credit card numbers have been used for fraudulent
activity," Kranhold said. "It appears the laptop was not the target of the
break-in." Both Hotels.com and Ernst & Young mailed letters to Hotels.com
customers this past week encouraging them to take appropriate action to
protect their personal information.
"Data Breach: Hotels.com Customers," Wired News, June 4, 2006 ---
Click Here
One of our former students, a partner with E&Y,
told us that at the Minneapolis office they were encrypting all the
laptops. He said it was painful and expensive, but probably worth it. I
guess so.
Those who believe encryption to be a panacea
should read the recent works of Bruce Schneier (www.counterpane.com
, which, by the way, is headquartered in
Minneapolis) who wrote one of the earliest and most popular texts on
cryptography. He has been totally disenchanted with encryption for quite
a while.
Security is not a condition, but a process.
Belief in the omnipotence of encryption is based on the tenet that
security is a condition, and therefore you only need to find a
"technical" (more appropriately a "techie") solution to the problem of
deviations from the secure state. Real world is not so, and therefore we
need to look at security as a process.
In that view, encryption is just a means to an
end, and not an end in of itself. Management of keys, passwords,
adoption of security policies, all have a great role to play in the
"process".
Couple of points: My Dell has a feature whereby
one can set a password that needs to be entered as the computer boots. I
don't think that protects the data on the computer. The hard drive could
be removed and read directly by anyone having the right equipment.
Encrypting the data is more secure, I believe.
I'm not sure why Kate says it's a painful process. I use BestCrypt on my
lowly data on all my personal computers. It's easy to use and even
facilitates data backup since it creates a file that loads as a virtual
drive. Backing up can be done by just copying that file to whatever
medium you wish to use.
It seems to me a better method would be to put
client data on servers and access when the data is needed. If the
decrypt program is easy to use, the person with the laptop can decrypt
the data stored on the laptop. I expect that every thing will require
passwords, but they can be identified in many cases.
Given the problems in the last year [VA, AICPA,
Choice Point, E&Y and I am certain that there are others] companies are
going to have to take strong action to protect data.
Have a Good Day!
June 6, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Sam’s correct about not putting all the data on a laptop. However, at
times some of the data must be stored on the client (laptop) machine if
that machine is doing the edits.
One means of encrypted access to a server is the Cisco VPN system
that I’m now using to access servers back at Trinity University. It
works fairly well but is slow. I think this is due to the decryption
process.
I noticed a huge difference in software use with the Cisco VPN. I
never edit a file back on the server and save it directly because this
is painfully slow, especially with MS FrontPage. I edit a file on my
local machine and then save it back to the server using Windows Explorer
(which shows my Network drives). This is a faster process.
If my laptop is stolen, the thieves would only be able to access the
Network drives if they know my password which is nowhere on my laptop.
However, if there were something of value in my Network files on a
Trinity University server, a thief could force me to disclose the
password in much the same manner as a thief can force a person to
withdraw money from an ATM machine.
I cannot access files on Network servers that I am not authorized to
access, e.g., files of other professors.
Jagdish is correct in stating that the problem is not so much one of
password and encryption protection as it is a process such as
partitioning server files in order to limit which files an employee can
access. It is absurd, for example, that a single VA Employee could
compromise all personal data of millions upon millions of retired
military and active duty military. No one employee should have access to
such a large file. More internal controls are required to limit what
files he or she can access even in front of the barrel of a gun.
More and more applications are offering the
ability to map various addresses and locations, and users seem to enjoy
having this option embedded into such programs. With that in mind, users
may also find Mapping Service 1.0 quite helpful. Essentially, the
application allows users to selected an address in an email (or other
document) and then immediately use the mapping function to display a map
using Google Maps. This version is compatible with computers running Mac
OS X 10.4.6.
In his writings, Benjamin Franklin once
observed, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and
rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the
writing.” Franklin certainly followed this sage advice, as people
continue to read his works and replicate some of his experiments (and
adventures) across the globe. 2006 happens to mark the three-hundredth
anniversary of his birth, and a consortium of interested organizations
and individuals have created this website to act as a clearinghouse of
information about the various celebrations, exhibits, and other such
activities that will be taking place over the next couple of years to
celebrate Franklin’s life and accomplishments. Complete with a typeface
that would be familiar to those reading American printed works of the
18th century, the homepage contains sections on the ongoing Franklin
exhibition that is traveling the world and an education area that
contains materials for teachers seeking to incorporate discussion of
Franklin into their classrooms. The “Programs” area is a real gem, as it
contains links to a variety of projects (including a multimedia site
designed by middle school students that examines Franklin’s legacy)
created in honor of this most momentous occasion.
Measuring something as subjective as the
feeling or state of happiness is a tricky business. While some may take
pleasure in closing a big financial merger, others may be content to
watch a babbling brook as they sip lemonade. The BBC has never shied
away from taking on such weighty matters and they have recently created
this website to complement their ongoing series titled “The Happiness
Formula”. Users may wish to orient themselves to the site by viewing
some of the short video clips featured on the right- hand side of the
site’s homepage. The site also contains material on the relationship
between economic success and overall happiness levels and the health
benefits of happiness. The site is rounded out by a place where visitors
can offer their own suggestions for improving happiness and another area
where they can take a quiz on happiness.
To the millions of individuals with harried
lifestyles, the artistic flourish or design of a fork or knife may
escape notice. However, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York is
intimately concerned with such matters, and they have created this
delightful online exhibit that explores the design of various table
tools and accessories from 1500 to 2005. As its focal point, the website
is primarily concerned with the “Big Three” of the table: the fork, the
knife, and the spoon. Visitors can browse through the interactive
timeline offered here that traces through each utensil’s respective
evolution, as well as read three short “biographies” of each. Along the
way, visitors are treated to images of a ponderous spoon from 17th
century Germany and a dagger-like knife from 16th century France. The
site also contains a number of specialized thematic offerings, such as
short essays and images that address the ergonomics of the table,
flatware for children, and the naturalism movement in tableware design.
Two on Bankruptcy and Credit Bankruptcy:
Maxed out in American [Real Player]
Since the creation of that now celebrated sheep
Dolly in Scotland back in 1996, there has been a deluge of talk (and
significant scholarly work) about the possibility of creating
scientifically engineered humans. This recent documentary from the
people at the Independent Lens organization takes a close look at the
current research being done in the field of reproductive technology. On
the homepage, visitors can look through sections that offer profiles of
the people featured in the film, ask questions of the filmmakers, and
also read a provocative and thoughtful essay by Professor Lori Andrews
of the Chicago-Kent College of Law about the ethical ramifications of
various reproductive technologies. Visitors will not want to miss the
“Talkback” area, which features some rather heated debate and a few
retorts, which might be expected given the sensitive material covered by
such a program.
Flashback from The Wall Street Journal, June 5,
1986
Oil prices tumbled to six-week lows in what many
industry analysts and traders said could be the beginning of another
move toward $10 a barrel. Oil prices have been extremely volatile, and
some analysts have been predicting that prices will range between $10
and $16.
An article published in the March 2006 issue
of the CPA Journal says "Accounting did not cause the recent corporate
scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. Unreliable financial statements
were the results of management decisions, fraudulent or otherwise. To
blame management's misdeeds on fraudulent financial statements casts
accountants as the scapegoats and misses the real issue....". The
article can be accessed at
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/306/essentials/p48.htm
Any thoughts from anybody??
Ganesh M. Pandit
Adelphi University
June 6, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Shame on the Lin and Wu!
Enron's Chief Accounting Officer, Rick Causey,
now sits in prison after having admitted to falsifying accounts. He
refused to testify in the Lay/Skilling trial unless granted immunity
from other prosecution.
Other Enron executives, including some
accountants, have confessed to accounting fraud.
Accounting fraud committed by accountants
purportedly because their bosses ordered them to knowingly participate
in the fraud does not make the fraud non-accounting fraud no matter what
the NYSSCPA Society tries to tell us.
The NYSSCPA Society published this Lin and Wu
article. Recall that the NYSSCPA Society only took CPA licenses away
from CPAs convicted of drunk driving and overlooked CPA fraud for
decades in New York. I don't place much stock in this NYSSCPA Society
defense of accountants. I don't find the article that you mention even
worth citing. The authors did not do their homework on the Enron or
Worldcom scandals.
When Andersen auditor Carl Bass sniffed out both
charge-off and derivatives accounting fraud, his boss David Duncan had
him removed from the Enron audit.
The Worldcom fraud was Accounting 101 where over
$1 billion in expenses were knowingly capitalized by the CFO and top
accounting executives. The top accountant mainly involved confessed that
he knew what he did was against the law but played along because of his
need for the large paycheck. Only when Worldcom internal auditor Cynthia
Cooper finally figured out what was going on and refused to play along
was this enormous accounting fraud brought to light.
These were huge ACCOUNTANT frauds contrary to
what the Lin and Wu would like to make you believe with a whitewash
article that should be beneath the professional standards of a CPA
society. CPAs are under tremendous pressure to lobby on behalf of
clients to water down Section 404 of SOX. The NYSSCPA is simply playing
along with defending accountants who knowingly committed felonies. Now
if they also had DWI convictions they'd be in bigger trouble with the
NYSSCPA Society.
I don't think that this article is trying
establish that this is not an accounting fraud...regardless of the title
of the article. It is only saying that there were several parties in
addition to the accountants who helped this fraud! :)
It must be obvious from all the media reports
that there were "parties in addition to the accountants". Lay was not an
accountant; Skilling was not an accountant; Fastow never qualified as a
CPA. So, if the Lin & Wu paper is merely stating the obvious, why
publish it?
The only obvious answer is that the paper was
approved for publication, not as a professional, but a political,
statement. As Bob says,
"CPAs are under > tremendous pressure to lobby
on behalf of clients to water down Section > 404 of SOX. The NYSSCPA is
simply playing along with these clients and > their CPAs."
Think for a moment about how articles are read
and interpreted. Most academic articles are published in so-called
"academic" journals - to be read by other academics and thereafter
consigned to the dust of history. A few establish new theories or lines
of enquiry; rather more either mine an already existing line of enquiry
or justify themselves in other ways such as maintaining or establishing
academic reputations. Dr Johnson famously wrote "No man but a fool ever
wrote, except for money" - and the money doesn't have to be a direct
flow of cash. There are a few selfless souls who find academic
accounting an end in itself, but they are thin on the ground.
Most professional articles are read far more
widely. But they are often skimmed or "headlined", with summaries - or
less - tossed around for any manner of reasons. Whether it was their
intention or not, what L and W have done is to provide ammunition in the
defence of a group - accountants - who, as the NYSSCPA and other
professional groups, seek to deflect responsibility and accountability
when they should be engaging in a much more profound examination of
accounting policies, procedures and ethics. Articles such as that by L
&W are harvested for sound bites by the profession's apologists and
replayed ad infinitum for the benefit of any politician / lobbyist who
will lend an ear.And, as Bob says, that comes down to yet more pressure
to roll back the one major advance in accountability the accounting
world has experienced in a very long time. All in all, its NOT "A Good
Thing".
A quote.... "Then came Sarbanes-Oxley, which
required that option grants be reported within two business days. A new
paper by Lie and Randall Heron of Indiana University, still unpublished,
finds that evidence of backdating virtually disappears after Aug. 29,
2002, when the requirement took effect."
(My apologies if others have posted this
previously).
Fear in the European Union (EU) of the
potential collapse of one of the Big Four accounting firms surfaced this
week when a briefing document, prepared for members of the EU delegation
meeting in Beijing with Chinese officials on accounting and auditing
issues, was shown to XFN-Asia. “The audit firms wish to have a limit of
their liability, at least to acts for which they can be held directly
responsible for. There is a particular fear that the next corporate
scandal would reduce the Big Four to Big Three,” it said, according to
AFX News Limited.
The audit giants have been lobbying member
states for legislation that will limit their liability to shareholder
claims. A study currently underway in the EU of the economic
consequences of the liability issue will be concluded by September of
this year, AFX News says.
“Towards the end of the year, I intend to be in
a position to assess the options and decide what can be done,” the
position paper said as a proposed response to a question about a
collapse of any of the Big Four.
While the Big Four prepare for limited
liability in the EU, China, a market in which they are all seeking a
larger presence, is subjecting their audits to close examination and at
times, public rebuke.
Last week, Ernst & Young (E&Y) was forced to
retract data on nonperforming loans in China’s banking sector. E&Y
estimated that China’s bank held $900 billion in bad loans, a number it
later said was “factually erroneous” and “embarrassing.” But the
official Chinese estimate of $164 billion is not accepted by most
analysts, the Wall Street Journal says. “There are hidden NPLs there,”
Mei Yan, a bank analyst at Moody’s Investor Services told the Journal.
She said that Beijing’s estimates were based on a very narrow definition
of a bad loan.
Deloitte and Touche has been sued in China for
failing to expose falsified accounts in its audits of Guandong Kelon
Electrical Holdings Co., AFX News says.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has
been inspecting local affiliates of each of the Big Four firms and will
issue a report in late June on the strength and independence of the
firms, according to the Washington Post. Government officials in Japan,
the Post reports, have indicated that they lack confidence in the
ability of local Japanese firms to uncover fraud in their clients.
Chuo Aoyama PwC, a local affiliate of
Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC), was banned from auditing for two months by
the FSA last week. While PwC said that it would support the affiliate,
it announced that it would form a new Japanese auditing firm that will
compete with Chuo Aoyama, that it hopes will be running by July, the
Post says.
The first installment of
RevenueRecognition.com’s “Experts and Authors” program features an
excerpt from Miller Revenue Recognition Guide, 2006 by Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF)
member Ashwinpaul C. Sondhi and Scott A. Taub, acting chief accountant
of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The program is
designed to provide in-depth insight and analysis on critical revenue
and compliance related issues.
“Our Experts and Authors program will bring
tremendous value to financial professionals who are struggling with
today’s complex revenue accounting and compliance guidelines,” Gottfired
Sehringer, Executive Editor of
RevenueRecognition.com said in a prepared statement announcing the
program. “With access to the latest ideas from practitioners and
regulators, readers will have a better understanding of how to make
important judgments for reporting revenue and managing compliance.”
RevenueRecognition.com is a website dedicated
to educating finance professionals on revenue management and related
issues. The Experts and Authors program is designed to deliver
perspectives from top-notch financial professionals on issues such as:
revenue recognition; Sarbanes-Oxley compliance; internal controls;
corporate governance/ethics; SEC and FASB guideline compliance; Merger
and Acquisition (M&A) issues; contract management; billing and revenue
accounting; revenue reporting and forecasting; international revenue
accounting; and industry specific revenue challenges.
Okay, now, see, there are the stereotypes
again.... I really should know better — having just discovered a new
online publication called the
International Journal of Motorcycle Studies. It came to my attention
thanks to
Political Theory Daily Review, itself an
incomparable and altogether indispensable website. (For more on it, see
this article.)
Four issues of IJMS have appeared so far. The next is due in July.
The title might sound tongue-in-cheek. The
contents most assuredly are not. The ratio of substantial, intelligent
articles to resume-padding chuff would be creditable for a print-format
scholarly journal — let alone one that exists entirely online, available
to readers free. I expected numerous citations of Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig’s quasi-autobiographical novel
— in which riding cross-country cures the narrator of the nervous
breakdown he suffered as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago.
But such references are mercifully scarce. The reader is more likely to
come across an allusion to Donna Haraway’s agenda-setting theoretical
work on
the cyborg (no longer a sci-fi concept, but
rather something like a metaphor for the way we live now, in a world
where human beings increasingly become the missing link between monkey
and machine).
There is something rather cyborgic about
academic/biker hybridity itself. In the contributors’ notes, an author
will usually list not only scholarly credentials but also the make of
his or her ride.
The emphasis of the journal’s articles,
which are peer-reviewed, falls mainly on the social and cultural
dimension of motorcycling, rather than its mechanics. Some of the best
papers explore the history of bike clubs over the past century.
Or longer, actually. The Federation of American
Motorcyclists, formed in 1903, emerged as a umbrella organization to
incorporate enthusiasts from already established clubs, according to an
interesting (and lovingly researched) study by William L. Dulaney, a
visiting assistant professor of communication at Western Carolina
University.
Dulaney does not reveal the make of his
motorcycle, but he spent 10 years riding with an “outlaw” club. You
picture him lecturing with a pool cue in his hand, using it to point to
the chalkboard and to menace students (perhaps to their pedagogical
benefit).
In this context, however, the term “outlaw” has
a particular meaning that does not necessarily connote violence. An
outlaw club is simply one that has refused the Foucaultian regime of
subjective normalization imposed by the American Motorcyclist
Association. They are not (necessarily) criminal — just sensitive to
bureaucracy.
By the Great Depression, Dulaney notes, many
clubs had embraced the “enduring biker pastime” of “the massive
consumption of alcohol and general good-natured debauchery.” (It’s so
important to have traditions.) In 1947, the AMA leadership denounced
certain exceptionally wild clubs — for example, the Pissed Off Bastards
of Bloomington — in the name of the 99 percent of motorcycling
enthusiasts who were clean-cut, law-abiding citizens. In defiance, some
outlaw clubs accepted the label “one-percenters,” incorporating the
symbol “1%” (inscribed within a diamond) into their club logos.
All one-percenters are outlaws. But not all
outlaws are one percenters. Nor (archetypal imagery notwithstanding) do
cycle clubs primarily attract Y-chromosome Caucasian lumpen roustabouts.
The Motor Maids, the first all-female club, received an AMA charter in
1941 (and thus are not outlaws). Now in their 76th year, they still
ride. And as another paper notes, there are also fundamentalist
Christian clubs, and gay clubs, and ethnicity-based groups like the
Ebony Angels and the New York club called the Sons of David. Some biker
organizations are serious about maintaining sobriety, just as much as
the Hells Angels are committed to avoiding it.
To learn more about the Footnote Gang
(or whatever the group was that got IJMS started) I contacted Suzanne
Ferriss, one of the managing editors. She is a professor of English at
Nova Southeastern University, in Fort Lauderdale, and among other things
the co-author of A Handbook of Literary Feminisms (Oxford
University Press, 2002).
The timing of the telephone interview seemed
appropriate. As Ferriss explained how academic-biker culture acquired
its own journal, the distant rumble of Rolling Thunder came in through
the window of my study.
It all started about six years ago, Ferriss
said, in the wake of a series of panels at regional meetings of the
Popular Culture Association. (It might be worth interrupting her
narrative to give some background: Founded in the late 1960s, the
association predates much of what is now called “cultural studies,” a
field that only began to establish itself in American academic life
about 20 years ago. The PCA’s own internal culture and outlook have
always been far more populist than theoreticist. Not that its members
are averse to analysis. But the PCA’s flagship publication, Journal
of Popular Culture, tends to resemble a smart fanzine more than it
does, say, a special issue of Diacritics devoted to “Six Feet
Under.")
Anyway, to continue: People involved in the PCA
sessions began working on an edited collection of papers. The volume was
accepted by the University of Wisconsin Press, only to become a casualty
of budget cuts. (The editors are looking for a new publisher.) But by
then a network of scholars interested in motorcycle culture was taking
shape.
“We had a list of about 300 people who’d been
involved in the PCA panels,” says Ferris, “or who had expressed
interest.” A core group of volunteers wanted to work on a journal, and
Ferriss’s institution, Nova Southeastern University, was willing to host
it online. The editorial board of six scholars reflected the sense that
the journal should be international in scope: it had two members each
from Britain, Canada, and the United States.
The editorial board also has an honorary
member, best known as Sputnik — an activist prominent in the struggle
against helmet laws. “The journal doesn’t have a position on that or any
other political issue,” Ferriss told me. However, Sputnik’s advisory
role lends the whole enterprise “biker cred.” As publisher of Texas
Road Warrior Motorcycle Magazine, he is, as the saying goes, an
organic intellectual.
IJMS also has an audience in the motorcycle
industry itself. For example, it is read by the professional historians
who work for particular companies. “We knew this was a subject that had
a wider readership,” she said, “and that the journal would not just be
of interest to academics.”
The first issue went up in March 2005. Since
then, several editors and contributors have also had work in the
anthology Harley-Davidson and Philosophy, published this year by
Open Court. It’s an interesting collection, if by no means exhaustive.
(The papers scarcely more than namecheck Gilles Deleuze, for example,
even though his concepts of deterritorialization, nomadology, and “line
of flight” seem quite biker-friendly.) But the paper by Bernard E.
Rollins, a professor of philosophy and biomedical sciences at Colorado
State University, certainly has a great title: “ ‘It’s My Own Damned
Head’: Ethics, Freedom, and Helmet Laws.”
Continued in article
P. D. James choices as to the top five mystery novels
1. "Tragedy at Law"
by Cyril Hare (Harcourt, Brace, 1943).
For me there is
particular charm in books written before or during World War II, not
least because I find myself engrossed in that very different world. In
"Tragedy at Law" we travel with a High Court judge, Mr. Justice Barber,
as he moves in state from town to town presiding over cases. But someone
obviously wishes him dead, and twice he narrowly escapes. The amateur
detective is a defending barrister, Francis Pettigrew, once in love with
the judge's wife and a man of ability and probity who has never quite
achieved success. Author Cyril Hare was himself a judge, and the book
provides a fascinating portrayal of the judge in court and of the
coterie of people, including barristers, who travel with him. Written
with elegance and wit, "Tragedy at Law" is regarded by many lawyers as
the best English detective story set in the legal world.
2. "The Franchise
Affair" by Josephine Tey (MacMillan, 1949).
"The Franchise Affair"
is an unusual detective story in that it contains no murder. It is,
however, enthralling from beginning to end. A 15-year-old girl, Betty
Kane, who has obviously been assaulted, accuses two eccentric and
isolated women, Miss Marion Sharp and her elderly mother, of kidnapping,
starving and forcing her to work for them as a servant. Opinion in their
small town is outraged, and the two ladies are at risk from the mob as
well as the law. The amateur detective, a local solicitor becoming set
in his comfortable ways, takes on the challenge of defending the two
women. The setting and the people come brilliantly alive and, despite
the absence of egregious violence, the tension never slackens.
3. "The Moving
Toyshop" by Edmund Crispin (Lippincott, 1946).
Edmund Crispin is one of
the few mystery writers able to combine situation comedy and high
spirits with detection. "The Moving Toyshop" is set in Oxford--a popular
city for mystery writers--and has as its detective an eccentric amateur,
Gervase Fen, a professor of English at the university. A murder is
discovered in a toyshop, but when the police arrive the shop itself has
disappeared. Suspension of disbelief is occasionally needed, but this
spirited frolic of a detective story retains its place as one of the
most engaging and ingenious mysteries of its age.
4. "Murder Must
Advertise" by Dorothy L. Sayers (Harcourt, Brace, 1933).
Dorothy L. Sayers is a
writer of the Golden Age still read with pleasure today. One of her most
enjoyable novels, and the most credible judged as a mystery, is "Murder
Must Advertise," set at Pym's Advertising Agency in London. A copywriter
has written to the agency's chief saying that something undesirable is
going on in the office, but before he can explain, his body is found at
the foot of an iron staircase, his neck broken. Mr. Pym hires a private
detective to investigate, and Lord Peter Wimsey, under the pseudonym Mr.
Death Bredon, takes a job as copywriter. Before he unravels the mystery,
five people will die and Lord Peter will be drawn into a vicious network
of blackmail and drug peddling. The novel shows Sayers's virtues of
originality, energy and wit. Anyone interested in what it was like to
work in an advertising agency in the 1930s has only to read "Murder Must
Advertise." Copywriters today may feel that little has changed.
5. "Dissolution" by
C.J. Sansom (Viking, 2003).
"Dissolution" has
established historian C.J. Sansom as one of the most promising new
writers of detective fiction. The book is set in 1537, when England is
torn by the Reformation. The terrifying Henry VIII has proclaimed
himself Supreme Head of the Church and his power is being enforced by
savage new laws and a network of secret informers. A team of
commissioners is sent out to investigate the country's monasteries. At
one, a commissioner is found dead, his head severed from his body, his
murder accompanied by sinister acts of sacrilege. The hero, Matthew
Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer, intelligent and incorruptible, is ordered
by Thomas Cromwell to uncover the truth. His investigation involves him
in treachery and danger, leading him to question everything he believes.
The sights, the voices, the very smell of this turbulent age seem to
rise from the page.
Ms. James's most recent mystery is
"The Lighthouse" (Knopf), published in November.
As a former Guggenheim Fellow, I especially appreciate the following
editorial.
"A Noble Virtue Under Siege: Do Americans still understand the
meaning of honor?" by Josiah Bunting III, The Wall Street Journal, June
6, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110008477
In our culture of therapy, self-absorption and
celebrity, "honor" has very little cachet. An abuse of honor--say, by
perpetrating a public fraud or acting duplicitously in private life--is
but the occasion for the administration of comforting words of
understanding, the application of medicines to assuage lingering
anxieties and the invitation to appear on "Oprah," the better to explain
the forces that, overwhelming meager resources of conscience and
character, impelled a dishonorable act. Next may come an invitation to
undertake the labor of a book, more fully to explore and expiate the
fall from grace. Closure (as it is called) will then, at last, be
obtained.
In short, there is no shame in actions once
known as dishonorable, and the virtues that supported honor seem
moribund. Chastity and modesty--so important to honor in social
relations--are treated as relics from Jane Austen and "Little Women."
When a high-school girl defends a sexual encounter on the grounds that
an American president said that her particular act was not really sex,
both she and her role model are, if not completely forgiven, understood
to be, as members of the human family, subject to the same vagaries of
uncontrollable temptations as you and I.
Things used to be so different. James Bowman's
"Honor: A History" offers a brilliantly astringent accounting for the
disappearance of honor as a normative standard of conduct in American
society. Mr. Bowman traces the idea of honor from its classical origins
to its aristocratic and democratic forms. Along the way, he discusses
religious teachings (in Christianity and Islam), philosophical
definitions (e.g., Aristotle and Nietzsche) and literary treatments
(Arthurian legend, Shakespeare, Hemingway). Throughout, he cites the
emblems of honor--or dishonor--in current events and popular culture.
Perhaps most pertinent to the present moment, he surveys America's use
of honor (and prestige) as causes (and justifications) for going to war,
indeed for serving in the armed forces.
As late as the mid-1960s, lest we forget,
members of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations prized "toughness" in
foreign affairs and considered national honor a principal justification
for fighting in Vietnam. There was a need, the architects of foreign
policy felt, "to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a
guarantor)." What was on the line, Mr. Bowman writes, "was the
'prestige' that was really old-fashioned honor under a different name."
Yet the war was not always justified to the American people in such
terms, and when Richard Nixon promised "peace with honor," few believed
him: Honor was, by then, understood as a slipshod synonym for "this is
all we can take. We've done all we reasonably could for our ally."
In the West, the identity of personal with
national honor was part of the fighting spirit in World War I, though it
nearly sank in the slime of Passchendaele and the Somme. Its last
florescence was in World War II, Mr. Bowman observes. And even then,
"honor" and "duty" in the stiff, upper-class sense of the terms gave
way, during the war, to a democratic ideal: the average guy "just doing
a job." For America, this antiheroic theme was part of a national
self-definition. "We were still, surely, different from . . . those
old-fashioned jingoist or imperialist forebears who had been able to
speak unashamedly of honor and its demands."
The rhetoric surrounding war changed over
time--in Korea, in Vietnam, in the Balkans and now in Iraq. Governments
came to feel, Mr. Bowman argues, that appeals to national honor,
prestige and reputation for toughness no longer worked. The Marines may
remain determined to keep their honor clean, but no such justification
seems to animate the country as a whole in its role in the world. When
terrorists took over Fallujah in 2004 and the Marines moved in to take
them out, Mr. Bowman remembers a commentator saying: "This isn't about
national security anymore: it's about pride and credibility." True
enough, but the words were rare and tell-tale. Mr. Bowman notes that
only in a post-honor society would such an explanation be necessary:
Pride and credibility, he argues, are "commonly used substitutes for the
old-fashioned sounding 'honor.' " They imply "jealousy for reputation"
and the respect that countries and armies once demanded and expected.
Can honor be resuscitated? As Mr. Bowman notes,
"honor is stark and unforgiving," and early-21st-century America does
not like stark choices. ("Then it is the brave man chooses / While the
coward turns aside," in the words of the old hymn.) "Character," meaning
resolution, the persistence in right action whatever its costs, seems a
quaint and Victorian crotchet. Citizens feverishly, fitfully, deplore
the inadequacies of body armor for their Marines and soldiers; three
days later, they have moved on. Did you say 32 Iraqis were blown up this
morning, and a soldier killed, north of Baghdad? Shame. Let's see what
that does to the president's poll numbers.
How well America understands its enemies'
notions of honor--and how prepared the country is, itself, to act
honorably--will be tested between now and the fall elections. A failure
to understand, though not inevitable, may be writ large in a headline
like this one: "Administration Announces Withdrawal of 28,000 American
Troops by End of Year." As Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh must have
smiled the first time they heard the word "Vietnamize," radical
Islamists will rejoice at such a development, irrefutable evidence that
America neither understands their own misbegotten notions of honor nor
has the will, if it does understand, to act honorably in confronting
them.
Mr. Bunting is president of the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation in New
York.
Forwarded by Paula
I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all
use a little more calmness in our lives.
By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find
inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to
finish all the things you've started and never finished."
So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't
finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle
of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a
bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac
prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of
chocolates.
You have no idea how freaking good I feel. Please pass this on to those
you feel might be in need of inner peace.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
I recently sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and
practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR)
Diversity Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President
Judy Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Online Video and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
"CBS Offers Downloads of TV Shows on iTunes," The Washington Post,
June 8, 2006 ---
Click Here
Note: Some YouTube posts use language that might be considered
objectionable.
* Star Trek Cribs
* Don Rickles Roasted on The Dean Martin Show
* Trailer Parody of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining
* Crispin Glover on Letterman
* Hip-Hop Highlight -- Newcleus: 'Jam On It'
* Intro to The Muppet Show
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and
video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Reintroduced from Janie It's hard to kiss the lips that chew your ass out all day long ---
http://jbreck.com/itsshardtokiss.html
(Click on the play button in the upper left corner)
From the Baker Library at the Harvard Business School
Coin & Conscience: Popular Views of Money, Credit and Speculation ---
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/cc/
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
They also understand that the really
rich won't pay the (inheritance) tax anyway
because they hire lawyers to avoid it.
"Taxes Everlasting: Why the superrich don't mind the death tax," The Wall
Street Journal, June 8, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008487
Over the past year or so, the British
cultural historians
Lisa Jardineand Annie Watkins conducted two
surveys designed to pin down a consensus on novels that had "changed reader's
lives." First, they interviewed 400 women, most of them involved in the arts,
media, and university life. "Absolutely every woman we spoke to had her
favourite," they
reported recentlyin Britain's Guardian
newspaper. Beyond the enthusiasm evinced by the interviewees, Jardine and
Watkins were struck by the wide range of responses: . . . "The men's list was
all angst and Orwell. Sort of puberty reading," Jardine
cheekily toldthe Sydney Morning Herald. "We
found that men do not regard books as a constant companion to their life's
journey, as consolers or guides, as women do... They read novels a bit like they
read photography manuals." Nick Gillespie, "What's Your
Favorite Novel? A recent survey of men's and women's favorite books points to a
more fundamental question—and a fascinating answer," Reason Magazine, June 9,
2006 ---
http://www.reason.com/links/links060906.shtml
What can (college)
athletes do to protect their image? For starters, they should cultivate a
positive one off the field. Some athletes have recently lived together off
campus in their senior years and used their residences for all-campus parties.
The potential for alcohol poisoning, date rape, and disruption to neighbors is
very real if these parties go unmonitored. In addition, it is critical that
individuals take responsibility for their actions and monitor the behavior of
their peers. There are many aspects to being on a team for better and for worse.
Finally, one way to monitor image is not to splash photos of questionable
conduct over Facebook.com. This is not to say “misbehave, just as long as you
keep it quiet.” Avoiding poor conduct is most important, but posting shameless
photos is simply dumb. David Tuttle ---
http://www.trinity.edu/departments/student_affairs/student_conduct/2006report.htm
Gore's credibility is damaged early in the film when
he tells the audience that, by simply looking at Antarctic ice cores with the
naked eye, one can see when the American Clean Air Act was passed. Dr. Ian
Clark, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa (U of O)
responds, "This is pure fantasy unless the reporter is able to detect parts per
billion changes to chemicals in ice." Air over the United States doesn't even
circulate to the Antarctic before mixing with most of the northern, then the
southern, hemisphere air, and this process takes decades. Clark explains that
even far more significant events, such as the settling of dust arising from the
scouring of continental shelves at the end of ice ages, are undetectable in ice
cores by an untrained eye. Tom Harris, "The gods are laughing,"
National Post in Canada, June 7, 2006 ---
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef&
What Schumer doesn't understand is that these are
the very areas for which citizens of his own state (NY)
have been leaving in droves to relocate. That's why
Atlanta, with nearly five million residents, is home to the Centers for Disease
Control, the world's busiest airport and the largest telecommunications
infrastructure in the nation. And it's no secret now that Atlanta, home to the
tallest building in the nation outside of New York or Chicago -- right behind
New York's Chrysler Building -- was considered a major target following 9/11.
Throw in CNN's headquarters being located in Atlanta, and I think there's a
fairly good reason, beyond peanuts, to bring this area up to speed with those
cities that have, to now, enjoyed the lion's share of urban security funds.
Matt Towery, "Revenge of the peanut farmers," Townhall, June 8, 2006 ---
Click Here
Tom Robinson had long wondered about his family
tree. He never suspected its roots might lie in the Mongolian steppe. The
Florida accountant knew his great-great-grandfather came to America from England
-- but beyond that the trail went cold. So he turned to "bioarchaeology" to test
his DNA. He was in for a surprise. According to a British geneticist who
pioneered the research, Robinson appears to be a direct descendant of Genghis
Khan, the Mongol warrior. Some scientists say that claim goes too far, though
few doubt Robinson's DNA reveals a direct genetic link to Mongolia.
"Descended from Genghis Khan? DNA test tantalizes a Florida
accountant," PhysOrg, June 7, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news68906418.html
Jensen Comment
If all this is true, Tom Robinson is not especially unique. The Gehghis Khan
purported was very horny and has over 16 million direct decedents ---
http://snipurl.com/FertileMale
A letter from Hotels.com to its customers said E&Y
"was taking additional steps to protect the confidentiality of its data" by
encrypting the customer data. A Hotels.com spokesperson said it doesn't appear
that the laptop was the target of the car break-in or that credit cards had been
used inappropriately. This is at least the third
reported case of E&Y laptop theft that occurred in
February. On Feb. 9, E&Y auditors left a secured room in a Miami hotel
conference room for lunch and came back to find their laptops missing. Security
footage shows two men entering and leaving the room within the one-minute delay
of the auto-lock door. On Feb. 13, E&Y sent a letter to Bay Area clients warning
that their Social Security numbers and other personal data were on a laptop
stolen from an employee's locked car. The sensitive data was password-protected,
according to the accounting firm.
"Another E&Y Laptop Stolen," SmartPros, June 7, 2006 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x53391.xml
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G. Smith and
Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how theory
development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions changed over
time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I proceed
through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will take some time
to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
Developing Resource Dependence Theory: How Theory is Affected
by its Environment
JEFFREY PFEFFER
PG. #453 & 454
PFEFFER 21.5 THE POLITICS OF THEORY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
There are, I believe, many misconceptions about theory and theory development in
the organization and social sciences, particularly on the part of younger
scholars. In concluding this discussion of the development and evolution of
resource dependence theory, it is useful to both review these beliefs and see
how they play out in understanding the growth and development of resource
dependence.
The first, most strongly held, and possibly most harmful
mistaken belief is that theories succeed or fail, prevail or fall into disuse,
primarily, and some would maintain exclusively, on the basis of their ability to
explain or predict the behavior that is the focus of the theory. Moreover,
there is a belief that a theory's success in prediction and explanation is
particularly important in explaining its success if there are competitive
theories covering the same dependent variables. This belief is erroneous in at
least two ways.
First of all, as argued elsewhere (Ferraro, Pfeffer, and Sutton,
2005), theories may create the environment they predict, thereby becoming true
by construction rather than because they were originally veridical with the
world they sought to explain. To the extent people believe in a particular
theory, they may create institutional arrangements based on the theory that
thereby bring the theory into reality through these practices and institutional
structures. To the extent people hold a theory as true, they will act on the
basis of the theory and expect others to act on that basis also, creating a
normative environment in which it becomes difficult to not behave on the basis
of the theory because to do so would violate some implicit or explicit
expectations for behavior. And to the extent that people adhere to a theory and
therefore use language derived from and consistent with the theory, the theory
can become true because language primes both what we see and how we apprehend
the world around us, so that talking using the terminology of a particular
theory also makes the theory become true.
Second, the philosophy of science notwithstanding, theories are
quite capable of surviving disconfirming evidence. Behavioral decision theory
and its numerous empirical tests have shown that many of the most fundamental
axioms of choice and decision that underlie economics are demonstrably false
(e.g., Bazerman, forthcoming), but economics is scarcely withering away. Nor
are the specific portions of economic theory predicated on assumptions that have
been shown to be false necessarily any less believed or used. A similar
situation is true in finance, where assumptions of capital market efficiency and
the instantaneous diffusion of relevant information, so that a security's market
price presumably incorporates all relevant information available at the time,
have withstood numerous empirical and theoretical attacks. To take a case
closer to organization studies, the reliance on and belief in the efficacy of
extrinsic incentives and monetary rewards persists not only in the lay community
but in the scholarly literature as well. So, Heath's (1999) insightful study of
what he terms an extrinsic incentives bias is as relevant to the domain of
scholars as it is to practicing managers and lay people.
What this means for resource dependence theory is that to the
extent that claims that it is virtually dead (Carroll, 2002) are true and that
it has been subsumed by transactions cost theory, this state of affairs may say
less than one might expect about the comparative empirical success or
theoretical coherence of transactions cost theory. As David and Han (2004: 39)
summarized in their review of sixty-three articles empirically examining
transaction cost economics, "we...found considerable disagreement on how to
operationalize some of TCE's central constructs and propositions, and relatively
low levels of empirical support in other core areas." Instead, the comment
about the relative position of resource dependence and transactions cost theory
may say more about the politics of social science and the fact that power is
currently out of vogue and efficiency and environmental determinism such as that
propounded by population ecology and other perspectives reifying an impersonal
environment, with all of their conservative implications, is currently more in
favor.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, PhD
’72, and Robert I. Sutton would like to foment a little revolution—one in
which leaders in business and the world at large base their decisions on
facts and logic, not ideology, hunches, management fads or poorly understood
experience. Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational
Behavior, and Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering and,
by courtesy, of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business,
are the authors of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense:
Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (Harvard Business School Press,
2006). STANFORD asked them about bringing more
reason to organizational life.
What’s some of the total
nonsense that occurs in companies?
Sutton: Probably the biggest single problem
for human decision making is that when people have ingrained beliefs, they
will put a much higher bar for evidence for things they don’t believe than
for things they do believe. Confirmation-seeking bias, I think, is what
social psychologists call it. Organizations can have amazingly good
evidence, but it has no effect on the decisions they make if it conflicts
with their ideology.
Do you have a favorite
unsupported belief?
Pfeffer: One would be stock options. There
are more than 200 studies that show no evidence that there is a relationship
between the amount of equity senior executives have and a company’s
financial performance. . . . Just as you would never bet on a point spread
on a football game because it encourages bad behavior, you should not reward
people for increasing the spread in an expectations market.
Overreliance on financial incentives of all sorts
drives all kinds of counterproductive behavior.
Evidence-based management
derives from evidence-based medicine. Explain what kind of decision making
we’re talking about.
Continued in interview
Many scientists, notably anthropologist, on government grants oppose open
access publishing At first glance, it seems that the research world
is united against the
Federal Research Public Access Act.Scholarly
associations are lining up to express their anger over the bill, which would
have federal agencies require grant recipients to publish their research papers
— online and free — within six months of their publication elsewhere. Dozens of
scholarly groups have joined in two letters — one organized by the
Association of American Publishersand
one by the
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
To look at the signatories (and the tones of the letters),
it would appear that there’s a wide consensus that the legislation is bad for
research. The cancer researchers are against it. The education researchers are
against it. The biologists are against it. The ornithologists are against it.
The anthropologists are against it. All of these groups are joining to warn that
the bill could undermine the quality and economic viability of scholarly
publishing.
Scott Jaschik, "In Whose Interest?" Inside Higher Ed, June 15, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/15/open
How to find what students are thinking and how they are socializing The answer given by Shawn McGuirk, director of judicial
affairs, mediation and education at Fitchburg State College, in Massachusetts,
was that, if institutions want to know what the kids are doing these days,
they’ll want to know what they’re doing on Facebook. The good, and the bad. In a
Magna Publications Web seminar for student affairs staff members Wednesday,
McGuirk said that colleges should use Facebook faux pas as teachable moments
whenever possible, rather than embracing Facebook as policy or law enforcement
tool.
David Epstein, "The Many Faces of Facebook," Inside Higher Ed, June 15,
2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/15/facebook
Cheap Drinking Water from the Ocean A water desalination system using carbon nanotube-based
membranes could significantly reduce the cost of purifying water from the ocean.
The technology could potentially provide a solution to water shortages both in
the United States, where populations are expected to soar in areas with few
freshwater sources, and worldwide, where a lack of clean water is a major cause
of disease.
Aditi Risbud, "Cheap Drinking Water from the Ocean: Carbon nanotube-based
membranes will dramatically cut the cost of desalination," MIT's Technology
Review, June 12, 2006 ---
Click Here
Question
What's the newest outsourcing trend in student cheating?
This could not possibly happen in the United States (Ha! Ha!)
Answer In a unique twist to outsourcing from Britain to
India, students in British universities have been paying computer professionals
in India to complete their course assignments for a fee. The newly recognised
trend, operating mainly through the Internet, has been dubbed as "contract
plagiarism" by British academics who have tracked such malpractices. It is more
in vogue among students enrolled in IT courses in British universities.
"British students outsourcing assignments to India," The Times of India,
June 14, 2006 ---
Click Here
Actually it is very easy to outsource using
www.elance.com - This is a
subdivision of ebay - You can arrange for long distance accounting help,
software design and creation and many other areas. A service vendor can set
up shop depending on area of specialty. A tech-heavy specialty like software
design would pay a higher "rent" than a German translator. A prospective
buyer of services would request bids and within hours receive bids.
The prospective buyer would see the quality ratings
of the service providers.
Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
218 N. College Ave.
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674 http://faculty.rio.edu/campbell
Another Question
If students are outsourcing their assignments, where are they spending their
time?
University of Chicago Cocktail Parties for Educational
Purposes: Don't get drunk or hit on the women On Friday afternoon at the
University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business,
students are streaming towards their weekly dinner with deans and fellow
classmates -- all 500 of them. This is just one of the GSB's many social events
throughout the year. They include corporate-sponsored cocktail hours, formal
dinners, mock receptions, and theme parties. While these gatherings may sound
like fun, they also serve a weighty purpose -- getting students a good job. In
fact, for those outside B-school, the experience may sound like a little too
much fun. After all, this is school, not a vacation. But there's a lot to be
learned from the socializing. It's an opportunity to network and scope out your
B-school buddies — and competitors." Careers are a focal point of student
socializing and networking," says Stacey Kole, deputy dean of Chicago's
full-time MBA program.
"The Art of the Schmooze," Business Week, June 12, 2006 ---
Click Here
Bob Jensen's a worried owner of a Jeep Grand Cherokee The attorney general is calling for a federal
investigation into potentially fatal problems with Jeep Grand Cherokees. This
comes just months after a freak accident at a Hamden car wash killed a
52-year-old man. A Jeep Grand Cherokee went out of control and mowed down the
man. It is called "jeep sudden acceleration," and apparently it happens when a
Grand Cherokee is shifted from neutral to drive. Doug Newman, the owner of
Newman's Connecticut Car Wash says he's seen it before -- at least four times,
"The incidents I know of with this problem all occur at the exit end of the car
wash. Upon starting the car, the car immediately red lines, goes to 2800 - 3000
RPMs, at the same time you're putting the car in gear it takes off." Problems
with sudden acceleration have also been reported at places like drive up ATMs.
Daimler Chrysler, which makes Jeep, does not acknowledge there is a problem. The
company says they did several studies that concluded "driver error is the only
plausible explanation for sudden acceleration."
"Attorney general calls for investigation into Jeep Grand Cherokees," WTNH,
June 13, 2006 ---
http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=5022450
Howard Dean Having it Both Ways to Lure Voters on Both Sides:
Troops should leave Iraq, but troops should also stay in Iraq
"That's not Jack Murtha's position. It was widely
misquoted in the press. What Jack Murtha says is we need a redeployment of
our troops. That some of the troops need to come home in the next six
months. Others should be redeployed in the region (Iraq)
to maintain the capacity to fight terror where it
exists both inside and outside Iraq."
Brown then hit Dean with the apparently
irreconciliable positions of the two top House Dem leaders, displayed here.
She followed that by zinging Dean thusly:
"I got to tell you. If I'm a voter, come November
and you want me to vote Democrat, I still don't know what I'm voting for."
Continued in article
Question
Is Canada torturing its arrested terrorism suspects?
Answer (Probably not, but these claims are part of a worldwide effort to dupe
the press. Watch for false terrorist accusations to be recklessly reported in
Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Washington Post) Terrorism experts said yesterday torture claims made by
some of the 17 suspects arrested in Toronto in connection with alleged bomb
plots are consistent with a familiar pattern. "What we have seen is that this is
pretty much standard operating procedure for [accused terrorists] to make these
kinds of complaints," said Tom Quiggin of the Centre of Excellence for National
Security in Singapore. During court hearings on Monday, several men arrested for
what police describe as an Ontario terror plot claimed prison guards had
tortured them. A jihadist training manual seized by police in Britain instructs
captured terrorists...
Stewart Bell, "Suspects' torture claims predictable, experts say," Canada's
National Post, June 14, 2006 ---
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e59a54a4-b316-4704-898c-6974d230ba50
EBay signs up 200 millionth member EBay Inc. has now registered 200 million users of its
online auction services, which would make it the fifth-largest country in the
world if its members could form one nation, its CEO said on Tuesday.
"EBay signs up 200 millionth member," Reuters, June 13, 2006 ---
Click Here
LAS VEGAS EBay's big buying binge was the talk of
its fifth annual user convention here this week, which pulled 15,000 sellers
from around the world eager to learn what the Internet auction giant plans to do
next. While eBay Inc. is showing signs of a middle-age crisis, with slowing
growth and a sliding stock price, company executives seemed almost giddy as they
outlined plans to use their recent acquisitions to move beyond auctions -- into
communications, advertising and financial services.
"An Older, Wiser EBay, Growing Patiently," by Leslie Walker, The Washington
Post, June 15, 2006, Page D01 ---
Click Here
New Poet Laureate of the United States Donald Hall will be named poet laureate of the United
States today (June 14),
The New York Timesreported.
The position — which operates through the Library
of Congress — is designed to promote awareness of poetry. Inside Higher Ed, June 14, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/14/qt
Turn Left at the Presbyterian Church A growing number of Presbyterians are engaged in a
battle for the future of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Over the past two years,
this denomination -- my denomination -- has taken a turn toward radicalism that
threatens to tarnish a once-proud institution. At issue is the Presbyterian
Church's decision in 2004 "to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment
in multinational corporations operating in Israel." The fallout was immediate,
painful and damaging. Not only are a handful of church leaders taking positions
that are highly unpopular in the pews, they are doing so with heavy-handed,
top-down measures, actions that run contrary to long-honored traditions. Not
surprisingly, the church is experiencing problems with declining membership and
dwindling financial support -- due in large part to widespread frustration over
the direction the leadership has taken. Instead of developing policies to unite
us, the leadership is sowing seeds for further defections by large numbers.
"Turn Left at the Presbyterian Church," by Jim Roberts, The Wall Street
Journal, June 15, 2006; Page A14 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115033656216580816.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
June 15, 2006 reply from a religion professor and ordained minister in the
Presbyterian church
Thanks, Bob.
This debate about divestment has been going on for
a couple of years now. I think it is grossly misleading to cast it in terms
either of a "right/left" controversy or simply of a struggle for power
within the Presbyterian Church. The most recent issue of The Presbyterian
Outlook has several very good articles about divestment, representing
different points of view. The Church has not done any divestment. Moreover,
as I understand it, the targets of any such divestment would be limited to
corporations that assist in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory
and/or in the construction of the "wall."
But Not Necessarily at the Local Level
Presbyterian Church dismisses UT professor
Old News I don't believe in God. I don't believe Jesus
Christ was the son of a God that I don't believe in, nor do I believe Jesus rose
from the dead to ascend to a heaven that I don't believe exists. Given these
positions, this year I did the only thing that seemed sensible: I formally
joined a Christian church. Standing before the congregation of St. Andrew's
Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, I affirmed that I (1) endorsed the core
principles in Christ's teaching; (2) intended to work to deepen my understanding
and practice of the universal love at the heart of those principles; and (3)
pledged to be a responsible member of the church and the larger community.
"Why I Am a Christian (Sort Of)," by Robert W.
Jensen, AlterNet. March 10, 2006 ---
http://www.alternet.org/story/33236/
June 12 Update
"Presbyterian church dismisses UT professor," by Andy St. Jean, The Daily
Texan ---
Click Here
UT journalism associate professor Robert Jensen has
found himself at the center of many debates. This time, the conflict lies
over his religious beliefs and membership in a local church.
The Presbyterian church he has been attending since last December was
reprimanded Friday for admitting him as a member.
St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church was told by the Mission Presbytery, the
regional governing body of 157 Presbyterian churches in South and Central
Texas, that the acceptance of Jensen into membership was "irregular."
Furthermore, it was "void" because Jensen has said in the past he doesn't
believe in God.
"I believe God is a name we give to the mystery of the world that we don't
understand," Jensen said.
In a March article that appeared on several Web sites and the Houston
Chronicle, Jensen wrote a piece entitled "Why I am a Christian (Sort of),"
in which his first line reads, "I don't believe in God."
St. Andrew's was directed to move Jensen from the active roll to the
"baptized" roll, making him a non-voting member of the church. St. Andrew's
is also ordered to work with representatives to come up with an appropriate
process for receiving members in the future. The church may re-examine
Jensen's membership after these changes are implemented.
"The whole issue turns on the fact that the Book of Order's only requirement
is that a person believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior," said Terry
Nelson, stated clerk of Mission Presbytery. The Book of Order is equivalent
to the Presbyterian Church's constitution.
After the decision was rendered, the presbytery motioned to wait 45 days
before applying the ruling.
This period will hopefully allow people to cool off after a fierce debate
that had both sides using the church's law to make their point, Nelson said.
"I have never seen a presbytery where the stated clerk was put on the spot
to know the rules in the Book of Order so much, because every attempt to get
around or to abide by the rules was being made," Nelson said.
The Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, knew not
everyone agreed with the decision to accept Jensen.
"Some people said, 'We want your head on a platter,'" Rigby said. "Jensen's
membership was the perfect opportunity to come after us and take out a
liberal church."
While on the surface the debate seems to concern Jensen's membership, there
is a lot more to the argument, Rigby said.
"Can a modern mind be included in the church, or must we use medieval
verbage?" Rigby said. "We are doing this for our children's children. If we
don't address the times, we are going to lose a lot of people."
The vote, which may nullify his membership in the church, has nothing to do
with whether or not he will still attend the church, Jensen said.
"If my membership is eventually declared null and void, I would still go,"
Jensen said. "The congregation at St. Andrew's has been very supportive and
caring."
I would tend to see such an
“unvitation” to membership as a
good thing, a relief from a cumbersome social commitment.
For some of us, one of the nicest benefits of godlessness is the absence
of Sunday-morning obligations.
Said Bart Simpson with a shrug of
his shoulders upon his family’s joining the Movementarians, “Church,
cult. Cult, church. So we get bored somewhere else every Sunday.”
Another Snapshot of Congressional Ethics (that infamous oxymoron) The Congressional debate over "earmarks" continues, and
not in a way that makes the GOP majority look good. This week the Members are
pushing through another 1,500 special spending projects, even as the controversy
has engulfed California's Jerry Lewis, who as House Appropriations Chairman is
earmarker in chief. Federal investigators are examining whether Mr. Lewis abused
his position by steering earmarks to his political friends and former employees.
In one case, the Justice Department is investigating whether defense industry
lobbyists were urged to contribute money to a political action committee run by
Mr. Lewis's stepdaughter, with a good portion of the money used for her own
salary. "Earmarker in Chief." The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2006;
Page A14 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115033555119580784.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
"Revamping the Web Browser: Surfing the Web has meant using much the
same technology for years. Now startups are working on new ways to navigate the
Net," by Wade Roush, MIT's Technology Review, June 12, 2006 ---
Click Here
Browster, for example, offers a free add-on
for Internet Explorer and the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox
browser that's a simpler alternative to using the "Back" button. The Palo
Alto, CA, company lets people viewing a Web page, say, a list of Google
search results, see what lies beyond the hyperlinks simply by placing the
mouse over those links -- without having to click on them or open a new
window.
Meanwhile, companies like San Francisco-based
Flock are developing entirely new browsers
designed from the beginning to facilitate now-common social activities, such
as blogging, RSS-based news reading, and photo sharing.
The new technologies promise to help Web browsers
catch up with the Web itself -- which is bursting with material contributed
by users themselves. "The Web today is very different from the Web of the
'90s, which was very much a one-to-many experience," says Peter Andrews, a
senior software engineer at Flock and the lead builder of Sage, an
open-source extension for Firefox that speeds up the process of scanning
through RSS feeds. "Now you have a growing community of producers building a
many-to-many Web -- and browsers should integrate the functionality to
support that."
Of course, new versions of the most popular Web
browsers come along regularly. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
on April 24; Mozilla upgraded Firefox to version 1.5.0.4 on June 1. But
while each release includes a few more bells and whistles -- IE7 allows
tabbed browsing in imitation of Firefox, for example -- the basics of Web
browsing haven't really changed since the University of Illinois's National
Center for Supercomputing Applications created the first browser, Mosaic, in
1994.
Searchers move about the Web by left-clicking on
hyperlinks. The browser responds to each click by opening a new page in the
same window or, if the user chooses, a new tab or window. Returning to a
previously viewed page -- such as a list of search results -- means either
clicking the "back" button or switching tabs or windows.
This tried-and-true procedure works well enough,
and has become so familiar that it feels preordained. But is it the best
way? Is there room for change? Scott Milener thinks so. He and a friend,
Wendell Brown, stumbled onto that subject while having lunch one day in
2004. "I asked Wendell, 'Have you noticed how much we hit the back button
every day?' And he pushed me on the question. Of course the napkins started
coming out, and we invented what Browster is today."
Once a user has installed the Browster plugin,
placing the mouse's pointer over any hyperlink on a page causes a small icon
to pop up. Hovering over that icon with the pointer makes a new "window"
appear on top of the current page, showing the page to which the hyperlink
connects.
Modern Day Arsenic and Old Lace Ms. Rutterschmidt, 73, and another woman, Helen Golay,
75, pleaded not guilty last week to federal charges of mail fraud and submitting
false insurance applications. According to the authorities, the two women
extended helping hands to two homeless men, getting them off the streets and
putting them up in apartments, while at the same time plotting their deaths.
Posing as aunts, fianc�es or cousins, they took out numerous life insurance
policies on the men, Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid, with themselves as the
beneficiaries, collecting over $2.2 million after the men died in separate
hit-and-run traffic cases, the authorities said.
Cindy Chang, "Two Elderly Women Suspected as Femmes Fatales in Insurance Fraud
Scheme," The New York Times, June 12, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/us/12grannies.html
The student I have been
paired with is deficient in math. Mentors are not tutors but they can give
tutorial help if it is called for. After learning how deficient my student
was in math, I decided to spend some time tutoring him. He is in an Algebra
I class that had been studying second order equations. I obtained a copy of
a test he had missed. One of the first problems was:
y = x2
+ 5, if the constant 5 is changed to 1, the curve
a. does not move
b. shifts 1 unit up
c. shifts 1 unit down
d. shifts 4 units up
e. shifts 4 units down
I said, "What would you do to find the answer?" He said, "I have to get my
calculator." I said, "Why?" He said, "I need it to work the problem."
I said, "Couldn't we just
think about the problem first? Even though it may seem hard, (as it
probably did to him), perhaps we can start by finding a simpler problem
inside this difficult problem."
. . .
What I am seeing seems to be that dependence on the
calculator has short circuited the learning of math and the development of
analytical skills. Most students who take high school algebra are not going
to be scientists, mathematicians or engineers. These skills are the most
important things they should take from their math courses. The computational
and analytical skills learned in math often can be applied to a host of
everyday problems in business, personal finance, etc.
Another effect of calculator dependence is that
many younger people are not comfortable with numbers. In my generation we
learned to do simple arithmetic (addition and multiplication) problems in
our heads, and more complex ones with pencil and paper. We can do a quick
calculation to check a price in the supermarket or to figure the tip on a
restaurant bill without having to reach for a calculator.
Today, many elementary school educators believe
that the ready availability of calculators has made learning elementary
arithmetic skills like addition and multiplication unnecessary. Working
problems without a calculator, in my view, helps students to develop those
important analytical skills. Calculators certainly have their place, and
they are essential for some problems. However, students who have developed
good basic arithmetic and analytical skills can master just about any
calculator in a few hours. Perhaps if we delayed the introduction of
calculators, our students would learn math better.
TECHNOLOGY SITESOpen a New Window
www.annoyances.org
CPAs looking for Microsoft Windows troubleshooting advice can get articles,
discussion forums and links to detailed guidance here. Users can find out
the difference between various Windows versions, see a road map of their
operating systems, learn how to customize their PCs and improve their
performance and reduce e-clutter. Take a break from the high-tech talk with
the Humor section to read “The Night Before Startup.”
Get a Checkup
www.pcpitstop.com
If your computer acts like it has gremlins in it, sign up for a free account
at this Web site and get to the heart of the matter. Run privacy and virus
scans and download software to optimize your PC’s performance. Visitors can
find out the five user behaviors on which spyware companies prey and get a
monthly newsletter with PC performance tips.
IT FYI
www.techletters.com
CPAs looking to maximize their computer’s performance can subscribe to one
of four free e-newsletters at this home page.
www.officeletter.com: The Office Letter is devoted to the
Microsoft Office suite. It offers tricks, tools and techniques for Access,
Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.
www.boyce.us/newsletter: Jim Boyce Software Tips and Tricks
concentrates on Windows and Office applications with helpful hints on such
subjects as how to back up or move Outlook Express from one computer to
another.
www.karenware.com: Karen’s Power Tools newsletter offers
plain-language explanations for technical questions, such as what to do when
backup-disk data go bad and a discussion on error-detection strategies.
www.mikeslist.com/current.htm: Mike’s List, subtitled “The
Silly Con Valley Report,” takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to technology
with news on Apple and iPods and the “Lists o’ the Week,” which include
Mike’s picks for gadgets to get, including a combination computer mouse and
phone, or “gotta forget” ones, such as a laptop bag made of simulated human
skin.
One Step Beyond
http://malektips.com
Find free help, hints and tips here on digital cameras and photo processing,
audio players, printers and scanners. Learn how to remove adware and spyware
from your computer, sign your e-mails and recover deleted messages. Go to
the index of links for start-up business resources, such as how to accept
credit card payments online, and get graphics to spice up your desktop
publishing. Sign up for free e-mail notices for the latest PC tips on
applications from Adobe Reader to WinZip.
IRS Laptop Lost With Data on 291 People
Given the likelihood of lost luggage on airlines (especially with valuable
contents), what's more stupid than checking your laptop before a flight? An Internal Revenue Service employee lost an agency
laptop early last month that contained sensitive personal information on 291
workers and job applicants, a spokesman said yesterday. The IRS's Terry L.
Lemons said the employee checked the laptop as luggage aboard a commercial
flight while traveling to a job fair and never saw it again. The computer
contained unencrypted names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and
fingerprints of the employees and applicants, Lemons said. Slightly more than
100 of the people affected were IRS employees, he said. No tax return
information was in the laptop, he said.
Christopher Lee, "IRS Laptop Lost With Data on 291 People," The Washington
Post, June 8, 2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
Although many fewer people are victimized relative to the huge VA breach, the
extent of personal data loss for each person is immensely more serious in the
IRS loss.
"Laptop Security, Part 2: Tips on protecting your data, should
fate--or a criminal--separate you and your notebook," by James A. Martin, PC
World via The Washington Post, June 9. 2006 ---
Click Here
My guess is that your notebook is worth several
thousand dollars. I'd also guess that the data stored on it is worth much,
much more--and that you'd be entering a world of woe if your notebook were
stolen or lost.
Last week I offered tips on how to protect and
physically secure your notebook when you're out of the office. This week,
I've got tips on protecting your data, should fate--or a criminal--separate
you and your notebook.
Windows XP gives you the option of requiring a user
password to log on. Though certainly far from bulletproof, a relatively
complex password provides more protection than none at all.
A complex password includes upper- and lowercase
letters, numbers, and one or more special characters. For example, suppose
your name is Pat. You wouldn't use "Pat" as your password, would you? (You
would? My, aren't we feeling lucky?) A better password would be something
not easily identified with you.
The more complex your password, the more difficult
it is to crack--and, potentially, for you to remember. Don't make your
password so complex you can't remember it. Or, if you must store your
passwords, keep them somewhere safe. Some software programs for PCs and PDAs
give you the ability to manage and secure passwords. One example: DataViz's
Passwords Plus ($30), which lets you manage and
secure passwords on your notebook as well as your Palm OS PDA.
To create a password for your account in Windows
XP, go into Control Panel, then open User Accounts. Select the account you
want to protect with a password and click the "Create a password" button.
For more about passwords, read Scott Dunn's June "
Windows Tips ."
Some laptops now come equipped with biometric
fingerprint scanners, as an alternative or enhancement to Windows
password-protection. For more on this, see number 3, below.
Another option is to encrypt any files on your
notebook that contain sensitive data, such as customer Social Security
numbers. (Of course, as I said last week, it's best not to place any
sensitive data on a mobile system.)
In essence, encryption scrambles data into code
that only an authorized user can access. However, encrypting files, or your
entire drive, can be time-consuming, slow system performance, and increase
the likelihood you'll lose access to the data.
Windows XP Professional (but not XP Home) includes
an option that lets you encrypt files on an NTFS-formatted hard drive. After
encrypting a file, you can open it just as you would any file or folder.
However, someone who gains unauthorized access to your computer cannot open
any encrypted files or folders.
To encrypt a folder in Windows XP Professional,
right-click it in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, click Advanced,
select the "Encrypt contents to secure data" check box, and click OK twice.
In the Confirm Attribute Changes dialog box, do one of the following: To
encrypt only the folder, click "Apply changes to this folder only," and
click OK; to encrypt the folder contents as well as the folder, click "Apply
changes to this folder, subfolders, and files," and click OK.
"In today's
Wall Street Journal (online subscription required) Sharon Begley
provides a rare look into the world of academic journal rankings.
She describes some of the ways that scientific journals manipulate
their "impact factors"."
and later describing his/her (I would imagine
people know, but I won't out anything) own experiences (I would add to
his below comment by saying I would be surprised if anyone who has
published a few papers has not had the reference coaching happen now and
then).
"One [way] is to ask authors to include additional citations to
other pieces in the journal. I've seen this tactic used several
times (both on my pieces and on those of colleagues). Typically,
once a piece is either accepted or in the "last round", the editor
might "suggest" other articles in the same journal which might
possibly be cited. In one case, the editor gave a colleague of mine
a list of eight possible
citations (which would have increased the total citations in the
author's bibliography by almost 50%). However, this doesn't happen
as much as you'd think, because I use my bibliography as one of the
criteria I use in deciding which journal to submit a piece to: if I
cite a good number of articles from a particular journal, it's
probably a good fit for the piece"
John B. West has had his share of requests,
suggestions and demands from the scientific journals where he submits his
research papers, but this one stopped him cold.
Dr. West, the Distinguished Professor of Medicine
and Physiology at the University of California, San Diego, School of
Medicine, is one of the world's leading authorities on respiratory
physiology and was a member of Sir Edmund Hillary's 1960 expedition to the
Himalayas. After he submitted a paper on the design of the human lung to the
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, an editor
emailed him that the paper was basically fine. There was just one thing: Dr.
West should cite more studies that had appeared in the respiratory journal.
If that seems like a surprising request, in the
world of scientific publishing it no longer is. Scientists and editors say
scientific journals increasingly are manipulating rankings -- called "impact
factors" -- that are based on how often papers they publish are cited by
other researchers.
"I was appalled," says Dr. West of the request.
"This was a clear abuse of the system because they were trying to rig their
impact factor."
Just as television shows have Nielsen ratings and
colleges have the U.S. News rankings, science journals have impact factors.
Now there is mounting concern that attempts to manipulate impact factors are
harming scientific research.
Conceived 40 years ago, impact factors are
essentially a grading system of how important the papers a journal publishes
are. "Importance" is measured by how many other papers cite it, indicating
that the discoveries, methodologies or insights it describes are advancing
science.
Impact factors are calculated annually for some
5,900 science journals by Thomson Scientific, part of the Thomson Corp., of
Stamford, Conn. Numbers less than 2 are considered low. Top journals, such
as the Journal of the American Medical Association, score in the double
digits. Researchers and editors say manipulating the score is more common
among smaller, newer journals, which struggle for visibility against more
established rivals.
Thomson Scientific is set to release the latest
impact factors this month. Thomson has long advocated that journal editors
respect the integrity of the rankings. "The energy that's put into efforts
to game the system would be better spent publishing excellent papers," says
Jim Testa, director of editorial development at the company.
Impact factors matter to publishers' bottom lines
because librarians rely on them to make purchasing decisions. Annual
subscriptions to some journals can cost upwards of $10,000.
The result, says Martin Frank, executive director
of the American Physiological Society, which publishes 14 journals, is that
"we have become whores to the impact factor." He adds that his society
doesn't engage in these practices.
Journals can manipulate impact factors with
legitimate editorial decisions. One strategy is to publish many review
articles, says Vicki Cohn, managing editor of Mary Ann Liebert Inc., a
closely held New Rochelle, N.Y., company that publishes 59 journals. Reviews
don't report new results but instead summarize recent findings in a field.
Since it is easier for scientists to cite one review than the dozens of
studies that it summarizes, reviews get a lot of citations, raising a
journal's impact score.
"Journal editors know how to increase their impact
factor legitimately," says Ms. Cohn. "But there is growing suspicion that
journals are using nefarious means to pump it up."
One questionable tactic is to ask authors to cite
papers the journal already has published, as happened to UCSD's Dr. West,
who says that he has great respect for the journal and its editors despite
this episode. He declined the request, and the journal published his paper
anyway, in March.
Richard Albert, the deputy editor of the American
Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, says that the request
goes out to every scientist who submits a paper. "It's boilerplate, a form
letter," he says. The letter has been in use for many years, according to
Dr. Albert, who says he has always opposed the inclusion of the passage but
was overruled by the journal's former editor.
Journals also can resort to "best-of" features,
such as running annual summaries of their most notable papers. When
Artificial Organs did this in 2005, all 145 citations were to other
Artificial Organs papers. Editor Paul Malchesky says the feature was
conceived "as a service to the readership. It was not my intention to affect
our impact factor. In terms of how we run our operation, I don't base that
on impact factor."
Self-citation can go too far. In 2005, Thomson
Scientific dropped the World Journal of Gastroenterology from its rankings
because 85% of the citations it published were to its own papers and because
few other journals cited it. Editors of the journal, which is based in
Beijing, did not answer emails requesting comment.
Journals can limit citations to papers published by
competitors, keeping the rivals' impact factors down. An analysis of
citations in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare shows very few
citations of papers in a competitor, Telemedicine and e-Health, "while we
cited them liberally," says editor Rashid Bashshur, director of telemedicine
at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Richard Wootton, editor of JTT, says that he
believes it's true that his journal cites its competitor less frequently
than Dr. Bashshur's journal cites JTT, "but it doesn't seem to me that there
is a sinister explanation." Dr. Wootton adds that "when we edit a paper...we
sometimes ask authors to ensure that the relevant literature is cited." But
"I can state unequivocally that we do not attempt to manipulate the JTT's
impact factor. For a start, I wouldn't know how to."
Scientists and publishers worry that the cult of
the impact factor is skewing the direction of research. One concern, says
Mary Ann Liebert, president and chief executive of her publishing company,
is that scientists may jump on research bandwagons, because journals prefer
popular, mainstream topics, and eschew less-popular approaches for fear that
only a lesser-tier journal will take their papers. When scientists are
discouraged from pursuing unpopular ideas, finding the correct explanation
of a phenomenon or a disease takes longer.
"If you look at journals that have a high impact
factor, they tend to be trendy," says immunologist David Woodland of the
nonprofit Trudeau Institute, of Saranac Lake, N.Y., and the incoming editor
of Viral Immunology. He recalls one journal that accepted immunology papers
only if they focused on the development of thymus cells, a once-hot topic.
"It's hard to get into them if you're ahead of the curve."
As examples of that, Ms. Liebert cites early
research on AIDS, gene therapy and psychopharmacology, all of which had
trouble finding homes in established journals. "How much that relates to
impact factor is hard to know," she says. "But editors and publishers both
know that papers related to cutting-edge and perhaps obscure research are
not going to be highly cited."
Another concern is that impact factors, since they
measure only how many times other scientists cite a paper, say nothing about
whether journals publish studies that lead to something useful. As a result,
there is pressure to publish studies that appeal to an academic audience
oriented toward basic research.
Journals' "questionable" steps to raise their
impact factors "affect the public," Ms. Liebert says. "Ultimately, funding
is allocated to scientists and topics perceived to be of the greatest
importance. If impact factor is being manipulated, then scientists and
studies that seem important will be funded perhaps at the expense of those
that seem less important."
Why Indonesia remains relatively lenient on terror Wherever he is, Osama bin Laden must be smiling. Next
week, Abu Bakar Bashir -- the al Qaeda-linked cleric known as Southeast Asia's
"emir of jihad" -- is expected to walk free from a Jakarta jail. It's all
perfectly legal. Mr. Bashir has served his time, and his terrorist organization,
Jemaah Islamiya (JI), isn't banned in Indonesia. Clearly, it's time to ask why
the world's most populous Muslim country remains relatively lenient on terror,
when the threat is so real . . . In exchange for gaining the political support
of PKS and others like it for legislative initiatives -- such as last year's
painful slashing of fuel-price subsidies -- the president sometimes turns a
blind eye when conservative Islamic ideas rear their ugly head. Other times,
former President Abdurrahman Wahid recently told us, Mr. Yudhoyono "lacks
courage."
"Jakarta's Jihadist," The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2006 ---
Click Here
Racism on the Rise in Germany: Ugly resurgence of racism with prowling
violent gangs "There are areas in Brandenburg and other parts of
the East," Mr. Heye said, "where dark-skinned foreigners might not make it out
alive." Just a couple of weeks ago, an Ethiopian-born engineer in Potsdam had
his skull smashed at a bus stop when he got into a shouting match with two
youngsters. The refugee organization Afrikarat, meanwhile, has promised to
provide football fans from abroad with a map of "no-go areas." While Mr. Heye
was at first shouted down by local politicians from all major parties for gross
exaggeration, the annual criminal statistics published the very next day
confirmed the basic trend: Violent hate crimes were up 24% in 2005 -- to 1,034
from 832 -- and continued to be most prevalent in the East. If you adjust for
the lower number of immigrants in, say, rural Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a
foreign-looking person is about 25 times as likely to be assaulted in the East
as in the West, says University of Hannover criminologist Christian Pfeifer.
Mriam Lau, "No-Go Germany," The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2006 ---
Click Here
Bringing Data Back From the Dead But there are less-expensive alternatives, including
some of the consumer software and services we tested. In some cases, the results
surprised us. Norton SystemWorks ($70,
http://www.symantec.com ), for example,
attempts to repair hard drives while they are failing. But Norton writes to the
damaged drive, which can actually worsen the problem and can make future data
recovery efforts more time consuming and costly. Disk Doctor, an application
built into SystemWorks, reported that it had repaired many clusters on one of
our test drives, but when it was done the drive would no longer boot.
David Greenberg, "Bringing Data Back From the Dead," The Washington Post,
June 4, 2006 ---
Click Here
Clean Sweep of Your Hard Drive
How do I delete my deleted files on a computer so that they can't be
recovered by anyone else?
Q:The community where I live has a one-month period (April
this year) where you can dispose of your old computers. I have several
old PCs around the house, but want to clean out the hard drives. Can you
recommend a good program that can clean sensitive data off a hard drive?
A: There are a number of such "file wiper"
programs, which permanently delete files so that they can't be
recovered. Some are free, but the one I recommend is called Window
Washer and costs $30 from Webroot Software Inc. It can be purchased at
Webroot.com and elsewhere. The program, which
also performs other tasks, has a file-wiping function called
"bleaching." It can be used multiple times.
"Study: Web is the No. 1 media," by Candace Lombardi, The New York
Times, June 6, 2006 ---
Click Here
Web media is the dominant at-work media and No. 2
in the home, according to a new report from the Online Publishers
Association.
The Web also ranked as the No. 1 daytime media.
A research project, conducted by Ball State
University's Center for Media Design, tracked the media use of 350 people
every 15 seconds. The subjects represented each gender, about equally,
across three age groups: 18 to 34, 35 to 49 and 50-plus. The people were
monitored by another person for approximately 13 hours, or 80 percent of
their waking day.
"Someone actually came into their homes and
workplaces and had a handheld computer, every 15 seconds registering their
media consumption and life activities," Pam Horan, president of the Online
Publishers Association (OPA), told CNET News.com.
According to Horan, this is the first type of study
of its kind. Previously, consumers were monitored for media usage by phone
survey or diary method.
Not surprisingly, newspaper use peaked in the
morning; that print media was consumed by 17 percent of the subjects between
8 a.m. and 11 a.m. When this media was combined with Web consumption, the
potential reach for advertisers climbed to 44 percent. During the same
morning period, the number of consumers using magazines jumped from 7
percent to 39 percent, and from 44 percent to 62 percent for television.
"The point is that there is an incremental reach
that someone can gain by putting together a multimedia campaign," Horan
said.
A conservative estimate from the study says 17
percent of overall media is consumed via the Internet, and Horan notes that
other researchers like Forrester have placed that number even higher.
The OPA-commissioned study also used census data to
determine the spending habits of its 350 monitored subjects. Web dominant
consumers' retail spending averaged $26,450, while the TV-dominant group's
spending averaged $21,401.
Yet, studies have shown that only about 8 percent
of advertising goes to the Internet, Horan said.
"I hear more and more from marketers that they have
shifted their business to be more responsive and realign. There is an active
movement by traditional advertisers to be able to explore platform
strategies," Horan said. She believes that research studies are attracting
the attention of advertisers and media buyers and may result in a faster
shift in advertising dollars to match the actual statistics of consumer
media usage.
Google Inc. will introduce a spreadsheet program
Tuesday (June 8), continuing the Internet
search leader's expansion into territory long dominated by Microsoft Corp.
Although it's still considered a work in progress,
Google's online spreadsheet will offer consumers and businesses a free
alternative to Microsoft's Excel application _ a product typically sold as
part of the Office software suite that has been a steady moneymaker for
years.
To avoid swamping the company's computers, Google's
spreadsheet initially will be distributed to a limited audience. Google also
wants more time to smooth out any possible kinks and develop more features,
said Jonathan Rochelle, the product manager of the new application.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company planned to
begin accepting sign-ups for the spreadsheet at 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday through
the ''labs'' section of its Web site. Rochelle wouldn't specify how many
people will be granted access to the spreadsheet application.
Google's spreadsheet isn't as sophisticated as
Excel. For instance, the Google spreadsheet won't create charts or provide a
menu of controls that can be summoned by clicking on a computer mouse's
right-hand button.
Rochelle said the program's main goal is to make it
easier for family, friends or co-workers to gain access to the same
spreadsheet from different computers at different times, enabling a group of
authorized users to add and edit data without having to e-mail attachments
back and forth.
The US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
has published a series of staff questions and answers related to adjustments
to prior-period financial statements audited by a predecessor auditor. Prior
period adjustments may be required, for instance, for discontinued
operations, retrospective application of a change in accounting principle,
or the correction of an error in prior-period financial statements. If the
prior-period financial statements that require adjustments were audited by a
predecessor auditor, which auditor, the predecessor or the successor, should
audit the adjustments to prior-period financial statements?
Silicon Valley loves its buzzwords, and there's none more popular today than
Web 2.0. Unless you're a diehard techie, though, good luck figuring out what
it means. Web 2.0 technologies bear strange names like wikis, blogs, RSS,
AJAX, and mashups. And the startups hawking them -- Renkoo, Gahbunga, Ning,
Squidoo -- sound like Star Wars characters George Lucas left on the
cutting-room floor.
But behind the peculiarities, Web 2.0 portends a real
sea change on the Internet. If there's one thing they have in common, it's
what they're not. Web 2.0 sites are not online places to visit so much as
services to get something done -- usually with other people. From Yahoo!'s
(YHOO)
photo-sharing site Flickr and the group-edited online
reference source Wikipedia to the teen hangout MySpace, and even search
giant Google (GOOG),
they all virtually demand active participation and
social interaction (see BW Online, 9/26/05,
"It's A Whole New Web"). If these Web 2.0 folks
weren't so geeky, they might call it the Live Web.
And though these Web 2.0 services have succeeded in luring millions of
consumers to their shores, they haven't had much to offer the vast world of
business. Until now. Slowly but surely they're scaling corporate walls. "All
these things that are thought to be consumer services are coming into the
enterprise," says Ray Lane, former Oracle (ORCL)
president and now a general partner at the venture
capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (see BW Online, 6/5/06,
"A VC's View of Web 2.0").
CORPORATE BLOGGERS. For
all its appeal to the young and the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its
greatest impact in business. And that could usher in more changes in
corporations, already in the throes of such tech-driven transformations as
globalization and outsourcing. Indeed, what some are calling Enterprise 2.0
could flatten a raft of organizational boundaries -- between managers and
employees and between the company and its partners and customers. Says Don
Tapscott, CEO of the Toronto tech think tank New Paradigm and co-author of
The Naked Corporation: "It's the biggest change in the organization
of the corporation in a century."
Early signs of the shift abound. Walt Disney (DIS),
investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and
scores of other companies use wikis, or group-editable Web pages, to
turbo-charge collaboration. Other firms are using button-down
social-networking services such as LinkedIn and Visible Path to dig up sales
leads and hiring prospects from the collective contacts of colleagues.
Corporate blogging is becoming nearly a clich�, as executives from Sun
Microsystems (SUNW)
chief executive Jonathan Schwartz to General Motors (GM)
Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz post on their own blogs to communicate directly with
customers.
Just as the personal computer sneaked its way into companies through the
back door, so it's going with Web 2.0 services. When Rod Smith, IBM's
(IBM)
vice-president for emerging Internet technologies,
told the information technology chief at Royal Bank of Scotland about wikis
last year, the exec shook his head and said the bank didn't use them. But
when Smith looked at the other participants in the meeting, 30 of them were
nodding their heads. They use wikis indeed. "Enterprises have been ringing
our phones off the hook to ask us about Web 2.0," says Smith.
ONE GIANT COMPUTER. Also just like the PC, Web
2.0's essential appeal is empowerment. Increasing computer power, nearly
ubiquitous high-speed Internet connections, and ever-easier Web 2.0 services
give users unprecedented power to do it themselves. It doesn't hurt that
many of these services are free, supported by ads, or at their most
expensive still cost less than cable. "All the powerful trends in technology
have been do-it-yourself," notes Joe Kraus, CEO of wiki supplier JotSpot.
In essence, these services are coalescing into one giant computer that
almost anyone can use, from anywhere in the world. When you do a Google
search, for instance, you're actually setting in motion an array of programs
and databases distributed around the globe on computer hard drives. Not only
that, people who tap services such as MySpace, eBay (EBAY),
and the Internet phone service Skype actually are
improving the tools by the very act of using them. MySpace, for instance,
becomes more useful with each new contact or piece of content added.
The collective actions, contacts, and talent of people using services such
as MySpace, eBay, and Skype essentially improve those services constantly
(see BW Online, 6/20/05,
"The Power Of Us"). "We're shifting from a
presentation medium to a programming platform," says Tapscott. "Every time
we go on these sites, we're programming the Web."
PROBLEM SOLVING. Not surprisingly, a lot of
executives remain skeptical. For some, it's hard to imagine the same
technology that spawns a racy MySpace page also yielding a new corporate
collaboration service. "There's a big cultural difference between the Web
2.0 people and the IT department," notes consultant John Hagel, author of
several books on technology and business. More than that, information
technology managers naturally don't want people using these services
willy-nilly, because they're often not secure from hackers or rivals.
Nonetheless, the notions behind Web 2.0 clearly hold great potential for
businesses -- and peril for those that ignore them. Potentially, these Web
2.0 services could help solve some vexing problems for corporations that
current software and online services have yet to tackle.
For one, companies are struggling to overcome problems with current online
communications, whether it's e-mail spam or the costs of maintaining company
intranets that few employees use. So they're now starting to experiment with
a growing array of collaborative services, such as wikis. Says Ross
Mayfield, CEO of the corporate wiki firm Socialtext: "Now, most everybody I
talk to knows what Wikipedia is -- and it's not a stretch for them to
imagine a company Wikipedia."
MORE FLEXIBLE. And not just imagine -- Dresdner
Kleinwort Wasserstein, for instance, uses a Socialtext wiki instead of
e-mail to create meeting agendas and post training videos for new hires. Six
months after launching it, traffic on the 2,000-page wiki, used by a quarter
of the bank's workforce, already has surpassed that of the company's
intranet (see BW Online, 11/24/05,
"E-Mail Is So Five Minutes Ago").
Corporations also are balking at installing big,
multimillion dollar software programs that can take years to roll out -- and
then aren't flexible enough to adapt to new business needs. "They're clunky
and awkward and don't encourage participation," grumbles Dion Hinchcliffe,
chief technology officer of Washington, D.C. tech consultant Sphere of
Influence.
That's why companies are warming to the idea of opening their
information-technology systems to do-it-yourselfers. And they spy an
intriguing way to do that with what are known as mash-ups, or combinations
of simple Web 2.0 services with each other into a new service (see BW
Online, 7/25/05,
"Mix, Match, and Mutate"). The big advantage: They
can be done very quickly with existing Web services.
BUSINESS NETWORKS. IBM, for instance, last year
helped the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship mash
together a one-stop shop for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina to find
jobs. People type into one box the kind of job they're seeking, and the site
searches more than 1,000 job boards, then shows their location on a Google
Map. "This [mashups] could be a way to provide solutions to customers within
hours instead of months," says IBM's Smith.
Companies are starting to take a page from MySpace, Facebook, and other
social-networking services. The reason: As appealing as that social aspect
is for teens and anyone else who wants to stay in closer touch with friends,
it's even more useful in business. After all, businesses in one sense are
social networks formed to make or sell something.
So it's no surprise that corporate-oriented social networks are gaining a
toehold. LinkedIn, an online service for people to post career profiles and
find prospective employees, is the recruiting tool of choice for a number of
companies. "In 2003, people thought of us as a weird form of social
networking," notes LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman. "Now, people are saying, 'Oh,
I get it, it's a business tool.'" (see BW Online, 4/10/06,
"How LinkedIn Broke Through").
STAYING YOUNG. Despite
all the activity so far, it's still early days for this phenomenon some
techies (who can't help themselves) call Enterprise 2.0. For now, the key
challenge for executives is learning about the vast array of Web 2.0
services. And that requires more than simply checking in with the premier
Web 2.0 blog, TechCrunch (see BW Online, 6/2/06,
"Tip Sheet: Harnessing Web 2.0").
Where to start? Watch what kids are doing. If they use
e-mail at all, it's a distant fourth to instant messaging, personal blogs,
and the social networking sites, because they're much easier to use for what
matters to them: staying in touch with friends. Companies need to provide
more compelling ways for this highly connected bunch as they move into the
workforce, bringing their valuable contacts in tow. "Young people are not
going to go to companies where they can't use these new tools," says Lane.
"They'll say, 'Why would I want to work here?'"
It's also critical for executives to try out these services themselves:
Create a MySpace page. Open a Flickr account and upload a few photos. Write
a Wikipedia entry. Create a mashup at Ning.com. "The essence of Web 2.0 is
experimentation, so they should try things out," says venture capitalist
Peter Rip of Leapfrog Ventures, an investor in several Web 2.0 startups.
FREE P.R. Then there's blogging. It's
worthwhile to spend considerable time reading some popular blogs, which you
can find at
Technorati.com, to get a feel for how online
conversation works. Only then should execs try their hand at blogging -- and
perhaps first inside their companies before going public. Thick skin is a
requirement, since the "blogosphere" can be brutal on anything that sounds
like spin.
But the payoff can be substantial, if hard to quantify. Genial Microsoft
(MSFT)
blogger Robert Scoble, for instance, is credited by
many Redmond watchers with doing more to improve the company's image than
millions of dollars in public relations. In no small part that's because he
has shown a willingness to criticize his company at times.
Continued in article
When cows can fly Louisiana politics will be honorable Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, said Tuesday
that there is "an honorable explanation" for the damaging scenario being painted
by the federal government in the federal bribery probe targeting him, and he
again denied breaking any laws. Jefferson declined to discuss specifics of the
15-month investigation that has yielded two guilty pleas amid allegations that
the congressman accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. Jefferson
has not been charged and would not speculate on whether he thought an indictment
was coming from the northern Virginia grand jury investigating him. In a
wide-ranging interview late Tuesday in his congressional office, the site last
month of an unprecedented FBI search, Jefferson said he has no intention of
stepping down and reiterated his plan to seek a ninth term in November.
Bill Walsh and Bruce Alpert, "Jefferson promises he has 'an honorable
explanation'": He says he'll seek re-election this year," The Times-Picayune,
June 7, 2006, ---
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/washington/index.ssf?/base/news-1/114966136294780.xml&coll=1
Two recent surveys offer insight into Americans’
driving habits, both good and bad. The 2006 Allstate America’s Best Drivers
Report and AutoVantage’s first annual In the Driver’s Seat Road Rage Survey
reveal different sides of one of the fundamental characteristics of American
life: driving.
Allstate America’s Best
Drivers Report
This report ranks the best drivers in the 200
largest cities across the United States. The best drivers were those who
were less likely than the national average to have an accident. To determine
where cities ranked on the list, Allstate researchers analyzed company data
to determine the likelihood drivers in those cities would experience a
vehicle collision.
“The Allstate America’s Best Driver’s Report
elevates the country’s discussion on safe driving. Our hope is that each
year the Allstate report helps facilitate an ongoing dialogue that saves
lives,” George Ruebenson, Allstate’s senior vice president for claims
service, said in a prepared statement.
According to the 2006 Best Drivers Report, the
cities with the best drivers are:
Sioux Falls, S.D., drivers are 30.2 percent
less likely to have an accident, going an average of 14.3 years between
collisions
Fort Collins, Colo., drivers are 24.0 percent
less likely to have an accident, going 13.2 years between collisions
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, drivers are also 24.0
percent less likely to have an accident, going 13.2 years between
collisions
Huntsville, Ala., drivers are 21.6 percent
less likely to have an accident, going 12.8 years between collisions
Chattanooga, Tenn., drivers are 21.2 percent
less likely to have an accident, going 12.7 years between collisions
Knoxville, Tenn., drivers are 20.7 percent
less likely to have an accident, going 12.6 years between collisions
Des Moines, Iowa, drivers are 20.6 percent
less likely to have an accident, also going 12.6 years between
collisions
Milwaukee, Wisc., drivers are 20.0 percent
less likely to have an accident, going 12.5 years between collisions
Colorado Springs, Colo., drivers are 19.0
percent less likely to have an accident, going 12.3 years between
collisions
Warren, Mich., drivers are 18.9 percent less
likely to have accident, also going 12.3 years between collisions.
For the second consecutive year, Phoenix had the
safest drivers among cities with more than 1 million residents. Drivers in
Phoenix can expect to go 9.7 years between collisions, slightly more
frequently than the national average. Phoenix is also listed as the second
least courteous city by the In the Driver’s Seat Road Rage survey.
In the Driver’s Seat Road Rage Survey
“Road rage has unfortunately too often become a way
of life, both on and off the track,” NASCAR driving legend and AutoVantage
spokesman Bobby Hamilton said in a prepared statement. “More and more, in
cities across America, people are acting out their frustrations with
dangerous results. It’s bad for professional drivers and everyday drivers
alike.”
The least courteous cities or those having the
worst road rage, according to the AutoVantage survey, are:
Miami, Fla.
Phoenix, Ariz.
New York, N.Y.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Boston, Mass.
The cities with the least road rage and therefore
the most courteous cities are:
Minneapolis, Minn.
Nashville, Tenn.
St. Louis, Mo.
Seattle, Wash.
Atlanta, Ga.
Other key findings from the AutoVantage survey
include:
1 percent of respondents admitted they
actually slammed into the car in front of them, although not always
intentionally;
24 percent reported seeing drivers running red
lights every day;
drivers in Miami are most likely to see
tailgating behavior, with 64 percent of drivers surveyed seeing it
daily. Even in St. Louis, where drivers are least likely to see
tailgating, 41 percent of drivers report seeing it daily
“This new study focuses on important attitudes and
habits of drivers on the open road nationwide,” Brad Eggleston, vice
president of AutoVantage, said in a prepared statement. “This groundbreaking
research is an important tool to help educate and influence safer driving
habits throughout the United States.”
According to Traffic Facts, a publication of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more crashes occur on
Saturdays than any other day of the week. Sundays ranks second and Fridays
came in third. In addition, most collisions happen between 3 and 6 p.m.. The
period between 6 and 9 p.m. ranked second, while the period from 9 p.m. to
midnight finishes third. The fewest crashes occur between midnight and 3
a.m..
A number of organizations are actively concerned
with monitoring the ways in which various governments have attempted to
limit or restrict access to the Internet, and the OpenNet Initiative is one
such group. Drawing on a collaborative partnership with four academic
institutions (including the University of Toronto and Harvard Law School),
the group’s aim is “to excavate, expose and analyze filtering and
surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion.” On their
homepage, visitors will have access to a number of their research
publications, case studies, their blog, and a selection of external links of
note. Some of their more recent research papers include their investigation
into the extent to which the Republic of Yemen controls the information
environment of their citizens as well as similar efforts in Myanmar.
Overall, the site will be of great interest to those with an interest in
cyberlaw and related fields.
Art museums often publish a journal, which includes
papers primarily based on research about their specific collections. Since
2004, the Tate has been publishing its version online, as the Tate Papers.
The tag-line on the Web site promises that the journal will “cover a wide
range of subjects: artists, works of art and archives in Tate's collection,
art theory, visual culture, conservation and museology.” A quick browse of
the available papers shows that they do indeed live up to this claim. For
example, a visitor can read an article on the difficulties of conserving the
work of Joseph Beuys, an artist who often used organic materials that are
bound to decompose (such as fat and wool), but who made contradictory
statements regarding his willingness to allow his work to self-destruct. In
the same issue (Autumn 2005) a visitor can read a much more traditional
article researching the history and attribution of Thomas Gainsborough's
1781 portrait of Marie Jean Augustin Vestris, which passed from the hands of
private collectors to the National Gallery in 1888, and has belonged to the
Tate since 1955.
Summer is upon us, and it is certainly a time to
make a visual record of family gatherings, trips to the Atlas Mountains, or
other such occasions. StudioLine Photo Basic 3.4.13 is a good way to
organize such photographic memories, as users can sort their images into
albums and folders, and also utilize some of their 30 image tools to modify
their existing images. These tools can assist with exposure problems and the
seemingly omnipresent specter of red-eye. This version is compatible with
computers running Windows 98 and newer.
The idea behind the NetVeda Safety Net application
is a simple one: to allow users to control access to certain websites on
their computer and to maintain firewall protection in the process. Users of
the application can define user access based on the time of day and for
content, if they so desire. As might be expected, the application also
contains privacy controls that block the sending of personal information and
that can also generate activity reports. This version is compatible with all
computers running Windows 95 and newer.
Grandma May Truly Become Miss Piggy: Scientists hope to cure
Alzheimer's with piglet clones Scientists working in Denmark said on Friday they
planned to use piglets they had cloned in their search for a cure for
Alzheimer's disease. PhysOrg, June 8, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news69077612.html
Company-funded studies unveiled over the
weekend at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting suggested
a pair of innovative drugs could benefit diabetics.
Several studies suggest Merck & Co.'s proposed
drug Januvia, for Type 2 diabetes, was effective at lowering a measure
of blood sugar without significant side effects. Januvia is awaiting
approval from the Food and Drug Administration to treat Type 2 diabetes,
which is more common than Type 1. Januvia is a drug known as a DPP-4
inhibitor, and if approved would likely be the first in a new class of
diabetes medicines. Novartis AG has a similar drug, Galvus, also
awaiting FDA approval.
Separately, new data from studies of Pfizer
Inc.'s inhaled form of insulin, Exubera, showed the product lowered or
maintained blood sugar without serious side effects. Pfizer's Exubera is
the first needle-free form of insulin and is set to hit the market next
month. Insulin is required to treat Type 1 diabetes and more severe
forms of Type 2 diabetes. Exubera could replace daily short-acting
insulin injections but wouldn't replace long-acting insulin.
Continued in article
Erotic images elicit strong response from brain A new study suggests the brain is quickly turned on
and "tuned in" when a person views erotic images. Researchers at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured brainwave activity of
264 women as they viewed a series of 55 color slides that contained various
scenes from water skiers to snarling dogs to partially-clad couples in
sensual poses. What they found may seem like a "no brainer." When study
volunteers viewed erotic pictures, their brains produced electrical
responses that were stronger than those elicited by other material that was
viewed, no matter how pleasant or disturbing the other material may have
been. This difference in brainwave response emerged very quickly, suggesting
that different neural circuits may be involved in the processing of erotic
images.
"Erotic images elicit strong response from brain," PhysOrg, June 9,
2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news69083681.html
Man Meets Woman, Man Thinks Sex? When a man and woman meet for the first time, men
may be more likely to think about sex -- or at least more likely to admit
it. That's the core finding of a study in June's issue of Psychology of
Women Quarterly.
Miranda Hitti, "Man Meets Woman, Man Thinks Sex?" WebMD, June 9, 2006
---
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/123/115123
ABC News: Hospital Has Legionnaires' Disease Cases Legionnaires' disease have been diagnosed among
patients and visitors at a San Antonio hospital, and health officials
suspect the facility is the source of the outbreak. Among those diagnosed at
North Central Baptist Hospital, three have died. But health officials said
they already were ill and they didn't know how much of a factor
Legionnaire's disease played in the deaths.
"ABC News: Hospital Has Legionnaires' Disease Cases," ABC News, June
15, 2006 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2078246
Car Ads Keep Selling Sex, While many car advertisements today focus on
families and young consumers, many companies continue to play to their
physically mature but adolescently-minded male base.
A page by "Sylvia"
at CarSpace.com (the social networking site from
Edmunds.com) contrasts ads from the 1970's and today, and things haven't
change much.
John Gartner, "Car Ads Keep Selling Sex," Wired News, June 9, 2006 ---
http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/cars/
Check out this 1970 Dodge Charger ad on
YouTube, which depicts women as bubble-headed
playthings who swoon all over a nebbish guy because of his wheels. And
then watch the contemporary Dodge Durango ad that wasn't aired because
of it's phallic references. Yup, car advertisers love to make the pitch
all about getting laid.
Although not about sex, the Toyota Vios ad is a
clever ripoff ad about the tempetation of cars.
In his new short story collection In Persuasion Nation, absurdist
extraordinaire George Saunders offers a surreal depiction of the destruction
of individuality through consumer mega-culture
If you are a new reader of George Saunders, the
first thing you ought to know is that Saunders is the funniest writer in
America, more likely to make you laugh in public, if that's where you're
reading his books, than any writer since P.G. Wodehouse. The
competition--David Sedaris, Tom Wolfe, Christopher Buckley--isn't even
close.
It is easy, therefore, to pigeonhole Saunders,
to think of him largely as a wit and an absurdist extraordinaire. This
would be to miss his point. Saunders's laughs are a cover, a diversion,
beneath which reside some profoundly serious intentions regarding the
morality of how we live and the power of love and immanent death to
transform us into vastly better creatures than we could otherwise hope
to be. These are the biggest intentions an artist can have.
Among younger writers these days, Saunders has
many imitators. He often writes with great wit and affection about
working-class people and the situations of nonsensical hardship they
face. With so few writers left in the United States qualified (and
willing) to cover this terrain, Saunders ends up attracting some
disciples simply along class lines. But class is not his main concern.
His main concerns are much harder to pin down--unlike writers who often
can be successfully imitated, say Ann Beattie or Raymond Carver,
Saunders does not work in the mainstream tradition of North American
short fiction, nor does he have a simple style, though it may sometimes
appear so. His sensibility, always a close relative of style, is
exclusively his own, sophisticated, daring and politically unusual, to
the degree that one can't really imitate him unless one believes what he
believes--everything he does is in service of an immovably unique
worldview. In this as in several other ways, Saunders reminds me of
Flannery O'Connor, which is to say he is a radical, and only a small
number of people who really understand the convictions behind his
work--the caustic humor that, pulled back, reveals a scouring contempt
for consumer society and modern life, as well as a deep and specifically
religious eagerness for transcendent meaning--would choose to embrace
them.
No agreement or even negotiation with the Arabs until they accepted
that Zionism was invincible As I write, Israel is faced with a democratically
elected Hamas government, the legacy of its own brute military policies
toward the Palestinians. Behind Hamas's statement that it will not recognize
Israel--for which it is isolated and financially starved--we can ironically
detect the shade, and perfectly logical consequence, of the ethos of
Jabotinsky, who famously ended his 1923 essay "The Iron Wall": "The only
path to an agreement in the future is an absolute refusal of any attempts at
an agreement now." There could be no agreement or even negotiation with the
Arabs until they accepted that Zionism was invincible. For Jabotinsky
inflexibility was political doctrine.
"The Zionist Imagination," by Jacqueline Rose, The Nation, June 26,
2006 ---
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/rose
June 1, 2006 message from James L. Morrison
[jlm@nova.edu]
The June/July 2006 issue of
Innovate (www.innovateonline.info)
offers a range of practical ideas for using new
technologies in classrooms as well as ways to avoid common pitfalls
caused by technology. This is a one-time mailing to you; if you wish to
receive future announcements of new issues and our webcast schedules,
please take advantage of our free subscription at
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=subscribe
We open with Sir John Daniel and
Paul West’s exploration of how the digital dividends of technology
can be used to overcome the digital divide for impoverished nations
worldwide. They examine the challenges of bringing higher education to
developing nations and advocate open educational resources as a
potential solution to the problem.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=252
)
Our next three articles address
specific ways in which instructors have used the digital dividends
available to them in teaching. Ulises Mejias describes a graduate
seminar he taught on the affordances of social software--software that
allows for information exchange, collaboration, and ease of
communication. His students used the software while learning about it
and critiquing it, illustrating well the learning opportunities afforded
by this category of technology.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=260
)
S. Pixy Ferris and Hilary Wilder
examine wikis, one example of social software, as a way to bridge the
distance between students and teachers.
Adopting the linguistic theory
of Walter J. Ong, they see teachers as part of a print paradigm of
learning, whereas they propose that students are increasingly a part of
a secondary-oral paradigm characterized by certain attributes of both
oral-based cultures and print-based cultures. Wikis, they argue, can be
a pedagogical bridge between these two educational positions.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=258
)
Craig Smith focuses on chat, a common
way for online instructors to replace classroom discussion. He provides
a protocol to keep discussions focused and productive, helping teachers
realize the potential usefulness of an easily accessible technological
tool. (See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=246
)
Technology also presents some
problems in the classroom. The easy availability of apparently anonymous
information on the Internet blurs definitions of plagiarism. While tools
such as electronic plagiarism detectors have become more common,
Eleanour Snow argues that they are not enough. She advocates online
tutorials as an easy and effective way of teaching students about
plagiarism, and offers examples and links to tutorials for teachers
eager to begin the process of educating themselves and their students.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=306
)
Howard Pitler also sees a need
to make copyright guidelines clear, but argues that copyrights should be
more flexible. He offers guidance about how copyright works and
describes Creative Commons, a Web site that provides writers and artists
a way to select the rights that they want to reserve and make it clear
to others exactly what they are allowed to reproduce and alter.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=251
)
Another difficulty inherent in the
digital age is the notorious attrition rate in online education. While
noting that drop rates for online courses should not necessarily be
equated with lack of success, David Diaz and Ryan Cartnal acknowledge
that reducing attrition in such courses should still be on educators'
agendas. In addressing this issue they examine the impact of term length
on attrition rates, advocating a shorter length to enable time-strapped
students to complete the course more efficiently. (See
Please forward this announcement to
appropriate mailing lists and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to
advance their work. Ask your organizational librarian to link to
Innovate in their resource section for open-access e-journals.
An increasing number of parents
are dealing with sex education at home -- often long before it comes up
in the classroom. And now, parents can turn to a wave of books and
videos to help address the subject with small kids, some even as young
as four.
"The trick is to find out from
the kid what they really want to know," says Dr. Charles Shubin, who
teaches pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University and the University of
Maryland. He recommends that parents choose sex-ed materials that are
age-appropriate and that they review all books and videos carefully
before showing them to their children. Here are some resources:
Book: "But How'd I Get in
There in the First Place?" by Deborah M. Roffman Price/Publisher: $14 (paperback); Perseus Publishing Comment: Ms. Roffman -- who teaches sex education at schools in
Baltimore -- thinks parents shouldn't always wait until a child asks to
bring up the topic of sex. Published in 2002 and aimed at parents of
children under seven years old, her book gives straight-forward advice.
Book: "Everything You
Never Wanted Your Kids to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid
They'd Ask)" by Justin Richardson, M.D., and Mark A. Schuster, M.D.,
Ph.D. Price/Publisher: $14.95 (paperback); Three Rivers Press Comment: This book explains in depth a child's sexual
development, the emotions a parent may experience as a child changes and
how to talk to the child about sex. Topics include nudity at home, a
child's sexual orientation, abstinence and dealing with sexually active
adolescents.
Book: "It's Not the
Stork" by Robie H. Harris Price/Publisher: $16.99; Candlewick Press Comment: "It's Not the Stork," which will be published
next month, is aimed at kids as young as four years old. Many parents
will like this book's direct approach, but some may feel it offers too
much too soon.
Book: "Where Did I Come
From?" by Peter Mayle Price/Publisher: $9.95 (paperback); Kensington Publishing Comment: Originally published in 1973, more than two million
copies of this sex-ed book have been sold in the U.S. The cartoon-style
drawings are child-friendly, if a bit cheesy. In one, a sperm wears a
top hat.
DVDs: "The Birds, the
Bees, and Me" Price/Publisher: $19.95; National Training Organization for Child
Care Providers Comment: These 20-minute DVD videos -- there's one aimed at girls
and one aimed at boys -- use cartoons, diagrams and college-age
narrators in an attempt to make young children comfortable with topic of
sex. They cover basic information about the changes a body goes through
during puberty, sexual intercourse and how a "baby" -- note, not a fetus
-- grows in a woman's body. There is also a strong abstinence message.
Invest Time for a Laugh www.dailyreckoning.com
Who says researching investment information can’t be fun? At this Web site,
visitors not only get the latest market headlines and insights, but also
some laughs. For example, the Essentialist Glossary in the Extras section
defines Bill Gates as “where God goes for a loan.” Users also can read
special reports on investing in India or value-investing strategies,
subscribe to the free Daily Reckoning financial e-letter or get
five secrets for investing in small- and micro-cap stocks.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Tax his land, Tax his wage, Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes is the rule.
Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat.
Tax his ties, Tax his shirts, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his booze, Tax his beers, If he cries, Tax his tears.
Tax his bills, Tax his gas, Tax his notes, Tax his cash.
Tax him good and let him know That after taxes, he has no dough.
If he hollers, Tax him more, Tax him til he's good and sore.
Tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he lays.
Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom!"
And when he's gone, We won't relax, We'll still be after the inheritance
TAX!!
Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL License Tax Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment
Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges (tax
on top of tax), IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Tax,
Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service
charge taxes, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax (Truckers), Sales Taxes,
Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment
Tax (SUTA), Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal
Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax, Telephone
Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges
Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Tax,
Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration
Tax, Well Permit Tax, Workers Compensation Tax.
COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and there was
prosperity, absolutely no national debt, the largest middle class in the
world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
I recently sent out an "Appeal" for accounting educators, researchers, and
practitioners to actively support what I call The Accounting Review (TAR)
Diversity Initiative as initiated by American Accounting Association President
Judy Rayburn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR.htm
Online Video and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and
video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
From the Baker Library at the Harvard Business School
Coin & Conscience: Popular Views of Money, Credit and Speculation ---
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/cc/
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Everyone is entitled to their own
opinion, but not their own facts. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan --- FactCheck.org ---
http://www.factcheck.org/
(Now and then we need reminders that opinion polls, especially
political polls conducted by the media, are not facts)
Knowledge continues to make progress
because we are able to base ourselves on the work of the great minds that have
preceded us. Margherita Hack (1922) ---
Click Here
War amounts to shedding blood in the
search for peace, while peace is a continuation of combat without shedding
blood.
Author Unknown
That the only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against
his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear
because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These
are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or
persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him
with any evil, in case he do otherwise. John Stuart Mill ---
http://patriotpost.us/pub/06-24_Brief.htm
I think that most Christians would be
better pleased if the Lord did not inquire into their personal affairs too
closely. They want Him to save them, to keep them happy, and to take them off to
heaven at last, but not to be too inquisitive about their conduct or services. A. W. Tozer ---
http://patriotpost.us/pub/06-24_Brief.htm
So much of the language in the
Constitution has been exaggerated from its initial meaning, or else
reinterpreted with ideology in mind, that there is public mystification about
what it is that is truly guaranteed, or truly prohibited. The question of
interpretation came up early in after the FBI searched the office of Rep.
William Jefferson, D-La., finding evidence that the gentleman had been accepting
and paying bribes and falsifying his tax returns... The issue was almost
immediately raised that the FBI agents were exercising themselves outside their
constitutional competence. This vague point has affected the thinking of those
who are attracted to theoretical extrapolations on the Bill of Rights, taking
its provisions to lengths that would surely have surprised the Founders. If the
Constitution's rule separating church and state can be held to mean that a
replica of the scene at Bethlehem cannot be constitutionally displayed on state
property, then maybe Mr. Jefferson is indeed protected, giving credibility to
the new Hastert-Pelosi exegesis of the Constitution. But stare down hard at the
language. The Constitution holds that lawmakers are 'privileged from arrest
during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going
to and returning from the same.'... This has nothing to do with Mr. Jefferson's
case. Which means that those who say that the FBI should not have had access to
the congressman's home or office are extending that constitutional provision to
the point of immunity from search... What the defense will plead in the case of
Rep. Jefferson we cannot know for certain. But to plead the procedural
point—that the FBI had no business in his freezer—is cartoon constitutional
reductionism. William F. Buckley ---
http://patriotpost.us/pub/06-24_Brief.htm
Perched on the edge of a white grand
piano and decked out in a full-length evening gown, the former CBS and CNN
anchorwoman (Connie Chung) warbled a
farewell song that put down Dan Rather (with whom she co-anchored the CBS news
in the early 1990s), her husband and cable TV - all at the same time. Michael Shain, "CONNIE CROAKS
ADIEU," The New York Post, June 19, 2006 ---
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/connie_croaks_adieu_entertainment_michael_shain.htm
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G. Smith and
Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how theory
development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions changed over
time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I proceed
through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will take some time
to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
Transaction Cost Economics: The Process of Theory Development
OLIVER E. WILLIAMSON
PG. #485 & 486 WILLIAMSON Transaction cost economics is
an interdisciplinary research project in which law, economics, and organization
theory are joined (Williamson, 1985). Although the operationalization of
transaction cost economics began in the 1970s and has continued to develop in
conceptual, theoretical, empirical, and public policy respects since, many of
the key ideas out of which transaction cost economics (TCE) works have their
origins in path-breaking contributions in law, economics, and organization
theory from the 1930s. It was not, however, obvious how these key ideas were
related, much less how they could be fruitfully combined. Two follow-on
developments--the interdisciplinary program for doing social science research
that took shape at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) at
Carnegie-Mellon University during the late 1950s and early 1960s; and new
developments in the market failure literature during the 1960s--were needed to
set the stage.1
As for my own involvement, I seriously doubt that I would have
perceived the research opportunity presented by TCE but for my training in the
Ph.D. program at GSIA (from 1960 to 1963).2 More than such
training, however, would be needed. My teaching, research, and public policy
experience during the decade of the 1960s all served to alert me to the research
needs and opportunities posed by TCE.
This chapter is organized in seven parts. Section 23.1
describes seminal contributions from the 1930s. Follow-on developments in the
1960s are examined in 23.2. My training, teaching, research, and involvement
with public policy during the decade of the 1960s are sketched in 23.3. The
foregoing led into what, for me, was a transformative research project: my paper
on "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations"
(1971), which is described in 23.4. Some reflections on TECe as it has evolved
since are set out in 23.5. I discuss the "Carnegie Triple"--be disciplined, be
interdisciplinary; have an active mind--in 23.6. Concluding remarks follow.
1 The
operationalization of TCE is the result of the concerted effort of many
contributors. A selection of some of the more influential articles can be found
in Williamson and Masten, Transaction Cost Economics, Vols. 1 and II
(1995). Also see Claude Menard (2005).
2 For
an autobiographical sketch of earlier events and people that were influential to
my training and intellectual development, see Williamson (1995). Although good
instincts helped me to make the "right choices" at critical forks in the road, I
also had the benefit of a number of exceptional advisors and teachers--and
fortunately often had the good sense to listen.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, PhD
’72, and Robert I. Sutton would like to foment a little revolution—one in
which leaders in business and the world at large base their decisions on
facts and logic, not ideology, hunches, management fads or poorly understood
experience. Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational
Behavior, and Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering and,
by courtesy, of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business,
are the authors of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense:
Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (Harvard Business School Press,
2006). STANFORD asked them about bringing more
reason to organizational life.
What’s some of the total
nonsense that occurs in companies?
Sutton: Probably the biggest single problem
for human decision making is that when people have ingrained beliefs, they
will put a much higher bar for evidence for things they don’t believe than
for things they do believe. Confirmation-seeking bias, I think, is what
social psychologists call it. Organizations can have amazingly good
evidence, but it has no effect on the decisions they make if it conflicts
with their ideology.
Do you have a favorite
unsupported belief?
Pfeffer: One would be stock options. There
are more than 200 studies that show no evidence that there is a relationship
between the amount of equity senior executives have and a company’s
financial performance. . . . Just as you would never bet on a point spread
on a football game because it encourages bad behavior, you should not reward
people for increasing the spread in an expectations market.
Overreliance on financial incentives of all sorts
drives all kinds of counterproductive behavior.
Evidence-based management
derives from evidence-based medicine. Explain what kind of decision making
we’re talking about.
Tomorrow's Gadgets
Matt Swanston and Sean Wargo from the Consumer Electronics Association will
answer questions about what kinds of gadgets, gizmos, robots and other
technology we can expect for the future.
Space Exploration
Michael J. Braukus, from NASA's Office of Exploration, will be online to
answer questions about the future of the space program.
Farewell Information, It's a Media Age
As director of the Institute for the Future, Paul Saffo explores long-term
technological change and its practical impact on business and society. In a
recent essay (pdf), he looks at how the Web will shape tomorrow.
When Robots Attack
Daniel H. Wilson, a robotics expert, created a survival guide to help us
ensure we're safe the day robots take over the world. Join him in an encore
discussion to learn what precautions to take during an uprising.
The Environment
Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin answered questions about the
future of the Earth's oceans, and what may happen without preservation
efforts.
When Humans Transcend Biology
Futurist Ray Kurzweil was online to discuss his Singularity theory: an era
where humans and technology converge. As a noted inventor, he is credited
for work with music synthesis, speech recognition, virtual reality and
cybernetic art.
Revolutionary Wealth
"Future Shock" author Alvin Toffler discussed his new book, co-written with
his wife Heidi, which focuses on how to create the wealth of tomorrow. The
book explains how upheavals in social and political values are necessary for
an economic transformation.
Radical Evolution
What will it mean to be human in next 15 years? Washington Post staff writer
Joel Garreau explored that question with an online discussion based on his
interviews with thinkers and scientists from his book "Radical Evolution."
Reality of Science Fiction
Brenda Cooper, a science fiction author and writer for Futurist.com, will
discuss what aspects of some of your favorite SF books may actually come
true.
Badjocks
Northwestern University
announced Wednesday that its women’s soccer coach had resigned, in the wake
of a
controversy over hazingthat prompted the team’s
suspension last month. Northwestern is one of numerous institutions that have
been caught up in the publication by several Web sites, including
Badjocks and
The NCAA Is Weak on Hazing,
of photographs of apparently drunk and occasionally nude athletes hazing, being
hazed, or in post-hazing stupors. Inside Higher Ed, June 22, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/22/qt
Students’ personal and social responsibility The Association of American Colleges and Universities
announced Wednesday a new $2 million program, supported by the John Templeton
Foundation, to work with colleges to promote
students’ personal and social responsibility.
Programs will be designed that help encourage students’ work ethic, sense of
academic integrity, competence in moral reasoning, and vision of themselves as
part of larger communities. Inside Higher Ed, June 22, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/22/qt
Genes, Not Experience Explain Why The Lives Of Some Take Bad Turn Take the conventional wisdom that their parents'
divorce increases the risk that children will develop depression. "It turns out
that the increased risk of depression in these children reflects a common
genetic liability in the parents and kids," says Brian D'Onofrio of Indiana
University, Bloomington. Since depressed people have more trouble getting and
staying married, this genetic risk of depression raises their risk of divorce,
he finds in a study submitted for publication. Parents pass that risk of
depression to kids through DNA, not failed marriage. "The same genetic risk that
makes the parents more likely to divorce also makes the kids more likely to
develop depression," he says.
Sharon Begley, "Genes, Not Experience Explain Why The Lives Of Some Take Bad
Turn," The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2006; Page B1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/science_journal.html
First Molecular Proof That Some Aspects of Aging Are
Out of Our Control There’s no argument that eating well, exercising
wisely, and avoiding high risk behaviors can increase one’s chances for a
longer, healthier old age. But it’s also obvious that in many ways the aging
process is out of our control; that despite our best efforts (in concert with a
genetic make-up that makes us more or less susceptible to certain diseases) our
cells and tissues ultimately degenerate and eventually die. While scientists
have long suspected that events outside our control can result in aging, a study
led by Buck Institute faculty member Jan Vijg, PhD, provides the first direct
evidence that the molecular machinery of our cells providing function to our
tissues and organs spins irreversibly out of control as we age. The study
appears in the June 22 edition of Nature.
"First Molecular Proof That Some Aspects of Aging Are Out of Our Control,"
PhysOrg, June 21, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news70115352.html
Question
Will a little cinnamon daily reduce cholesterol?
Q:About a year ago I read
that taking one-half to one teaspoon of cinnamon daily would have positive
effects on cholesterol. I began mixing cinnamon in a small amount of yogurt.
Three months later my HDL (good cholesterol) level had gone from 45 to 68.
My triglyceride count went down 30 points. Do you know about the effects of
cinnamon? -- M.E.
A: There is some evidence that
cinnamon may lower both blood sugar and cholesterol. Unfortunately, most of
the research has been in rats. About three years ago, the medical journal
Diabetes Care did publish a small study from researchers in Pakistan of
daily cinnamon use among adults with type 2 diabetes. The 60 patients
studied took either a placebo or cinnamon twice a day, using various doses
not exceeding one teaspoon a day. After 40 days, cinnamon use appeared to
reduce fasting glucose levels as much as 29%, triglycerides by as much as
30%, LDL cholesterol as much as 27%, and total cholesterol by as much as
26%. No meaningful changes were seen in HDL.
Last month, German researchers
published new data that also supported cinnamon use for patients with
diabetes, but didn't show any real differences for cholesterol. These 79
patients took either a cinnamon extract or a placebo capsule three times a
day for four months. The extract amounted to about a teaspoon of cinnamon
powder per day. Cinnamon users showed a 10% drop in fasting blood-sugar
levels, compared with just a 3% drop among placebo users. There were no
significant differences in cholesterol levels between the two groups.
Another Dutch study of 25 postmenopausal women with diabetes showed no
benefit of cinnamon use for either diabetes control or cholesterol.
So the data on cinnamon are clearly
mixed. None of the studies showed any side effects with one teaspoon of
daily cinnamon, but patients shouldn't assume more cinnamon might be better.
The spice can be toxic in large doses, but there's no harm in sprinkling
limited amounts on your oatmeal or in your yogurt if you enjoy it. Cinnamon
use shouldn't give you a false sense of security. It could be that your
daily yogurt was part of an overall improvement in your eating habits and
that the real reason for your improved HDL score was the result of eating a
more healthful diet and other lifestyle changes.
Jensen Comment
It's less likely to be effective if the cinnamon is on a big sticky bun with
lots of frosting.
Is socialized medicine the prescription for better
health? A recent study comparing Americans and Canadians, widely reported in
the press, seems to suggest just that. But there is much less here than
meets the eye.
The study, based on a telephone survey of 3,500
Canadians and 5,200 Americans (conducted by Statistics Canada and the U.S.
National Center for Health Statistics), was released by the American Journal
of Public Health. According to it, Canadians are healthier and have better
access to health care than Americans, and at lower overall cost. So is the
Canadian system, where the government pays for and manages the health-care
system, superior? "Our study," says co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, "is a
terrible indictment of the U.S. health-care system. Universal coverage under
a national health insurance system is key to improving health."
It is not so clear that the survey data back up
these claims. Consider access. According to the survey, Canadians are more
likely to have a regular physician, to have seen a doctor in the past year,
and to be able to afford medications. But the data are ambiguous; Americans
are more likely to have received a pap test and mammogram, as well as
treatment for high blood pressure. Moreover, Americans are generally more
satisfied with their health care. (The survey did not ask about access to
specialist care or diagnostic imaging.)
The survey's most trumpeted conclusion was that
Canadians are healthier than Americans. According to co-author Dr. David
Himmelstein, "We pay almost twice what Canada does for care, more than
$6,000 for every American, yet Canadians are healthier, and live two to
three years longer." The survey says Americans have higher rates of diabetes
(6.7% vs. 4.7%), arthritis (17.9% vs. 16.0%) and high blood pressure (18.3%
vs. 13.9%). Americans are also more likely to be obese and lead a sedentary
lifestyle. It's damning stuff. But we shouldn't confuse problems in public
health with flaws in health-care systems. Americans may be heavier than
Canadians, but this speaks more to genetics, diet, exercise and culture than
to the accessibility or inaccessibility of health services. The remedy for
obese Americans will be found in less fast food and more gym memberships.
So how does American health care actually measure
up? If we look at how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine
excels. Prostate cancer is a case in point. The mortality rate from prostate
cancer among American men is 19%. In contrast, mortality rates are somewhat
higher in Canada (25%) and much higher in Europe (up to 57% in the U.K.).
And comparisons in cardiac care -- such as the recent Heart and Stroke
Foundation of Canada study on post-heart-attack quality of life -- find that
American patients fare far better in morbidity. Say what you want about the
problems of American health care: For those stricken with serious disease,
there's no better place to be than in the U.S.
Socialized health-care systems fall short in these
critical cases because governments strictly ration care in order to reduce
the explosive growth of health spending. As a result, patients have less
access to specialists, diagnostic equipment and pharmaceuticals. Economist
David Henderson, who grew up in Canada, once remarked that it has the best
health-care system in the world -- if you have only a cold and you're
willing to wait in your family doctor's office for three hours. But some
patients have more than a simple cold -- and the long waits they must endure
before they get access to various diagnostic tests and medical procedures
have been documented for years. Montreal businessman George Zeliotis, for
example, faced a year-long wait for a hip replacement. He sued and, as the
co-plaintiff in a recent, landmark case, got the Supreme Court of Canada to
strike down two major Quebec laws that banned private health insurance.
Dr. Karen Lasser, the study's third author, says
that "Based on our findings, if I had to choose between the two systems for
my patients, I would choose the Canadian system hands down." Perhaps she
would. But as a physician licensed in both countries, I'd disagree.
Dr. Gratzer is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
The global economy for illicit goods
is massive, but by definition impossible to measure. What we do know is that
it is getting bigger. The number of counterfeit items seized at European
Union borders has increased by more than 1,000%, rising to over 103 million
in 2004 from 10 million in 1998. At U.S. borders, seizures of counterfeit
goods have more than doubled since 2001. Even allowing for improved
detection rates, there is little doubt that the situation is getting worse.
Today the EU and the U.S. will launch
a joint action strategy on the global enforcement of intellectual-property
rights. The groundbreaking agreement between the EU and the U.S. envisages
closer customs cooperation, including more data sharing. There are plans for
joint border enforcement actions, including in third countries, and the
creation of joint networks of EU and U.S. diplomats in third countries
working on intellectual-property protection.
Twenty years ago, counterfeiting
might have been regarded as a problem chiefly for the makers of expensive
handbags. In the 1980s, 70% of firms affected by counterfeiting were in the
luxury sector. But in 2004, more than 4.4 million items of fake foodstuffs
and drinks were seized at EU borders, an increase of 196% over the previous
year. In the U.S., seizures of counterfeit computers and hardware tripled
from 2004 to 2005. There are also fake electrical appliances, car parts and
toys. Even airplane parts are being pirated: The Concorde crash of 2000
appears to have been caused by a counterfeit part that had fallen off
another aircraft.
Perhaps most worrying is the booming
trade in counterfeit medicines, which were reckoned to account for almost
10% of world trade in medicines in 2004. A recent study in the Lancet
concluded that up to 40% of products labeled as containing the antimalarial
drug artusenate contain no active ingredients. Most of these fake drugs are
headed for the world's poorest countries. The World Health Organization
estimates that 60% of counterfeit medicine cases occur in developing
countries.
The popular view is that buying a
fake is a win-win game, so long as you know what you are paying for.
Everyone enjoys a bargain. But it's far too easy -- and wrong -- to write
off this kind of crime as not really harmful to anyone. Counterfeiting is
big business for criminal organizations that can affect entire sectors of
the international economy. And when pirates move into fake medicines and
fake car-parts, we move from rip-offs to potential tragedy.
The scale of counterfeiting matters
enormously for the EU and the U.S., who compete on their reserves of
innovation, invention and high-quality design and production. Piracy strips
that comparative advantage away. Our economies are adapting to low-cost
competition from the developing world. We have a right to expect that our
own comparative advantages be respected.
But it is not just the developed
world that has a stake in this fight. Tolerating counterfeiting almost
inevitably backfires. Developing countries that tolerate the existence of a
parallel illicit economy in their market will quickly lose the confidence of
foreign investors and services traders, and the technology transfer that
these bring with them. They also undermine the development of innovative and
creative businesses in their own economy. Although China is now taking steps
to better enforce its intellectual-property laws, it has for too long turned
a blind eye to these problems. Ironically, customs authorities are now
intercepting increasing numbers of Beijing 2008 Olympic knockoffs.
It is time for a new global strategy
and a much tougher global approach. All members of the World Trade
Organization have signed agreements to fight counterfeiting. The new focus
has to be on enforcing the rules we already have against counterfeiting and
piracy in particular. Countries that have signed up to these rules should no
longer expect an easy ride if they don't implement them.
Question
I've encountered a number of ABD students with Watson's Syndrome?
I imagine you've encountered a few as well.
Do you know the symptoms?
I first encountered Watson’s Syndrome as a
second-year master’s student at a prestigious university in the Northeast. The
syndrome is named after the first person I observed exhibiting pronounced
symptoms of what is now referred to clinically as “Watson’s Syndrome.” The
“Watson” case illustrates the progression to a full blown syndrome . . .
Joseph Gelpher, "Beyond a Sense of Place," Inside Higher Ed, June
22, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/22/gelfer
Moving Ahead on Admissions Reforms Lloyd Thacker founded the
Education Conservancytwo years ago out of the
belief that the admissions system is out of control and that obsessions over
rankings, money, prestige and testing are hurting students. While Thacker almost
immediately attracted fans in the admissions world, last week’s meeting marked a
shift in his reform movement as many of the participants were
presidents of elite liberal arts colleges.The
meeting was held at New York University’s Steinhardt Institute for Higher
Education Policy.
Scott Jaschik, "Moving Ahead on Admissions Reforms," InsideHigherEd, June
20, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/20/admit
Worldwide, the number of millionaires has nearly
doubled since Merrill Lynch found 4.5 million of them in 1996.
Last year's 6.5 percent growth in millionaires
slowed slightly over last year's 6.6 percent, with the US and Europe slowing
most alongside their cooling economies.
But the ranks of the ultra-rich - those worth more
than $30 million - climbed by more than 10 percent to 85,400.
advertising Merrill Lynch said the ultra-rich did
better because they found "select pockets" of high-growth investments in
Asia, Latin America and the Mideast, while most investors stuck with stodgy
earnings in North America and Europe.
North America held a slight edge over Europe in the
population of millionaires, with 2.9 million to Europe's 2.8 million. Asia
counted 2.4 million, Latin America 300,000 and Africa 100,000.
The world's millionaires are increasingly branching
out from their home countries, with 65 percent paying attention to foreign
markets and 30 percent buying homes overseas, the study found.
Growth of private equity holdings in 2005 outlined
an increasing preference for aggressive assets, with investors funneling
cash into emerging markets, while unloading fixed-income bank deposits and
bonds.
That phenomenon is only supposed to grow, as some
$41 trillion is expected to be passed to heirs over the next four decades,
and money managers saying more than 80 percent of inheritors will want to
boost their international exposure.
Dubai might be one destination. Bazzy said the ease
of investment and galloping economic growth in the mushrooming city was
spurring the world's premier companies to set up businesses here.
"There are no unions, no taxes and administration
is very easy. Barriers to entry are going lower and lower," Bazzy said.
Overall, the UAE counts 59,000 millionaires, while neighboring Saudi Arabia
had 80,000, Bazzy said.
The Wall Street Journal Flashback, June 22, 1994
E-mail Backlash: John Sculley, Apple Computer Inc.'s
chairman, tells his pals to fax -- not e-mail -- important messages. One
computer executive even shuts down his company's e-mail system for half the
work day -- he finds it unproductive.
Inquiry Into Florida For-Profit University Widens Florida's attorney general expanded his investigation
of allegedly misleading sales tactics at for-profit Florida Metropolitan
University, demanding records detailing the school's job-placement rates,
grading, instructor qualifications, financial aid and course prices. The inquiry
by Charlie Crist, the state's top legal officer, intensifies government scrutiny
of for-profit career colleges, whose success has sparked fierce debate among
educators and in Congress. U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation that would
ease longstanding restrictions that curbed at least some of their rapid growth.
Unlike the trade schools of the past, these for-profits have moved aggressively
to offer bachelor's, master's and even professional degrees, taking on
conventional universities.
"Inquiry Into Florida For-Profit University Widens," by John Hechinger, The
Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2006; Page A12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115093577533487007.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jeremy Siegel ("The
'Noisy Market' Hypothesis," editorial page, June
14) blithely blames advisers for advocating capitalization-weighted indexes
when in fact academics were the drivers. While individual advisers can move
their small set of clients in any direction, academics have to consider that
their research would apply to everyone. By definition everyone constitutes
the total market and the total market can be held only on a cap-weighted
basis.
But he redeems himself with the noisy
market hypothesis, though in a way he might not have considered. With one
blow we are rid of the justification for CEO pay bloat on the basis that the
shareholders have been rewarded with a higher stock price. Noisy markets
imply that the higher price may only be a chimera of temporary
overvaluation. To Prof. Siegel's factors of diversification, liquidity and
taxes I would add financial manipulation by the group most rewarded by
overvaluation -- stock-option-laden senior management. Now that their cover
is blown, shareholders and their boards can work to ensure that high pay is
earned by real gains in fundamental value.
Good morning, I just had the dogs out
and saw a "log" with eyes laying in the lake. I didn't have my contacts in
yet, so I hurried up and got the dogs back inside and I noticed it was
getting closer. I ran inside, put my contacts in, grabbed my binoculars and
ran back outside and he was right in front of our house (in the back yard).
Another neighbor across the lake was also watching him and Fred woke up and
came out to see. He finally went out of sight and now I have to leave for
the day---Fred will walk the dogs in the front of the house where there is
no water, but it's just tooooo scarey!!!
Thought you'd want me to share my scare!!! Good Day
Mates
Talk about back wages due: A federal judge in
Phoenix this month said that Northern Arizona University owes $1.4 million
to a group of professors who have been pursuing justice through the courts
since 1995. The 40 teachers, all white men, argued that they were
discriminated against when the public university gave raises to minority and
female faculty members in the early 1990s but not to white males. Not only
that--the plaintiffs said in a Title VII civil-rights suit--the salary bumps
resulted in some favored faculty members earning more than white men in
comparable positions.
The lawsuit and its outcome are yet another
striking illustration of the perils of affirmative action, with its often
contorted logic of redress and blame and its tendency to commit exactly the
sort of discrimination that it was designed to prevent.
The university may persuade U.S. District Court
judge Robert Broomfield to lower the bill for what is effectively back pay
to the professors. But the school is also facing a claim for the plaintiffs'
legal expenses. Their attorney, Jess Lorona, tells us that, with more than a
decade of litigating on both sides totted up, the cost to Arizona taxpayers
could soar to $2.5 million.
What happened here? The professors' victory, it
should be said, is not a sweeping defeat of affirmative action, and the
plaintiffs didn't ask for one. The university maintains that when it raised
pay for certain faculty it was simply following a federal mandate to
eliminate race or gender wage disparities. What got the school in trouble
was not "catch up" payments per se but the way it made them. Even so, "the
reverberations are going to be tremendous," attorney Lorona predicts. He
explains that this decision "sets out case law about what needs to be done
when you're trying to cure pay inequity."
Lesson One: You should probably prove that
discrimination exists rather than just infer it from dodgy statistics. In
1993, the university's then-president, Eugene M. Hughes, assumed there had
been discrimination, based partly on a study he'd commissioned. The study
used salaries at other schools to help determine a theoretical median wage
that should prevail at Northern Arizona. A lot of white males there fell
below the median, but the significant finding for President Hughes was the
one that showed minorities and women under a "predicted" par.
As Judge Broomfield noted in 2004, the initial
study ignored factors such as whether people held doctorates. At any rate,
the study's own figures indicated that white faculty were earning only about
$87 a year more than minorities, and men were making about $751 more than
women. Mr. Hughes's solution: raises of up to $3,000 for minorities and
$2,400 for women. White men got nada.
Does affirmative action give false hopes to African Americans
graduating from law schools The other article — not yet available online or
published — will appear in the North Carolina Law Review. This article examines
the attrition of black lawyers from top law firms and links their departures to
their poor grades in law school, which in turn the author has previously
attributed to the use of affirmative action to admit minority law students who,
on average, can’t compete at the same level with their white colleagues. A
previous article on affirmative actionby the same
author — Richard Sander — was one of the most discussed pieces of legal
scholarship in 2004, drawing both strong praise and intense criticism. Advocates
are already lining up to dissect the new Sander article, even before it has
appeared.
Scott Jaschik, "New Arguments on Affirmative Action," Inside Higher Ed,
June 21, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/21/affirm
In addition to a free annual credit report, you can get a
report following ID theft
Consumers who have evidence of attempts to open
fraudulent accounts in their name should contact those creditors
immediately, and file a report with the local police department. If
possible, obtain a copy of the police report, or at least the police report
number. Evidence of fraudulent activity allows victims to request that a
90-day fraud alert be extended to seven years, though a credit bureau will
require proof of identity and a copy of the police report.
Placing a fraud alert entitles you to a free copy
of your credit report from each of the major bureaus, in addition to a free
report the law allows every consumer to request annually. If you get a
fraud-related credit report, Givens advises waiting a few months before
ordering the annual free one.
Alert the credit bureaus and credit issuers in
writing of any inaccurate information or fraudulent accounts listed in your
credit reports. You also have the right to have the credit bureaus strike
any inquiries against your credit history that were generated by fraud.
For many identity-theft victims, being denied a
loan or line of credit or receiving a call from a debt collection agency is
the first sign of trouble. By law, if you inform a collector that a debt is
the result of identity theft, that collector also must inform the creditor,
and creditors are prohibited from selling debt that results from identity
theft or placing it for collection. You also are entitled to a copy of all
information about fraudulent debt, including late notices and account
statements.
At least 23 states have passed "security freeze"
laws that allow consumers to indefinitely prevent anyone from issuing credit
in their name. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin provide all
their residents with the option of placing a security freeze on their credit
files. Hawaii, Kansas, South Dakota, Texas and Washington currently provide
this option only to ID theft victims.
A number of state laws also are driving businesses
to alert consumers about potential data losses, but legislation being
considered on Capitol Hill could soon change that. Ed Mierzwinski, consumer
program director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer
watchdog group in Washington, said a bill recently passed by the House
Financial Services Committee and supported by the major financial
institutions would exempt companies from alerting consumers about data
thefts or losses if the company does not know whether that loss places the
consumer at a direct risk of identity theft. The bill also would reserve
credit freezes for ID theft victims only.
As Sweden, Germany, and most other parts of Europe are
cutting back on socialized benefits, Massachusetts is leading the way in the
U.S. with state-mandated universal health care and 12-weeks each year of fully
paid family leave in addition to vacation time
As Thomas takes her improvised leave,
lawmakers in her home state are hammering out what they hope will be a better
alternative. The Massachusetts legislature plans to vote this week on a bill
that would give all employees in the state 12 weeks of paid medical leave
annually--100% of their pay up to $750 a week and a guarantee to hold their
jobs--to care for newborns or sick relatives. If passed, the bill would mandate
the most generous paid-leave policy in the U.S.; it is the first of 24 similar
proposals pending this year. Family friendly and popular with female voters,
most of the bills are enjoying wide, bipartisan support, says Debra Ness,
president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. "We're seeing real
movement toward more paid leave."
"Time Off, With Pay? Massachusetts leads a push across the U.S. to give paid
family leave to every worker," by Kathleen Kingsbury, Time Magazine,
June 18, 2006 ---
Click Here
Question
Why are mutual funds and brokerage firms are still rotten to the core?
The SEC will shortly issue its
long-awaited final "interpretive release" on a brokerage industry practice
that would make Tony Soprano blush. Known as "soft dollars," the practice
involves a broker charging a fund manager commission fees five to 10 times
the market rate for a trade execution, in return for which the broker kicks
back a substantial portion in the form of "investment-related services" to
the manager. Magazines, online services, accounting services, proxy
services, office administration, computers, monitors, printers, cables,
software, network support, maintenance agreements, entrance fees for resort
conferences -- all these things are bought through brokers with soft
dollars. And in one of the industry's loveliest ironies, fund managers even
pay inflated commissions in return for trading cost measurement services
which invariably tell them that their brokers cost too much.
Why do the fund managers do it? Why
don't they buy items directly from their suppliers, and then choose brokers
on the basis of lowest trading cost? The reason is clear. If the fund
manager buys items directly from the suppliers, he pays with his firm's
cash. If he buys them through brokers when executing trades, however, the
law, or the SEC, lets him use his clients' cash.
How widespread is the practice? Some
95% of institutional brokers receive soft dollars, about a third of which
were found by the SEC in the late 1990s to be providing illegal services to
fund managers, well outside the scope of "investment-related." Surveys find
that fund managers routinely choose brokers based on criteria having nothing
to do with trade execution.
How much does this practice cost
investors? My own analysis suggests that the cost in bad trading alone
amounts to about 70 basis points a year, or about 14 times the estimated
cost of the market timing abuses that dominated headlines in 2004.
The Senate Banking Committee held
hearings on soft dollars in March 2004. Chairman Richard Shelby indicated at
the time that the SEC would "get more than a nudge" to eliminate clear
abuses, defined as services which could not reasonably be held to constitute
"research." So what has our champion of investor rights decided to do for
us? Punt the ball back to Congress. In its initial guidance last October,
expected to be substantially reiterated in the forthcoming final verdict,
the commission's long-awaited crack down amounted to little more than a
memorandum to fund managers instructing them to read the law, cut out a few
egregious abuses (office furniture is a no-no, though resort conferences are
still fine), and pay only "reasonable" commissions.
How does the "reasonable" commission
regime work in practice? Put simply, the higher the price tag on the
soft-dollar goodies, the more trading the fund manager does with the broker
to acquire them, which is clearly antithetical to investor protection.
To his credit, freshman SEC Chairman
Christopher Cox issued a thoughtful statement in advance of last October's
guidance, diplomatically describing soft dollars as an "anachronism" --
referring to the politics of unfixing fixed commissions 30 years ago, and
Congress's insertion of the Section 28(e) safe harbor into the Exchange Act,
allowing client trading commissions to pay for research. But it was under
the SEC's watch that the safe harbor ballooned into a safe coastal resort,
in which client-financed commission payments have become so generous that a
broker for one of the nation's largest fund management companies made the
headlines in 2003 by thanking the funds' traders with a lavish
dwarf-chucking bachelor party. It is therefore time for Congress and the SEC
to stop punting the ball back and forth, and for Congress finally to abolish
the "anachronism."
As a Wall Street Journal reader in
good standing, I'm not calling for more rules and market intervention. Quite
the opposite. It is in the nature of a government-sanctioned kickback scheme
that serial interventions by regulators will be required to pacify the
fleeced. This is a simple property rights issue, and treating it sensibly as
such would require less government intervention in the future.
The solution is simple. If a fund
manager wants to buy $10,000 worth of research, let him write a check to the
provider. That's how you and I would buy it -- we wouldn't expect to get it
by making a thousand phone calls through Verizon at 10 times the normal
price. There is a legitimate debate over whether the cost of research should
be charged to the fund manager, which would then recoup it transparently
through the management fee, or deducted directly from the clients' assets.
The first option was recommended by
former Gartmore chairman Paul Myners in his famous 2001 report to the U.K.
Treasury. The second would, in any case, be a dramatic improvement on the
status quo. If the government did not force funds to buy research through
brokers in order to pass the cost on to clients, the SEC's "best execution"
requirements, meaningless in a soft-dollar environment, would actually
become part of a fund manager's DNA. No longer forced to choose between soft
dollars for his firm or good trades for his client, he will finally have an
incentive to seek out value-for-money in both research and trading, as it
will benefit both his firm and his client.
What do mutual fund traders think? At
a November conference, I surveyed 35 of them anonymously. The majority, 46%,
said that fund managers should buy independent research with "hard dollars,"
out of their own assets rather than those of the investors; 37% backed
option two above, paying the providers directly rather than through
commissions, which the SEC currently prohibits. A mere 17% supported the
status quo, soft dollars. The problem is that fund managers have no
incentive to move away from soft dollars while their competitors are legally
using them to inflate profits.
So who actually loses from Congress
correcting its mistake? Brokers. But shed no tears for them. Middlemen
always lose when kickback schemes are ended.
Mr. Steil is director of international economics at
the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jensen Comment
I like the way she writes. I can recall being on committees like this committee.
The Accountant and Lawyer Preservation Act is Protected by
Ignoramuses and Professional Lobbies As a financial adviser, I spend much of my time helping
clients decide how to handle their estate tax liability. . . . It's not that
hard to structure an estate to avoid the tax. That's what the thousands of
accountants, lawyers and financial planners do. From my perspective, the estate
tax is purely optional. So repeal is unnecessary except for the uninformed, the
unfocused or those people who are unwilling to pay their financial planning team
a little more to make the tax go away or be reduced. People pay their
professionals to avoid lots of income tax legally, and they do it every year.
Why is it so hard for them to pay a little every few years to review the estate
plan and avoid much or all of the estate tax?
"Myth, Reality and the Estate Tax," The New York Times, June 12, 2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
In my highly subjective opinion the estate tax should remain with alternative
minimum tax provisions that take a progressive portion of estates valued at $1
million and higher. This AMT should not allow lawyers and accountants to
eliminate virtually all of the taxes due on such estates.
Gore's Movie Gets an A Grade for Politics and a F Grade for
Science
"Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe:
"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists," by Tom Harris,
Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006 ---
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm
"Scientists have an independent obligation to
respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in
his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto
since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts
actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical
Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many
Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are
so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his
film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most
people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with
the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified
non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest
the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing
significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term
here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial
when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies
on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study
everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly
skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the
causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg
climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the
effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their
studies."
Another Success Story on the Internet:
Craigslist could make $500 million a year "Zen and the Art Of Classified Advertising: Craigslist could make
$500 million a year. Why not?" by Brian Carney, The Wall Street Journal, June
17, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008531
By almost any measure, Craigslist is a phenomenal
success. It is the seventh-most-popular Web site in the world, according to
the people who measure these things. The free online-classifieds site has
become the nightmare of newspaper executives everywhere it launches a list.
While it does not release financial statements, no one doubts--and its chief
executive does not dispute--that it is comfortably profitable and has been
so since 1999, about the time most other children of the dot-com boom
started running out of cash.
All the same, no one really questions that
Craigslist could be bigger--much, much bigger. The company took in a
relatively paltry $25 million or so in revenue last year, while its peers
among the Internet's top 10 raked in billions. Since its founding,
Craigslist has been aggressively passive (newspapermen might say passively
aggressive) about monetizing its huge audience and user base.
There are no banner ads on Craigslist, just the
postings of its users, most of which are put online free of charge. CEO Jim
Buckmaster takes some pleasure in calling Craigslist a "trailing edge"
technology company. Its Web site is stubbornly minimalist and text-heavy,
with row after row of blue underlined hyperlinks and nary another color or
graphic in sight. One industry analyst has estimated that Craigslist could
generate 20 times that $25 million just by posting a couple of ads on each
of its pages. If the estimate is to be believed, that's half a billion
dollars a year being left on the table. What kind of company turns up its
nose at $500 million? That's what I'm here to find out.
Continued in article
"Picking Over Enron's E-Mail Remains," by Frank Ahrens,
The Washington Post, June 11, 2006, Page F06 ---
Click Here
Thanks to the combination of the Internet, software
that lets employers scan employee e-mail for objectionable material and the
evil genius of public relations, you can now search a bunch of Enron
e-mails. A company called InBoxer Inc. sponsors the search, as a way of
touting its business (
http://www.enronemail.com ).
One is from the office of the chairman (Lay) to
Houston employees, telling them that their hard work had pushed Enron stock
over $50 per share. In return, each would get 50 Enron stock options. Gee,
thanks.
There is a mournful exchange between two employees
in February 2002, two months after bankruptcy, bemoaning Enron
whistle-blower Sherron Watkins's $500,000 book advance. "I want what I had,"
one writes.
Others include mawkish lines between ex-lovers and
forwarded jokes, many of a sexual and otherwise offensive nature. (Remember
when we forwarded jokes via e-mail? How 1998.)
We love picking over the carcasses of big, dead
things. Here's one more way to do a little corporate autopsy.
SSRN interview with PrawfsBlawg
via Financial Rounds
Since I get so much material from them, giving
SSRN a plug is the least I can do.
Prawfsblog has an interesting interview with
Gregg Gordon of SSRN. Probably interesting mainly to academics, but....
On look-in:
SSRN was founded in 1994 by Michael Jensen
and Wayne Marr to provide an efficient means to distribute scholarly
research.Our motto, Tomorrow’s Research Today,
drives what we do every day.Tomorrow’s Research
Today means rapidly distributing research worldwide enabling
researchers around the world to be on the cutting edge of new ideas.
Bob Jensen Comment
The SSRN home page is at
http://www.ssrn.com/
Since I am such a huge fan of open sharing, a major disappointment for me is
that SSRN became a huge business operation charging fees per download or for
annual subscriptions. Many professors who previously would not charge to send
copies of their working papers for free now refer students and other interested
researchers to the fee-based SSRN. SSRN does provide a useful service, but it
has been at the expense of free open sharing. In fairness, the SSRN has become a
free site for some announcements and news.
I agree with your comment about huge business
operation.
I am not a particularly enthusiastic fan of SSRN
(the profit thing bothers me, and the fact that it is not comprehensive of
all SS disciplines also bothers me).
Perhaps the model in 1 or 3 could be emulated much
better in Accounting.
It is difficult to marry openness and profit motive
(except in successful marriages in humans).
Regards,
Jagdish
Many scientists oppose open access publishing At first glance, it seems that the research world
is united against the
Federal Research Public Access Act.Scholarly
associations are lining up to express their anger over the bill, which would
have federal agencies require grant recipients to publish their research papers
— online and free — within six months of their publication elsewhere. Dozens of
scholarly groups have joined in two letters — one organized by the
Association of American Publishersand
one by the
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
To look at the signatories (and the tones of the letters),
it would appear that there’s a wide consensus that the legislation is bad for
research. The cancer researchers are against it. The education researchers are
against it. The biologists are against it. The ornithologists are against it.
The anthropologists are against it. All of these groups are joining to warn that
the bill could undermine the quality and economic viability of scholarly
publishing.
Scott Jaschik, "In Whose Interest?" Inside Higher Ed, June 15, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/15/open
Question
In science it is somewhat common for published papers to subsequently be
withdrawn because the outcomes could not be replicated.
In the history of
accounting research has any published paper ever been "withdrawn" or “retracted”
because the results could not be replicated?
A Columbia University researcher has reportedly
retracted four more scientific papers because the findings could not be
replicated.
Chemistry Professor Dalibor Sames earlier this year
retracted two other papers and part of a third published in a scientific
journal, The New York Times reported Thursday. All of the papers involved
carbon-hydrogen bond activation research.
Although Sames is listed as senior author on all of
the papers, one of his former graduate students -- Bengu Sezen -- performed
most of the experiments, the Times said.
Sames said each experiment has been repeated by at
least two independent scientists who have not been able to replicate the
results.
Sezen, a doctoral student in another field at the
University of Heidelberg in Germany, disputed the retractions, questioning
whether other members of Sames's group had tried to exactly repeat her
experiments, the newspaper said.
The retraction of one paper, published in the
journal Organic Letters in 2003, appeared Thursday, while the three others
published in The Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2002 and 2003
are to be formally retracted later this month, the Times said.
Jensen Comment
What's disappointing and inconsistent is that leading universities pushed
accounting research into positivist scientific methods but did not require that
findings be verified by independent replication. In fact leading academic
accounting research journals discourage replication by their absurd policies of
not publishing replications of published research outcomes. They also do not
publish commentaries that challenge underlying assumptions of purely analytical
research. Hence I like to say that academic accounting
researchers became more interested in their tractors than their harvests.
I have not heard of any one in accounting
retracting his/her work. It does not surprise me because of what I see to be
the philosophical suppositions of most empirical accounting researchers.
In my opinion, most of us in empirical accounting
research are, in many ways, stuck with the philosophical suppositions of
late 19th and early 20th century positivists of the Vienna school, the most
vocal proponent of the ideas whose work I am familiar with is A.J. Ayer. In
his view of the world, a synthetic (that is, not an analytical) sentence
must be verifiABLE to be considered a scientific statement, and is added to
the stock of science when verified.
The physical sciences have passed by this view, and
in fact, in my opinion, regard the latter-day positivist Popperian ideas of
falsificationism to be the ideal. Here, a sentence is scientific if it is
FalsifIABLE. The stock of sentences that are not repeatedly falsified is
science in some sense. Therefore, in most physical sciences, when a
statement is falsified (by not being replicable) is treated as nonsense
rather than science. For example, when the theory about cold fusion in the
Utah experiments met failure in repeated attempts to replicate them, the
theory was treated as nonsensical and not scientific.
The unfortunate thing is that verification (or
falsification) is misinterpreted by most, since I don't think either Ayer or
Popper intended their views to form a theory of meaning.
The above approach has had a whole host of severe
critics. My shortlist would include C.S. Peirce, William James, Quine
(though a verificationist he did not accept logical positivism), Feyerabend,
Davidson, and a bunch of others.
We have twisted the meaning of Popperian as well as
Logical positivist thought to consider "scientific propositions" as those
"veriFIED" or "not falsiFIED". Philosopher of those schools, on the other
hand used veriFIABILITY and falsiFIABILITY as criterion to answer the
question whether a proposition is scientific or not. We mistake an epistemic
community for a theory of meaning. While it might help reaffirm our belief
in our epistemic community to do so, it certainly would not provide our
community a resilient philosophical foundation. It also would make us more
of a theological community.
Regards to all,
Jagdish
Question
What is the latest of countless acronyms on the scene --- IASESB?
The IAESB develops standards and
guidance on pre-qualification education, training, and continuing professional
development for all members of the accountancy profession. The board’s standards
are designed to promote consistency and quality in education and development for
professional accountants and prospective professional accountants. The
International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the global organization for the
accountancy profession, is seeking nominations for a public member for the
independent International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB).
Nominations must be made by June 23, 2006.---
http://www.ifac.org/News/LastestReleases.tmpl?NID=11492650758055684
I'd appreciate if you'd place a link back to my
site using the following link and description: Title : Free classical study
Resources URL Address :
http://classicalstudy.luckycontent.com
Description : - New and exciting site provide information about classical
study Resources and Directory
If you'd like the description of your site modified
or if you have any other cross-promotion ideas just drop me a line.
I`m sorry if I bother you.
Best regards,
Diana Lance
Classical Study Resources
So if this sounds all nihilistic and grim, like an
unending hamster wheel of futility or (my favorite metaphor) like being rotated
on a George Foreman Rotisserie Oven in Hell, you would be correct. Don’t get mad
at me, get even, and write that novel.
Interesting Blog noted in Newsweek Magazine, February 13, 2006, Page 14.
Bookfraud: A middlebrow look at the world of a struggling novelist facing
middle age. At least 65 percent not depressing.
In a shocking rip-off of taxpayers,
federal hurricane relief bought "Girls Gone Wild" videos, Caribbean
vacations and French champagne, as thousands of brazen scam artists bilked
the government out of $1.4 billion, a bombshell report reveals.
Although the aid was intended to shelter and clothe
thousands of devastated families from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the audit
to be presented to Congress today shows a widespread criminal splurge of
debauchery and excess while the feds were asleep at the switch.
One evacuee scammed a luxurious $1,000 vacation at
Punta Cana, a resort area in the Dominican Republic.
Another spent $300 on "Girls Gone Wild" videos at a
Santa Monica, Calif., store.
Some opted for live entertainment: An evacuee spent
$600 at a "gentlemen's club" in Houston, and another doled out $400 on
"adult erotica products" at a Houston store called The Pleasure Zone.
"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security
Committee's subcommittee on investigations. The panel will conduct the
hearing today.
"Prosecutors from the federal level down should be
looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed
them in jail for a long time."
CBS News reported last night that 7,000 people could
be charged.
As much as 16 percent of the total aid was hijacked
by con artists, the report concludes.
A copy of today's testimony about the audit was
obtained last night by The Post.
One "victim" rode out the storm's aftermath by
spending $300 at a San Antonio Hooters - and $200 for a bottle of Dom
Perignon.
The feds also covered one person's three-month stay
for a Honolulu hotel for $115 per night. The alleged scammer also collected
$2,358 in rental assistance - despite residing in North Carolina, not New
Orleans.
Anticipating the city's rebirth, another evacuee
spent $2,000 on five New Orleans Saints season tickets.
But one evacuee was more practical, spending $1,000
to pay a divorce lawyer.
Closer to home, one rip-off artist double-dipped in
Queens - collecting $31,000 to cover an extended $149 per night at the
Ramada Plaza Hotel while also taking $2,358 in rental assistance.
Most of the hucksters used phony names and
addresses to collect Katrina housing aid. Many listed post-office boxes, and
some even used New Orleans cemeteries - but the hapless feds failed to check
up on them.
Most fraud occurred because the Federal Emergency
Management Agency "did not validate the identity of the registrant,"
according to investigators.
Incredibly, the feds handed out millions in
emergency housing aid to 1,000 people who used the names and Social Security
numbers of prison inmates in a half-dozen states across the south.
FEMA paid more than $20,000 to one prisoner who
used a post-office box as the address of his "damaged property." It sent 13
payments to one person who filed claims at the same address using 13 Social
Security numbers.
A federal investigator sniffing out mismanagement
listed a vacant lot as a damaged address - and still got a $2,358 check.
"This is absolutely disgraceful," said Rep. Peter
King (R-L.I.). FEMA "loses a billion in Katrina at the same time it's
cutting 40 percent of [anti-terror] funding to New York City," he added.
The radically different buffet-style Stanford University MBA customizable
curriculum resembles, in spirit, the new buffet undergraduate curriculum at
Harvard University
Some possible problems this creates include the following:
Students may seek out popular professors who are not necessarily the
"best" professors for their education needs. This becomes especially a
problem when the student may shy away from a hard-grading and or hard
assignment professor who really teaches an important course for their
particular concentration.
Students may avoid hard topics such as a finance course on derivative
financial instruments or an accounting course that teaches data structures
and database usage.
Students who choose the easier tracks may graduate cum laude with higher
gpas than students who chose the harder routes. I hope recruiters are smart
enough to look beyond grade averages for students who emerge from Stanford's
new MBA curriculum.
Four key elements characterize the Stanford MBA
Program’s new educational model: 1) a highly customized program; 2) a
deeper, more engaging intellectual experience; 3) a more global curriculum;
and 4) expanded leadership and communication development.
First, the new curriculum will be customized
to each student. After a common program in the first quarter, students
will face no specific required courses, but rather a set of distribution
requirements that will give them the breadth of knowledge a general
manager requires. The suite of requirements will vary by pace, depth,
and assumed knowledge in order to challenge every student regardless of
past experience. Further, in some cases “flavors” of a given topic will
be offered, so that students can tailor their curriculum to their career
goals.
To take advantage of this flexibility, students will need good
information and advice about the options available. The first quarter of
studies will be devoted in large measure to this. Students will take
courses that raise fundamental questions of managerial relevance and
that point to where answers may be found. These courses will include
Teams and Organizational Behavior, Strategic Leadership, Managerial
Finance, and The Global Context of Management.
Students also will form an advising relationship with a member of the
faculty. Aided by placement exams, the student and his or her advisor
will craft an individual study plan. Students come to the MBA Program
with extremely diverse academic and work experience and varying career
goals. The new program will channel students into courses that will
challenge and prepare them, regardless of their background.
Second, the new curriculum will foster a much
deeper intellectual exploration of both broad and narrow subjects. This
will begin in a fifth course, tentatively titled Critical Analytical
Thinking, taken in the first quarter. In seminars of fewer than 20
people, students will examine issues that transcend any single function
or discipline of management, such as: What responsibilities does a
corporation have to society? When do markets perform well, and when do
they perform poorly? When does it make sense to exercise discretion;
when should relatively rigid rules govern behavior? Students will be
taught to think and argue about such issues clearly, concisely, and
analytically, setting the tone for the rest of the program.
Then, in satisfying distribution requirements and in general electives,
students will be pressed to think across disciplines and functions. They
will be encouraged to think deeply and on their own. Improved placement
will engage students more effectively. A second-year fall schedule will
feature intensive one-week seminars, in which students will delve into
specific subjects. The School also plans to add to its complement of
Bass Seminars, funded in part by a recent $30 million gift from Robert
M. Bass, MBA ’74. The seminars, as small as 10 people, move students
beyond passive learning and into topics of their own choosing. Guided by
supervising faculty members, students are largely responsible for
creating the content of the seminars.
Third, the new plan calls for enhancements to
the School’s global management curriculum. This begins with the
first-quarter course on The Global Context of Management and
proceeds in two ways: The School will continue to globalize its cases
and course materials, and a global experience will be required of each
student during his or her two years at the School. This can be fulfilled
by a study trip, an international internship, an overseas
service-learning trip, or a student exchange, such as the School’s new
program with Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in
China.
Finally, the new curriculum includes expanded
leadership and communication development. The Strategic Leadership
course will integrate strategy with leadership development and
implementation. Critical Analytical Thinking will have as a major
feature the honing of students’ written and oral communication skills.
In a new capstone seminar near the end of the two years, students will
synthesize what they have learned, examine strengths and weaknesses in
their personal leadership style, and reflect on how they hope to achieve
their goals as they embark on their careers. These seminars are expected
to help students prepare for their jobs and for their careers.
“All this builds on the personal, collaborative
nature of the Stanford MBA experience,” said Joss. “We have much work ahead
of us. Taking this to a new level will require significant funding, a 5 to
10 percent increase in faculty, and ultimately, a new facility with flexible
classrooms to accommodate more and smaller seminars.”
The School has developed a building proposal, which
will be presented to the Stanford Board of Trustees in June. If accepted,
the Business School will pursue a plan for new buildings on the Stanford
University campus.
Lockheed Martin Corp. executive Manny Zulueta met
last month with seven colleagues to watch a DVD. In one scene, a worker
complains to his manager's boss after the manager yells at her workers. The
manager apologizes, but the worker soon feels the manager is retaliating by
giving him lousy assignments, nitpicking his work and reprimanding him for
arriving late.
Mr. Zulueta, Lockheed Martin's senior vice
president of shared services, then led what he says was a "nuanced"
discussion about the ethical issues involved. Employees rightly noted that
they needed more information to discern whether the manager's action was
indeed retaliatory, Mr. Zulueta says.
Experts laud this sort of contextual approach to
ethics training. But, they say, it is all too rare. As U.S. employers have
bolstered workplace ethics training in the wake of a rash of corporate
scandals earlier in the decade, they often deluged employees with long lists
of do's and don'ts.
ABSTRACT: In 1979, Australia abolished federal
inheritance taxes. Using daily deaths data, we show that approximately
50 deaths were shifted from the week before the abolition to the week
after (amounting to over half of those who would have been eligible to
pay the tax). Our findings suggest that the scheduled abolition of the
US inheritance tax may lead some deaths to be shifted from the last week
of 2009 into the first week of 2010.
Hmmmmmmmm, looks like they found the secret to
living longer.
Amy Dunbar University of Connecticut School of
Business Department of Accounting 2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041 Storrs,
CT 06269
From The Washington Post on June 12, 2006
An industry report predicts that the
World Cup will provide the catalyst for TV services on mobile phones to
start taking off, but real growth will occur over the next five years.
How much are mobile users expected to spend during this year's World Cup
to access streaming and broadcast services?
The Securities and Exchange Commission has
taken disciplinary action against more than 50 accountants in 2005 and
2006 for misconduct in scandals big and small. But few have paid a dime
to compensate shareholders for their varying levels of neglect or
complicity.
It also turns out that nearly half of them
continue to hold valid state licenses to hang out their shingles as
certified public accountants, based on an examination of public records
by The Associated Press.
So while the SEC has forbidden these CPAs from
preparing, auditing or reviewing financial statements for a public
company, they remain free to perform those very same services for
private companies and other organizations that may be unaware of their
professional misdeeds.
Some would say the accounting profession has
taken its fair share of lumps, particularly with the abrupt annihilation
of Arthur Andersen LLP and the jobs of thousands of auditors who had
nothing to do with the firm's Enron Corp. account. Meantime, the big
auditing firms are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in damages -
without admitting or denying wrongdoing - to settle assorted charges of
professional malpractice.
Individual penance is another matter, however,
and here the accountants aren't being held so accountable.
Part of the trouble is that there doesn't
appear to be an established system of communication by which the SEC
automatically notifies state accounting regulators of federal
disciplinary actions. In several instances, state accounting boards were
unaware a licensee had been disciplined by the SEC until it was brought
to their attention in the reporting for this column. The SEC says it
refers all disciplinary actions to the relevant state boards, so the
cause of any breakdowns in these communications is unclear.
Another obstacle may be that some state boards
do not have ample resources to tackle the sudden swell of financial
scandals. It's not as if, for example, the Texas State Board of Public
Accountancy had ever before dealt with an accounting fraud as vast as
that perpetrated at Houston-based Enron.
"We don't have the staff on board to manage the
extra workload that the profession has been confronted with over the
last few years," said William Treacy, executive director of the Texas
board. "So we contracted with the attorney general's office to provide
extra prosecutorial power."
Treacy said his office is usually notified of
SEC actions concerning Texas-licensed CPAs, but the process isn't
automatic.
With other states, communications from the SEC
appear less certain. If nothing else, many boards rely upon license
renewals to learn about SEC actions, but that only works if the
applicants respond truthfully to questions about whether they've been
disciplined by any federal or state agency. A spokeswoman for Georgia's
board said one CPA recently disciplined by the SEC had renewed his
license online without disclosing it.
Ransom Jones, CPA-Investigator for the
Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy, said most of his leads
come from other accountants, media reports and annual registrations.
"The SEC doesn't necessarily notify the board,"
said Jones, whose agency revoked the licenses of key players in the
scandal at Mississippi-based WorldCom.
Some state boards appear more vigilant than
others in policing their membership. The boards in California and Ohio
have punished most of their licensees who have been disciplined by the
SEC since the start of 2005.
New York regulators haven't yet penalized any
locals targeted by the SEC in that timeframe, though they have taken
action against two disciplined by the SEC's new Public Company
Accounting Oversight Board. It is conceivable that cases are underway
but not yet disclosed, or that some individuals have been cleared
despite the SEC's findings. A spokesman for the New York State Education
Department said all SEC referrals are probed, but not all forms of
misconduct are punishable under local statute. New rules now under
consideration would strengthen those disciplinary powers, he said.
Meanwhile, although the SEC deserves credit for
de-penciling those CPAs who've breached their duties as gatekeepers of
financial integrity, barely any of those individuals have been asked to
make amends financially.
No doubt, except for those elevated to CEO or
CFO, most accountants are not paid as handsomely as the corporate elite.
That said, partners from top accounting firms are were [sic] paid well
enough to cough up more than the SEC has sought, which in most cases has
been zero.
Earlier this year, in what the SEC crowed about
as a landmark settlement, three partners for KPMG LLP agreed to pay a
combined $400,000 in fines regarding a $1.2 billion fraud at Xerox Corp.
One of those fined still holds his license in New York.
"The SEC has never sought serious money from
errant CPAs," said David Nolte of Fulcrum Financial Inquiry LLP.
"Unfortunately, the small fines in the Xerox case set a record of the
amount paid, so everyone else has also gotten off easy."
It's not that the CPAs found culpable in
scandals don't deserve a right to redemption, or just to earn a living.
Most of the bans against practicing before the SEC are temporary,
spanning anywhere from a year to 10 years.
But the presumed deterrent of SEC action is
weakened if federal and state regulators don't work together on a
consistent message so bad actors don't get a free pass at the local
level.
How e-Business Blog Turned into a B2B Book Brian J. Carroll, author of the popular new book
Lead Generation for the Complex Sale™
(McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0071458972, $24.95) got many ideas for his book and honed
his writing style through his award-winning
lead generation blogwhich is regularly read by
thousands of marketers each week. Carroll’s experience shows that authors
can leverage a popular blog into a book deal and why smart publishers take
successful bloggers who want to write a book very seriously.
"How a Blog Turns Into a Book Deal: The Story of Brian Carroll’s Lead
Generation for the Complex Sale," PR Web, June 20, 2006 ---
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb396871.htm
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
SITESYour Company’s Conscience
www.e-businessethics.com
CPAs charged with keeping their firms and employers on the straight and
narrow will find PowerPoint presentations here on corporate reform,
Sarbanes-Oxley and the nature and scope of business ethics. Users can
find a link to the 2005 National Business Ethics Survey or read business
ethics case studies on Bridgestone/Firestone’s tire recall and the
much-publicized Napster Web site legal proceedings. Test your own ethics
with case scenarios and accompanying possible solutions.
Visit the Vault
www.aspow.com
CPAs will want to check out this Association of Coaching and Consulting
Professionals on the Web (ACCPOW) e-spot to register for instant access
to the free Coaching Business Weekly, which includes business
tips on practice building, management techniques and generating passive
revenue. A membership fee of less than $20 a month gives subscribers
discussion forums, tutorials and practice management articles on
deducting medical expenses, setting fees and five things a contract
should include. Here are other ACCPOW Web sites, linked at the bottom of
the home page:
www.assessmentgenerator.com
Looking to expand or rethink your client base? Take a free test-drive at
this Web stop to rate your marketing know-how and target niches, Web
design skills and even stress levels. Find free articles on how to
create and use value assessments to determine whether your service is an
“ideavirus” and how to recognize and fire a difficult client early.
www.coachinglab.com
CPAs who need help with HR matters can browse this pay-per-item
e-catalog of assessments, checklists and worksheets on business
management, finance, marketing and small business. Get resources for
writing a company profile, finding employees who are a perfect fit and
“virtualizing” your business, or rate your clients’ financial fitness.
www.coachingbridgelines.com
Interested in implementing teleconferences and teleseminars or arranging
focus groups for marketing purposes? Find help at this Web site and read
the free article “How to Organize a Successful and Profitable
Teleclass.”
On the Road Again?
http://businesstravel.about.com
CPAs on the go can find links here to the top seven frequent-flier
programs and a plethora of tips, from how to quickly book a business
trip to how to keep better records on the road. Sign up for a free
newsletter to read “Crazy Business Travel Stories.” The Women’s Travel
section offers advice for females traveling alone and the Travel Safety
and Health section tackles tips for Americans taking trips overseas.
There also are links to guidance geared to specific geographical areas
such as China and the Middle East.
New Computer Products Ranging From Awful to Great
"Bad Ideas, Good Ideas Some real stinkers, plus a few terrific products," by
Steve Bass PC World via The Washington Post, June 15, 2006 ---
Click Here
Video recorder for the video-capable iPods Next month, Belkin will begin selling a $70 plug-in
recorder for the video-capable iPods. It's called the TuneTalk Stereo, and
features twin mikes, plus a jack for hooking up an external mike. I haven't
reviewed it, so can't say how well it works. Another option is to buy an MP3
player with a built-in recorder, like Creative Technology's Zen Vision: M.
Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/mossberg_mailbox.html
Researchers have been trying to develop
effective ways to jam a camera for years, says Edward Delp, professor of
electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. A number of
companies, including Philips, Thomson, and Apogen Technologies, as well
as a handful of universities, have been working on projects and
prototypes. The Georgia Tech approach, which combines methods of
detecting a camera and the means to automatically prevent it from taking
pictures is "a nice technology," says Delp, that achieves these two
goals in one device, while also using infrared light to spot cameras, in
contrast to some other combination systems.
To locate a camera, the researchers exploited a
component of many digital cameras and camcorders: the charge-coupled
device (CCD) that converts light collected by a camera's lens into an
image stored in its memory. Because of its shape, a CCD is
retro-reflective, meaning it reflects incoming light back out at the
same angle. Taking advantage of this, the Georgia Tech device shines
infrared LED light, which is invisible to the human eye, at a distance
of about 20 feet, then collects video of these reflections with a
camcorder, Abowd explains. Then the video of the reflections is
transferred to a computer, where it's sent through image-processing
algorithms that pick out infrared light bouncing back. And to decrease
the chances of false positives -- infrared light reflecting off other
objects, such as eyeglasses and earrings -- the researchers added
image-processing algorithms that account for the specific shape of the
CCD reflections and those of other objects.
In the second step, to block the camera from
taking pictures, the device uses a projector that emits a narrow beam of
white light directly at a CCD. The beam saturates the CCD with varying
intensities of light, Abowd says, forcing the camera's electronics to
constantly adjust, and ultimately producing large white splotches that
cover about one-third of the recorded scene. The result: a low-quality,
if not worthless, recording or photograph.
Continued in article
Walt Mossberg Reviews Yet Another Way to Run Windows on a Mac
When Apple Computer announced back in April
that its new Intel-powered Macintosh computers could run the Windows XP
operating system as well as its own Mac OS X, the news was treated as a
big deal. It meant that people considering switching from Windows to the
Mac no longer had to worry about being unable to run the one or two
Windows programs they relied on that might have no equivalent on the
Apple platform. They could buy a Mac, work mainly in the nearly
virus-free Macintosh operating system, and simply fire up Windows
occasionally -- on the very same Mac -- to run any Windows software they
needed.
Now, there's an even better approach to running
Windows on a Mac. It's called Parallels Desktop for Mac, and it's from a
small Herndon, Va., company called Parallels. It emerges from testing
today and goes on sale for $79 at the company's Web site, parallels.com.
I've been testing Parallels Desktop on a new
MacBook Pro laptop, and have found it works very well, despite a few
drawbacks. I prefer it to Apple's solution, even though the Apple
approach is free and also works very well.
Apple's system, called Boot Camp, has one big
limitation: It allows you to run only one of the two operating systems
at a time, requiring you to reboot the computer to switch between them.
As a result, you can't quickly jump between Mac programs and Windows
programs. You can't, for instance, simultaneously download your
corporate email in Outlook using Windows while editing a home video in
iMovie using the Mac OS.
With Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can do
this. You can run any combination of Mac and Windows programs at the
same time, on the same screen. No rebooting is necessary. You can even
cut and paste material between Mac and Windows programs, and share files
between the two environments.
The Parallels approach, called virtualization,
runs Windows, with all its features, inside a window in the Mac
operating system. It creates a faux Windows PC, called a "virtual
machine," that co-exists with Mac OS X. You can devote the full screen
to either operating system or you can reduce Windows, and whatever
programs it's running, to a window on the Mac that can be dragged
anywhere on the screen and made as small or as large as you like.
Unlike Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop can run
every version of Windows back to Windows 3.1, not just Windows XP. It
can also run Linux and even older operating systems like OS/2 and
MS-DOS. You can even create and run multiple virtual machines, with
different operating systems inside, up to the limit of your Mac's
memory.
Virtualization isn't a new concept, and it's
not even new on the Mac. Microsoft offers a product called Virtual PC
for Mac that runs Windows inside a window on older, pre-Intel Macs. But
Virtual PC runs painfully slowly on these older Macs, and it can't run
every Windows program. It doesn't run at all on the new Intel-based
Macs.
Parallels Desktop runs Windows a little more
slowly than Apple's Boot Camp does because it is accessing the Mac's
hardware through the Mac operating system rather than directly, as in a
dual-boot system. But, in my tests, it was very snappy, as fast as many
regular Windows computers.
Inside my virtual Windows machine, I was able
to run programs like the Windows version of Microsoft Office, the
Windows versions of the Firefox Web browser, iTunes, Adobe Reader,
Google Earth and more. All worked well, as did Microsoft's Internet
Explorer Web browser, Google's Picasa photo program and Google's Google
Talk instant-messaging software.
I was able to do email in Apple's Mail program
while simultaneously watching a baseball game in Internet Explorer
inside my Parallels Desktop Windows virtual machine. I wrote part of
this column in the Windows version of Microsoft Word and part in the Mac
version, cutting and pasting between the two.
And, unlike Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop
doesn't require you to dedicate a fixed section, or "partition," of your
hard disk to Windows. Its virtual Windows computer is contained in a big
Mac data file that uses only as much space as Windows needs.
Continued in article
June 1, 2006 message from James L. Morrison
[jlm@nova.edu]
The June/July 2006 issue of
Innovate (www.innovateonline.info)
offers a range of practical ideas for using new
technologies in classrooms as well as ways to avoid common pitfalls
caused by technology. This is a one-time mailing to you; if you wish to
receive future announcements of new issues and our webcast schedules,
please take advantage of our free subscription at
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=subscribe
We open with Sir John Daniel and
Paul West’s exploration of how the digital dividends of technology
can be used to overcome the digital divide for impoverished nations
worldwide. They examine the challenges of bringing higher education to
developing nations and advocate open educational resources as a
potential solution to the problem.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=252
)
Our next three articles address
specific ways in which instructors have used the digital dividends
available to them in teaching. Ulises Mejias describes a graduate
seminar he taught on the affordances of social software--software that
allows for information exchange, collaboration, and ease of
communication. His students used the software while learning about it
and critiquing it, illustrating well the learning opportunities afforded
by this category of technology.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=260
)
S. Pixy Ferris and Hilary Wilder
examine wikis, one example of social software, as a way to bridge the
distance between students and teachers.
Adopting the linguistic theory
of Walter J. Ong, they see teachers as part of a print paradigm of
learning, whereas they propose that students are increasingly a part of
a secondary-oral paradigm characterized by certain attributes of both
oral-based cultures and print-based cultures. Wikis, they argue, can be
a pedagogical bridge between these two educational positions.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=258
)
Craig Smith focuses on chat, a common
way for online instructors to replace classroom discussion. He provides
a protocol to keep discussions focused and productive, helping teachers
realize the potential usefulness of an easily accessible technological
tool. (See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=246
)
Technology also presents some
problems in the classroom. The easy availability of apparently anonymous
information on the Internet blurs definitions of plagiarism. While tools
such as electronic plagiarism detectors have become more common,
Eleanour Snow argues that they are not enough. She advocates online
tutorials as an easy and effective way of teaching students about
plagiarism, and offers examples and links to tutorials for teachers
eager to begin the process of educating themselves and their students.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=306
)
Howard Pitler also sees a need
to make copyright guidelines clear, but argues that copyrights should be
more flexible. He offers guidance about how copyright works and
describes Creative Commons, a Web site that provides writers and artists
a way to select the rights that they want to reserve and make it clear
to others exactly what they are allowed to reproduce and alter.
(See
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=251
)
Another difficulty inherent in the
digital age is the notorious attrition rate in online education. While
noting that drop rates for online courses should not necessarily be
equated with lack of success, David Diaz and Ryan Cartnal acknowledge
that reducing attrition in such courses should still be on educators'
agendas. In addressing this issue they examine the impact of term length
on attrition rates, advocating a shorter length to enable time-strapped
students to complete the course more efficiently. (See
Please forward this announcement to
appropriate mailing lists and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to
advance their work. Ask your organizational librarian to link to
Innovate in their resource section for open-access e-journals.
1.
"Churchill: A Study in Greatness"
by Geoffrey Best (Hambledon & London, 2001).
On the night
after the attacks of Sept. 11, I remember getting home at about
2:30 a.m. and seeing on my nightstand a book I had been reading, a
prepublication copy of Roy Jenkins's forthcoming "Churchill." I picked
up this biography of a man who embodied every leadership principle I
value--courage, optimism, preparation and a determination to stand up to
bullies--and began reading about Churchill's becoming prime minister in
1940. Jenkins captures beautifully how Churchill led Britain through
months of nightly bombings, never losing his confidence in the will of a
free people. The Jenkins biography serves as a sort of middle ground
between "Churchill: A Life," the definitive eight-volume edition by
official biographer Martin Gilbert, and its one-volume abridgement.
Perhaps my favorite Winston Churchill biography of all, though, is
Geoffrey Best's "Churchill: A Study in Greatness," which combines all
the biographical information with a real sense of what it felt like to
be English in Churchill's era.
2.
"Jefferson and His Time" by Dumas Malone (Little, Brown, 1948-81).
I read the
first volume of Dumas Malone's superb Jefferson biography in college and
then later read the entire six-volume set for the pure joy of
experiencing magnificent writing about a great man. These Jefferson
books led me to others and ultimately to the conclusion that Jefferson,
more than anyone else, was the voice of American ideals. Malone uses
Jefferson's own papers and letters to bring to life the man who composed
the Declaration of Independence at age 33. Jefferson believed in limited
government and states' rights, but as president he was capable of
exercising enormous executive power--witness his engineering of the
Louisiana Purchase. Malone's depiction of our third president's
complexities remains relevant for political leaders today.
3.
"Herndon's Lincoln" by William Henry Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (Belford,
Clarke, 1889).
My mother was a
great storyteller and a natural teacher. She introduced me as a child to
the life of Abraham Lincoln--but when she read a short Lincoln biography
to me, she seamlessly weaved in anecdotes she recalled from her own
reading about him. As an adult, I went on to Carl Sandburg's wonderful
Lincoln biographies, "Abe Lincoln Grows Up" and "Abraham Lincoln: The
Prairie Years and the War Years," both of which I adored for their
thoroughness and for their understanding of the Midwest at a time when
it was the frontier of our young nation. But I especially appreciated
"Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life" by Lincoln's former
law partner, William Henry Herndon, for the sheer fun of experiencing a
biography written contemporarily by someone who knew him so well.
4. "Profiles
in Courage" by John F. Kennedy (Harper, 1956).
I read John F.
Kennedy's book when it was first published and can still remember how
inspired I felt as I followed the stories of eight senators who had
risked their political survival to do the right thing. One profile in
particular that stuck with me was that of Edmund Ross, the Kansas
Republican who cast the deciding vote for acquittal in the impeachment
trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Ross was no fan of Johnson's
but sensed that the trial was more about rounding up votes than weighing
the evidence. His decision to break ranks with his party ended Ross's
political career, but his principled stand has been vindicated by
history; Kennedy captures that dynamic expertly.
5.
"President Reagan" by Richard Reeves (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
My wife,
Judith, recently bought me Richard Reeves's book (subtitled "The Triumph
of Imagination"), which excels in depicting Ronald Reagan's management
style and unrelenting pursuit of his core principles: the restoration of
the American spirit, limited government, a strong defense and the defeat
of communism. For a longer-range look at the experiences that shaped
Reagan's values, I recommend "The Role of a Lifetime" and "A Life in
Politics," both by Lou Cannon, both works that do a remarkable job of
revealing the character of this amazing man.
Mr. Giuliani, a former mayor
of New York, is the author of "Leadership" and chairman and chief
executive of Giuliani Partners.
Over the past six months, we have witnessed the
publication of several pieces of classified information that appear to
be extraordinarily sensitive, and extremely important tactical
components of our ongoing effort to protect American citizens and
property from additional terrorist attacks: The New York Times
revelation last December of the NSA program conducting surveillance on
Al Qaeda communications into or out of the United States, which the
Times itself characterized as our "most closely guarded secret"; the USA
Today disclosure earlier this month that several telephone companies
were turning over databases of information about numbers
called--so-called pen registers; and the Washington Post's story that
some terrorists captured by U.S. forces were being held by the CIA in
undisclosed locations in allied countries.
No one contests that in each instance,
classified information was illegally provided to these media outlets and
then subsequently published by them. And to my knowledge, no one
seriously contends that the individuals who leaked the information are
not subject to prosecution for violating the Espionage Act (or even
subject to prosecution for treason if it could be proved that their
intent in leaking the classified information was to undermine our war
effort and thereby give aid and comfort to the enemy). Even those who
would seek to bestow on the leaker the protected status of
"whistle-blower" surely will acknowledge that the whistle-blower statute
requires that the allegedly illegal activities be reported internally,
through a certain specified administrative route, rather than shouted to
the world from the front pages of our nation's major newspapers.
Otherwise, the whistle-blower statute would
permit every government employee to be a classified information law unto
himself, determining what should or should not be secret. The
devastating consequences to our national security, and also to
individual privacy, of such a flawed interpretation should be manifest.
The question you are considering today is not the potential criminal
liability of the leaker, of course, but of those in the institutional
media who publish the classified information provided by the leaker.
That poses
interesting constitutional questions if we assume, as I shall do, that
classified information was leaked and subsequently published, and that
the leaker himself, should his identity become known, is subject to
criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act, among other things, for
that illegal disclosure. Earlier this month, Bill Keller, Executive
Editor of the New York Times, published an important
letter to the editors of The Wall Street
Journal challenging the notion "that when presidents declare that
secrecy is in the national interest, reporters should take that at face
value." Implicit in his rejection of that proposition is the view that
reporters generally, and perhaps the editors of the New York Times in
particular, are free to ignore the laws regarding publication of
classified information when, in their view, the benefit to the
public from gaining access to the information would outweigh any harm
that might flow from its disclosure. Keller elaborated:
[P]residents are
entitled to a respectful and attentive hearing, particularly when
they make claims based on the safety of the country. In the case of
the eavesdropping story, President Bush and other figures in his
administration were given abundant opportunities to explain why they
felt our information should not be published. We considered the
evidence presented to us, agonized over it, delayed publication
because of it. In the end, their case did not stand up to the
evidence our reporters amassed, and we judged that the responsible
course was to publish what we knew and let readers assess it
themselves.
. . .
So where does that leave us with respect to the
New York Times' contentions? Once it is clear that the "Freedom of the
Press" acknowledged in the First Amendment does not create a special
preserve for the institutional media, the full import of Bill Keller's
claims come into view, and it is the old saw, long since disproved, that
democratic governments are not permitted secrets, even in time of war.
Our Constitution expressly recognizes the common-sense necessity of
government secrets, for example, in the Article I requirement that each
House of Congress shall publish a journal of its proceedings, "excepting
such Parts as in their Judgment may require Secrecy." The need for
secrecy is even more urgent in the executive branch, and as Alexander
Hamilton noted in Federalist 71, it is one of the key reasons the
Constitution provides for unity in the executive office, establishing an
"energetic" executive who can operate with "secrecy" and "despatch" when
necessary to protect "the community against foreign attacks."33 This
need for secrecy in the conduct of certain executive functions such as
those under consideration today has repeatedly been recognized and
approved by the courts as well. Writing for the Court in United States
v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., for example, Justice Sutherland
explained why the President's authority over foreign affairs was so
great, noting that he "has his confidential sources of information. He
has his agents in the form of diplomatic, consular and other officials.
Secrecy in respect of information gathered by them may be highly
necessary, and the premature disclosure of it productive of harmful
results."34 A similar view was expressed by Justice Jackson in Chicago &
Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman Steamship Corp.: "The President,
both as Commander-in-Chief and as the Nation's organ for foreign
affairs, has available intelligence services whose reports are not and
ought not to be published to the world."
The constitutionality of protecting
intelligence gathering and other operational military secrets in time of
war is therefore beyond dispute, and the institutional press is no more
permitted to ignore the legal restrictions imposed by the Espionage Act
on the publication and other dissemination of such classified
information than are ordinary citizens. Neither is it exempt from
prosecution for willful violations of that Act. Justice Goldberg
famously noted in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez that our Constitution "is
not a suicide pact,"36 and the sentiment is particularly apropos for the
issues under consideration today. The simple fact is that the asymmetric
nature of the current war against international terrorist organizations
makes intelligence gathering the central and most critical front in the
war. Not only must the executive branch aggressively pursue every legal
means of gathering intelligence at its disposal, it must be equally
aggressive in protecting the classified methods that it is using in that
effort if it is to succeed in preventing future attacks on our homeland
and fellow citizens such as those we witnessed on that fateful day in
September nearly five years ago.
Every citizen, including--particularly
including--those employed with major media organs have a responsibility
to prevent ongoing operational secrets from falling into the hands of
our enemies by complying with the law regarding classified information.
It is one of those "basic and simple duties" of citizenship that rests
equally "on taxi drivers, Justices, and the New York Times." We may
never know how great the damage to our national security the recent
disclosures of classified, highly-sensitive intelligence-gathering
information have caused, but with the seriousness of the threat to our
lives and liberty posed by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, it
is certainly the right, and may well be the duty, of the executive to
prosecute those responsible for them.
Mr. Eastman, the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law and Community
Service at Chapman University School of Law, is the director of the
Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.
According to the London Telegraph, via
Arts & Letters Daily, Science--with a capital
S--has determined that the world's funniest joke was written by
Spike Milligan,
"Comic Genius!" and goes something like this:
Two hunters are out in the woods in New Jersey
when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his
eyes are glazed.
The other guy whips out his phone and calls
the emergency services. He gasps 'My friend is dead! What can I do?'
The operator says: 'Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure
he's dead.' There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the
phone, the guy says 'OK, now what?'
As a Garden Stater, I find nothing funny about
this, but, dammit, the methodology used to arrive at the WFJ is simply
unimpeachable and hence I must acknowledge Truth when it is revealed to
me via science:
Five years ago, Prof Richard Wiseman, of the
University of Hertfordshire, did an online experiment in which
300,000 people from around the world took part in LaughLab, where
they voted for the best gag....
Prof Wiseman contacted Milligan's daughter,
Sile, and she is as certain as she can be that he would have written
the gag. She said she was "delighted that dad wrote the world's
funniest joke".
Prof Wiseman said: "I think what is
interesting here is that a joke from the 1950s still works, and how
it has transformed over time from a cosy sitting room to hunters in
New Jersey."
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Humor between June 1 and June 30, 2006
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
There's a difference between service and support.
Dateline: Tuesday, April 25, 2006
If restaurants functioned like ...
Patron: Waiter!
Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support.
Waiter. What seems to be the problem?
Patron: There's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time.
Patron: No, it's still there.
Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup. Try eating it with a fork
instead.
Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there.
Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl. What kind of bowl are
you using?
Patron: A SOUP bowl!
Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration problem. How was
the bowl set up?
Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer. What has that to do with the fly in
my soup?!
Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the fly in
your soup?
Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day!
Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the Day?
Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day??
Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day changes every hour.
Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now?
Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato.
Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup and the check. I'm running late now.
[Waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check.]
Waiter: Here you are, Sir, the soup and your check.
Patron: This is potato soup.
Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet.
Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything.
[Waiter leaves.]
Patron: Waiter! There's a spider in my soup!
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher,
whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck
up a conversation with the old man.
Eventually the topic got around to former Texas Governor, George W.
Bush and his elevation to the White House.
The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'."
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post
turtle' was.
The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and
you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a
post turtle."
The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued
to explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong
there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want
to help the dumb shit get down.
Forwarded by Paula
When NASA was preparing for the Apollo Project, it took the astronauts to a
Navajo reservation in Arizona for training. One day, a Navajo elder and his son
came across the space crew walking among the rocks. The Elder, who spoke only
Navajo, asked a question. His son translated for the NASA people: "What are
these guys in the big suits doing?"
One of the astronauts said that they were practicing a trip to the moon.
When his son relayed this comment, the Navajo elder got all excited and asked
if it would be possible to give the astronauts a message to deliver to the moon.
Recognizing a promotional opportunity when he saw one, a NASA official
accompanying the astronauts said, "Why certainly!" and told an underling to get
a tape recorder. The Navajo elder's comments into the microphone were brief. The
NASA official asked the son if he would translate what his father had said.
The son listened to the recording and laughed uproariously. But he refused to
translate. So the NASA people took the tape to a nearby Navajo village and
played it for other members of the tribe. They too laughed long and loudly but
refused to translate the elder's message to the moon.
An official government translator was summoned. After he finally stopped
laughing, the translator relayed the message: "WATCH OUT FOR THESE ASSHOLES.
THEY HAVE COME TO STEAL YOUR LAND."
Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man with one chopstick go hungry.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who scratch ass should not bite fingernails.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Baseball is wrong: man with four balls cannot walk.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Panties not best thing on earth! But next to best thing on earth.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cat house.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It take many nails to build crib, but one screw to fill it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who drive like hell, bound to get there.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who stand on toilet is high on pot.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who fish in other man's well often catch crabs.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Man who fart in church sit in own pew.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Crowded elevator smell (and look) different to midget.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Have to admit that most of these ring true
for me.
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same
cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to
get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it
raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in
a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember
getting e.coli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead
of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and
a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of
high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training
athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I
can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they
tell us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE
must be much harder than gym.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem,
and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative
attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health
system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and
everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was
allowed to be proud of myself.
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got
that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent
bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting
like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a
$49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the
contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was
such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we
got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we
got home.
I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his
tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom
know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up
and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run
amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they
were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known
that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We
were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even
notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever
survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T- SORRY FOR
WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!
A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They were looking for
people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. These were
voted the top ten quotes from the Dilberts who inhabit our world ...
"What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might
encounter." (Lykes Lines Shipping)
"E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used
only for company business." (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)
"This project is so important we can't let things that are more important
interfere with it." (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule." (Plant Manager,
Delco Corporation)
"No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working
on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when
it's time to tell them." (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M
Corp.)
Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told
my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the
busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday.
He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
"We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to
discuss it with the employees." (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond WA
"As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using
individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees
will receive their cards in two weeks."
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
THE PIT BULL
A woman was leaving a 7_11 with her morning coffee when she noticed a most
unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse
was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind. Behind the
second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind her
were 200 women walking single file.
The woman couldn't stand her curiosity. She respectfully approached the woman
walking the dog and said "I am so sorry for your loss and I know now is a bad
time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. "Whose funeral is
it?"
The woman replied "Well, that first hearse is for my husband."
"What happened to him?"
"My dog attacked and killed him."
She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"
"My mother_in_law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on
her."
A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two women.
"Could I borrow that dog?"
"Get in line."
Smitty
Forwarded by Debbie
Here are a few things to think about that you probably have never thought
about;
Did you Answer Nunu? NO! Of course it isn't. Her name is Mary. Read the
question again!
Okay, now the bonus round:
A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating
the action of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the
shopkeeper and the purchase is done. Next, a blind man comes into the shop who
wants to buy a pair of sunglasses; how does HE indicate what he wants?
He just has to open his mouth and ask... It's really very simple.... Like
you!
Some old ones forwarded by old Paula
LOST IN THE DARNDEST PLACES: An elderly Floridian called 911 on her cell
phone to report that her car has been broken into. She is hysterical as she
explains her situation to the dispatcher: "They've stolen the stereo, the
steering wheel, the brake pedal and even the accelerator!" she cried. The
dispatcher said, "Stay calm. An officer is on the way." A few minutes later, the
officer radios in. "Disregard." He says. "She got in the back seat by mistake."
_______________________________________
FAMILY Three sisters ages 92, 94 and 96 live in a house together. One night the
96 year old draws a bath. She puts her foot in and pauses. She yells to the
other sisters, "Was I getting in or out of the bath?" The 94 year old yells
back, "I don't know. I'll come up and see." She starts up the stairs and pauses
"Was I going up the stairs or down?" The 92 year old is sitting at the kitchen
table having tea listening to her sisters. She shakes her head and says, "I sure
hope I never get that forgetful,knock on wood." She then yells, "I'll come up
and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door."
_______________________________________
"I CAN HEAR JUST FINE!" Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing
golf one fine March day. One remarked to the other, "Windy, isn't it?" "No," the
second man replied, "it's Thursday." And the third man chimed in, "So am I.
Let's have a beer."
_______________________________________
LITTLE LADY: A little old lady was running up and down the halls in a nursing
home. As she walked, she would flip up the hem of her nightgown and say "Supersex."
She walked up to an elderly man in a wheelchair. Flipping her gown at him, she
said, "Supersex." He sat silently for a moment or two and finally answered,
"I'll take the soup." _______________________________________
OLD FRIENDS Now this one is just too Precious...lol Two elderly ladies had been
friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of
activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting
a few times a week to play cards. One day, they were playing cards when one
looked at the other and said, "Now don't get mad at me ... I know we've been
friends for a long time, but I just can't think of your name! I've thought and
thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is." Her friend
glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her.
Finally she said, "How soon do you need to know?"
_______________________________________
SENIOR DRIVING As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone
rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just
heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on Interstate 77.
Please be careful!" "Heck," said Herman, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds
of them!" ______________________________________
DRIVING Two elderly women were out driving in a large car - both could barely
see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an
intersection. The stoplight was red, but they just went on through. The woman in
the passenger seat thought to herself "I must be losing it. I could have sworn
we just went through a red light." After a few more minutes, they came to
another intersection and the light was red again. Again, they went right
through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been
red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous. At
the next intersection, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through.
So, she turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred, did you know that we just
ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!" Mildred
turned to her and said, "Oh, crap, am I driving?"
Forwarded by Paula
Brokeback Snoring Cure
Some retired deputy sheriffs went to a retreat in the mountains. To save
money, they decided to sleep two to a room. No one wanted to room with Daryl
because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay
with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.
The first deputy slept with Daryl and comes to breakfast the next morning
with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot. They said, "Man, what happened
to you?" He said, "Daryl snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all
night."
The next night it was a different deputy's turn. In the morning, samething--hair
all standing up, eyes all blood-shot. They said, "Man, what happened to you? You
look awful!" He said, "Man, that Daryl shakes the roof. I watched him all
night."
The third night was Frank's turn. Frank was a big burly ex-football player; a
man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright eyed and bushy tailed.
"Good morning," he said.
They couldn't believe it! They said, "Man, what happened?" He said, "Well, we
got ready for bed. I went and tucked Daryl into bed and kissed him good night.
He sat up and watched me all night long."
Forwarded by Debbie Bowling
(my secretary who always arrives two hours early for work because I'm so
exciting to work for)
Forwarded by Dick Haar (Sounds like it came from an evangelist preacher)
Verily I say unto ye.......... Money
It can buy a house
But not a home
It can buy a clock
But not time
It can buy you a position
But not respect
It can buy you a bed
But not sleep
It can buy you a book
But not knowledge
It can buy you medicine
But not health
It can buy you blood
But not life
So you see money isn't everything
And it often causes pain and suffering
I tell you this because I am your friend
And as your friend I want to
Take away your pain and suffering!!
So Send me all your money
And I will suffer for you!
Cash only please!
After all, what are friends for, huh??
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
"When Nathan Radlich's house was burgled,
thieves left his TV, his VCR, and even left his watch. What they did take
was "generic white cardboard box filled with greyish-white powder." (That at
least is the way the police described it.) A spokesman for the Fort
Lauderdale police said "it looked similar to cocaine and they'd probably
thought they'd hit the big time." Then Nathan stood in front of the TV
cameras and pleaded with the burglars: "Please return the cremated remains
of my sister, Gertrude. She died three years ago."
Well, the next morning, the bullet-riddled
corpse of a drug dealer known as Hoochie Pevens was found on Nathan's
doorstep. The cardboard box was there too; about half of Gertrude's ashes
remained. And there was this note. It said: "Hoochie sold us the bogus blow,
so we wasted Hoochie. Sorry we snorted your sister. No hard feelings. Have a
nice day."
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
An office manager at
Wal-Mart was given the task of hiring an individual to fill a job opening.
After sorting through a stack of resumes he found four people who were
equally qualified.
He decided to call the four in and ask them only one question.
Their answer would determine which of them would get the job. The day came
and as the four sat around the conference room table
the interviewer asked :
"What is the fastest thing you know of?"
Acknowledging the first man on his right, the man replied,
>
"A THOUGHT. It just pops into your head There's no warning that
it's on the way; it's just there. A thought is the fastest thing
I know of."
"That's very good!" replied the interviewer.
"And now you sir?" he asked the second man
"Hmm.! .. let me see. A blink! It comes and goes and you don't
know that it ever happened. A BLINK is the fastest thing I know
of."
"Excellent!" said the interviewer. "The blink of an eye, that's
a very popular cliche for speed."
He then turned
to the third man who was contemplating his reply.
Well, out at my dad's ranch, you step out of the house and on
the wall there's a light switch. When you flip that switch, way
out across the pasture the light in the barn comes on in less
than an instant. Yep, TURNING ON A LIGHT is the fastest thing I
can think of."
The interviewer was very impressed with the third answer and
thought he had found his man.
"It's hard to beat the speed of light," he said.
Turning to
Bubba, the fourth and final man, the interviewer posed
the same question.
Old Bubba replied, "After hearing the three previous answers,
It's obvious to me that the fastest thing known is DIARRHEA"
"WHAT!?" said the interviewer, stunned by the response.
"Oh I can explain." said Old Bubba. "You see the other day I
wasn't feeling so good, and I ran for the bathroom, but, before
I could THINK, BLINK, or TURN ON THE LIGHT, I had already pooped
in my pants."
Old Bubba is
now the new greeter at a Wal-Mart near you!!!! *
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Questions to Ponder
Can you cry under water?
How important does a person have to be before they are considered
assassinated instead of just murdered?
Why do you have to "put your two cents in". but it's only a "penny for your
thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried
in for eternity?
Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
What disease did cured ham actually have?
How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a
good idea to put wheels on luggage?
Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like
every two hours?
If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
Forwarded by Paula
I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use
a little more calmness in our lives.
By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner
peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the
things you've started and never finished."
So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't
finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of
Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle
of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the
rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates.
You have no idea how freaking good I feel. Please pass this on to those you
feel might be in need of inner peace.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Tax his land, Tax his wage, Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes is the rule.
Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat.
Tax his ties, Tax his shirts, Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he tries to think.
Tax his booze, Tax his beers, If he cries, Tax his tears.
Tax his bills, Tax his gas, Tax his notes, Tax his cash.
Tax him good and let him know That after taxes, he has no dough.
If he hollers, Tax him more, Tax him til he's good and sore.
Tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in which he lays.
Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom!"
And when he's gone, We won't relax, We'll still be after the inheritance
TAX!!
Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL License Tax Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax
(FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax Hunting
License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of
tax), IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Tax, Marriage
License Tax, Medicare Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service charge taxes,
Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax (Truckers), Sales Taxes, Recreational
Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),
Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax,
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax, Telephone Minimum Usage
Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone
State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Tax, Vehicle License
Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit
Tax, Workers Compensation Tax.
COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and there was
prosperity, absolutely no national debt, the largest middle class in the world
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Guys' Rule 1
At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down Finally , the guys' side
of the story. (I must admit, it's pretty good.) We always hear " the rules "
From the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side. These are our
rules! Please note.. these are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!
1. Men ARE not mind readers.
1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving
it down.
1. Sunday sports.. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let
it be.
1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that
way.
1. Crying is blackmail.
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not
work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
1. Yes and No are perfectly Acceptable answers to almost every question.
1. Come to us with a problem only If you want help solving it. That's what we
do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem See a doctor.
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all
comments become null and void after 7 Days.
1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't Expect us to
act like soap opera guys.
1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes
you sad or angry, we meant the other one
1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not
both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
1. Whenever possible , Please say whatever you have to say during
commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.
1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for
example, is a fruit, not! A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what
mauve is.
1. If it itches, it will Be scratched. We do that.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's
wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you
don't want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear Is fine...
Really.
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss
such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.
1. You have enough clothes.
1. You have too many shoes.
1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!
1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch
tonight;
But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like
camping.
Forwarded by Paula
In Jerusalem, a female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man, who
had been going to the Wailing Wall to pray, twice a day, everyday, for a long,
long time. So she went to check it out.
She went to the Wailing Wall, and there he was. She watched him pray, and
after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, she approached him for an
interview. "I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN, Sir, how long have you been coming to
the Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for
all the hatred to stop, and I pray for all our children to grow up in safety and
friendship."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a . . . wall."
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Three contractors are bidding to fix the White
House fence. One from Chicago, another from Dallas, and the third from Fort
Lauderdale. They go with a White House official to examine the fence.
The Fort Lauderdale contractor takes out a tape
measure and does some measuring, then gets out his calculator, punches in
some numbers and says, "Well, I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for
material, $400 for my crew, and $100 profit for me."
The Dallas contractor steps up, takes some
measurements, does some figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700:
$300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure,
but leans over to the White House official and whispers: "$2,700."
The official says, "You didn't even measure like
the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"
"Easy," the Chicagoan explains, "$1,000 for you,
$1,000 for me, and we hire the guy from Dallas."
Forwarded by Dick Haar
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What are Politics?"
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way:
#1. I'm the head of the family, so call me The President.
#2. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the
Government.
#3. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People.
#4. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class.
#5. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future.
"Now, think about that and see if it makes sense."
So, the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.
Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on
him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.
So, the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother sound
asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door
locked, he looks in the peephole and finds his father in bed with the Nanny. He
gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I
understand the concept of politics now."
The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think
politics is all about."
The little boy replies, "The President is screwing the Working Class, while
the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is
in deep shit."
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
For all of you with any money left in the wake of
the Exxon/Mobil deal, the AOL/Time Warner implosion, and the Sears/K-Mart
wedding, be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on the
ground floor and make some BIG bucks.
Watch for these consolidations in the near future:
1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics,
Fuller Brush, and W.R. Grace Company will merge and become: Hale, Mary,
Fuller, Grace
2 Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, and Zesta
Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner, Cracker
3. 3M will merge with Goodyear and issue forth as:
MMMGood
4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and
Dakota Mining will merge as:
ZipAudiDoDa
5. FedEx is expected to join its major competitor,
UPS, and become: FedUP
6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers
will become: Fairwell Honeychild
7. Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to
become: Poupon Pants
8. Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization
of Women will become: KnottNOW!
9. Victoria's Secret and Smith &Wesson will merge
under the new name: Titty Titty Bang Bang
Forwarded by Dick Haar
She told me we couldn't afford beer anymore and I'd have to quit. Then I
caught her spending $65.00 on make-up. And I asked how come I had to give up
stuff and she didn't. She said she needed the make-up to look pretty for me. I
told her that was what the beer was for.
I don't think she's coming back.
From Auntie Bev (who lives in Florida)
To: ex-Floridians,
present Floridians, and future Floridians or those who know a Floridian.
We're about to enter the peak of the hurricane season, which
starts June 1 and ends November 30. Any day now, you're
going to turn on the TV and see a weather person pointing to
some radar blob out in the Gulf of Mexico and making two
basic meteorological points:
(1) There is no need to panic.
(2) We could all be killed.
Yes, hurricane season is an exciting time to be in Florida.
If you're new to the area, you're probably wondering what
you need to do to prepare for the possibility that we'll get
hit by "the big one.''
HURRICANE SUPPLIES: If you don't evacuate, you will need a
mess of supplies. Do not buy them now! Florida tradition
requires that you wait until the last possible minute, then
go to the supermarket and get into vicious fights with
strangers over who gets the last can of SPAM. In addition to
food and water, you will need the following supplies:
23
flashlights. At least $167 worth of batteries that turn out,
when the
power goes out, to be the wrong size for the flashlights.
Bleach.
(No, I don't know what the bleach is for. NOBODY knows what
the
bleach is for. But it's traditional, so GET some!)
A
55-gallon drum of underarm deodorant.
A big
knife that you can strap to your leg. (This will be useless
in a
hurricane, but it looks cool.)
A large
quantity of raw chicken, to placate the alligators. (Ask
anybody
who went through Andrew; after the hurricane, there WILL be
irate
alligators.)
$35,000
in cash or diamonds so that, after the hurricane passes, you
can buy
a generator from a man with no discernible teeth.
Of course these are just basic precautions. As the hurricane
draws near, it is vitally important that you keep abreast of
the situation by turning on your television and watching TV
reporters in rain slickers stand right next to the ocean and
tell you over and over how vitally important it is for
everybody to stay away from the ocean.
Good luck and remember: it's great living in paradise! Those
of you who aren't here yet should come. Really!
Some old Maxine's quotations forwarded by old Auntie Bev (who proposes that
Maxine run for President in 2008)
Maxine on "Driver Safety"
"I can't use the cell phone in the car. I have to keep my hands free for making
gestures.".......
Maxine on "Housework"
"I do my housework in the nude. It gives me an incentive to clean the mirrors as
quickly as possible."
Maxine on "Lawn Care"
"The key to a nice-looking lawn is a good mower. I recommend one who is muscular
and shirtless."
Maxine on "The Perfect Man"
"All I'm looking for is a guy who'll do what I want, when I want, for as long as
I want, and then go away. Or wait nearby, like a Dust Buster, charged up and
ready when needed."
Maxine on "Technology Revolution"
"My idea of rebooting is kicking somebody in the butt twice."
Maxine on "Aging"
"Take every birthday with a grain of salt. This works much better if the salt
accompanies a Margarita."
Other Quotes
Never read the fine print. There ain't no way you're going to like it.
If you let a smile be your umbrella, then most likely your butt will get
soaking wet.
The only two things we do with greater frequency in middle age are urinate
and attend funerals.
The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
To err is human, to forgive - highly unlikely.
Do you realize that in about 40 years, we'll have millions of old ladies
running around with tattoos?
Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a
Porsche than a Kia.
Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching somewhere, you may be dead.
A personal message from Paula
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A fart can be quiet, A fart can be loud, Some leave a powerful, Poisonous
cloud
A fart can be short, Or a fart can be long, Some farts have been known To
sound like a song......
A fart can create A most curious medley, A fart can be harmless, Or silent ,
and deadly.
A fart might not smell, While others are vile, A fart may pass quickly, Or
linger a while......
A fart can occur In a number of places, And leave everyone there, With
strange looks on their faces.
From wide-open prairie, To small elevators, A fart will find all of Us sooner
or later.
But farts are all bad, Is simply not true- We must never forget....... Sweet
old farts like you!
Smart blonde joke forwarded by Paula
A Blonde walks into a bank in New York City and ask for the loan officer. She
says she's going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000.
The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so
the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is parked on the
street in front of the bank, she has the title and everything checks out. The
bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde
for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of
the bank then proceeds to drive the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and
parks it there.
Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest,
which comes to $15.41. The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to have
had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a
little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a
multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?"
The blond replies, "Where else in New York City can I park my car for two
weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"
Forwarded by Dick Haar
Only in Texas
A Texas Highway Patrolman pulled a car over and told the driver that because
he had been wearing his seat belt, he had just won $5,000 in the statewide
safety competition.
"What are you going to do with the money?" asked the Highway Patrolman.
"Well, I guess I'm going to get a driver's license," he answered.
"Oh, don't listen to him," yelled a woman in the passenger seat. "He's a
smart alec when he's drunk."
This woke up the guy in the back-seat, who took one look at the cop and
moaned, "I knew we wouldn't get far in a stolen car."
At that moment, there was a knock from the trunk and a voice said, in
Spanish, "Are we over the border yet?"
I went to the US Patent Office trying to register some of my inventions. I
went to the main desk to sign in and the lady at the desk had a form that had to
be filled out. She wrote down my personal info and then asked me what I had
invented. I said, "A folding bottle."
"She said, "Okay. What do you call it?"
"A Fottle."
"What else do you have?"
"A folding carton."
"What do you call it?"
"A Farton."
She snickered and said, "Those are silly names for products and one of them
sounds kind of crude."
I was so upset by her comment that I grabbed the form and left the office
without even telling her about my folding bucket.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Here is a math trick so unbelievable that it will stump you. Personally I
would like to know who came up with this and why that person is not running the
country.
The easy way: Click on your calculator and do it while you read it.
1. Grab a calculator. (you won't be able to do this one in your head)
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)
3. Multiply by 80
4. Add 1
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame Then I
look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of
their hopes and dreams . If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work
and their dreams would be shattered.
Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their
dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell
happened to your bra and panties. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning,
that's as good as they're going to feel all day. " ~ Frank Sinatra ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are
tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny
Youngman ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing
WITH you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not." ~ Stephen
Wright ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall
asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. So, let's all
get drunk and go to heaven!" ~ Brian O'Rourke ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause pregnancy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." ~ Benjamin
Franklin ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a
retard. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer.
Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not
go nearly as well with pizza." ~ Dave Barry ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over
and over again that you love them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To some it's a six-pack, to me it's a Support Group. Salvation in a can! ~
Dave Howell ~
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically
converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And saving the best for last, as explained by Cliff Clavin, of Cheers.
One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the "Buffalo Theory" to
his buddy Norm. Here's how it went:
"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast
as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and
weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good
for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group
keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same
way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells.
Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it
attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular
consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster
and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few
beers."
Forwarded by Paula
The new Supermarket near our house has an automatic water mister to keep the
produce fresh. Just before it goes on, you hear the sound of a thunderstorm and
the smell of fresh rain.
When you approach the milk cases, you hear cows mooing and witness the scent
of fresh butter fat.
When you approach the egg case, you hear hens cackle and the air is filled
with the pleasing aroma of eggs frying.
.....So far I have been too afraid to go down the toilet paper aisle.
I hate it when
people forward bogus warnings, but this one is real, and it's important. So please send this warning to everyone on your
e-mail list:
If someone comes to your front door saying they
are conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and
dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!
IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked.
I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so
stupid now.
Forwarded by Dick Haar
WOW! Are you as ignorant as I am? Don't cheat now!
This is a fun exercise. Just click on the link
below and read the directions.
According to the London Telegraph, via
Arts & Letters Daily,
Science--with a capital S--has determined
that the world's funniest joke was written by Spike Milligan,
"Comic Genius!"
and goes something like this:
Two hunters are out in the woods in New Jersey
when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes
are glazed.
The other guy whips out his phone and calls the
emergency services. He gasps 'My friend is dead! What can I do?' The
operator says: 'Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's
dead.' There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the
guy says 'OK, now what?'
As a Garden Stater, I find nothing funny about
this, but, dammit, the methodology used to arrive at the WFJ is simply
unimpeachable and hence I must acknowledge Truth when it is revealed to me
via science:
Five years ago, Prof Richard Wiseman, of the
University of Hertfordshire, did an online experiment in which 300,000
people from around the world took part in LaughLab, where they voted for
the best gag....
Prof Wiseman contacted Milligan's daughter,
Sile, and she is as certain as she can be that he would have written the
gag. She said she was "delighted that dad wrote the world's funniest
joke".
Prof Wiseman said: "I think what is interesting
here is that a joke from the 1950s still works, and how it has
transformed over time from a cosy sitting room to hunters in New
Jersey."
Forwarded by Paula
After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a "gripesheet,"
which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct
the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the
gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack
a sense of humor.
Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas ' pilots
(marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance
engineers. By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never, ever,
had an accident. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
P: DME volume unbelievably loud. S: DME volume set to more believable level.
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!) S: Aircraft warned to:
straighten up, fly right, and be serious.
P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
P: Mouse in cockpit. S: Cat installed.
And the best one for last..................
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on
something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget
And that's the way it was on June 30, 2006 with a little help from my friends.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great Minds in
Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by Ken G.
Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
In the final years of Saddam Hussein’s
dictatorship, he earned more than $1.8 billion in kickbacks as a result of
the United Nations’ oil-for-food program. He brought in billions more by
smuggling oil out to Jordan and Syria. Across the country, graft was a
precondition of doing business. Saddam’s exit and the arrival of free-market
reforms were supposed to change all this; Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad
Chalabi spoke of an era of “transparency, accountability, and value for
money.” Yet corruption remains ubiquitous. In the past couple of years, more
than a billion dollars has gone missing from Iraq’s Defense Ministry.
Hundreds of millions are being skimmed off the country’s oil sales. Banks,
utility companies, and passport offices routinely require baksheesh to get
things done. Transparency International, in its latest survey of perceived
global corruption, labelled Iraq the most corrupt country in the Middle
East.
This is hardly surprising. Corruption usually
flourishes in the wake of an authoritarian regime’s collapse. The fall of
the Soviet Union gave rise to an epidemic of graft in Russia and other
former Soviet republics. When it’s unclear who’s in charge, rules become
open to manipulation, and bureaucrats, uncertain about their jobs, tend to
put their own short-term interests first. In Iraq, these problems have been
exacerbated by other factors. The intense competition to control the
nation’s oil reserves creates ample opportunities for skimming—indeed,
economies that depend heavily on natural resources are generally more
corrupt, as are wartime economies.
Corruption may be ethically unsavory, but,
according to some economists, it may also be economically beneficial. In a
country where elaborate bureaucracies make it hard to start companies,
import or export goods, or simply get a passport, bribes can cut through red
tape, serving as what’s called “speed money.” Bribes can also motivate
bureaucrats who would otherwise shirk their duties; in the Russia of Peter
the Great, for instance, most officials received small salaries and made up
the difference with bribes. And corruption isn’t necessarily an obstacle to
economic growth. In the postwar years, countries like South Korea and
Indonesia were bastions of cronyism and graft but saw their economies boom;
today, China and India are two of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and
both receive poor grades from Transparency International. So perhaps Iraq’s
Commission on Public Integrity should simply accept that corruption provides
the grease to keep the wheels of commerce turning.
It would be comforting to think so. And there are
conditions under which bribes seem to work well. When power is in the hands
of an authoritarian government that keeps bureaucrats under firm control,
the state is able to act like a smart monopolist: its employees charge
prices that are high but not too high, and are able to deliver what they
promise. So bribe-takers collect what amounts to an unofficial tax and
bribers get what they pay for. In a country like Iraq, though, where the
state is weakened, corruption tends to be more anarchic and less effective.
Instead of monopolistic corruption—a single bribe-taker representing the
government—you get competitive corruption: everyone has his hand out. A
study of what it took to open a business in Russia in 1991, for instance,
found that bribes had to be paid to local and national officials, fire
inspectors, the water department, and so on. Apart from the sheer expense,
in a situation like this it’s unclear whether a bribe will have any effect.
As a result, people either decide against doing business in the first place
or are driven underground, into the so-called “shadow economy.”
Furthermore, even if corruption can be a useful
means of bypassing inefficiencies in the short term, in the long term it
tends to create inefficiencies of its own. Bribing, it turns out, doesn’t
always speed things up: in a vast study of twenty-four hundred companies in
fifty-eight countries, Daniel Kaufmann, of the World Bank, and Shang-Jin
Wei, of the I.M.F., found that the more a company had to bribe, the more
time it spent tied up in negotiations with bureaucrats. Graft also
encourages government officials to keep complicated procedures in place,
since that insures that the bribes keep coming. So corruption isn’t just a
product of bad institutions and policies; it also helps cause them. Almost
every study done in the past ten years has found that, on the whole, corrupt
countries grow more slowly and have a much harder time attracting foreign
investment. And work by Wei suggests that even the exceptions, like China,
have probably succeeded more in spite of corruption than because of it.
Fighting corruption, then, is not only an ethical
issue but an economic one. The problem is that most anti-corruption
campaigns fail. In part, that’s because the task is absurdly hard. But it
may also be because anti-corruption campaigns tend to target low-level
corruption rather than attacking what economists call “grand corruption.”
Relying on a variant of the “broken windows” theory, these campaigns have
assumed that cleaning up day-to-day graft will make all corruption less
acceptable. Yet a study by the economist Eric Uslaner shows that it’s
high-level graft that really shapes citizens’ perceptions of how corrupt
their society is. Corruption fighters in Iraq, in other words, should ignore
the greedy bureaucrats at the electric company and concentrate, instead, on
holding high-level officials accountable for the billion dollars missing
from the Defense Ministry. Granted, this is probably an unrealistic goal.
But in Iraq today what isn’t?
Fraud Update
This appears to be one of those moral hazard situations in game theory
where
it's optimal to break the law and pay the fine.
The Federal government does not
back the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, since they own the
lion's share of all home mortgages in the U.S., the general perception is
that allowing Fannie and Freddie go bankrupt would bring the economy
crashing down.
It's well-known that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
have good friends on Capitol Hill. But last week the Federal Election
Commission shed some light on how Freddie Mac rewarded its friends. In a
settlement with the FEC, Freddie admitted to illegally raising $1.7
million for candidates from both parties between 2000 and 2003. In 2001
alone, Freddie Mac's Senior Vice President for Government Affairs
boasted of holding 40 fund-raisers for House Financial Services
Committee Chairman Michael Oxley.
Unfortunately for Freddie, it is explicitly
barred by law from political fund-raising. In the settlement, Freddie
agreed to fork over $3.8 million in fines. Yet Freddie probably figures
it also got its money's worth. Genuine reform of the two giant
"government-sponsored enterprises" is now stalled on Capitol Hill,
thanks in large part to Mr. Oxley's dutiful service.
Which means it's time for reformers to turn to
Plan B. The Bush Administration could itself take the opportunity to
rein in Freddie and Fannie. An overlooked provision of the laws that
founded the two companies already gives the Treasury Secretary the power
to restrict the duo's mortgage portfolios that now threaten the U.S.
financial system.
First, some background. Fan and Fred have lower
costs of capital than their competitors because of the market perception
that the government stands behind their debt. This, in turn, is
indispensable to their business model. Fannie and Freddie between them
hold more than $1 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities that
they've bought with this cheaper credit.
To make it all work, Fannie and Freddie must
carefully balance the risks that arise from interest-rate movements,
mortgage prepayments and the different maturities of their debts and
assets. The monumental accounting troubles that both companies have had
in recent years centered around how they account for those risks and the
hedges they use to mitigate them. The danger that those portfolios could
melt down has led critics such as Alan Greenspan and his successor at
the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to warn that Fan and Fred pose a
"systemic risk" to the financial system if the size of their portfolios
is not reduced.
It took Congress just weeks to pass
Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002. But -- perhaps because Mr. Oxley has been
spending so much time at Freddie's fund-raisers -- it can't seem to deal
with the far larger financial problems at Fan and Fred. A watered-down
reform bill has passed the House, but a stronger bill in the Senate
shows no sign of being brought up for a vote anytime soon. Securities
analysts have been telling investors they believe the drive to rein in
the duo is losing momentum. Freddie Mac's president and COO recently
concurred in public. He added that strict limits on retained portfolios
would not be in the "best interest of the housing finance industry." By
which he meant the best interest of Fannie and Freddie.
Portfolio limits are, however, in the interest
of American taxpayers and the integrity of the financial system. The law
requires that the bonds that Fannie and Freddie issue explicitly deny
that they are backed by the federal government, but plainly no one
believes that. Otherwise, who in their right mind would purchase the
debt of Fannie Mae, a company with no financial statements and $11
billion in overstated profit?
This type of situation was foreseen when Fan
and Fred were chartered. Which is why the same sections of the U.S. Code
that require Fannie and Freddie to disavow any government backing of
their debts also require the companies to get the approval of the
Treasury Secretary before issuing any debt.
Specifically, the law pertaining to Fannie
reads: "[T]he corporation is authorized to issue, upon the approval of
the Secretary of the Treasury, and have outstanding at any one time
obligations having such maturities and bearing such rate or rates of
interest as may be determined by the corporation with the approval of
the Secretary of the Treasury . . ." (our emphases). The section of the
law dealing with Freddie Mac has similar language.
As we read that, Treasury already has the power
to limit Fannie's and Freddie's borrowing. What's more, that authority
appears to have been granted specifically out of concern that the debts
of the pair might someday be laid at Treasury's doorstep. But without
massive borrowing, neither Fannie nor Freddie could afford to hold the
hundreds of billions of securities that they currently do. So limiting
their borrowing would require them to decrease the size of their
portfolios -- and hence the risk to the economy of a blow-up. Meanwhile,
their regular business of securitizing mortgages and selling them would
be unaffected. It is their repurchase of those mortgages with subsidized
credit that needs to be limited.
The Bush Administration has been forceful in
calling for Congress to reform how Fannie and Freddie are regulated and
run. But if it wants its effort to succeed, it is going to have to show
Fan and Fred and their friends on the Hill that Treasury will act if
Congress doesn't..
Eugene Fama grew
up in Boston, a third generation Italian-American. While an
undergraduate at Tufts University, he excelled in athletics and
majored in French—an inauspicious beginning for a future giant in
the field of economics. But he also worked for a professor who was
trying to develop "buy" and "sell" signals based on price momentum.
Although the theories the professor devised worked well when applied
to the past, they worked poorly when Fama tested them in real time.
That puzzle, plus the skills that he acquired evaluating stock
market data, drew Gene Fama to business school. After earning his
doctorate at the University of Chicago, he joined the faculty there
in 1963.
A simplified version of his
dissertation, "Random Walks in Stock Market Prices," was published
in Institutional Investor magazine, provoking a stir. It was
Gene's article that introduced the still-controversial efficient
market theory to the investment community. (There are many
variations of the efficient market theory, but they all postulate
that stock prices promptly and fully reflect all public
information.) Very few academics specializing in investment research
have any audience in the investment community, but that article made
Gene Fama very well-known on Wall Street. But he is an academic and
technical terms are used in this interview. We covered some of these
terms earlier in the book, but here's a quick, but non-scientific,
refresher course on some of the lingo:
Efficient market theory: The theory
that holds that stocks are always correctly priced since everything
that is publicly known about the stock is reflected in its market
price.
Random walk theory: One element of
the efficient market theory. The thesis that stock price variations
are not predictable.
Active management: The practice of
picking individual stocks based on fundamental research and analysis
in the expectation that a portfolio of selected stocks can
consistently outperform market averages.
Passive management: The practice of
buying a portfolio that is a proxy for the market as a whole on the
theory that it is so difficult to outperform the market that it is
cheaper and less risky to just buy the market.
Outliers and fat tails: In a normal,
bell-shaped distribution of returns on investment portfolios, the
majority of the returns, or data, can be found in the "bell," or
bulge, which centers around the weighted average return for the
entire market. At the ends, both right and left, we find what are
known at "outliers," those returns which are either very bad (left
side) or very good (right side). Of course, few managers are either
very good or very bad. Those returns on the right and left tails are
known as outliers since they live on the outlying fringes of the
curve. Similarly, "fat tails" refers to larger than normal tails of
the curve, meaning that there are more data on the extremes than you
might expect.
Peter J. Tanous: How did you first
get interested in stocks?
Fama: As an undergraduate, I worked for
a professor at Tufts University. He had a "Beat the Market"
service. He figured out trading rules to beat the market, and
they always did!
I beg your pardon?
They always did, in the old data. They
never did in the new data [laughter].
I see. Are you saying that when you
back-tested the trading rules on the historic data, the rules
always worked, but once you applied them to a real trading
program, they stopped working?
Right. That's when I became an
efficient markets person.
Okay. Let's get into it. You're
known for your work on efficient capital markets. In fact, on
Wall Street, the phrase "efficient market" is often attributed
to you. I believe you and Ken French made the point that stock
market returns are, in fact, predictable over time. How does
that jibe with the random walk theory?
The efficient market theory and the
random walk theory aren't the same thing. The efficient market
theory is much more powerful than the random walk theory, which
merely postulates that the future price movements can't be
predicted from past price movements alone. One extreme version
of the efficient market theory says, not only is the market
continually adjusting all prices to reflect new information but,
for whatever reason, the expected returns—the returns investors
require to hold stocks—are constant through time. [For example,
we know that, since the '20s, returns on the New York Stock
Exchange common stocks have averaged a little over 10% per
year.] I don't believe that. Economically, there is no reason
why the expected return on the stock market has to be the same
through time. It could be higher in bad times if people become
more risk-averse; it could be lower in good times when people
become less risk-averse.
So risk is the component that leads
to how much you get paid?
It could be just taste, too, you know.
People's taste for holding stocks can change with time. None of
that is inconsistent with market efficiency and it can give rise
to some predictability in returns. The predictability is simply
based on the returns people require to hold securities.
But, in one of your papers, you did
refer to the predictability of returns over time. Is that just
the investor getting paid for the risk he was willing to take?
Is that the point?
It could be that or it could be that
people are simply more risk-averse in bad times.
On a related subject, I think you
also said that fundamental analysis is of value only when the
analyst has new information, which was not fully considered in
forming current market prices. When I hear that I say: Hey Gene,
that's the point! The analyst believes he knows something, or
infers something, that other analysts don't see. He sees an
evolution taking place or he believes this company is doing
better than people think, and that's why he gets paid millions
of dollars on Wall Street to pick stocks. What's wrong with this
thesis?
Well, not everybody can have that
talent. In fact, as far as I can tell, not many do. The system
is designed to make that very difficult. By that, I mean that
under US accounting [and regulatory] systems, if you reveal
anything, you have to reveal it to everybody.
Fair enough, but what if the analyst
is making a judgment on the future prospects of the company. For
example, the analyst might say, "The Street says this company is
going to earn $0.82 per share and I say it's going to earn $1.10
because I'm seeing order flow, consumer demand, customers'
tastes for the product and what have you." Now, if the analyst
is right, he's worth the millions he gets paid. My question is:
in your thesis, if he's right, is he right because he's so smart
or just because he's lucky?
For the most part, I think it is luck.
The evidence is pretty strong that active management doesn't
really do better than passive management.
Except, of course, when we start
talking about the so-called outliers, those managers, like the
Gurus in this book, who have persistently outperformed the
market. That, in turn, leads to the other great exercise in our
business, particularly with mutual funds, which is the
predictability of future investment success based on past
success. I know you've done some work on that, too.
One of my students just finished his
thesis on that subject, actually. What he found was that
performance does repeat when it's on the negative end! In other
works, funds that do poorly, tend to do poorly persistently.
Why couldn't one postulate that the
same would be true at the other end of the spectrum?
One could postulate it, but it doesn't
seem to be true. On the negative end of the spectrum, you have
things like turnover and fees and all that kind of stuff, which
can explain why you have negative persistence in poor returns.
Yes, but good managers trade and
charge fees, too. They might even deserve them more!
Poorly performing funds tend to be
higher fee and higher expense funds. In fact, when my student
adjusted for fees and expenses he could explain most of the
persistent under-performance.
One thing I did a couple of years back
was take all the funds that survived from the beginning of the
Morningstar tapes, which is 1976. Now, funds that survive that
long will have survivor bias built into the test, because only
the successful funds survive. So I split the sample period in
half and took the 20 biggest winners of the first 10 years, or
the first half of the period, and I asked how did they do in the
second half of the period. Well, in the second half of the
period, half of them were up and half of them were down.
Wow. Half were up and half were
down? [That indicates that there was no predictive value in the
fact that these managers all finished in the top half in the
first ten year period.]
Exactly half, relative to a
risk-corrected model.
How did you adjust for risk?
I used the three-factor model.
The three-factor model takes into
account market risk; value versus growth styles; and also size,
which is the large-cap stocks versus small-cap distinction,
right?
Yes. But since most retail funds have a
bias toward growth stocks, the adjustment helped them.
So even risk tested, the data came
out 50/50, which means that the mutual funds that did the best
for ten years only had a 50/50 chance of repeating their
success. I'm curious to know who the biggest winner was in both
periods?
Fidelity Magellan.
What's the reason for that?
Obviously, the performance of that fund
has been really good.
It has, to Peter Lynch's credit.
Another issue you have addressed: that old subject, value stocks
versus growth stocks. Are stocks of good companies good stocks
to invest in?
They're good stocks, they just don't
have high expected returns.
Then growth stocks are stocks of
good companies, not good stocks, right?
To me stock prices are just the prices
that produce the expected returns that people require to hold
them. If they are growth companies, people are willing to hold
them at a lower expected return.
As we get into this, I think our
readers are going to be surprised to read that value stocks are
riskier than growth stocks. That is counterintuitive.
I don't know why it's counterintuitive.
Well, we used to think of value
stocks as stocks that may have already had a decline, that are
languishing. We believe we're buying value stocks at the bottom
and waiting for them to go back up again.
Value stocks may continue to take their
knocks. Their prices reflect the fact that they are in poor
times. As a result, because people don't want to hold them—in
our view because they are riskier—they have higher expected
returns. The way we define risk, it has to be associated with
something that can't be diversified away. Everybody relates to a
market risk. If you hold stocks, you bear stock market risk. But
the stock market is more complicated than that. There are
multiple sources of risk.
In our business, we usually
associate growth stocks with high earnings multiples, and value
stocks with low earnings multiples. Multiples are themselves
usually an element of risk. So, if a growth stock falters on its
anticipated growth path, it declines precipitously because it no
longer deserves the multiple that had previously been awarded to
it when its prospects were better. Therefore, a lot of people
think that growth stocks, in fact, are riskier. What's wrong
with that thesis?
Just look at the data. It's true that
growth stocks vary together, and it's true that value stocks
vary together. In other words, their returns tend to vary
together, which means that there is a common element of risk
there. Now, for growth stocks that seems to be a risk that
people are willing to bear at a lesser return than the return
they require for the market as a whole. Whereas, if I look at
the value stocks, which we also call distressed stocks, their
returns vary together, but people aren't willing to hold those
except at a premium to market returns.
So you're saying that I expect to
make more money when I buy value stocks than I do when I buy
growth stocks.
Right. On average. Of course, sometimes
you get clobbered.
We've always associated the risk of
getting clobbered more with growth stocks than with value stocks
that have already taken their lumps.
The data don't support that.
The other dimension, of course, is
size. Now the size effect is very easy for those of us in the
investment community to accept. The notion that small companies
are riskier than large companies seems obvious.
That's not the reason the community
accepts it. What they think is that small companies pay higher
returns because they're unknown, or something like that. It's
not because they're more risky. The risk, in my terms, can't be
explained by the market. It means that, because they move
together, there is something about these small stocks that
creates an undiversifiable risk. That undiversifiable risk is
why you get paid for holding them.
What causes that risk?
You know, that's an embarrassing
question because I don't know.
Fascinating. I would assume that the
risk is that small companies have a lower survival rate than
large companies.
No. That's not it at all. The good news
and the bad news about that is that the reason small companies
don't survive is because some of them fail, others get merged;
that's bad news and good news. Here's a fact I always use. First
I say I don't know, but then I say it's fair. Here's my example.
The 1980s were, supposedly, the longest period of continuous
growth the country's seen since the second world war. Yet, in
that decade, small stocks were in a depression. Small stock
earnings never recovered from the '80-'81 recession. They were
low the whole decade. The market was fooled every year by that,
because in every previous recession, the small companies came
back. Why did that happen in the '80s? I don't know. But it
happened. And it tells you there is something about small stocks
that makes them more risky.
Another question that comes up
frequently is if markets are correctly priced, how do you
explain crashes when they go down twenty percent in one day?
Take your example of growth stocks. If
their prospects don't go as well as expected, then there will be
a big decline. The same thing can happen for the market as a
whole. It can also be a mistake. I think the crash in '87 was a
mistake.
But if '87 was a mistake, doesn't
that suggest that there are moments in time when markets are not
efficiently priced?
Well, no. Take the previous crash in
1929. That one wasn't big enough. So you have two crashes. One
was too big [1987] and one was too small [1929]!
But in an efficient market context,
how are these crashes accounted for in terms of "correct
pricing"? I mean, if the market was correctly priced on Friday,
why did we need a crash on Monday?
That's why I gave the example of two
crashes. Half the time, the crashes should be too little, and
half the time they should be too big.
That's not doing it for me. What am
I missing?
Think of a distribution of errors.
Unpredictable economic outcomes generate price changes. The
distribution is around a mean—the expected return that people
require to hold stocks. Now that distribution, in fact, has fat
tails. That means that big pluses and big minuses are much more
frequent than they are under a normal distribution. So we
observe crashes way too frequently, but as long as they are half
the time under-reactions and half the time over-reactions, there
is nothing inefficient about it.
Let's go back to value stocks versus
growth, and large versus small stocks. Tell us why the
three-factor model contributes to our knowledge of risk in
investments.
The three factors are the market
factor, the size factor, and the distress [value] factor. We
distinguish between distress and growth. What we find is that,
in addition to the market factor in returns, in other words the
fact that stocks move together, it's also true that small stocks
move together, and big stocks move together, but not in the same
way. The value stocks move together and the growth stocks move
together but the two groups are different from each other. There
are at least three dimensions of risk: market risk, small stock
versus big stock risk, and distress stock versus growth stock
risk. When I say risk, I mean that these groups move together.
We could have found that they didn't move together, and then it
would have been market inefficiency.
What would that have told us?
It would have told you that you could
get a diversified portfolio of small stocks, and a diversified
portfolio of big stocks, short the big stocks and buy the small
stocks, and get a positive return with no risk.
Why would that be true?
It would only be true if there weren't
a common factor in the return on small stocks that caused them
to have randomness that wasn't shared with big stocks.
I'm not sure I follow.
If there's no small stock risk, and I
take a diversified small stock portfolio, I would be able to
explain its return entirely in terms of the market risk. So
there's nothing left over.
I see. We're comparing small stock
returns to the market as a whole. What you're saying is that
small stock returns have risk that's not explained by the
market. And this higher risk is the size risk you talk about in
the three-factor model? Is that correct?
Right. Take a diversified portfolio of
value stocks. Those stocks will move together. That portfolio's
return will not be perfectly explained by the market even if it
has a few thousand stocks in it.
If that's the case, wouldn't growth
stocks mirror the market as a whole?
Growth stocks do come closer to
mirroring the market as a whole.
So once you've decided to take the
market risk, creating your portfolio seems to come down to
deciding what your overall risk level is, and then you allocate
by size, and between growth and value, to achieve your
risk/reward goals.
Have there been any studies that
have ever impressed you about active management in any capacity?
I mean, has there been any evidence that would suggest to you
that all of the Wall Street analysts, gurus, salesmen, and
research departments are anything but a complete waste of time?
You used the key word: salesmen. I
might be willing to say that the people who get pointed at
consistently, who have shown consistent performance even after
they have been pointed at, really do have something. These are
always the same people, Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, and then
who?
Okay. You talk to Rex Sinquefield,
and he'll tell you that in any normal distribution you're going
to get those outlying orangutans.
I put it carefully. I said if you
identify them, and in the future they continue to do well, then
I'm starting to believe it. This sounds like the frustrations of
my college days when I found that the system that worked on the
old data didn't work with the new data!
So, in fact, there may be a Lynch
and a Buffett effect out there somewhere?
There may be, but the non sequiturs
that people jump to after that is to say, Aha! Active management
pays!
No, it means that Peter Lynch and
Warren Buffett pay! And what is it about them that we can clone?
Where's the next one?
Yeah. I don't think that's something
you can teach anybody or anything like that. The Magellan Fund
[once managed by Peter Lynch] by any risk-adjusted model, is off
the map. But there are only one or two like that.
Isn't it interesting that the last
three years' performance at Magellan Fund isn't Peter Lynch's?
Jeff Vinik's performance was also good. I presume because he
made a big bet on technology stocks and won.
Another thing I found when I looked at
Magellan was that it had a greater small stock bias when it was
a smaller fund.
Are you working on anything now that
you could share with us?
We're trying to extend the three-factor
model internationally. The scientific approach is always to say:
does it work out of sample? In other works, does it work on new
data, in this case, foreign stocks? So, what we are doing is
trying to use international data to see if we can come up with a
global view of risk and return.
How does it look so far?
The problem is that the international
data stink. You can't get the kind of data we can get here in
the US going back to 1926. We also have good accounting data
going back to the early '60s. Internationally, you don't really
have returns before 1988. And you only have a sub-sample of
stocks.
How much data do you need to get a
valid sample?
You never know until you do it, because
it's a function of how variable the returns are. The problem
with stock returns is the variability is so high. It takes long
samples to really document anything. But, so far, the new data
turn up the same kind of risk factors.
I guess we still haven't found a way
to predict the future.
That kind of reasoning will get you
closer to my way of thinking!
The trouble with you academic guys
is that you all approach this with such religious zeal that I
feel like a heretic if I disagree with any of you. Like I'm
going to be excommunicated any second.
No. We'll just throw you out of the
scientific community. You get to stay in the active management
community.
Gene, you're very well known in our
business for your work on returns. Do you do much work in the
private sector?
Not a lot. I'm a little lazy! Most of
the outside work I do is in a forum framework. I mean how am I
going to manage to do all that if I go windsurfing every
afternoon?
How's your windsurfing coming along?
I'm probably the best in the world over
age fifty!
Who knows, Gene, maybe you're the
millionth orangutan on the surfboard, the fifty-year-old outlier
who wins the world championship.
A couple of things struck me about this
discussion. You might or might not agree, but I thought I sensed a
much more open attitude from Gene about market efficiency, the
concept he developed. I felt that his was not the extreme version of
the efficient market theory that some others adopt, but rather an
open-minded attitude which says that, yes, market efficiency is
there and chances are you will never do better that the markets, and
as a rule, active management just doesn't pay.
On the other hand, the door seemed open a
crack to the reality that there are the occasional Peter Lynches and
others who achieve truly great performance records over extended
periods of time. The term the academics like to use for this is
"persistence." Yes, these guys exist, but there aren't that many.
Still, the sobering example Fama used that throws cold water on the
performance expectations is the study he did on mutual fund
performance over a ten year period since 1976. He then took the top
performing funds in the group and analyzed them for the following
ten years. The result: the top performing group only had a 50/50
chance of staying in the top half in the second ten year period.
What are you going to do? I think it's time we talked to another
active manager.
State of Synthetic Leasing Today
April 13, 2006 message from Mooney, Kate [kkmooney@STCLOUDSTATE.EDU]
Bob, I interested in your comment on synthetic
leases. Anecdotal evidence from my contacts in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area
suggests that few synthetic leases are done any more and some companies made
big fees unwinding existing ones. What did we miss? K
It is my understanding that the synthetic leasing industry brought
pressures to bear, along with some other industries, to continue to allow
off-balance sheet accounting in SPEs (now VIEs) when the FASB and the SEC
began to consider the future of this entire off-balance sheet ploy after the
Enron fiasco.
Perhaps some of the synthetic leasing SPEs are unwinding now because of
the despised 10% outside investor rule used to be a 3% rule. This
complicates but does not eliminate off-balance sheet accounting with VIEs.
Bob, The industry folks are consistent with you on
the significance of the increase from 3% to 10% equity investment as an
important reason for the demise of the synthetic lease.
Interestingly, according to the property guys who
arranged these things, public companies were reluctant to retain the
arrangement, even if consolidation wasn't a problem, because of the
negativity associated with SPEs/VIEs after Enron. The public companies
maintained to the property guys that analysts had enough info in the notes
to capitalize the leases, so consolidation didn't matter, it was that SPEs/VIEs
gave the impression of bad financial reporting and that did matter. K
SUMMARY: Ken Lay's testimony is reviewed in this article. Questions
relate to defining a 'run-on-the-bank' and the factors that Lay's argues led
up to it. Reference to a related article questions use of outside attorneys
to assess corporate transactions.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe the events leading up to the demise of Enron Corp and the
trials that are currently underway against its former leaders Kenneth Lay
and Jeffrey Skilling.
2.) What is a "run on the bank"? Why does Former Enron chief executive
Kenneth Lay argue that this phenomenon explains the demise of Enron? What
factors does he cite in leading up to this phenomenon?
3.) Refer to the related article. When do corporations seek advice of
outside counsel rather than in-house lawyers? For what transactions did
Enron seek advice from its outside lawyers, Vinson & Elkins, and
accountants, Arthur Andersen and Co?
4.) Why does the law firm of Vinson & Elkins now face significant risk
from class action law suits related to its work with Enron? In your answer,
define who is filing these class-action lawsuits.
5.) Refer again to the related article and the reliance Enron placed on
opinions expressed by its outside auditors, Arthur Andersen. How does
Andersen's demise leave the law firm of Vinson & Elkins at greater business
risk from their work with Enron?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
--- RELATED ARTICLES ---
TITLE: Energy Firm's Outside Counsel Sits in the Crosshairs of Lerach,
Securities Class-Action Kingpin
REPORTER: Nathan Koppel
PAGE: C1
ISSUE: Apr 26, 2006
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114592536742234763.html
Making the most important public appearance of a
long public life, former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay took the witness
stand at his criminal trial, where he admitted to mistakes but firmly denied
any wrongdoing in running the energy giant.
He blamed Enron's December 2001 collapse on
deceitful underlings, hostile stock traders and damaging news coverage by
The Wall Street Journal. Those forces collided to provoke what he called a
"classic run on the bank" that set the stage for the company's bankruptcy
filing. He also portrayed himself as a man still somewhat stunned by his
fall from a pinnacle where he used to rub shoulders with world leaders and
other corporate titans. Of all the things he had speculated about in his
life, being a criminal defendant "was nowhere in any of them," he said.
Whether the jury accepts Mr. Lay's version of
events could go a long way toward determining whether he and former Enron
President Jeffrey Skilling are convicted in their federal conspiracy and
fraud trial here. A string of government witnesses, including several former
Enron executives, have testified that the defendants knew about
manipulations of the company's finances and lied to the public about its
condition.
Mr. Skilling completed eight days of testimony last
week, in the first phase of what is viewed as the crucial period of the two
men's joint defense strategy. If anything, Mr. Lay's performance is even
more important, though it is expected to be only about half as long. He is
Enron's best-known figure and is widely considered a more affable, and
potentially more likable, figure to jurors than the more-intense Mr.
Skilling. A major part of Mr. Lay's responsibilities in Enron's last years
was to serve as the company's public face.
Shortly after court began yesterday morning, the
64-year-old Mr. Lay strode to the witness box, stopping to raise his right
hand well above his head as Judge Sim Lake administered the witness oath.
When asked if he promised to tell the truth, he answered with a clear,
almost resounding "I do."
Continued in article
Skilling's Appearance Riles Former Enron Employees (with audio) Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling faces
cross-examination by the prosecution as his trial resumes Monday. His appearance
on the stand has revived bitter feelings among many of Enron's former employees.
Wade Goodwyn, "Skilling's Appearance Riles Former Enron Employees (with audio),"
NPR, April 16, 2006 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5344829
"Enron Prosecutor Questions Skilling's Story," by Vikas Bajaj and
Alexei Barrionuevo, The New York Times, April 17, 2006 ---
Click Here
A prosecutor tried to poke holes in the testimony
of Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive, today by boring in
on stock sales he made in the months after he left the company and before
the energy company declared bankruptcy.
In his first day cross-examining Mr. Skilling, Sean
M. Berkowitz, the prosecutor, accused Mr. Skilling of selling shares because
he knew the company was under an accounting investigation and faced grave
problems.
Mr. Skilling, who is charged with conspiracy, fraud
and insider trading, steadfastly denied the accusations, saying that he sold
stock in September 2001 because he was worried about the economy after the
terrorists attacks and meant to diversify his stock holdings, which were
concentrated in Enron stock.
"Sir, Sept. 11 was not the only reason that you
sold Enron shares on Sept. 17, was it?" Mr. Berkowitz asked.
"The only reason I sold the 500,000 shares on Sept.
17, the only reason, was Sept. 11," Mr. Skilling responded, his voice
cracking slightly.
The cross-examination of Mr. Skilling, who is a
co-defendant with Kenneth L. Lay, the former Enron chairman and chief
executive, could be a critical turning point in the trial, which is now in
its 12th week. Mr. Lay faces fraud and conspiracy charges and is expected to
take the stand later in the trial.
In the long exchange over stock trades this
morning, Mr. Berkowitz focused extensively on a call Mr. Skilling placed to
his broker on Sept. 6 to sell 200,000 shares, less than a month after he
left the company. The trade was never completed because Mr. Skilling needed
to send a letter to the broker from Enron stating that he was no longer an
executive and was not restricted from selling his shares.
Mr. Skilling has said before that he does not
recall that specific trade and Mr. Berkowitz sought to highlight those past
remarks to raise doubt about Mr. Skilling's motivations for selling stock.
"Its your testimony that you don't have a specific
recollection of Sept. 6 trade and you have gone back and tried to piece it
together with evidence?" Mr. Berkowitz asked.
"Yes," Mr. Skilling said.
Mr. Berkowitz built up to that exchange after
earlier using questions to try to demonstrate that Mr. Skilling had spent
the last four and a half years preparing and "tailoring" his testimony with
all the available notes, documents and other evidence being used in the
case.
"I have nothing to hide, Mr. Berkowitz, so I don't
think it's a question of tailoring your testimony," Mr. Skilling said. "I
will respond to your questions to the best of my ability."
As he spoke and flipped through large binders of
evidence, Mr. Skilling would periodically put on and take off reading
glasses. He responded calmly to Mr. Berkowitz's questions, usually with
short answers.
Before the proceedings began this morning, Daniel
Petrocelli, Mr. Skilling's lawyer, wished Mr. Berkowitz well in front of a
group of reporters standing in the hallway of the courtroom.
"Hey Sean, lawyer to lawyer, have a good day," Mr.
Petrocelli said.
"Thanks, Dan," Mr. Berkowitz responded.
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors built their case
against Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay with the testimony of a parade of former
Enron executives who testified that the top officers knew of, authorized and
encouraged the use of improper accounting and financial transactions to
artificially boost the earnings the company reported to investors.
Defense lawyers for Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay have
tried to undercut the credibility of those witnesses and have argued that
there were no major crimes committed at Enron. They contend that Mr.
Skilling and Mr. Lay were kept in the dark on certain illicit transactions
by a group of finance executives.
"Skilling's Temper Drawn Out on Stand: Prosecutor Focuses on What
Former Enron CEO Says He Doesn't Remember," by Carrie Johnson, The Washington
Post, April 19, 2006 ---
Click Here
Known within the company for his impatience,
Skilling for the first time lost his cool Tuesday afternoon, asserting that
prosecutors misunderstood a technical issue. As Berkowitz raised his voice
and sought to proceed, the witness responded, "Let's not move on."
Defense lawyer Daniel M. Petrocelli took the
unusual step of interjecting to defuse the situation. "Is there a pending
question?" he asked.
Skilling apologized, only to lash out again at the
prosecutor.
"I know it is difficult for you to sit here and
answer questions, Mr. Skilling, and I know at times you overreact to people
who are critical of the company," Berkowitz said as Skilling shook his head,
his face reddened.
Skilling regained his composure and finished out
the day.
Mr. Berkowitz pressed Mr. Skilling over whether he
had participated in manipulating the company's quarterly earnings to meet or
exceed analysts' expectations. Witnesses testified earlier in the trial that
Enron pulled money from reserves in the fourth quarter of 1999 and then in
the second quarter of 2000 to generate more earnings.
Mr. Skilling denied to Mr. Berkowitz that he knew
anything about the change in 1999, testifying today that "there is a good
chance it did not occur." And he said a conversation between two Enron
investor relations executives, Paula Rieker and Mark Koenig, that Ms. Rieker
testified about earlier, did not happen.
In the second quarter of 2000, acting on an
expressed desire by Mr. Skilling to beat analysts' estimates, Enron
accountants pulled $14 million from a reserve account to push the company's
quarterly earnings up to 34 cents a share from 32 cents, witnesses testified
in the trial.
Mr. Skilling testified last week that when he
arrived back from a vacation in Africa he learned that the quarter was
"coming in hot" and told Enron's chief accounting officer, Richard A.
Causey, to "shoot for 34" cents. Mr. Berkowitz suggested today that Mr.
Skilling had acted improperly by suggesting that. Mr. Skilling responded
that the reserves from which Enron pulled the money "are not typically
locked until right before the end of the quarter.'
Mr. Berkowitz today played an audiotape of Mr.
Skilling's previous testimony before the Securities and Exchange Commission
where Mr. Skilling said he never gave any instruction that caused quarterly
earnings to change. "I would comment by saying something like, 'oh, wow, or
gee, that's interesting,' " Mr. Skilling testified to the S.E.C.
"That was a lie, wasn't it, sir?" Mr. Berkowitz
asked.
"No, that was absolutely correct," Mr. Skilling
said. "Did I ever give anyone any instruction to change the results of the
quarter? I did not."
Earlier, the prosecutor spent an extended period
questioning Mr. Skilling about meetings and internal company memos from 2000
that, he argued, were meant to provide detail about the troubles that Enron
was facing in a group of "merchant assets," which included power plants and
other businesses.
"This is like looking at the baseball rankings and
saying, 'Let's look at the bottom two teams,' " Mr. Skilling protested at
one point when Mr. Berkowitz showed the courtroom an internal presentation.
"Let's not talk about baseball, Mr. Skilling," Mr.
Berkowitz retorted. "Let's talk about Enron."
"This is a misrepresentation of what was going on,"
said Mr. Skilling, who noted that the presentation was incomplete because it
did not show the assets that were performing well.
A little while later, Mr. Berkowitz tried to
undercut that argument by displaying documents that showed 55 percent of the
company's merchant assets were not living up to expectations. Mr. Skilling
responded that a 50 percent success rate was not just acceptable but a sign
that the business was doing well, asserting that venture capital investments
fail 90 percent of the time.
"They were telling you in 2000 in June, in
September and November that excessive earnings pressure resulted in bad
deals and risky deals being done?" Mr. Berkowitz asked.
"No," Mr. Skilling said with slight chuckle.
"Well, O.K., the documents will tell us that," Mr.
Berkowitz said.
"I guess so," Mr. Skilling, 52, said.
The questioning today appears to be aimed at
bolstering the prosecution's case that Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay authorized
and encouraged the use of improper accounting and financial transactions to
cover up troubles at Enron and artificially increase the company's reported
earnings. After trying to show that Mr. Skilling was aware of the problems
with its assets, Mr. Berkowitz questioned Mr. Skilling about sales of assets
to off-the-books partnerships that Enron officials created with third-party
investors.
Many of Enron's underperforming merchant assets and
international power plants were sold to in part or in full to those
partnerships, which were generically referred to as "raptors."
"It was your understanding that these assets would
go down in value?" Mr. Berkowitz said referring to the assets sold to the
partnerships.
"No," Mr. Skilling responded.
"You understand that the only reasons the
sophisticated investors were interested in investing into the raptors was
because they were guaranteed to receive their money back?" Mr.
Berkowitz asked, suggesting that Enron told its partners that it would make
them whole if the value of the assets went down.
"They looked at the overall transaction, the incubation phase and the
hedging phase and must have decided that was something they were interested
in doing," Mr. Skilling said.
Lawyers defending Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay, who is expected to take the
stand later in the trial, have argued that their clients did not commit any
crimes at Enron, and that any wrongdoing was confined to certain illicit
transactions involving a cadre of finance executives led by the company's
onetime chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow.
Mr. Skilling Monday dived straight into an
aggressive defense of both himself and Enron that contrasted with its public
image as a symbol of corporate scandal. Mr. Skilling talked of his pride in
Enron's growth and the quality of its employees, even the excitement he felt
walking each day into Enron's gleaming headquarters tower here. "We were
making the world better," Mr. Skilling said.
Challenging claims made by several government
witnesses, Mr. Skilling said he never told any of his subordinates at Enron
to lie or in any way manipulate the company's financial statements. However,
he also described several of the key witnesses as honest men. The defense
argues that these witnesses succumbed to government pressure and pleaded
guilty to crimes that they didn't commit.
He insisted that Enron was a successful and vibrant
company that was undermined by a market panic partly sparked by several Wall
Street Journal articles in October 2001. Monday, Paul E. Steiger, the
Journal's managing editor, said the paper's reporters "were leaders in
uncovering the accounting scandal at Enron. We are proud of our work."
Continued in article
"Enron Prosecutor Attacks Theory of 2001 Collapse," by Alexei Barrionuevo
and Simon Romero, The New York Times, April 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
A prosecutor sought Thursday to undercut
Kenneth L. Lay's assertion that short sellers
were part of a "conspiracy" that caused Enron's downfall, showing that
one of Mr. Lay's own sons had bet that the company's stock would
decline.
Under cross-examination by the prosecutor, John
C. Hueston, Mr. Lay expressed surprise and became flustered when
confronted with brokerage records showing that Mark Lay, his son, had
sold Enron stock before its bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Mr. Lay
said he did not know until Thursday that his son had been selling Enron
stock during that time.
Mark Lay, a former Enron executive, left the
company in 2001 to enter a local Baptist seminary.
In a day of testy exchanges, the prosecutor
relentlessly attacked Mr. Lay's explanation for Enron's collapse. He
also suggested Mr. Lay lied about Enron's plans to pursue a water
business so he could avoid a potentially fatal credit downgrade.
And Mr. Hueston suggested Mr. Lay should have
been more forthcoming with investors about tens of millions of dollars
in Enron stock he was selling to meet bank demands to repay loans — even
as he portrayed himself as bullish on the stock.
Mr. Lay, Enron's former chief executive, took
the stand for a fourth day in his criminal fraud trial in federal court.
He and Jeffrey K. Skilling, his co-defendant and also a former Enron
chief executive, are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron's investors,
in large part by not disclosing serious problems at the company. Lawyers
in the case, which concluded its 13th week, said they expected Mr. Lay
to be on the stand at least through Monday.
On Thursday Mr. Hueston challenged the
defense's claims that short sellers, financial journalists and a small
number of deceptive Enron executives were responsible for hysteria in
2001 that produced the chaotic collapse of the company.
Mr. Hueston asked Mr. Lay if he would describe
his son as a "vulture," a term Michael W. Ramsey, a Lay lawyer, used in
his opening statement to describe short sellers.
"I don't think he's a vulture, no," Mr. Lay
said. But he clearly seemed pained when Mr. Hueston displayed an Oct.
26, 2001, e-mail message sent by Mark Lay to Mark Palmer, Enron's former
head of media relations. In it, Mark Lay said that the "shorts are
trumpeting all of the insider sales" and suggested that the company
disclose insider selling more frequently, perhaps monthly.
While Mr. Lay offered no explanation for his
son's actions, he said that in late 2001 Enron was "being attacked very
viciously." He said that a group of hedge funds met in Florida in
January 2001 and agreed to act together to push down Enron's stock
price. In the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Lay
said, he felt that Enron was "under siege" by hostile investors and The
Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Lay, 64, began the day appearing fatigued
but calmer than on Wednesday afternoon, when he sparred with Mr. Hueston
after testifying about his use of millions of dollars of Enron credit
lines to shore up his personal finances. But when Mr. Hueston picked up
that issue again, seeking to show Mr. Lay misled investors by not
disclosing he had sold $77.5 million in Enron shares while buying $4
million worth, Mr. Lay's blood pressure seemed to rise again.
While Mr. Lay is not charged with insider
trading, prosecutors are suggesting he chose not to disclose his large
stock sales in 2001 because he knew of deep-seated problems at Enron.
Mr. Lay let others represent him as bullish on Enron stock, and he urged
Enron employees to purchase shares in 2001, promoting the declining
stock as a "bargain."
Despite suggestions by Mr. Hueston that he had
intentionally not disclosed his stock sales, Mr. Lay insisted that he
had complied with reporting requirements, that he was forced to sell the
shares to meet demands to repay loans and that he used a $10 million
Enron bonus to pay down his Enron credit line rather than deposit the
money in the bank.
"I separated the optional discretionary
decisions I was making from those that were forced," he said. Disclosing
his sales to Enron employees "was not required and I did not see that it
was necessary," he added.
Mr. Hueston spent much of the afternoon
attacking Mr. Lay on one of the government's strongest charges against
him: that he misled investors and Enron's auditor, Arthur Andersen, into
thinking Enron planned to use a British water company, Wessex, to pursue
a growth strategy in the water business.
Prosecutors charge that Mr. Lay told David B.
Duncan, the former lead Andersen partner on the Enron account, in an
Oct. 12 meeting that there was a growth strategy, only to head off a
credit downgrade that would result if Enron had to take a good-will
charge of as much as $700 million on Wessex.
Mr. Hueston challenged Mr. Lay's denials that
he discussed a water strategy at that meeting, showing that efforts were
under way within the company to find a way to justify not taking the
good-will charge.
Mr. Lay said those efforts were premature,
since Arthur Andersen had yet to decide how much of a charge had to be
taken. He belittled the work going on inside Enron to solve the
impairment issue — saying it made "no business sense" — and denied
knowing anything about it.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review, March 31, 2006
TITLE: GM Races to Correct Errors for Report to SEC
REPORTER: Lee Hawkins, Jr.
DATE: Mar 27, 2006
PAGE: A3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114341932643308634.html
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Accounting, Accounting Changes and Error
Corrections, Auditing, Auditor/Client Disagreements, Cash Flow
SUMMARY: "GM management has spent more than a week gathering details on the
chain of events that led to a last-minute discovery of accounting errors in the
financial statements of ResCap, MAC's residential-mortgage unit, which caused GM
to miss its 10-K filing deadline March 16... The ResCap mistakes were discovered
after GM's auditors refused to sign off on ResCap's financial statements " The
accounting issues relate to classifying cash flows from proceeds of sale of
mortgage loans as investing activities rather than operating activities. "GM and
its chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, are under pressure to fix the
errors and offer a new statement by Friday, since missing that deadline could
put GM at risk of violating covenants related to $32 billion in bonds." A
related opinion page piece argues that Mr. Wagoner will likely face ouster by
his Board this summer.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe the problematic accounting issue at GM's residential mortgage
lending unit.
2.) Cite the specific accounting requirements indicating that cash flows from
sales of mortgages should be shown as operating cash flows rather than investing
cash flows. In your answer, refer to the nature of the industry in which ResCap
operates as well as the specific references to the accounting literature.
3.) Why is it important to see cash flows categorized into operating,
investing, and financing cash flows?
4.) Why do you think that ResCap's auditors refused to sign off on the
classification of cash flows for sales of loans even though this was not the
first year that these cash flows were shown in that way? Why do you think that
the auditors had "signed off" on these transactions in the past?
5.) What other accounting issue is GM currently facing? Are the issues with
reporting cash flows related to the issues requiring restatement of earnings? In
your answer, address both the purely accounting issues as well as the nature of
concerns in general with GM's reporting over this time period.
6.) Refer to the related article. How does the timing of the accounting and
reporting issues at GM coincide with the timing of Mr. Wagoner's tenure there?
7.) How do GM's problems reflect fundamental problems of management in
addition to concerns about the state of the automotive industry? How does that
additional concern about management exacerbate negative opinions about the
company?
8.) What is a forensic accountant? How would hiring one help GM with its
current woes?
SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Establish 4 person groups. Have each group access the
General Motors SEC filings
Have each group identify all forms filed with the SEC on March 28, 2006. The
students should identify Form 8-K, Form 10-K, Form 10-Q/A and Form 10-K/A.
Answer the following questions:
1. What is the purpose of each filing?
2. Describe the contents of each filing and state how those contents support the
purpose of the filing.
3. How are the changes identified in the WSJ articles presented in the filings?
Specifically describe the ways in which those changes are presented (footnotes,
tabular disclosures, restatements on the face of financial statements, etc.) 4.
Identify the accounting standard requiring the treatments shown in each of the
SEC filings, if applicable.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review, March 31, 2006
TITLE: Revised Rules Put Union Spending Under Scrutiny
REPORTER: Kris Maher
DATE: Mar 27, 2006
PAGE: A2
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114341713309808610.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Disclosure, Disclosure Requirements, Financial Accounting
SUMMARY: Department of Labor rules for specific financial reporting by unions
is just being implemented. The article highlights specific points in financial
statements that are of interest to union stakeholders and financial statement
readers. Questions also ask students to understand the difference between these
specific reporting requirements and reporting under GAAP as established by the
FASB and its predecessors.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Based on the points discussed in the article, determine who established the
revised financial reporting requirements described in it. With whom are these
financial statements filed?
2.) Are these requirements established in addition to reporting required of
any audited entity in order to obtain a "clean opinion" from an auditor?
3.) What are the specific items of interest that are required to be
separately disclosed under the new rules?
4.) Why might labor unions' financial statement readers be interested in
specific categories of items? Why might labor unions' leadership want to limit
certain categories of items?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Revised financial-reporting requirements are
lifting the veil on union spending, giving union members and government
auditors more details on union-spending habits, as well as providing fodder
to critics of organized labor.
The revised disclosure rules, which were announced
in final form by the Labor Department in 2003, are resulting in more
detailed reports just now becoming available. The rules require the roughly
4,500 unions with annual receipts of $250,000 or more to itemize expenses of
$5,000 or more and are therefore providing a more detailed picture of union
spending on administrative overhead, political campaigns, conventions and
other activities.
Though the rule changes took effect in 2004, most
reports are expected to be filed around the March 31 deadline that applies
to the roughly 80% of unions whose financial year ends Dec. 31. The AFL-CIO
and unions with fiscal years that ended at midyear filed in September.
In the past, unions were able to aggregate expenses
in broad categories, and filings mostly consisted of salary data for union
officers and employees. The revised financial-reporting form for unions
hadn't been substantially changed since it came into use in the early 1960s.
Some labor groups fought the enhanced reporting
rules, including the AFL-CIO, which argued in a lawsuit that the new rules
would be overly burdensome and the itemization too detailed, among other
things.
Deborah Greenfield, associate general counsel of
the AFL-CIO, said the federation's view hadn't changed. "We have no reason
to believe that union members will find this particularly meaningful," she
said. "But we have every reason to believe that antiunion organizations have
seized on this. There are organizations waiting to feed off these reports."
Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao said in an interview
that the rules weren't intended to aid union critics. "This initiative is
about giving union members meaningful information about their own union's
finances, so that they can exercise their democratic rights," she said. The
new rules were born out of a broad review of ways the department needed to
protect workers' rights, she added. "It became very evident that we needed
to step up and enforce the law with regard to union transparency and
accountability."
Labor experts said unions have good reason to be
nervous about the reports. "There are certainly going to be things that are
technically legitimate but are not going to be well-received by the
membership," said Marick F. Masters, a professor of business administration
at the University of Pittsburgh. For instance, details on political spending
could anger members whose money went to support candidates they didn't vote
for, or even fuel efforts to back legislation restricting how union dues are
spent on politics.
The AFL-CIO's filing shows that it paid a political
media consultant based in Washington, D.C., more than $2.9 million to
produce flyers and mailings to support John Kerry's presidential bid and
several election issues. It paid a telecommunications vendor $143,340 for
election-related phone calls, and spent $30,264 on a satellite hookup for a
pro-Kerry rally in Ohio. Overall, in a presidential election year, the
AFL-CIO spent $49.3 million on political activities and lobbying, $28.6
million on general overhead and union administration and $29.9 million on
representational activities.
Evidence of spending on conventions and gifts could
rankle even more, at a time when unions increasingly have been forced to
negotiate concessions that have made members tighten their own belts. In
2004, the International Association of Fire Fighters spent $1.2 million on
its biannual convention in Boston. Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the fire
fighters, said the cost included travel and lodging for 3,000 delegates and
numerous production costs, including added security for John Kerry, who
attended the event.
The new reports also make it easier to find
retirement gifts and other extraordinary payments unions make. Iron workers
Local 40 in New York paid $52,879 to Premium Cadillac Ltd. for an
"honorarium," for example. Kevin O'Rourke, president of the local, said he
didn't think members at the local would find the expense objectionable
because a majority voted to give the car to a retiring union president.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on April 21,
2006
TITLE: Comverse to Restate Results after Options Audit
REPORTER: James Bandler and Charles Forelle
DATE: Apr 18, 2006
PAGE: A3
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114527632069427484.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Executive compensation, Financial Accounting, Stock Options
SUMMARY: "Comverse Technology Inc. said that after a preliminary review of
its stock-option practices, it expects to restate more than five years of
financial results because the grant dates used in its accounting 'differed' from
the actual grant date...Comverse also said it could face delisting from the
Nasdaq Stock Market because it will be unable to file its annual report for the
latest fiscal year on time." The related articles describe the WSJ analysis of
stock option grants to identify unusual patterns in stock option grant dates
that led to the SEC investigation of several companies regarding this issue.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Summarize accounting for employee stock options. In your answer, define the
terms "grant date" and "measurement date" and identify their importance to the
accounting process.
2.) Summarize the analysis undertaken by the Wall Street Journal to
investigate the timing of stock option grants. What was the objective of the
analysis? What conclusions were drawn?
3.) Again refer to the analysis undertaken by the Wall Street Journal to
investigate the timing of stock option grants. How did the analysis support the
conclusions drawn? Are there any possible weaknesses in the support for the
conclusions drawn from the analysis?
4.) What data used for the analysis of stock options were taken from the
companies' financial statements? Where in the financial statements can these
data be found? Be specific.
5.) How will restatements affect prior earnings reported by companies who
uncover issues with option grant dates? Specifically describe the accounting and
reporting requirements for problems such as those uncovered by Comverse.
6.) Under what circumstances will Comverse's cash flows be affected by
changes related to the timing of stock option grant dates? Explain how this
answer differs from your answer regarding earnings effects.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC)
newest effort to attract companies to use the EXtensible Business Reporting
Language (XBRL) data tagging technology, developed by an accounting
industry- led group, is finding greater success than its past effort.
Seventeen companies have agreed to file their
financial statements in XBRL-tagged documents under the second such XBRL
pilot the SEC has sanctioned in the past year. A pilot, launched last April,
has attracted only nine company participants, despite being open for
membership in a span when the SEC has several times publicly hailed XBRL as
a major advancement in financial reporting.
The list of participants in the new pilot is
impressive, with companies that include 3M Co., Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Dow
Chemical Co., Xerox Corp. XM Satellite Radio Holdings and publisher R.R.
Donnelly & Son. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he was pleased “with the
range of industries,” adding that “their leadership will help shape how”
XBRL and other so-called interactive data technologies are used.
XBRL is the business report version of EXtensible
Markup Language (XML) which tags individual items within documents so that
they can be immediately accessed. XBRL makes it easier for reporting
companies because data tagged for one report can be automatically retrieved
and inputted into other documents, and it allows investors, analysts and
regulators, such as the SEC, to instantaneously locate, collate and review
the report data they require.
The 17 companies in the pilot will submit their
reports in XBRL for one year and report on their experiences, and in
exchange the SEC will give them expedited reviews of their registration
statements and annual reports. Last April, the SEC began allowing companies
to voluntarily submit their reports using XBRL for an unlimited time span,
but offered no incentives; membership in that volunteer program is still
open.
The SEC is very interested in gaining widespread
use of XBRL. Its current request for proposals for new management of its
EDGAR database of financial reports requires that the new manager be capable
of converting the system to an XBRL base. However, the SEC cannot mandate
all public companies to use XBRL until the technology becomes more widely
used.
The general perception has been that XBRL was
having a hard time gaining market acceptance based on the limited number of
users in the first pilot program. But, the tide may be turning; in addition
to the larger enrollment in the new pilot, ,XBRL last week got its first bit
of noteworthy coverage in The Wall Street Journal as one of the items
featured in a March 22 story about how Cox is trying to advance the
commission’s technology capabilities.
Companies interested in joining the new pilot group
should visit the http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl.htm or contact Jeffrey
Naumann in the Office of the Chief Accountant (naumannj@sec.gov) or Brigitte
Lippmann in the Division of Corporation Finance (lippmannb@sec.gov).
The SEC said it extended the registration deadline
for the newest pilot from early February to mid-March, to give applying
companies more time to prepare. Spokesman John Heine denied published
reports a few weeks ago that claimed the deadline was extended because the
program had attracted only six volunteers as of early February.
"Shocks Seen in New Math for Pensions," by Mary Williams Walsh, The
New York Times, March 31, 2006 ---
Click Here
The board that writes accounting rules for American
business is proposing a new method of reporting pension obligations that is
likely to show that many companies have a lot more debt than was obvious
before.
In some cases, particularly at old industrial
companies like automakers, the newly disclosed obligations are likely to be
so large that they will wipe out the net worth of the company.
The panel, the Financial Accounting Standards
Board, said the new method, which it plans to issue today for public
comment, would address a widespread complaint about the current pension
accounting method: that it exposes shareholders and employees to billions of
dollars in risks that they cannot easily see or evaluate. The new accounting
rule would also apply to retirees' health plans and other benefits.
A member of the accounting board, George Batavick,
said, "We took on this project because the current accounting standards just
don't provide complete information about these obligations."
The board is moving ahead with the proposed pension
changes even as Congress remains bogged down on much broader revisions of
the law that governs company pension plans. In fact, Representative John A.
Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the new House majority leader, who has been
a driving force behind pension changes in Congress, said yesterday that he
saw little chance of a finished bill before a deadline for corporate pension
contributions in mid-April.
Congress is trying to tighten the rules that govern
how much money companies are to set aside in advance to pay for benefits.
The accounting board is working with a different set of rules that govern
what companies tell investors about their retirement plans.
The new method proposed by the accounting board
would require companies to take certain pension values they now report deep
in the footnotes of their financial statements and move the information onto
their balance sheets — where all their assets and liabilities are reflected.
The pension values that now appear on corporate balance sheets are almost
universally derided as of little use in understanding the status of a
company's retirement plan.
Mr. Batavick of the accounting board said the new
rule would also require companies to measure their pension funds' values on
the same date they measure all their other corporate obligations. Companies
now have delays as long as three months between the time they calculate
their pension values and when they measure everything else. That can yield
misleading results as market fluctuations change the values.
"Old industrial, old economy companies with heavily
unionized work forces" would be affected most sharply by the new rule, said
Janet Pegg, an accounting analyst with Bear, Stearns. A recent report by Ms.
Pegg and other Bear, Stearns analysts found that the companies with the
biggest balance-sheet changes were likely to include General Motors, Ford,
Verizon, BellSouth and General Electric.
Using information in the footnotes of Ford's 2005
financial statements, Ms. Pegg said that if the new rule were already in
effect, Ford's balance sheet would reflect about $20 billion more in
obligations than it now does. The full recognition of health care promised
to Ford's retirees accounts for most of the difference. Ford now reports a
net worth of $14 billion. That would be wiped out under the new rule. Ford
officials said they had not evaluated the effect of the new accounting rule
and therefore could not comment.
Applying the same method to General Motors' balance
sheet suggests that if the accounting rule had been in effect at the end of
2005, there would be a swing of about $37 billion. At the end of 2005, the
company reported a net worth of $14.6 billion. A G.M. spokesman declined to
comment, noting that the new accounting rule had not yet been issued.
Many complaints about the way obligations are now
reported revolve around the practice of spreading pension figures over many
years. Calculating pensions involves making many assumptions about the
future, and at the end of every year there are differences between the
assumptions and what actually happened. Actuaries keep track of these
differences in a running balance, and incorporate them into pension
calculations slowly.
That practice means that many companies' pension
disclosures do not yet show the full impact of the bear market of 2000-3,
because they are easing the losses onto their books a little at a time. The
new accounting rule will force them to bring the pension values up to date
immediately, and use the adjusted numbers on their balance sheets.
Not all companies would be adversely affected by
the new rule. A small number might even see improvement in their balance
sheets. One appears to be Berkshire Hathaway. Even though its pension fund
has a shortfall of $501 million, adjusting the numbers on its balance sheet
means reducing an even larger shortfall of $528 million that the company
recognized at the end of 2005.
Berkshire Hathaway's pension plan differs from that
of many other companies because it is invested in assets that tend to be
less volatile. Its assumptions about investment returns are also lower, and
it will not have to make a big adjustment for earlier-year losses when the
accounting rule takes effect. Berkshire also looks less indebted than other
companies because it does not have retiree medical plans.
Mr. Batavick said he did not know what kind of
public comments to expect, but hoped to have a final standard completed by
the third quarter of the year. Companies would then be expected to use it
for their 2006 annual reports. The rule will also apply to nonprofit
institutions like universities and museums, as well as privately held
companies.
The rule would not have any effect on corporate
profits, only on the balance sheets. The accounting board plans to make
additional pension accounting changes after this one takes effect. Those are
expected to affect the bottom line and could easily be more contentious.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a
proposal on Friday that would require employers to recognize the overfunded
or underfunded positions of defined benefit postretirement plans, including
pension plans, in their balance sheets. The proposal would also require that
employers measure plan assets and obligations as of the date of their
financial statements.
According to the standards board, the proposed
changes would increase the transparency and completeness of financial
statements for shareholders, creditors, employees, retirees, donors, and
other users.
The exposure draft applies to plan sponsors that
are public and private companies and nongovernmental not-for-profit
organizations. It results from the first phase of a comprehensive project to
reconsider guidance in Statement No. 87, Employers' Accounting for Pensions,
and Statement No. 106, Employers' Accounting for Postretirement Benefits
Other Than Pensions. A second, broader phase will address remaining issues.
FASB expects to collaborate with the International Accounting Standards
Board on that phase.
In a statement released on Friday, FASB said the
current accounting standards do not provide complete information about
postretirement benefit obligations. For example, those standards allow an
employer to recognize an asset or liability in its balance sheet that almost
always differs from its overfunded or underfunded positions. Instead, they
require that information about the current funded status of such plans be
reported in the notes to financial statements. That incomplete reporting
results because existing standards allow delayed recognition of certain
changes in plan assets and obligations that affect the costs of providing
such benefits.
"Many constituents, including our advisory
councils, investors, creditors, and the SEC staff believe that the current
incomplete accounting makes it difficult to assess an employer's financial
position and its ability to carry out the obligations of its plans," said
George Batavick, FASB member. "We agree. Today's proposal, by requiring
sponsoring employers to reflect the current overfunded or underfunded
positions of postretirement benefit plans in the balance sheet, makes the
basic financial statements more complete, useful, and transparent. "
The proposed changes, other than the requirement to
measure plan assets and obligations as of the balance sheet date, would be
effective for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2006. Public companies
would be required to apply the proposed changes to the measurement date for
fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2006 and nonpublic entities,
including not-for-profit organizations, would become subject to that
requirement in fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2007.
FASB is seeking written comments on the proposal by
May 31, 2006. After the comment period, the board will hold a public
roundtable meeting on the proposal on June 27, 2006, in Norwalk,
Connecticut.
The International Public Sector Accounting
Standards Board (IPSASB)
has released an information paper on the experiences
of governmental units in the the United States in their transition to
accrual accounting. The paper, entitled The Road to Accrual Accounting in
the United States of America, outlines the development of administrative
arrangements for formal standards setting over 70 years at the local, state,
and federal Government levels in the US and highlights key factors shaping
the standards setting structure. It also provides a detailed overview of the
conversion to accrual accounting by state and local governments (there are
nearly 88,000 governmental units in the US), examines the standards issued
by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) to lead and support
that conversion, and identifies key milestones in the conversion process.
Chapters address:
The Environment (includes a history of
governmental accounting standards in the United States)
The Road to Accrual-Basis Standards for State
and Local Government
Implementation Issues Associated with the
Adoption of Accrual Accounting in State and Local Government
US Accrual Standards in an
International Context
The Aftermath of the New Reporting Model
The paper was prepared by David Bean, Director of Research and Technical
Activities at the GASB and staff at the GASB. It can be downloaded without
charge from the IFAC Website. Click
for Press Release
(PDF 57k).
Surveying curricula from scratch is a huge project
for anyone engaged in program review. It would make sense for someone to
maintain a database, especially now that so many are available in digital
form. It sounds to me like a good ongoing grant-funded project on the order
of the Hasselback directory.
At a minimum, this would involve simply obtaining a
copy of the curricula for various programs from each institution. Better,
statistical analysis would show what is typical in terms of % and/or hours
in the business core, the majors, etc., as well as typical courses in those
areas.
Could such a database be developed by AAA? AACSB?
Donald D. Ramsey, CPA, Department of Accounting,
Finance, and Economics, School of Business and Public Administration,
University of the District of Columbia, Room 404A, Building 52 (Connecticut
and Yuma St.), 4200 Connecticut Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20008. (202)
274-7054.
Suggested curriculum revisions (the bad and the good) under the
Accounting Education Change Commission projects are summarized at
http://aaahq.org/facdev/aecc.htm Since the AAA does not tend to
report the failed experiments, it is best to contact the grant schools for
updates on how the experiments turned out. Some experiments were quite
successful and are now implemented at various schools. Other experiments
turned out to be duds, but this is what makes them somewhat interesting to
investigate. In other words they sounded better at the proposal stage than
they turned out to be in reality.
The AACSB Pocket Guide to Business Education ---
Click Here
A Little Like Dirty Pooling Accounting: Not pooling but moving in the
direction of pooling
A Little Like Dirty Pooling Accounting Tyco Undervalues Acquired Assets and Overvalues Acquired Liabilities:
Tyco International Ltd. said Monday it has agreed to
pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $50 million to settle charges related
to allegations of accounting fraud by the high-tech conglomerate's prior
management. The regulatory agency had accused Tyco of inflating operating
earnings, undervaluing acquired assets, overvaluing acquired liabilities and
using improper accounting rules, company spokeswoman Sheri Woodruff said. 'The
accounting practices violated federal securities laws,'' she said. "Tyco to Pay S.E.C. $50 Million on Accounting Charges," The New York Times,
April 17, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Tyco-SEC-Fine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
April 17, 2006 reply from Saeed Roohani
Bob,
Assuming improper accounting practices by Tyco
negatively impacted investors and creditors in the capital markets, why
SEC gets the $50 M? Shouldn't SEC give at least some of it back to the
people potentially hurt by such practices? Or damage to investors should
only come from auditors' pocket?
Saeed Roohani
April 18, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Saeed,
In a case like this it is difficult to identify particular victims
and the extent of the damage of this one small set of accounting
misdeeds in the complex and interactive multivariate world of
information.
The damage is also highly dispersed even if you confine the scope to
just existing shareholders in Tyco at the particular time of the
financial reports.
One has to look at motives. I'm guessing that one motive was to
provide overstated future ROIs from acquisitions in order to justify the
huge compensation packages that the CEO (Kozlowski) and the CFO
(Schwarz) were requesting from Tyco's Board of Directors for superior
acquisition performance. Suppose that they got $125 million extra in
compensation. The amount of damage for to each shareholder for each
share of stock is rather minor since there were so many shares
outstanding.
Also, in spite of the illegal accounting, Kozlowski's acquisitions
were and still are darn profitable for Tyco. I have a close friend (and
neighbor) in New Hampshire, a former NH State Trooper, who became
Koslowski's personal body guard. To this day my friend, Jack, swears
that Kozlowski did a great job for Tyco in spite of possibly "stealing"
some of Tyco's money. Many shareholders wish Kozlowski was still in
command even if he did steal a small portion of the huge amount he made
for Tyco. He had a skill at negotiating some great acquisition deals in
spite of trying to take a bit more credit for the future ROIs than was
justified under purchase accounting instead of virtual pooling
accounting.
I actually think Dennis Kozlowski was simply trying to get a bit
larger commission (than authorized by the Board) for some of his good
acquisition deals.
Would you rather have a smart crook or an unimaginative bean counter
managing your company? (Just kidding)
<<But Briloff says what's particularly egregious is
the fact that Tyco did not file with the SEC disclosure forms (known as 8K
filings), which would have carried the exhibits setting forth the balance
sheets and income statements of the acquired companies.
"This is an even worse situation than under the old
pooling accounting, " Briloff says, "because under that now vestigial
method, investors and analysts could dig out the historical balance sheet
and income statement for the acquired companies." >>
Ah yes, the good old days, when accountants
understood what mattered.
Gregg
April 18, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Interesting but still does not mean Abe wanted to pool those statements.
Abe fought poolings like a tiger. He never said that accounting information
before an acquisition is totally useless. He did say it could be misleading
when pooled, especially in relation to terms of the acquisition.
SUMMARY: The article offers an excellent description of the process
undertaken by VNU's Board of Directors in deciding to put the company "on the
auction block", consider alternative strategies, and finally accept an offer
price.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe the transaction agreed to by the Board of VNU NV and its acquirer,
AlpInvest Partners.
2.) What does the current stock price of VNU imply about the takeover
transaction? Why do you think that VNU is distributing the 210 page document
explaining the transaction and the Board's decision process?
3.) Connect to the press release dated March 8 through the on-line version of
the article. Scroll down to the section covering the "background of the offer."
Draw a timeline of the events, using abbreviations that are succinct but
understandable.
4.) What other alternatives did the VNU Board consider rather than selling
the company? Why did they decide against each of these alternatives?
5.) Based on the information in the article and the press releases, do you
think the acquirers will obtain value from the investment they are making?
Support your answer, including refuting possible arguments against your
position.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
A group of private-equity funds is beginning a $9
billion takeover of Dutch media giant VNU NV with the release of documents
that explain for the first time how VNU's board determined the purchase
price was high enough.
In the four weeks since VNU announced it would
recommend the private-equity group's offer, many shareholders have accused
the company of rushing to sell itself after being forced by investors to
abandon a big acquisition last year.
These critics said that the sale process was
halfhearted and that the agreed-upon price too low. Some have said they
preferred VNU to break itself up and separately sell the pieces.
At least two VNU shareholders, including
mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments, have said publicly they are unlikely
to support the takeover; many others have said so privately.
VNU shares have traded far below the agreed
per-share offer price of €28.75 ($34.85) since the deal was announced,
suggesting the market expects the takeover bid to fail.
VNU – based in Haarlem, Netherlands, and the
world's largest market-research firm by sales – addresses these concerns in
the 210-page offer document to be sent to shareholders and outlines in
detail the steps it took to ensure the highest value.
Materials include two fairness opinions written by
VNU's financial advisers, one by Credit Suisse Group and the other by NM
Rothschild & Sons, evaluating the offer and concluding the price is
attractive for shareholders.
"This was a fully open auction," said Roger Altman,
chairman of Evercore Partners, another VNU financial adviser. The company's
board fully vetted all options, including a breakup of the business,
restructuring opportunities or proceeding with the status quo, he said.
"None provided a value as high as €28.75 [a share]. None of them."
Mr. Altman said that after being contacted by
private-equity funds interested in buying VNU after its failed attempt last
year to acquire IMS Health Inc., of Fairfield, Conn., VNU auctioned itself,
including seeking other strategic or private-equity bidders.
A second group of private-equity funds explored a
possible bid but dropped out when it concluded it couldn't pay as much as
the first group said it was prepared to offer. Another potential bidder, a
company, withdrew after refusing to sign a confidentiality agreement, VNU's
offer document says.
The initial group, which submitted the only firm
bid, consists of AlpInvest Partners of the Netherlands, and Blackstone
Group, Carlyle Group, Hellman & Friedman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and
Thomas H. Lee Partners, all of the U.S. The group formed Valcon Acquisition
BV to make the bid.
Some of the calculations provided in the offer
document suggest the company might be valued higher than the Valcon bid
price in certain circumstances. The Credit Suisse letter indicates the
company could be valued at as much as €29.60 a share based on prices paid
for businesses similar to VNU's in the past. It says a "sum of the parts
breakup analysis" indicates a range of €25.90 to €29.35.
The Rothschild letter also shows certain methods of
valuing the company reaching as high as €35.80 a share. But both advisers
said that when weighed against the many risks in VNU's future, the cash
payment being offered now by the Valcon group is the most attractive option
for shareholders.
From The Wall Street Journal Weekly Accounting Review on April 7, 2006
TITLE: Sign of the Times: A Deal for GMAC by Investor Group
REPORTER: Dennis K. Berman and Monica Langley
DATE: Apr 04, 2006
PAGE: A1 LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114406446238015171.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Advanced Financial Accounting, Banking, Bankruptcy, Board of
Directors, Financial Accounting, Investments, Mergers and Acquisitions, Spinoffs
SUMMARY: Cerberus Capital Management LP has led the group who will acquire
control of General Motors Acceptance Corp. (GMAC) from GM for $7.4 billion (plus
an additional payment from GMAC to GM of $2.7 billion). GM had expected to
receive offers for GMAC from big banks. Instead, they received offers from
private-equity and hedge funds, like the one from Cerberus. This article follows
up on last week's coverage of this topic; the related article identifies how CEO
Rick Wagoner is working with his Board to extend time for evaluating his own
performance there.
QUESTIONS:
1.) Describe the transaction GM is undertaking to sell control in GMAC.
Specifically, who owns the 51% ownership of GMAC that is being sold? What will
happen to the 49% ownership in GMAC following this transaction? To answer the
question, you may also refer to the GM statement available through the on-line
article link at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114406559238215183.html
2.) Again refer to the GM statement on the GMAC deal. In addition to the
purchase price, what other cash flows will accrue to GM from this transaction?
How do you think these items relate to the fact that GM is selling a 51%
interest in GMAC?
3.) What is the nature of GMAC's business? Specifically describe its
"portfolio of loans and lease receivables."
4.) Why do you think GM expected "...be courted by big banks..." to negotiate
a purchase of GMAC? Why do you think that expectation proved wrong, that other
entities ended up bidding for GMAC? To answer, consider the point made in the
article that even Citigroup, GM's primary bank and a significant player in the
ultimate deal, had decided that it couldn't structure a deal that GM wanted from
big banks.
5.) What are the risks associated with the acquisition of GMAC? In
particular, comment on the risk associated with GM's possible bankruptcy and its
relation to GMAC's business operations.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
--- RELATED ARTICLES ---
TITLE: GM's Wagoner Gains Some Time for Turnaround
REPORTER: Lee Hawkins, Jr., Monica Langley, and Joseph B. White
PAGE: A1
ISSUE: Apr 04, 2006
LINK:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114411090537615994.html
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Accounting Rap: Bruce Lubich sent
the following message on April 3, 2006
The Entire Microsoft Company in 1977 (now I better
understand why Windows is such a mess)
We made some of these folks multimillionaires and billionaires.
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Love and Friendship and Other
Early Works by Jane Austen (1775-1817) ---
Click Here
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
by Mark Twain (1835-1910) ---
Click Here
My Favorite Murder by Ambrose
Bierce (1842 1914) ---
Click Here
The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids
by Herman Melville (1819-1891) ---
Click Here
As the divisive national debate on immigration heats up--security,
identity and wealth all at issue--every side can agree on just one
thing: the system is broken Karen Tumulty, "Should They
Stay Or Should They Go?" Time Magazine Cover Story, April 18,
2006 ---
Click Here
For Photographs
Click Here
It's ironic that those who till the soil,
cultivate and harvest the fruits, vegetables, and other foods that fill
your tables with abundance have nothing left for themselves. Cesar Chavez .(who opposed
illegal immigration)
Our very lives are dependent, for
sustenance, on the sweat and sacrifice of the campesinos. Children of
farm workers should be as proud of their parents' professions as other
children are of theirs. Cesar Chavez ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez
A Muslim couple in India have been told by
local Islamic leaders that they must separate after the husband
"divorced" his wife in his sleep.
"The husband who woke up divorced," Al Jazeera,
March 27, 2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Question
What if he dreamt that she was is boss?
When the need is strong, there are those who
will believe anything? Arnold Lobel (1933-1987) ---
Click Here
"It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s
or 40s able to really contribute something
amazing."
-- At age 29, in Playboy,
February 1985
"I've always wanted
to own and control the primary technology in
everything we do."
--
BusinessWeek Online,
Oct. 12, 2004
"Innovation has
nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you
have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM
was spending at least 100 times more on R&D.
It's not about money. It's about the people
you have, how you're led, and how much you
get it."
-- Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998
"It's really hard
to design products by focus groups. A lot of
times, people don't know what they want
until you show it to them."
-- BusinessWeek, May 25 1998
"It comes from
saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we
don't get on the wrong track or try to do
too much."
--
BusinessWeek Online,
Oct. 12, 2004
"(Miele) really
thought the process through. They did such a
great job designing these washers and
dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I
have out of any piece of high tech in
years."
--
Wired
magazine, February 1996
On Fixing
Apple:
"The products suck!
There's no sex in them anymore!"
-- On Gil Amelio's lackluster rein, in
BusinessWeek, July 1997
"The cure for Apple
is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is
to innovate its way out of its current
predicament."
-- Apple Confidential 2.0: The
Definitive History of the World's Most
Colorful Company, by Owen W.
Linzmayer
"If I were running
Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all
it's worth -- and get busy on the next great
thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft
won a long time ago."
-- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
"You know, I've got
a plan that could rescue Apple. I can't say
any more than that it's the perfect product
and the perfect strategy for Apple. But
nobody there will listen to me."
-- Fortune, Sept. 18, 1995
"Apple has some
tremendous assets, but I believe without
some attention, the company could, could,
could -- I'm searching for the right word --
could, could die."
-- On his return as interim CEO, in
Time, Aug. 18, 1997
You'd think Gilead Sciences Inc. would
be celebrating.
Enthusiastic scientists are hopeful its
drugs now used to treat people with the AIDS virus might
actually protect healthy people from catching it.
In recent days, researchers heartened
by a study in monkeys said they would expand tests of the pill
Truvada as a possible preventive for use in healthy people who
may be at high-risk for HIV.
But instead of touting its drug, Gilead
is trying to turn down the excitement. The attitude is partly
based on fears that Truvada will be seen as a ''biomedical
condom'' that might promote unsafe sex and lead to a backlash
against a company that has become a Wall Street darling.
''It is tricky for the company,'' said
Mitchell Warren of the nonprofit AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition
in New York. ''It is a real political and business dilemma for
Gilead.''
Health officials are mindful of the
concerns, too, and say the drugs should only be given along with
counseling, condoms and regular testing.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
To its credit Gilead Sciences is working on an AIDS prevention pill.
Hopefully the will to end death and suffering will prevail over
conservative morality dogma.
A (formerly?) respected scientist at the University of Texas
applauds doomsday plagues
A University of Texas professor says the
Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population
dead.
"DOOMSDAY: UT professor says death is imminent," by Jamie Mobley,
Sagin Gazette-Enterprise, April 2, 2006 ---
http://www.seguingazette.com/story.lasso?ewcd=3a54ecf401da6005
So what’s at the heart of Pianka’s
claim?
6.5 billion humans is too many.
In his estimation, “We’ve grown fat,
apathetic and miserable,” all the while leaving the planet
parched.
The solution?
A 90 percent reduction.
That’s 5.8 billion lives — lives he
says are turning the planet into “fat, human biomass.” He points
to an 85 percent swell in the population during the last 25
years and insists civilization is on the brink of its downfall —
likely at the hand of widespread disease.
“[Disease] will control the scourge of
humanity,” Pianka said. “We’re looking forward to a huge
collapse.”
But don’t tell local “citizen
scientist” Forrest Mims to quietly swallow Pianka’s call to
awareness. Mims says it’s an “abhorrent death wish” and contends
he has “no choice but to take a stand.”
Mims attended the educator’s doomsday
presentation at the Texas Academy of Science’s annual meeting
March 2-4. There, the organization honored Pianka as its 2006
Distinguished Texas Scientist — another issue Mims vocally
opposes.
“This guy is a loose cannon to believe
that worldwide genocide is the only answer,” said Mims, who
filed two formal petitions with the academy following the
meeting.
Joining the crusade, UT physics
professor James Pitts became the second to publicly chastise
Pianka when he filed a complaint Saturday with the UT board of
regents. He insists a state university is no place to
disseminate such views.
He writes:
Continued in article
Smell of fear helps in cognition The chemical warning signals produced by
fear improve cognitive performance, a study at Rice University in
Houston indicates. Women who were exposed to chemicals from
fear-induced sweat performed more accurately on word-association
tasks than did women exposed to chemicals from other types of sweat
or no sweat at all.
"Smell of fear helps in cognition," PhysOrg, April 1, 2006
---
http://www.physorg.com/news63121408.html
How easy it was to get radioactive material past a border
crossing:
This does not make me feel safe at all While Congress was engaged in the
hysterical debate over foreign ownership of U.S. ports, something
much more dangerous was taking place in America's vulnerable ports
of entry. As disclosed yesterday at a congressional hearing, federal
investigators were able to smuggle enough radioactive material into
the United States last year to make two dirty bombs.... The
Government Accountability Office is the investigative arm of
Congress. In a test in December, undercover GAO teams managed to
sneak small amounts of cesium-137 across U.S. border crossing points
in Washington State and Texas. Radiation alarms went off, but
security inspectors were fooled by phony documents and allowed the
material through" -- editorial in yesterday's Miami Herald.
From Opinion Journal on March 30, 2006
Jensen Comment
The question is why investigators bothered to use a border crossing
when other parts of the borders north and south are wide open
territory. And our illegal immigrants and drug traders on the
southern border are most certainly avoiding border crossings. If we
can't stop the drug flow along our borders we most certainly cannot
stop WMDs. And 20,000 miles of new fence around all four sides of
the U.S. would be a joke.
Liberal press reveals who has only half a brain on the CBS TV
show "TWO AND A HALF MEN"
Charlie Sheen alleges that the World Trade Center was wired to
implode in his dubious conspiracy theory that President Bush killed
over 3,000 of his own constituency and deliberately targeted his own
Pentagon workers Sheen said that most people's gut instinct,
that the buildings had been deliberately imploded, was washed away
by the incessant flood of the official version of events from day
one. Sheen questioned the plausibility of a fireballs traveling 1100
feet down an elevator shaft and causing damage to the lobbies of the
towers as seen in video footage, especially when contrasted with
eyewitness accounts of bombs and explosions in the basement levels
of the buildings . . . Sheen then questioned President Bush's
actions on 9/11 and his location at the Booker Elementary School in
Florida. Once Andy Card had whispered to Bush that America was under
attack why didn't the secret service immediately whisk Bush away to
a secret location? By remaining at a location where it was publicly
known the President would be before 9/11, he was not only putting
his own life in danger, but the lives of hundreds of schoolchildren.
That is unless the government knew for sure what the targets were
beforehand and that President Bush wasn't one of them.
"Actor Charlie Sheen Questions Official 9/11 Story," Prison
Planet, March 20, 2006 ---
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/200306charliesheen.htm
Jensen Comment
It follows that the plane intended to bomb the White House was
deliberately crashed by Bush cronies before it succeeded in reaching
its target. Doesn't Charlie realize that lending celebrity support
to such bull helps the Republican Party win elections. I can hardly
wait for Michael Moore's documentary on "The Day Bush Bombed the
Pentagon." Also Charlie, you should investigate whether President
Bush is wiring liberal San Francisco to implode on the anticipated
next big earthquake --- See "Lessons from the Earthquake That Shook
the World,"by Madelein Nash, Time Magazine, April 18,
2006 ---
Click Here
Even if Bush was not a co-conspirator in the 9/11 tragedy, it is
possible that the FBI could have prevented it according to Jeff
Taylor, Reason Magazine, March 30, 2006 ---
http://www.reason.com/links/links033006.shtml
But there's a big difference between bungling of information and
wiring the twin towers to implode.
"Bush Presidency Dies at Border: How the administration
lost control of the immigration debate," by Tim Cavanaugh, Reason
Magazine, March 28, 2006 ---
http://www.reason.com/links/links032806.shtml
New Advances for Sharing Lots of Photos Efficiently on the Web
"The Photo-Sharing Bubble: Publishing and sharing digital photos
online can be a slog. Now BubbleShare and other startups are
automating the process," by Wade Roush, MIT's Technology Review,
March 30, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16645,294,p1.html
Heavy users of digital cameras can end
up with tens of thousands of photographs on their hard drives.
And -- given the difficulty of searching, organizing,
captioning, and sharing large numbers of digital pictures --
many of these images will never be seen again.
In 2004, Canadian startup Ludicorp
started to fix that problem with its
Flickr
photoblogging website. Unlike commercial
photo album services, like
Snapfish
and Kodak's
EasyShare
Gallery, which are designed mainly to
help people buy prints, Flickr (which is now owned by Yahoo)
gave digital photographers simple Web tools for annotating
specific areas of images, such as friends' faces, and for
labeling photos with searchable "tags" that make them easier for
others to find (see "Tagging
Is It").
But Flickr's features are still largely
"manual." Sharing photos on the site means sending friends new
links every time you upload new images. Furthermore, tags must
be typed in for each photo, and identifying Aunt Martha in
photos from last year's pool party still means drawing a box
around her face in every shot and adding notes.
Now two new startups,
BubbleShare and
Riya,
are providing Flickr-like photo-sharing
services -- but with impressive new features: audio-enhanced
slide shows that can be embedded into any Web page, automatic
downloading of new photos to friends' PCs, and computerized face
recognition and tagging.
BubbleShare made a splash several weeks
ago with its initial product: an online system for building
slide shows that can be viewed at its site or inserted into
other sites, such as blogs (see "Building
a Narrated Slide Show on the Web").
And within days BubbleShare will introduce a beta version of the
Bubblebar, which goes a step further, putting images directly on
your -- or your friends' -- desktop.
The Bubblebar pulls images from your
online BubbleShare albums and sends a parade of thumbnails down
the side of your computer's desktop, like a filmstrip; placing
your mouse over one of the thumbnails pulls up a larger version,
along with captions and comments. But that's not all. The
Bubblebar also watches for new albums published on BubbleShare
by your acquaintances and downloads them automatically. So, if
your photographer friends are sufficiently prolific, you can
wake up to a new set of images every day, without lifting a
finger.
BubbleShare's idea of automatically
retrieving shared photos was inspired by
Ceiva, whose digital photo frame has
been on the market since 2000. Every night, the Ceiva frame
connects via telephone to an online collection of photos
uploaded by the owner or his friends and family. "We love what
Ceiva does," says BubbleShare CEO Albert Lai. "We wanted to
bring that experience onto the desktop."
Photo annotation and tagging is another
tedious process that software is beginning to take over. Like
Flickr or BubbleShare, Riya allows users to upload an unlimited
number of photographs; the difference is that its software
(released in beta on March 21) uses techniques derived from
computer-vision studies to examine the images as they're
uploaded and pick out faces it has been trained to recognize.
When these particular images appear on Riya's site, the faces
that the software identified are marked by a Flickr-like box and
label.
Why should members of Congress be allowed to profit from
insider trading? Amid broad congressional concern about
ethics scandals, some lawmakers are poised to expand the battle for
reform: They want to enact legislation that would prohibit members
of Congress and their aides from trading stocks based on nonpublic
information gathered on Capitol Hill. Two Democrat lawmakers plan to
introduce today a bill that would block trading on such inside
information. Current securities law and congressional ethics rules
don't prohibit lawmakers or their staff members from buying and
selling securities based on information learned in the halls of
Congress.
Brody Mullins, "Bill Seeks to Ban Insider Trading By Lawmakers and
Their Aides," The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006; Page
A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114351554851509761.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The Culture of Corruption Runs Deep and Wide in Both U.S.
Political Parties: Few if any are uncorrupted Committee members have shown no appetite
for taking up all those cases and are considering an amnesty for
reporting violations, although not for serious matters such as
accepting a trip from a lobbyist, which House rules forbid. The data
firm PoliticalMoneyLine calculates that members of Congress have
received more than $18 million in travel from private organizations
in the past five years, with Democrats taking 3,458 trips and
Republicans taking 2,666. . . But of course, there are those who
deem the American People dumb as stones and will approach this
bi-partisan scandal accordingly. Enter Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi,
complete with talking points for her minion, that are sure to come
back and bite her .... “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) filed delinquent reports Friday for three trips she
accepted from outside sponsors that were worth $8,580 and occurred
as long as seven years ago, according to copies of the documents.
Bob Parks, "Will Nancy Pelosi's Words Come Back to Bite Her?" The
National Ledger, January 6, 2006 ---
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27262498.shtml
And when they aren't stealing directly, lawmakers are caving
in to lobbying crooks Drivers can send their thank-you notes to
Capitol Hill, which created the conditions for this mess last summer
with its latest energy bill. That legislation contained a sop to
Midwest corn farmers in the form of a huge new ethanol mandate that
began this year and requires drivers to consume 7.5 billion gallons
a year by 2012. At the same time, Congress refused to include
liability protection for producers of MTBE, a rival oxygen
fuel-additive that has become a tort lawyer target. So MTBE makers
are pulling out, ethanol makers can't make up the difference quickly
enough, and gas supplies are getting squeezed.
"The Gasoline Follies," The Wall Street Journal, March 28,
2006; Page A20 ---
Click Here
How Russian Tycoons Got Wealthy The relationship between Lukoil and a
network of companies and trusts in Europe offers a rare window into
how Russian tycoons got rich in the early 1990s, at a time of
growing foreign involvement with energy companies in Russia, the
world's No. 1 producer of natural gas and No. 2 in oil after Saudi
Arabia. U.S. company ConocoPhillips owns some 16% of Lukoil and is
expected to increase its stake to 20% this year.
Glenn R. Simpson, "How Russian Tycoons Got Wealthy: Set of Offshore
Trusts From The 1990s Made Lukoil Leaders Rich," The Wall Street
Journal, March 28, 2006; Page A8 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114350438924409512.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
At last something reconstructive (as opposed to mere
deconstruction) from the left
Liberals advocate government takeover of industry: Trust Big
Government to run it better
The trouble with this article is that it appeared on April Fools'
Day
It's time to break a taboo and place
the word "socialism" across the top of the page in a major
American progressive magazine. Time for the left to stop
repressing the side of ourselves that the right finds most
objectionable. Until we thumb our noses at the Democratic pols
who have been calling the shots and reassert the very ideas they
say are unthinkable, we will keep stumbling around in the dark
corners of American politics, wondering how we lost our
souls--and how to find them again.
I can hear tongues clucking the
conventional wisdom that the "S" word is the kiss of death for
any American political initiative. Since the collapse of
Communism, hasn't "socialism"--even the democratic kind--reeked
of everything obsolete and discredited? Isn't it sheer absurdity
to ask today's mainstream to pay attention to this
nineteenth-century idea? Didn't Tony Blair reshape "New Labour"
into a force capable of winning an unprecedented string of
victories in Britain only by first defeating socialism and
socialists in his party? And for a generation haven't we on the
American left declared socialist ideology irrelevant time and
again in the process of shaping our feminist, antiwar, progay,
antiracist, multicultural, ecological and community-oriented
identities?
People who espouse these and a dozen
other arguments against the relevance of socialism today may
regard it as quaint that Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales,
leads the Movement Toward Socialism Party, or that Venezuela's
Hugo Chavez intends to create a "new socialism of the
twenty-first century." After all, socialist parties elsewhere,
such as in France, Spain and Germany, or indeed Brazil's Workers
Party and Chile's Socialist Party, have no intention of
introducing anything like socialism in their countries. Still,
the newest significant formation, indeed, today's equivalent of
the nineteenth-century International Workingmen's Association,
calls itself the World Social Forum. The name reminds those who
believe "another world is possible" that it can come about only
if it is global, only if it is guided by a loosely organized
"forum" rather than a top-down party--and only if its character
is social.
The new conventional wisdom has
pronounced socialism dead. Economists of the Austrian and Chicago
schools (von Mises, Hayek, Friedman) long ago announced that it
would and should die. In the 1970s a number of influential
neoconservatives embraced capitalism with the enthusiasm of new
converts. Now even committed socialists like Robert Heilbroner have
conceded defeat. In a celebrated New Yorker article, Heilbroner put
it dramatically: "Less than seventy-five years after it officially
began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over;
capitalism has won" (January 23, 1989). The experience of the
socialist countries, he acknowledged, makes clear that the
marketplace distributes goods better than "the queues of a planned
economy." While Heilbroner issued somber warnings about the possible
effects of the apparent victory of capitalism, his remarks helped
symbolize the intellectual disarray of the socialist movement.
"Socialism’s Obituary Is Premature," by Philip Wogaman, Religion
Online, May 1990 ---
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=207
It was his illegal fraud for a good political cause says the
Meathead
The question is what good might have been done with the $23 million
he stole?
"When Rob Met Tobacco," The Wall Street Journal, March
30, 2006; Page A14 ---
Click Here
Hollywood political activist Rob Reiner
resigned yesterday as head of a California state commission
that's been accused of misappropriating public funds. So perhaps
now debate can shift back to the economic damage that would be
caused by Mr. Reiner's universal preschool scheme.
Back in 1998, the director ("When Harry
Met Sally") backed a successful ballot initiative that raised
the state's tobacco tax by 50 cents a pack to pay for early
childhood programs. Mr. Reiner was later appointed head of the
commission that handles the proceeds, which have totaled some
$3.4 billion. Hundreds of millions have gone to PR firms and
others who helped him pass the 1998 initiative. That might be
unabashed cronyism, but it's not necessarily illegal. However,
it's also alleged that Mr. Reiner used $23 million of the
tobacco loot to fund a new initiative on universal preschool
that's qualified for the June 6 ballot. If Mr. Reiner was using
taxpayer money to garner support for his new referendum, that
violates state law.
When Scientists Disagree in Public: Britannica vs. Wikipedia
Accuracy Debate Encyclopaedia Britannica has completed an
exhaustive research article on an unlikely new topic -- questions
about its accuracy. The publisher's verdict: It was wronged. Firing
back at an article in the science journal Nature that likened its
accuracy to that of Wikipedia, the Internet site that lets anyone
contribute, Britannica said in a 20-page statement this week that
''almost everything about the journal's investigation ... was wrong
and misleading.'' It demanded a retraction.
"The Britannica vs. Wikipedia Accuracy Debate Encyclopaedia
Britannica has assailed an article in the journal Nature that
questioned its accuracy," MIT's Technology Review, March 24,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/TR/wtr_16633,323,p1.html
The scientific journal Nature has
rejected Encyclopaedia Britannica’s call to retract a paper
comparing the web-based offerings of Encyclopaedia Britannica
and Wikipedia on scientific topics, published in the journal’s
December 2005 issue. Encyclopaedia Britannica had accused the
journal of misrepresentation, sloppiness and indifference to
scholarly standards.
According to Nature, the original
article consisted of asking independent scholars to review 50
pairs of articles from the Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia
Britannica web sites. The source of the articles were not
revealed to the reviewers and the subjects were chosen in
advance to represent a wide range of scientific disciplines.
Lists of factual errors, omissions and misleading statements
pointed out by reviewers were compiled and tallied for each
encyclopaedia. Nature further says that turning the reviewers’
comments into numerical scores did require a modicum of
judgement, which was applied diligently and fairly.
Nature says Britannica had raised
objections to the article in private a few months ago. The
journal had, at that point, sent to Britannica every comment by
a reviewer that served as the basis for assessing something as
an inaccuracy. Though the journal was willing to discuss the
issues, Britannica failed to provide specific details of its
complaints, says Nature. No further correspondence was received
by the journal from Britannica until the publication of its open
letter recently.
Read more ---
http://www.nature.com/press_releases/Britannica_response.pdf
Nature magazine has some tough
questions to answer after it let its Wikipedia fetish get the
better of its responsibilities to reporting science. The
Encyclopedia Britannica has published a devastating response to
Nature's December comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica, and
accuses the journal of misrepresenting its own evidence.
BookTradeInfo 3/23/06 More in The Register.
Man-to-man conversations are allegedly easier on the brain Bottom line: Men have to work harder
deciphering what women are saying because they use the auditory part
of the brain that processes music, not human voices. Men's brains
are not designed to listen to women's voices. It's not the pitch of
the woman's voice, but rather the vibration and number of sound
waves that cause the problem, notes Discovery News. But guys have no
trouble at all hearing each other because men use a much simpler
brain mechanism at the back of the brain to decipher another man's
voice and recognize it as speech.
"Why Men Don't Listen to Women," Netscape, March 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
"Sex in the Syllabus Colleges are getting serious about porn
studies, but should professors show or just tell?" by Lisa
Takfuchi Cullen, Time Magazine, March 26, 2006 ---
Click Here
With classwork like this, who needs to
play? Undergraduates taking Cyberporn and Society at the State
University of New York at Buffalo survey Internet porn sites. At
New York University, assignments for Anthropology of the
Unconscious include discussing X-rated Japanese comic books. And
in Cinema and the Sex Act at the University of California,
Berkeley, undergrads are required to view clips from Hollywood
NC-17 releases like Showgirls and underground stag reels.
It's called the porn curriculum, and
it's quietly taking root in the ivory tower. A small but growing
number of scholars are probing the aesthetic, societal and
philosophical properties of smut in academic departments ranging
from literature to film, law to technology, anthropology to
women's studies. Those specialists argue that graphic sexual
imagery has become ubiquitous in society, so it's almost
irresponsible not to teach young people how to deal with it. "I
was amazed by how much the students knew about pornography but
how little they knew how to think about it," says Jay Clarkson,
a graduate student in communications who introduced the
University of Iowa's Pornography in Popular Culture class last
fall. But although Clarkson and his peers may agree that porn
studies have a place in the curriculum, they are divided over
how far professors should go in teaching them. Do students
really need to watch a couple copulating onscreen to understand
why pornography turns people on? Or does a stimulating essay on
the nature of desire provide just as much if not more insight?
Linda Williams, a film professor at
Berkeley, lines up on the side of showing rather than simply
telling. While researching feminist reactions to porn in the
early '90s, she grew fascinated by the choreography of dirty
movies and began teaching a trailblazing course about porno
films. "I'm quite critical of pornography," she says. "I'm not
trying to teach people to accept the existence of it. As with
any tradition of moving-image culture, we need to take it
seriously. We need to try and come at it with some theoretical
tools." Like many porn scholars, Williams includes readings from
Sigmund Freud and Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who
wrote about sexual identity, to explore how porno movies
interpret desire and what that says about the human psyche.
Similarly, Alex Halavais, an assistant professor of
communication at SUNY Buffalo, tracks pornography's pivotal role
in the development of communications systems from the telephone
to the Internet, with a reading list that ranges from student
blogs to the Congressional Record. And in her graduate-level
class on obscenity, media-studies professor Laura Kipnis of
Northwestern University examines how publications like Hustler
can define class stratification in the U.S.--by discussing the
work of the 16th century satirist Fran�ois Rabelais as well as
skin magazines.
Continued in article
Question
What are some comparative advantages of U.S. business in world
markets?
Other measures tell a similar story. Up
until the 1990s, management books were crammed with Japanese
buzzwords, and the early Clinton administration was in awe of
Germany's apprenticeship system. But today the United States
provides most of the business role models, from Starbucks to Procter
& Gamble, from Apple to Cisco. Whence this American superiority? The
first answer is that competition is fiercer. The United States has
relatively few trade and regulatory barriers for firms to hide
behind, so bad companies either shape up quickly or go bust. The
next explanation for American superiority is a healthy indifference
to first sons. Bloom and Van Reenen report that the practice of
handing a family firm down from father to oldest son is five times
more common in France and Britain than in the United States. Not
surprisingly, this anti-meritocratic practice does not always
produce good managers. So even though the best European companies
are managed roughly as well as the best American ones, there's a fat
tail of second-rate firms in Europe that's absent in the United
States.
"America's Heyday," by Sebastian Mallaby, The Washington Post
via The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2006 ---
Click Here
America's business culture is
peculiarly well-suited to contemporary challenges. American
business is not especially good at coaxing productivity out of
factory workers: The era when this was all-important was the
heyday of Germany and Japan. But American business excels at
managing service workers and knowledge workers: at equipping
these people with technology, empowering them with the right
level of independence and paying for performance. So the era of
decentralized "network" businesses is the American era.
Moreover, America's business culture is
perfectly matched to globalization. American executive suites
and MBA courses are full of talented immigrants, so American
managers think nothing of working in multicultural firms. The
immigrants have links to their home countries, so Americans have
an advantage in establishing global supply chains. The elites of
Asia and Latin America compete to attend U.S. universities; when
they return to their countries, they are keener to join the
local operation of a U.S. company than of a German or Japanese
one.
So the shift from manufacturing to
services; the gallop of globalization; and the rise of
information technology that flattens corporate hierarchies: All
these forces come together to create an American moment.
Yale Admitted a Taliban Male But Declined to Help Afgan Women A statement from Yale University, defending
its decision to admit former Taliban spokesman Ramatullah Hashemi,
explained that he had "escaped the wreckage of Afghanistan." To
anyone who is aware of the Taliban's barbaric treatment of the
Afghan people, such words are offensive--as if Mr. Hashemi were not
himself part of the wrecking crew. It is even more disturbing to
learn that, while Mr. Hashemi sailed through Yale's admissions
process, the school turned down the opportunity to enroll women who
really did escape the wreckage of Afghanistan . . . In 2002, Yale
received a letter from Paula Nirschel, the founder of the Initiative
to Educate Afghan Women. The purpose of the organization, begun in
that year, was to match young women in post-Taliban Afghanistan to
U.S. colleges, where they could pursue a degree. Ms. Nirschel asked
Yale if it wanted to award a spot in its next entering class to an
Afghan woman. Yale declined.
"Foreign Exchange Why did Yale slam the door on Afghan women?"
The Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2006 ---
http://opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110008135
These women require no remedial
classes, by the way. They come prepared, many having huddled in
basements secretly imbibing what information they could from
male relatives or having lived in Pakistani refugee camps to
gain access to schools. Not one of them has a GPA below 3.5.
Arezo Kohistani, now attending Roger
Williams, tells us that she had planned to major in journalism.
But she changed her focus when several reporters were
assassinated in Afghanistan during her first semester. Stories
like this remind us that her country has a long road ahead. The
graduates of the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women will surely
help to speed it along the way.
Not Yale: Schools participating in the Initiative to Educate
Afghan Women
Duke University, N.C. Juniata College, Pa. Kennesaw State
University, Ga. Middlebury College, Vt. Montclair State University,
N.J. Mount Holyoke College, Mass. Roger Williams University, R.I.
Simmons College, Mass. University of Montana, Missoula University of
Richmond, Va.
"Israel Lobby," by Ruth R. Wisse, The Wall Street
Journal, March 22, 2006; Page A16 ---
Click Here
In Boston in the early 1980s, I was
asked by an Irish cab driver what language I had been speaking
with a fellow passenger we had just dropped off. When I told
him, Hebrew, the language of Israel, the man exclaimed: "Israel!
That's America's fighting front line! Israel fights our battles
better than we could fight them ourselves."
Now Professors Stephen Walt of
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and John Mearsheimer of
the University of Chicago would have us believe that the Boston
cabbie was a dupe of the "unmatched power of the Israel Lobby."
Their essay in the latest London Review of Books -- based on a
longer working paper on the Kennedy Center Web site -- contends
that the U.S. government and most of its citizens are fatally in
thrall to a "coalition of individuals and organizations who
actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel
direction." Though not all members of said "coalition" are Jews,
and though not all Jews are members, the major schemers are such
key organizations as the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
Organizations, joined by neoconservatives, think tanks, and a
large network of accomplices including (they will learn to their
surprise) The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
The thesis of Messrs. Walt and
Mearsheimer is remarkably broad and singleminded: A loose
association of special-interest groups has persuaded the country
to sacrifice its interests to a foreign power, thereby
jeopardizing "not only U.S. security but that of much of the
rest of the world." Israel, it is claimed, hurts every facet of
American life: U.S. emergency aid to Israel during the War of
1973 triggered a damaging OPEC oil embargo. Israel is a
liability in the war on terror: It goaded the U.S. into the war
in Iraq, betrays America through espionage, and destroys
American democracy by quashing all criticism. Recently the
Israel Lobby -- a term the authors render with a sinister
capital "L" -- has begun to intimidate the universities by
trying to create a field of Israel Studies and monitoring
anti-Israel bias.
Were it not for the Lobby, the U.S.
would have nothing to fear in the world, not even a nuclear
threat from Iran: "If Washington could live with a nuclear
Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it
can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must
keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran."
Not Iran but the Lobby is the true threat to America's security
by trying to compel the U.S. to oppose Iran against its
interests. Most dangerously, Jews control the man at the top: In
the spring of 2002 "[Ariel] Sharon and the Lobby took on the
president of the United States and triumphed." Given the
creative scope of these charges, one is surprised to find no
hint of Israel's role in the spread of avian flu.
Organized as a prosecutorial indictment
rather than an inquiry, the essay does not tell us why the
"Israel Lobby" should have formed in the first place. The 21
countries of the Arab League with ties to 1.2 billion Muslims
world-wide are nowhere present as active political agents. There
is no mention of the Arab rejection of the United Nations's
partition of Palestine in 1948; no 58-year Arab League boycott
of Israel and companies trading with Israel; no Arab attacks of
1948, 1967 and 1973; no Arab-Soviet resolution at the U.N.
defining Zionism as racism; no monetary and strategic support
for Arab terrorism against Jews and Israel; and no Hamas
dedication to destroying the Jewish state. The authors do not
ask why Arab aggression and Muslim "rage against Israel" should
have morphed into a war against the U.S. and the West. Israel's
existence elicits Arab and Muslim hostility, hence in their view
Israel is to blame for Arab and Muslim carnage.
Judging from the initial reaction to
their article (one of my students called it "wacko quacko"), the
two professors may be subjected to more ridicule than rejoinder.
Several Web sites are in the process of listing all their
bloopers, distortions and omissions. Their tone resembles
nothing so much as Wilhelm Marr's 1879 pamphlet, "The Victory of
Judaism over Germandom," which declared of the Jews that "There
is no stopping them . . . German culture has proved itself
ineffective and powerless against this foreign power. This is a
fact; a brute inexorable fact." A parallel edition of these two
texts might highlight some American refinements on the European
model, such as the anti-Semitic lie that "Israeli citizenship is
based on the principle of blood kinship." In fact, unlike
neighboring Arab countries, Israeli citizenship is not
conditional on religion or race.
Yet it would be a mistake to treat this
article on the "Israel Lobby" as an attack on Israel alone, or
on its Jewish defenders, or on the organizations and individuals
it singles out for condemnation. Its true target is the American
public, which now supports Israel with higher levels of
confidence than ever before. When the authors imply that the
bipartisan support of Israel in Congress is a result of Jewish
influence, they function as classic conspiracy theorists who
attribute decisions to nefarious alliances rather than to the
choices of a democratic electorate. Their contempt for fellow
citizens dictates their claims of a gullible and stupid America.
Their insistence that American support for Israel is bought and
paid for by the Lobby heaps scorn on American judgment and
values.
No wonder David Duke, white supremacist
and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, claimed that this article
"validated every major point I have been making since even
before the [Iraq] war started." But he and Walt-Mearsheimer have
it backwards: Americans don't support Israel because of the
strength of any lobby; Israel earns American support the hard
way, for the very reasons the Boston cabbie cited several
decades ago.
Ms. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish
Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard.
Harvard Distances Itself From the Infamous Anti-Israel
Document
"Walt? Mearsheimer? Never Heard of 'Em!" New York Sun via
Opinion Journal, March 27, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008131
Harvard is holding its nose in an
effort to escape the stench emanating from the infamous paper in
which Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer argue that U.S. support
for Israel lacks a strategic or moral basis and is therefore the
product of the machinations of the "Israel Lobby." Reports the
New York Sun:
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government
is removing its logo from a paper about the "Israel lobby" that
was co-authored by its academic dean.
The new version of the paper also has a
more prominent disclaimer warning that the paper's views belong
only to its authors.
The changes appear to be a sign that
the university is distancing itself from the document in the
face of a furor from faculty members, Jewish leaders, and a
congressman who say it fails to meet academic standards and
promotes anti-Semitic myths.
Criticism has been
multiplying online — some of it
quite detailed in
going through statements in the article and
raising questions about its fairness.
As all of this has been
going on, the scholars who wrote the piece have
been largely quiet — giving a few early
interviews in which they defended their work,
but declining to get into a point-by-point
discussion and also criticizing their critics
for implying that their piece is anti-Semitic.
(Most of the critics do stay a bit away from
that explicit charge, and while “bigoted” is
used frequently, “anti-Semitic” is generally
not, at least by the professors discussing the
article.)
Mearsheimer did not
respond to messages seeking comment for this
article.
In a phone interview,
Walt said that the authors stood behind their
work and looked forward to scholarly discussion
of it, but he also declined to respond to
specific criticisms being raised.
He said he wasn’t
surprised by the strong reaction the article is
receiving. “Anybody who writes on a
controversial topic is bound to face criticism
and may also face personal attacks of various
kinds,” he said. “Our purposes in writing the
piece was to open up a broader discussion of
American policy in the Middle East. We hope
people will read what we wrote and engage in a
serious discussion of the arguments.”
Variations of that
response have further angered some of the
authors’ critics.
“So let me get this
straight: the authors have written and published
a paper because they want to provoke an open
debate — and then decide not to respond to any
of the critiques made of the paper,” wrote
Daniel W. Drezner, an
assistant professor of political science at the
University of Chicago.
While the paper was
written by professors at two universities —
Chicago and Harvard — the full article was
published on a Harvard Web site and many of the
critical articles about it that appeared early
on called the work a “Harvard paper” or “Harvard
study” or some variation, so much of the
criticism has been directed toward Cambridge,
not Hyde Park.
The Kennedy School
issued a statement indicating that the
institution “stands firmly behind the academic
freedom of its faculty, including Professor
Stephen Walt.”
The statement noted
that papers published on the school’s Web site
always include a disclaimer reflecting Harvard’s
policy of not interfering with or dictating
professors’ views. The routine statement says:
“The views expressed in the KSG Faculty Working
Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do
not necessarily reflect those of the John F.
Kennedy School of Government or Harvard
University.”
The Kennedy School said
that — with Walt’s approval — the school’s logo
had been removed from the paper “in an effort to
minimize the confusion” created by press
accounts about the paper being a Harvard study.
Also citing “apparent confusion in the media”
about the paper, the authors added “clarifying
language” to the cover page of the study. The
clarification said that the authors were “solely
responsible” for the views expressed and that
the article should not be taken to reflect the
views of either Harvard or Chicago.
Roger W. Bowen, general
secretary of the American Association of
University Professors, said on Friday that in
the previous 24 hours he had received e-mail or
calls from a dozen people, around the world,
concerned about the way the article’s authors
were being treated, and that the AAUP was
monitoring the situation.
Bowen said that the
irony over the furor is that the argument in the
paper is “not particularly new.” The reaction is
largely because of the association of the
argument with Harvard, he said.
Harvard’s policy of
having professors indicate that their papers
reflect their views, and not those of the
institution, is not only appropriate, but helps
academic freedom, Bowen said. “No institution
can take responsibility for what one of its
faculty members writes. If they were to take
responsibility that also implies that they have
the right to make changes,” he said.
What is of concern in
this case, he said, is if Harvard is going
beyond its normal policies to disassociate
itself from these arguments more than it would
from any argument put forward by a faculty
member. At this time, he said, he doesn’t feel
he has enough information to know if that’s the
case.
Some critics of Walt
have noted that because he holds an
administrative position at the Kennedy School,
he is more closely associated with the
institution than other faculty members would be.
Bowen said that was true, but had no relevance
on his academic freedom. “You don’t give up your
scholarly credentials” when you take on an
administrative role, Bowen said.
The AAUP recently found
itself spending a lot of time on Middle Eastern
politics — when it planned, postponed, and
eventually
abandoned a planned conference
on academic boycotts. The
conference imploded amid reports that the
association had
accidentally sent anti-Semitic materials from
Holocaust deniers to
conference participants. But the invitation-only
conference was already being criticized for a
guest list that many said gave too many slots to
professors who want to endorse boycotts of
Israeli universities. Critics of the conference
say that it fell apart because it was poorly
organized with an unbalanced attendee list, but
supporters of the conference say that the
association was punished for opening the meeting
to critics of Israel.
“I think there is
something called the Israel lobby,” Bowen said.
“I don’t think anyone doubts that, and I think
Walt and Mearsheimer — just like any other
scholar — have every reason in the world to
comment, and academic freedom guidelines protect
their right to do research in this area in the
same way scholars who disagree have every right
in the world to take them to task and to do
critical research on their study.”
While academics comment
on a range of controversial issues all the time,
Bowen said that dealing with the
Israeli-Palestinian issues posed particular
difficulties. Bowen said that one of his “real
shocks” at the AAUP was when “a very close
friend and colleague” who is Jewish, a “strong
civil libertarian,” and has “wonderful values on
academic freedom” approached him about trying to
urge Duke University to block a group there from
organizing a national conference for student
supporters of the Palestinian cause. “On that
issue, there are blinders,” Bowen said.
“Any time you deal with
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even
indirectly, you need to be prepared,” he said.
Where does an auditing firm report bad news about a client? Primus Telecommunications Group Inc.,
once a marquee name among local telecom firms, may not be able to
stay in business due to its continued losses and mounting debt, the
company's auditor said in documents filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The McLean company's financial condition,
including a lack of working capital, raises "substantial doubt about
its ability to continue as a going concern," Deloitte & Touche LLP
wrote in a note included in Primus's year-end filings with the SEC.
"Primus's Auditor Voices Doubts on Firm's Viability Debt
Mounts for McLean Telecom," by Ellen McCarthy, The Washington
Post, March 29, 2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Question
At what point does the auditing firm insist on a shift from
historical cost accruals to exit value accounting?
One problem is that a distressed firm may not be able to higher
costly appraisals.
San Francisco is Not a Friendly Place for a Christian Youth
Rally: Official City Condemnation More than 25,000 evangelical Christian
youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T
Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture, and they
were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of
protesters who said their event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep
rally."
Joe Garofoli, "Evangelical teens rally in S.F., San Francisco
Chronicle, March 25, 2006 ---
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/MNG6OHU6RR1.DTL
We may disagree with certain aspects of
the Battle Cry agenda -- on issues such as abortion rights, religion
in schools or acceptance of an individual's sexual orientation --
but the attempt by counterprotesters and some of the city's elected
officials to call them "fascist" and "hateful" was totally at odds
with the tone of the ballpark event and the approach of the Web
site. The gathering was not an "act of provocation," as the
supervisors claimed. It was a get-together of young evangelicals
whose lifestyles and religious views just happen to be in the
minority here -- apparently making them open season for politicians
to chastise. The young people who came to San Francisco to affirm
their faith and enjoy a day of rock music deserved better. They
deserved to be welcomed by a city that was as tolerant and
progressive as its sanctimonious supervisors like to profess.
"Intolerant City," Editorial in The San Francisco Chronicle,
March 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
Africa is Sending Christian Missionaries to Help Save
Americans At the core of the shift are pastors from
Nigeria. Over the last century, Christians there have swelled from a
tiny minority to nearly half the population, and its pastors have
shown an exceptional talent for winning believers abroad.
Rachel Zoll, "Boom in African Christianity spills over to America,"
SanDiego.com, March 26, 2006 ---
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060326-0956-thenewmissionariesii-abridged.html
Jensen Comment
It would appear that Nigeria is exporting more than oil and fraud.
Each year the Census Bureau calculates
the nation's poverty rate, based on the number of people with
incomes below the official poverty line, about $20,000 for a
family of four in 2004. Since last year's poverty rate of 12.7%
was essentially equal to the 1968 rate of 12.8%, it seems that
little progress has been made. But many analysts -- on the right
and the left -- have pointed out that, by many other measures,
poor people's physical and material well-being is considerably
better now than in the late '60s. How else to explain why so
many poor now have color TV (93%) and air conditioning (50%),
and own their own homes (46%)?
While many have proposed revising the
official poverty measure, getting agreement is about as likely
as Bush carrying Manhattan. The poverty line or its multiple is
the basis of eligibility for dozens of government antipoverty
programs, involving the distributions of hundreds of billions of
dollars. Change it -- up or down -- and hundreds of thousands of
people gain or lose benefits.
That's what makes a new data series by
the Census Bureau, "The Effects of Government Taxes and
Transfers on Income and Poverty: 2004," so significant.
Developed after nine months of meetings between outside experts
and senior government officials from the Census Bureau and other
federal agencies, it allows us to get a better view of the
resources available to low-income Americans.
First, the series gets a better fix on
"market income" poverty -- poverty before taxes and means-tested
transfers like cash welfare. (Although the Census Bureau counts
it separately, Social Security, like pensions, is included as
market income since it is "earned" during one's working years.)
Now we can use the correct inflation adjustment, count the
income of cohabitors and coresidents, and include the implicit
income of home ownership. (The last mostly affects the elderly.)
Finally, adding in government estimates of unreported income
results in a market income poverty rate of about 7.9%, not the
official rate of 12.7%. Second, as suggested by the name of the
new data series, government transfer programs also reduce
financial need. Taking into account welfare payments, food
stamps and housing assistance (noncash benefits are presently
not counted) results in a poverty rate of about 5.1% -- and even
this excludes the value of Medicaid for the poor, roughly $2,000
per person.
Even with these calculations, about 15
million people are below the poverty line and millions more just
above it. But the broader point must not be lost: Millions of
low-income Americans are living better lives than they did
before. Period.
Mr. Besharov is the Jacobs scholar in social welfare
studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Ronald Harry Coase (born December 29,
1910) is a British economist and the Clifton R. Musser Professor
Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School.
He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1991.
Born in Willesden, England, he got his
PhD from the London School of Economics. Coase is best known for
two articles in particular: The Nature of the Firm (1937), which
introduces the concept of transaction costs to explain the size
of firms, and The Problem of Social Cost (1960), which suggests
that well defined property rights could overcome the problems of
externalities (see Coase Theorem).
Coase's transaction costs approach is
currently influential in modern organizational theory, where it
was reintroduced by Oliver E. Williamson.
Coase is also often referred to as the
'father' of reform in the policy for allocation of the
electromagnetic spectrum, based on his article The Federal
Communications Commission (1959) where he criticizes spectrum
licensing, suggesting property rights as a more efficient method
of allocating spectrum to users.
Another important contribution of Coase
is the "Coase Conjecture": an informal argument that
durable-goods monopolists do not have market power because they
are unable to commit to not lowering their prices in future
periods.
Fifteen
years ago Glenn Reynolds started brewing his own beer
("sometimes terrific . . . sometimes not so great"). A few years
later he began recording his own music. Then, in the summer of
2001, he turned to writing a Web log, and the rest is history. A
hitherto obscure law professor at the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, became
Instapundit, an insta-star in the
firmament of the blogosphere.
More than a few rival bloggers, at the
time, were old-media writers who had decided to try their hand
at something new. Instapundit, by contrast, was born along with
the form. Indeed, he embodied it ("sometimes terrific . . .
sometimes not so great"), providing instant reactions to current
events. Insights appeared alongside thin, one-sentence
musings--always supported by links to news stories, columns and,
not least, other bloggers. Reading Mr. Reynolds's blog could
become addictive, even if you often felt that you'd be better
off spending your time talking to real people--or even reading
an old-fashioned newspaper--than clicking your life away.
Which adds to the pleasure of "An Army
of Davids." Mr. Reynolds shows himself to be as accomplished in
the medium-distance race--the book's text fills 268 undersized
pages--as he is at the short dash. He shows as well that he has
a coherent, and very American, philosophy of the world. Mr.
Reynolds argues that we are undergoing a sea change. The balance
of advantage--in nearly every aspect of society--is shifting
from big organizations to small ones. Economies of scale and
scope matter much less in the information age than in the
industrial one. And thanks to advances in technology, more and
more people are transforming themselves from salary men into
entrepreneurs and independent contractors. "The secret of
success in both business and politics in the twenty-first
century," Mr. Reynolds writes, "will involve figuring out a way
to capitalize on the phenomenon of a lot of people doing what
they want to do, rather than--as in previous centuries--figuring
out ways to make lots of people do what you want them to."
This attractive thesis is hardly
original--Ronald Coase explained the economics of it back in
1937. It has been chronicled many times since, especially in
recent years. And Mr. Reynolds doesn't take time from his
breakneck exposition to consider complications. Don't some big
organizations develop core competencies that it is very hard for
competitors to imitate? Isn't the do-what-I-want cohort, even if
growing, still a rather small one, confined mostly to an
educated, versatile, technologically literate elite? Even
Instapundit himself presumably relies, for paying at least some
of his monthly bills, on the steady salary from a big
organization (a university). The Internet, for all its
technological dazzle and ambitious individual voices, is still
weak on producing revenue.
Yet Mr. Reynolds presents his case with
verve and wit. Had you realized that "the comfy chair
revolution" (the appearances of comfortable chairs in bookshops
and even clothes shops) is a sign of the army of Davids on the
march? Starbucks and Barnes & Noble provide loiterers with
temporary offices as well as lattes and muffins. Did you know
that the Nigerian film industry is flourishing, thanks to
hand-held cameras and digital processing (and, incidentally,
that it produces works that make the "Left Behind" films look
downright secular)?
Mr. Reynolds pushes his case to
provocative lengths. Two of his biggest passions--as readers of
Instapundit know only too well--are space colonization and
"transhumanism." Both, he believes, are better served by
Davids--private citizens acting individually or as a collection
of individuals--than by government bureaucrats. He says that we
need to adopt a Wild West model for outer space: If we privatize
space travel and give land grants to people who colonize the
moon or Mars, we will soon see a space rush, even a Mars rush.
As for technology improving the human condition, he is a
relentless optimist. Why not allow people to put memory chips in
their brains to improve their mental performance? Why not
celebrate, instead of worrying over, the idea that people might
be able to live for centuries, with the help of some cellular
tinkering?
Mr. Reynolds is at his most impressive
when he is commenting on his natural habitat, the blogosphere.
It is extraordinary to think that when he went into blogging a
mere five years ago the activity didn't even have a name for
what was produced ("mezines" was the best anyone could do).
There are now more than 22 million blogs, according to
Technorati.com; Mr. Reynolds alone sometimes gets more than a
half-million page views a day. And indeed, as he notes, bloggers
have changed the landscape of journalism. They have helped to
bring down both Trent Lott and Dan Rather; they have produced
great reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan; and they have
demonstrated, beyond doubt, that journalism is an activity, not
a profession.
But here Mr. Reynolds is not quite the
mainstream-media basher that the book's long subtitle suggests.
(It claims, in part, that "An Army of Davids" will show "how
markets and technology empower ordinary people to beat big
media.") He recognizes that bloggers and the mainstream media
(MSM) are supplements to one another as much as competitors. If
bloggers can challenge and criticize the MSM, they depend on it
for most of their information. The result should be a
self-correcting system. Mainstream editors get faster off the
mark (one hopes) because they realize that any dithering will be
exposed by the blogosphere; and mainstream journalists get more
self-critical because they realize that ignorance and bias will
be immediately exposed. The David army envisioned by Mr.
Reynolds may well, in the long run, end up beating the Goliaths
of big media and big government into submission. In the
meantime, let's hope for a more modest goal: that it can make
them a little better at doing their jobs.
Mr. Wooldridge is Washington bureau chief of The Economist
and the author, with John Micklethwait, of "The Right Nation:
Conservative Power in America." You can buy "An Army of Davids"
from the OpinionJournal Bookstore.
Organized Crime May Be Stealing From Your Children (With the
Help of Top School Officials) The last thing people want to hear in a
high-tax state notorious for political corruption is that their tax
dollars are being mismanaged. But according to a two-year probe of
school superintendents by New Jersey's State Commission of
Investigation, that's exactly what's going on in Tony Soprano
country. No wonder there's a property-tax rebellion brewing there as
in many places around the country.
"Jersey School Scam," The Wall Street Journal, March 21,
2006; Page A14 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114290632601803676.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Reaping the Fruits of Tax Cuts The next
time some Washington potentate moans about the budget deficit, tell
him not to blame the taxpayers. They're already doing their part to
reduce it, as the latest Treasury figures on booming federal tax
revenue show. In the first five months of Fiscal 2006, through
February, overall revenue continued to surge, growing at an overall
rate of 10.3%, or an $81 billion increase from the year ago period,
to $871 billion. That builds on the astonishing 15%, or $274
billion, revenue increase for all of 2005, which various fiscal wise
men assured us would fall off dramatically. Apparently not.
"Beltway Windfall," The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2006;
Page A16 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114308110030405957.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Big Tax Return Preparer is Watching You: Yet another
incentive to do your own tax returns
The person who prepares your tax return may sell your private
information (Repeated from March 31 edition of New Bookmarks)
This link was forwarded by Scott Bonacker
[cpa@BONACKERS.COM]
"IRS plans to allow preparers to sell data: Critics said the
proposed regulation could lead to a loss of privacy for clients," by
Jeff Gelles, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 21, 2006 ---
Click Here
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the
once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it
succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be
able to sell information from individual returns - or even
entire returns - to marketers and data brokers.
The change is raising alarm among
consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set
of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS
published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official
notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
IRS officials portray the changes as
housecleaning to update outmoded regulations adopted before it
began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules,
which would become effective 30 days after a final version is
published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written
consent before selling tax information.
Critics call the changes a dangerous
breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the
requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many
taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of
documents before a filing deadline.
"The normal interaction is that the
taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of
them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America,
one of several groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This
person is a tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen.
Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS
Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands
of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled
under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers'
vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.
"There is no more sensitive information
than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these
returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers
is deeply troubling," Obama wrote.
The IRS first announced the proposal in
a news release the day before the official notice was published,
headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard
Taxpayer Information."
The announcement did not mention
potential sales of tax information. It said the proposed rules
were guided by the principle "that tax return preparers may not
disclose or use tax return information for purposes other than
tax return preparation without the knowing, informed and
voluntary consent of the taxpayer."
IRS spokesman William M. Cressman
defended the proposal in similar terms.
"The heart of this proposed regulation
is about the right of taxpayers to control their tax return
information. The idea is to emphasize taxpayer consent and set
clear boundaries on how tax return preparers can use or disclose
tax return information," Cressman said in an e-mail response to
questions.
Cressman said he was unable to explain
"why this issue has come up at this time other than our effort
to update regulations that date back to the 1970s and predate
the electronic era."
Not all the changes have drawn
opposition.
Beth A. McConnell, director of the
Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group (PennPIRG), said she
welcomed a requirement that a taxpayer would need to consent to
overseas processing of any portion of a tax return.
"That's a positive development, but I
don't think it's worth giving up our tax returns' privacy for,"
said McConnell, who plans to testify on behalf of the U.S.
Public Interest Research Group at an April 4 IRS hearing in
Washington on the rule changes.
McConnell accused the IRS of using the
new limit on overseas processing to dress up changes that would
chiefly benefit tax preparers, marketers and data brokers.
"That's a disturbing trend among
Washington officials lately," McConnell said. "They'll offer a
modest consumer protection in one area in exchange for dramatic
weakening of consumer protections in another area, and then try
to convince the public that it's all in our interests."
Critics of the proposal said it could
do more than open up sales of tax information to data brokers
and marketers, because it could undermine taxpayer confidence in
the entire tax system.
"Privacy protections for tax
information are especially critical given the largely voluntary
nature of the U.S. tax system," said Chi Chi Wu, a tax-law
specialist at Boston's National Consumer Law Center.
Wu and other critics said they were
uncertain who or what was behind the proposed changes in IRS
privacy rules, which currently prohibit tax preparers from
selling returns to third parties for marketing purposes, and
require written consent if they want to use it for marketing by
companies under their own corporate umbrella.
Officials at H&R Block and
Jackson-Hewitt, two of the nation's largest tax-preparation
firms, did not respond to requests for comment. Cressman said
the IRS had so far received only about a dozen comments on the
proposal.
"I think this just flew under the radar
screen for so many people," McConnell said.
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable
privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds,
accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell
information from individual returns - or even entire returns -
to marketers and data brokers.
The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights
advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the
Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal
Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a
significant regulatory action."
IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to update
outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns
electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective
30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax
preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax
information.
Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and
financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent
would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those
hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing
deadline.
"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what
the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of
the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups
fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a tax
professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.).
In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama
warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information
could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS
sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and
other risks.
"There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's
return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold
to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply
troubling," Obama wrote.
The IRS first announced the proposal in a news release the
day before the official notice was published, headlined: "IRS
Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."
The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax
information. It said the proposed rules were guided by the
principle "that tax return preparers may not disclose or use tax
return information for purposes other than tax return
preparation without the knowing, informed and voluntary consent
of the taxpayer."
Last week came yet another story predicting
doomsday for the Internet. Except this time, it wasn't a
Digital Pearl Harbor that was coming. It was a "Katrina of the
Internet."
Ordinarily, I would just shrug off such a
story--there are always two or three of these each year--and
recommend that readers do the same. After all, the Internet sky
has been said to be falling many times, and yet, it never seems
to happen. But this story was written by Ted Bridis at the
Associated Press, whose work is beyond reproach. So I dug in,
and sure enough, there is something to be worried about.
The fundamental problem, one that should ring
true to many consumers, is this: On the Internet, it's far too
easy for data to lie about what it is, and where it's come
from. Until the problem of such data impersonation is solved,
no one can promise you that your e-mail won't one day disappear,
your Internet phone calls will stop working, or your electronic
commerce business might one day be brought to its knees. Just
imagine if your water, electricity, heat, or gasoline were that
unreliable.
"It's as if our electric grid didn't even have
fences around it," said Paul Vixie, president of Internet
Systems Consortium Inc., a non-profit that helps run the
computers at the heart of the Internet. "This is disgraceful
what we do, and what we don't do, to protect the Internet."
All this means, at a minimum, consumers should
have Internet disaster plans ready, a virtual fire escape and
digital smoke detector. Have backup copies of your baby
pictures somewhere, and not just online; keep paper copies of
banking statements for the day you can't bank online, that kind
of thing. We've come to depend on the network, but we should
remember that it has an Achilles heel.
The Internet is a bit of a paradox, being both
incredibly fragile and incredibly resilient. Recall that we all
lost a day's work seven years ago when a frustrated Philippine
graduate student named Onel de Guzman released the LoveBug virus
on the world.
On the other hand, despite the best efforts of
every ill-meaning hacker to ever sprout pimples, the Internet
has not "gone down." Sites have gone down. E-mail has been
overwhelmed by spam. Web traffic has even been slowed a smidge
by computer worms. But basically, the Internet has survived
everything that's been thrown at it. That's a credit to its
redundant, distributed design--files are copied and backed up
all over the world, and there are almost always multiple ways
for data to travel. If one Internet road is cut off, there are
always detours. The system has survived everything, even 9/11
and Katrina.
This resiliency is a good news/bad news story.
And here's the bad news: At this point, every alarm bell that's
sounded has the air of the boy who cried wolf.
But as I called around to security experts last
week, the people who really watch the 1s and 0s as they fly
around the globe, I could sense exasperation. Just because the
big one hasn't come yet doesn't mean it won't come, I heard.
Turning the Internet against itself Now, for the new attack. VeriSign Inc. says someone took an
army of 30,000 hijacked computers and trained them on 1,500
targets earlier this year, overwhelming them with traffic. The
attacked computers were helpless. And then, after a few weeks,
the attacks stopped. The attacking packets were not defeated by
countermeasures; the attackers simply moved on.
Suck denial of service attacks are not new. But
VeriSign's Ken Silva said that this new attack was much more
intense than anything seen before.
"We're trying to fire a flare here," he said.
"This is a problem that is bigger than anyone is currently
thinking."
Here's why: Hackers aren't using simple hijacked
home computers to attack. They are turning the Internet's
Domain Name Server system against itself. The domain name
server system is the Internet's addressing system. It maps ugly
numeric IP addresses like 129.206.1.1 to simple names like
MSNBC.com There are 13 root nameservers, which are essential to
the proper functioning of the Internet. Verisign runs two of
them.
Continued in article
From The Washington Post on March 23, 2006
In 2005, how many PCs were snared
into illegal hacker networks called "botnets"?
Ten Years of Testing Palms
eWEEK Labs recounts what Palm did right—and wrong—as the PDA
platform celebrates its 10th anniversary
"Ten Years of Testing Palms," by Michael Caton, eWeek, March
24, 2006 ---
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1942465,00.asp
A stealthy bot Trojan has been infecting machines via
drive-by-downloads for months, and may have infected a million PCs.
It aims to pillage personal bank accounts.
One of the most sophisticated bot Trojans ever has been
infecting machines for months, a security company revealed
Wednesday, and has compromised an estimated one million PCs in
an ongoing effort to pillage personal bank accounts.
According to Reston, Va.-based iDefense, multiple variants of
a Trojan dubbed "MetaFisher," a.k.a. "Spy-Agent," has been
spreading for months under the proverbial radar.
"MetaFisher has compromised hundreds of thousands if not
millions of accounts for financial fraud," said Ken Dunham, the
director of iDefense's rapid response team.
The Trojan's pitched the usual way -- via spammed e-mail that
includes a link -- and uses the long-patched Windows Metafile
(WMF) vulnerability to silently install via a drive-by download
on machines whose users simply surf to these malicious sites.
Once on a machine, the malware turns the PC into yet another
"bot," or remotely-controlled computer. But Dunham, who called
MetaFisher "the most sophisticated bot to date," said it has
several unique technical tricks up its sleeves.
MetaFisher uses HTML injection techniques to phish
information from victims after they've logged into a targeted
bank account, said Dunham, which lets attackers steal legitimate
TAN numbers (one-time PINs used by some banks overseas) and
passwords without having to draw them onto phony sites.
Currently, MetaFisher is targeting Spanish, British, and
German banks, and their customers.
iDefense, said Dunham, broke the encryption used to disguise
the traffic between bots and their controllers, and has
monitored that back-and-forth for several weeks. It's passed
along the information to its parent company VeriSign, which has
been working on taking down the sites used to drive-by-download
the Trojan.
Increasingly, bots are being used by criminals to steal
personal financial information using covert code and keyloggers.
Last week, FaceTime, a Foster City, Calif. security company,
disclosed details of a bot network, or botnet, that was
exploiting vulnerabilities in back-end e-commerce shopping cart
software to rip off consumers.
The Sorry State of ID Theft, Denial of Service, and Other
Attacks One of the
most popular stories on our site over the last two weeks was
PIN Scandal 'Worst Hack Ever'; Citibank Only The Start,
followed closely by
International Citibank Customers Shaken By Data Breach.
Day after day, one
or both made our list of the five most popular headlines.I'm
guessing another story, about
two large botnets hacking into users' online shopping cartsto steal
credit card numbers, bank account details, and log-on passwords,
will grab similar reader interest.Little wonder. The banks involved
in the first story were huge, with huge IT budgets and even bigger
data stores. We all bank and use ATMs, and many use debit cards. And
regards the second story, most of us shop, to varying degrees,
online. It just isn't hard to imagine yourself as one of the
current--or future--victims of these scams or dubious security
policies.
Patricia Keefe, "Securing A Solution To Data Theft,"
InformationWeek Daily, March 21, 2006
The High Cost Of Data Loss Sensitive personal data has been misplaced,
lost, printed on mailing labels, posted online, and just left around
for anyone to see. The situation has become untenable. Here's the
ugly truth about how it keeps happening, who's been affected, and
what's being done about it.
Elena Malykhina et al., InformationWeek, March 20, 2006
How many ways are there to expose
sensitive personal data? One company misplaces a backup tape;
another puts customers' Social Security numbers onto mailing
labels for anyone to see. Others lose laptops, inadvertently
post private information online, or leave documents exposed to
prying eyes. The possibilities are endless-- as we're learning
with every new revelation of a data breach or hack or
inexcusable lapse in secure business practices. By one estimate,
53 million people--including consumers, employees, students, and
patients--have had data about themselves exposed over the past
13 months.
This sorry state of affairs is taking
its toll: fines, lawsuits, firings, damaged reputations, spooked
customers, credit card fraud, a regulatory crackdown, and the
expense of fixing what's broken. The situation has become
untenable. Here's the ugly truth about how it keeps happening,
who's been affected, and what's being done about
When I export/import I select all
available options, yet when I open the new company, none of the
customer payment info made it over. (Customer terms/type etc
DOES make it over) Just nothing under the payment info tab. What
am I doing wrong. This means I have a lot of credit card #'s to
manually move . Any help appreciated.
Answer:
The built in IIF transfer process
doesn't transfer credit card info. Software developed with
Intuits XML based Software Development Kit (SDK) can transfer
the credit card info but you need QB 2004 or later and the Pro
version or higher. -/snip/- Instead of writing you own progam,
you can use some of the third party transfer tools listed on the
Intuit Marketplace site at ....
===================
This is from a recent exchange on a
QuickBooks discussion forum. Aside from wanting to ask the
questioner whether they have sufficient security on their
computer to be storing customer credit card numbers, I'm also
curious what regulations there might be for this. The GLB act
doesn't apply unless it is a financial services business. The
questioner is in Texas so that state's laws would apply, but
what are the Federal rules?
"But Googling people is also becoming a
way for bosses and headhunters to do continuous and stealthy
background checks on employees, no disclosure required. Google
is an end run around discrimination laws, inasmuch as employers
can find out all manner of information -- some of it for a
nominal fee -- that is legally off limits in interviews: your
age, your marital status, the value of your house (along with an
aerial photograph of it), the average net worth of your
neighbors, fraternity pranks, stuff you wrote in college, liens,
bankruptcies, political affiliations, and the names and ages of
your children."
A headhunter I heard speak recently
said that around 38% of resumes have false education
credentials. The easiest thing to check on, and the most often
faked. They also typically do not use the contact phone numbers
provided in resumes. Those numbers can actually ring through to
a confederate, so they use the phone book to look up a company's
number.
The Current Age of Gossip: What movie star had affairs with
the following celebrities? Prince Charlesand Princess Diana's
doomed lover, Dodi Fayed, Anderson writes that her conquests include
Warren Beatty, Ryan O'Neal, Steve McQueen,
Kris Kristofferson, Don Johnson (whom friends dismissed
as her "Goy Toy"), Jon Voight, Elliott Gould, Andre
Agassi, Richard Gere, Omar Sharif, ice cream heir
Richard Baskin, hairdresser-turned-studio chief Jon Peters,
Liam Neeson, Peter Jennings, Tommy Smothers and
"Robocop" Peter Weller.
Hint
Hillary Clinton banned her from the White House
Question
Will spelling and grammar standards disappear in the 21st Century
like penmanship standards disappeared in the 20th Century?
AUTHORS and academics have criticised
Western Australia's new English exam for making spelling and grammar
optional extras in written expression.
Alana Buckley-Carr, "Experts tick-off English exams," The
Australian, March 21, 2006 ---
Click Here
This month, College
Board officials released
the latest data on the Advanced Placement
program, noting record
increases in the numbers of students taking AP
courses and scoring well enough on the exams to
get college credit. The AP program saves
students “time and tuition,” said Gaston
Caperton, president of the College Board. The
Bush administration is climbing on the AP
bandwagon as well,
calling for more students
to take the courses in
high school.
There’s
just one problem, according to
research presented Friday in St.
Louis at the annual meeting of
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science: AP
courses — whatever their merits
— may be poor substitutes for
college courses in the sciences.
The
study looked at 18,000 students
in introductory biology,
chemistry and physics courses in
college. The students were at 63
randomly selected four-year
colleges and universities and
their performance in the courses
was correlated to various
factors. The researchers found
that students who had taken AP
courses — even those who had
done well on the AP exams — did
only marginally better than
students who had not taken AP
courses. Other factors, such as
the rigor of mathematics taken
in high school, were found to
have a strong impact on whether
students did well in
college-level work in the
sciences
Continued in article
"Advanced Placement: A detour for college fast track?" by Mary
Beth Marklein, USA Today, March 20, 2006 ---
Click Here
Admissions officials at Wartburg
College in Waverly, Iowa, like those at most colleges
nationwide, like to see Advanced Placement courses on high
school transcripts. And like many colleges, they typically
exempt students who have passed AP exams from taking certain
introductory courses.
But in recent years, a troubling
pattern has emerged. Increasingly, admitted students who boast
AP credits "really weren't in many ways ready for the rigor of
our college curriculum," says Edith Waldstein, vice president
for enrollment management.
A committee is looking into whether to
readjust the way Wartburg awards AP credit. "It just doesn't
mean as much as it used to," she says.
Advanced Placement, a program that
allows high school students to take college-level courses, has
been on a roll. Last year, more than 1.2 million students took
more than 2.1 million exams, double the number 11 years ago.
The percentage of students who took and
passed AP courses increased in every state and the District of
Columbia since 2000. Nearly every state has an incentive program
to encourage more schools to offer the courses.
President Bush further boosted the
program's visibility during his State of the Union address when
he announced a plan to train more teachers to teach Advanced
Placement and similarly rigorous math and science courses.
One reason for AP's explosive growth is
an expansion of mission. Created 51 years ago to give the
brightest high school students a head start on college
coursework, AP increasingly is being promoted, as Bush's
proposal suggests, as a tool for high school reform.
"Our hope (is that AP) can serve as an
anchor for increasing rigor in our schools and reducing the
achievement gap," says Gaston Caperton, president of the College
Board, the non-profit group that runs the AP program.
But as AP grows in popularity, it seems
to be experiencing growing pains. More doubts are being raised
about whether AP can accomplish all that it is being asked to
do.
Like Wartburg, a number of colleges are
re-evaluating whether to exempt students with AP credit from
certain classes. Already, several highly selective schools,
including Harvard, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, require many students to take introductory courses
in certain subjects, even if they passed an AP exam in the same
subject.
Beginning this fall, entering students
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia no longer will
be able to use AP credits alone to satisfy general education
requirements.
And the University of Georgia in Athens
is reviewing AP policies after a task force report raised
concerns that too many entering students are placing out of core
classes "without either undergoing the rigorous assessment of or
acquiring the skills taught at a research university."
Uncertain predictor of success
In terms of admissions, research on
whether AP involvement can predict a student's success in
college appear inconclusive at best. State-based studies by the
National Center for Educational Accountability in Texas and the
University of California-Berkeley, to name two, show that
students who pass AP exams are more likely to earn a bachelor's
degree than those who don't pass.
Even so, the California study also
found that taking AP (and honors) courses bore "little or no
relationship to students' later performance in college" and
suggested that institutions reconsider the use of AP as an
admissions criterion.
Meanwhile, in a just-released update of
a 1999 Education Department study showing that the "academic
intensity of the curriculum" is a predictor of bachelor's degree
completion, researcher Clifford Adelman found that, by itself,
AP coursework did not "reach the threshold of significance."
And in a not-yet-published study of 465
college students nationwide who had taken both an AP science
exam and the corresponding introductory science course,
researchers at Harvard and the University of Virginia found that
even an AP exam score of 5, the highest possible, was no
guarantee of a college grade of A in the same course.
Needed: Greater consistency
Earlier warnings also have been sounded
about course quality. A 2002 review by the National Research
Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, found that AP
science courses lacked depth. A year earlier, a panel of experts
created by the College Board urged it to take steps to control
quality as the AP program expands.
In response, the College Board is now
revising courses, beginning with biology and history, and is
undertaking a massive audit of high school courses "to ensure a
greater degree of consistency," says Trevor Packer, executive
director of the program. Without some control, "the claims we
can make for those students are limited."
The European International
Baccalaureate, a more comprehensive college-level program that
served 35,366 students in 423 U.S. high schools last year, also
is held up as a model for rigor.But AP, which served 15,380
schools last year, is far more established.
And even critics agree there's a lot to
like about the AP program, which to date offers a curriculum and
exam for 35 (and counting) college-level courses in 20 subjects,
including math, science, English and social sciences. Each
course is developed by a committee of college and high school
faculty and is designed to be the equivalent of an introductory
college course.
The College Board offers training to AP
teachers, many of whom also teach other courses and otherwise
might have few professional development opportunities. And like
SAT scores, AP grades offer colleges a national yardstick with
which to compare students.
No longer the cream of the crop
The hallmark of the program is its
exams, one for each course, offered worldwide each May. The
exams typically comprise multiple-choice and free-response
questions. Scores range from 1 to 5 with 3 or higher considered
a passing grade. In some cases, students who pass an AP exam are
exempted from taking the equivalent course in college and may be
permitted to take higher-level courses.
But with AP increasingly being viewed
as a standard to which all students should aspire, some
researchers question whether the AP's embrace of a wider swath
of students is creating fault lines.
"The traditional role of AP is still on
very firm footing," says Kristin Klopfenstein, an economist at
Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, whose research
suggests that average students don't necessarily benefit. "The
AP fervor has been so quick in coming over the last decade that
we haven't slowed down enough to really look to see that AP
accomplishes what we want."
At Fairfax (Va.) High School, which
opened AP enrollment to all students in the early 1990s, the
answer seems to be that it does.
In the six years since the district
began paying for all AP students to take AP exams, the school's
average exam score has edged upward even as the number of test
takers has more than doubled, from 316 to 647. Average exam
scores increased from 2.65 to 2.68.
In 2001, the Institute
conducted the
first-ever study of the status of new
technology adoption and digitization in the nation’s museums and
libraries. The baseline study identified pockets of digitization
activity and planning that were making library and museum
collections widely available. While gaps existed between large
and small institutions, basic technologies had found their way
into a majority of libraries and museums.
This second study seeks to
dig deeper and find out more about how and why our cultural
institutions use technology and digitize their collections. It
explores barriers as well as capacity and planning issues.
Education Technology: Play-Doh™ Economics The Play Dough curriculum strives to
provide financial and economic literacy for students and teachers,
helping them develop the real life skills needed to be successful
savers, investors, consumers, and workers in a global economy. “Play
Dough Economics is the best single economic education curriculum I
have used during my career,” states Dr. John Hall, an Associate
Professor at Missouri State University. “It is comprehensive,
teacher friendly, activity-oriented, highly motivating, and fun! The
explanations of economic concepts are excellent and it is cost
effective. Even though it was written for K-8 students, I have found
Play Dough Economics to be very valuable beyond the 8th grade. I
have used it in my college classes and worked with many high school
teachers who use it with their students. Whenever and wherever I use
Play dough Economics it is a hit.”
"Play-Doh™ Economics," AccountingWeb, May 16, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101908
The European Union is facing a crisis
of historic proportions. Its infamous social model is failing as
new trends in the industrialized world -- globalization, ageing,
and rapid technological change -- threaten to permanently
destroy the European way of life.
At the heart of the EU's feeble and
inadequate economy is the slow pace of change. This week's
European Spring Council offers the Continent's leaders a chance
to add urgent impetus to the reform effort. Even the most ardent
proponents of the "Lisbon Agenda" -- a strategy for transforming
Europe into the most dynamic knowledge economy in the world by
2010 -- admit the formula of regular, top-level peer review has
been a blunt instrument. The EU is obsessed with process and
susceptible to bureaucratic stagnation, and often fails to
achieve tangible outcomes.
Meanwhile, national leaders have failed
to formulate a coherent program for structural reform. Some on
the Continent even yearn for their own Margaret Thatcher.
It is na�ve to imagine that EU
institutions could substitute for strong political leadership at
home. To the contrary, under-performance within the member
states fuels the legitimacy crisis of the European project as a
whole. Liberalization, enlargement and immigration are blamed
for destroying jobs and living standards. Brussels cannot cut
itself off from rising ethnic tensions in Europe's cities, or
widespread anxiety about the competitive threat of India and
China.
Only reforms rooted in social justice
can be sold to the public. But social justice must be understood
as providing equal opportunities for all rather than just simply
generous transfer payments. Then it will compliment rather than
stifle competitiveness in a globalizing world. Yet none of
Europe's models of welfare capitalism even remotely lives up to
this concept. That's why Europe's traditional ideas of welfare
have to change. Full employment no longer exists in most member
states, and hasn't for decades. Even high employment countries
like Sweden and the U.K. face rising claims for sickness,
invalidity benefits, and an increasing proportion of households
without breadwinners.
Today's most significant (and just plain cool) emerging
technologies This article is the second in a series of
10 stories we're running over two weeks, covering today's most
significant (and just plain cool) emerging technologies. It's part
of our annual "10 Emerging Technologies" report, which appears in
the March/April print issue of Technology Review.
"Nanomedicine: James Baker designs nanoparticles to guide
drugs directly into cancer cells, which could lead to far safer
treatments," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, March
21, 2006 ---
Click Here
"Epigenetics: Alexander Olek has developed tests to detect
cancer early by measuring its subtle DNA changes," by Peter Fairley,
MIT's Technology Review, March 22, 2006 ---
Click Here
The New Google Finance Site (more than just a search site)
"Google Finance hits Web New services to compete with Yahoo,
other sites," Verne Kopytoff, San Francisco Chronicle, March
21, 2006 ---
Click Here
Google Inc. is introducing a finance
area on its Web site where users can get stock quotes, chart
their mutual funds and get company news, issuing a major
challenge to category leader Yahoo Inc.
The area, Google Finance, adds to the
Mountain View company's growing list of new products that has
transformed it from the leading search engine into a junior Web
portal.
Google's finance area, at , was to be
up running sometime overnight. It will offer many of the same
features as its established competitors, such as stock
information, the ability to create a personal portfolio and
access to a discussion board. But it also has some new twists,
including stock charts that note when major news events take
place and a sample of blog postings by amateurs about individual
companies.
"We feel like we can offer considerable
value," said Katie Jacobs Stanton, a senior product manager for
Google.
In introducing a finance area, Google
is facing off against several proven competitors. . Yahoo
Finance is the top in the financial news and information
category, with 12 million unique visitors in February, followed
by MSN Money with 10.9 million and CNN Money with 8.5 million,
according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
Google has offered a smattering of
financial information for some time. Users of its search engine
who entered ticker symbols often got stock quotes and other
basic company information at the top of the results page. But
Monday's premiere adds an entirely new dimension to Google's
finance offerings.
For now, the finance area, which Google
is calling a test, is devoid of advertising, the company's
primary source of revenue.
Indeed, Google Finance lacks some of
what is available on competing Web sites, such as the ability to
plot two stocks on the same chart. Stanton said that new
functions will be added soon.
She said that the company has no plans
to hire its own business writers. Several of Google's rivals
have their own writers, including Dow Jones Inc.'s MarketWatch,
which has a team of reporters, and Yahoo, which has several
columnists.
For its stock discussion board, Google
created thousands of message boards within its existing Google
Groups area. Google said that unlike other groups, it will
patrol user postings for profanity and violations of Securities
and Exchange Commission rules.
David Schatsky, senior vice president
for JupiterResearch, said in an e-mail that the Google finance
area is "pretty hot and pretty slick and should erase any
doubts, if any are left, that Google intends to compete as a
portal, and not just as a search engine."
Recently, Google has added a number of
things that take it further from its search-engine roots,
including video downloads, maps and instant messaging.
Schatsky praised the stock charts that
include notations of major news events, calling it "the kind of
tool that investors will appreciate."
A pet donkey was struggling to recover
from injuries she suffered when she was stuck in a septic tank
and nearly submerged in some 8 feet of putrid water on Friday.
The donkey's owner said by telephone
that he fears his pet may die from the accident because she has
been unable to stand since.
Jenny has been a beloved pet since her
owner adopted her from the federal Bureau of Land Management
several years ago, said the man, who refused to give his name.
He cried when he talked about the possibility of her dying.
"Once you get them gentle, they're like
your best friend," he said of his 12-year-old pet.
A firefighter at the scene said Jenny
had a cut on one of her legs and that waste material might have
infected it.
At 3 a.m. Friday, the owner walked the
donkey near his Newbury Park home on the 200 block of Rosa Lane,
the Ventura County Fire Department said. The man reported that
the lid of a septic tank collapsed when the 600-pound donkey
walked on top of it, the Fire Department said.
The septic tank serves as a wastewater
receptacle for the home; eventually, the contents decompose and
create a thick sludge.
When rescue workers arrived they could
see only her head and part of her neck in a tank with a diameter
similar to that of a manhole cover, said Ventura County Fire
Capt. Mel Lovo. The owner tried without success to hoist the
donkey above the water with a bridle. Lovo said Jenny probably
stood on her hind legs throughout the incident.
Lovo, a member of the department's
Urban Search and Rescue unit in Camarillo, said he could smell
the contents of the septic water and several members of the crew
had sludge on them.
Jenny remained still while she was in
the tank.
Rescue workers were able to hoist Jenny
with a winch.
Some 16 emergency personnel worked to
get Jenny back to safety. By 6 a.m. she was out of the tank. She
lay still as rescue workers rinsed the wastewater off her, said
Harry Fekkes, a firefighter on the scene.
A veterinarian arrived later and tended
to Jenny, Fekkes said.
And then there's the video about the moose in the car
From ABC News: Moose Trapped in Car Seat ---
http://abcnews.go.com/
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Giving Alms No Charity by
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) ---
Click Here
Proposal For Correcting, Improving And Ascertaining The
English Tongue; In A Letter To The Most Honourable Robert Earl Of Oxford And
Mortimer, Lord High Treasurer Of Great Britain by
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) ---
Click Here
There is enough evidence to suggest that the
al-Qaeda terrorist network is preparing to engage in biological warfare,
according to the International Criminal Police Organisation or Interpol.
At an Asian Bioterrorism Workshop in Singapore, Interpol said that
bioterrorism cannot be ignored and that countries need to develop the
laws to deal with such a crime. "It can't be that we as a world
community have to wait for a September 11 type of attack in bioterrorism
before we prepare," Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble was
quoted as saying on Singapore's Channel NewsAsia website. Adniki.com, March 27, 2006
---
Click Here
Urban teens are increasingly losing their
virginity before they can legally drive. A new survey shows four out of
10 city kids say they have had intercourse before age 14, and have
engaged in oral and even anal sex by 17.
Bill Hutchinson, Daily News, April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1609524/posts
I’m not enthusiastic about
it. I think everybody likes Katie Couric, I mean how can you not like
Katie Couric. But, I don’t know anybody at CBS News who is pleased that
she’s coming here. Andy Rooney, CBS Television
It would be a better world if everyone in it
knew all the truth about everything. Andy Rooney
Most of us end up with no more than five or
six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who
remember them for the rest of their lives. Andy Rooney
If dogs could talk it would take a lot of
the fun out of owning one. Andy Rooney
If you smile when no one else is around, you
really mean it. Andy Rooney
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great
Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by
Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how
theory development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions
changed over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will
take some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
PG#19 BANDURA Fortuitous events got me into psychology
and my marital partnership. I initially planned to study the
biological sciences. I was in a car pool with pre-meds and
engineers who enrolled in classes at an unmercifully early hour.
While waiting for my English class I flipped through a course
catalogue that happened to be left on a table in the library. I
noticed an introductory psychology course that would serve as an
early time filler. I enrolled in the course and found my future
profession. It was during my graduate school years at the
University of Iowa that I met my wife through a fortuitous
encounter. My friend and I were quite late getting to the golf
course one Sunday. We were bumped to an afternoon starting time.
There were two women ahead of us. They were slowing down. We were
speeding up. Before long we became a genial foursome. I met my
wife in a sand trap. Our lives would have taken entirely different
courses had I showed up at the early scheduled time.
Some years ago I delivered a
presidential address at the Western Psychological Convention on the
psychology of chance encounters and life paths (Bandura, 1982). At
the convention the following year, an editor of one of the
publishing houses explained that he had entered the lecture hall as
it was rapidly filling up and seized an empty chair near the
entrance. In the coming week, he will be marrying the woman who
happened to be seated next to him. With only a momentary change in
time of entry, seating constellations would have altered and this
intersect would not have occurred. A marital partnership was, thus,
fortuitously formed at a talk devoted to fortuitous determinants of
life paths!
Fortuitous influences are
ignored in the casual structure of the social sciences even though
they play an important role in life courses. Most fortuitous events
leave people untouched, others have some lasting effects, and still
others branch people into new trajectories of life. A science of
psychology does not have much to say about the occurrence of
fortuitous intersects, except that personal proclivities, the nature
of the settings in which one moves, and the types of people who
populate those settings make some types of intersects more probable
than others. Fortuitous influences may be unforeseeable, but having
occurred, they enter as contributing factors in casual chains in the
same way as prearranged ones do. Psychology can gain the knowledge
for predicting the nature, scope, and strength of the impact these
encounters will have on human lives. I took the fortuitous
character of life seriously, provided a preliminary conceptual
scheme for predicting the psychosocial impact of such events, and
specified ways in which people can capitalize agentically on
fortuitous opportunities (Bandura, 1982, 1998).
Parents who forget to do their homework
before choosing a state-sponsored college savings plan are being
sold funds with the highest fees, according to a survey of
state-sponsored 529 college savings plans just published in the
Journal of American Taxation Association. The Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating the sales practices of
529 plans and has reportedly requested a copy of the article. “Our
results are consistent with the fact that it’s so difficult to
choose the right plan that people ask investment brokers for advice,
and brokers are selling investors the high-fee funds,” University of
Kansas (KU) professor and co-author of the survey, Raquel Alexander
said in a prepared statement announcing the results.
Taxpayers have currently invested more than
$65 billion in 529 college Savings Plans, which allow investors to
make after-tax contributions to the plans and withdraw funds,
tax-free, to use for qualified college expenses. That amount is
expected to climb to $300 billion by 2010, according to Investment
News.
Continued in article
As college tuitions rise — and levels of
student debt, not coincidentally, mount along with them — one of the ill
effects public policy experts fear is that graduates will avoid
low-paying public service jobs because they fear being unable to pay off
their loans.
Doug Lederman, "Debt, Deterring Public Service," Inside Higher Ed,
April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/06/debt
As I was preparing for this article, I
asked a friend who is Jewish if it was appropriate to use the term
"holocaust" to portray the worldwide violence against women. He was
startled. But when I read him the figures in a 2004 policy paper
published by the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed
Forces, he said yes, without hesitation.
One United Nations estimate says from 113
million to 200 million women around the world are demographically
"missing." Every year, from 1.5 million to 3 million women and girls
lose their lives as a result of gender-based violence or neglect.
How could this possibly be true? Here are
some of the factors:
In countries where the birth of a boy is
considered a gift and the birth of a girl a curse from the gods,
selective abortion and infanticide eliminate female babies.
Young girls die disproportionately from
neglect because food and medical attention is given first to
brothers, fathers, husbands and sons.
In countries where women are considered the
property of men, their fathers and brothers can murder them for
choosing their own sexual partners. These are called "honor"
killings, though honor has nothing to do with it.
Continued in article
Bill requires gays' history to be taught in California The state Senate will consider a bill that
would require California schools to teach students about the
contributions gay people have made to society -- an effort that
supporters say is an attempt to battle discrimination and opponents say
is designed to use the classroom to get children to embrace
homosexuality. The bill, which was passed by a Senate committee Tuesday,
would require schools to buy textbooks ``accurately'' portraying ``the
sexual diversity of our society.'' More controversially, it could
require that students hear history lessons on ``the contributions of
people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic,
political, and social development of California and the United States of
America.''
Aaron C. Davis, "Bill requires gays' history to be taught," Mercury
News, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14276578.htm
Jensen Comment
If the curriculum is to be dictated by state law, I would like to add
some other modules such as personal finance and accounting (including
tax law basics) and fraud prevention. These modules cover serious
societal problems faced by virtually all young persons passing into
adulthood. For example, most high school graduates are unaware of how
credit card companies are exploiting their ignorance when allowing them
to pay the "minimum due." Most do not understand the basics of finance,
borrowing, and interest rate calculations.
"Financial literacy is still a very
significant problem. It doesn't seem to be getting any better," says
Lewis Mandell, a professor at SUNY Buffalo School of Management who
oversaw the survey, which was conducted in December and January. It
includes topics such as investing and managing personal finances.
He said the lack of knowledge was troubling
given that today's high school seniors likely will be more
responsible for their own financial well-being when they retire
given trends away from company pension plans and an uncertain future
for Social Security benefits.
Continued in article
Teenagers may be ignorant about finance, but so are their parents Everyone uses commodities such as wheat,
cocoa, crude oil, butter, coal and electricity. But most investors know
that speculating on commodities in the futures markets is only for the
pros, and no sensible amateur would bet his retirement or college funds
on sugar, silver, orange juice or feeder cattle. But are commodities
really that risky? Using the most comprehensive data on commodities
futures returns ever assembled, Wharton finance professor Gary Gorton
and K. Geert Rouwenhorst, finance professor at the Yale School of
Management, have reached a surprising conclusion -- that commodities
offer the same returns as investors are accustomed to receiving with
stocks. Gorton and Rouwenhorst present their findings in a paper titled,
"Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures." "Are Commodities Futures Too Risky for Your Portfolio?
Hogwash!" Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania,
Knowledge@Wharton, April 2006 --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1441
The Vagina Monologues at Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame will allow
productions of The Vagina Monologues to take place on campus, but will
insist on other measures to promote Roman Catholic teachings on
sexuality, the university announced Wednesday. Inside Higher Ed, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/06/qt
"Top Colleges Reject Record Numbers: Schools Say Surging
Applications Produce Unusually Competitive Year," by Anne Marie Chaker,
The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2006; Page D1 ---
Click Here
THE first time Knowledge Mbanda found a
dead baby in the drains of Harare, he was horrified. “It is
completely against our culture to abandon children,” he said. “I
thought it must be of a woman who had been raped or a prostitute.”
But now he and fellow council workers find at least 20 corpses of
newborn babies each week, thrown away or even flushed down the
lavatories of Zimbabwe’s capital.
The dumping of babies, along with what
doctors describe as a “dramatic” increase in malnourished children
in city hospitals, is the most shocking illustration of the economic
collapse of a country that was once the breadbasket of southern
Africa.
Some of the corpses are the result of
unwanted pregnancies in a country experiencing a rise in sexual
abuse and prostitution. But others are newborns dumped by desperate
mothers unable to support another child. Inflation has reached
1,000% and the government’s seizure of 95% of commercial farms has
seen food production plummet.
More than 200,000 people died in the
tsunami but that toll will be dwarfed by the disaster that is about
to engulf Africa.
However, unlike the tsunami it will not be
a single, photogenic disaster to lure the world's media. The arid
lands will wreak a slower carnage.
So far, its victims are attracting a tiny
fraction of the charity. And yet, unlike the tsunami, this disaster
came with plenty of warning.
The World Food Program emergency operation
began in August 2004. Despite a $US6 million ($8.4 million) donation
from the European Commission last month, the program is urgently
appealing to donors to meet a $US150 million shortfall required to
keep 3.5 million people in Kenya alive. A further 8 million face
starvation in neighbouring countries, including Ethiopia and
Somalia.
Continued in article
Perhaps historians should record the moments of reflection of some
people with dementia It is 1941. The Nazis are about to lay
siege to Leningrad, and the city's residents take refuge in the
Hermitage museum. There we meet Marina, a young museum worker whose
story moves between Russia in World War II and the present, where she is
about to attend her granddaughter's wedding in Seattle. The modern-day
Marina has Alzheimer's disease and is lost in the memories of her past.
"The Force of Memory: 'Madonnas of Leningrad'," NPR, April 2,
2006 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5313845
Cyber-sex, war, and erection-inducing drugs are a recipe for a
more socially inept, violent culture, according to a panel of top US sex
experts. The concern was raised as researchers discussed "The Future of
Sex" at an unprecedented summit near Santa Fe, New Mexico, late last
week.
"The de-interaction of sex is something I
worry about," said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute
for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.
"If we go too much in the direction of
virtual sex, what's left out? How you get along in a personal sphere
is getting short shrift," Heiman said in a conference call with
reporters.
While cyber-sex fueled by drugs such as
Viagra might be tempting, it is "built for disappointment" because
real life can seldom compete with fantasies, panelists said.
"The breakneck speed of technology
development allows one to create one's own erotic ideal and a
multi-sensory experience of virtual sex," said Heiman.
"If young people are learning in this
fashion, what about the very personal aspect of sex in which you
have to interact with the other person?"
A compounding factor will likely be
pharmaceutical companies eagerly expanding the array of drugs that
enhance sexual activity, Heiman said.
Erection-stimulating drugs such as Viagra
could exacerbate the "individualization" of sex, said professor John
Gagnon of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
"The other part of the couple may not be
consenting to the erection," Gagnon said. "The assumption is the
woman will be happy if the fellow arrives with one."
Technology and Viagra-type medicine combine
to push people out of social relationships and reduce their capacity
to relate to each other, according to Gagnon.
"Like one simulates a bombing run," Gagnon
said. "It distances you from the person being hit by the bomb."
Continued in article
Massachusetts: Give me your tired, poor, sick, and uninsured If all goes as planned, poor people will be
offered free or heavily subsidized coverage; those who can afford
insurance but refuse to get it will face increasing tax penalties until
they obtain coverage; and those already insured will see a modest drop
in their premiums ... The state's poorest — single adults making $9,500
or less a year — will have access to health coverage with no premiums or
deductibles . . . The only other state to come close to the
Massachusetts plan is Maine, which passed a law in 2003 to dramatically
expand health care. That (Maine)
plan relies largely on voluntary compliance (and resulted in
a huge tax increase to fund unexpected cost overages).
"Romney to Sign Mandatory Health Bill," Newsmax, April 5, 2006
---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
These plans would work better if they applied to all 50 states since
free medical care, like generous welfare benefits, encourages migration
of the most needy to a state offering the most free benefits. Another
complication is that this will increase unemployment since many small
business employers such as day care centers, beauty parlors, painters,
carpet layers, and home repair contractors will close down or outsource
to "independent contractors" for the services, including the firing of
legal state residents and the hiring of illegal immigrants. Those
"poorest single adults making $9,500 or less a year" are often young
people who did not finish high school and desperately need any type of
work. Many of them will have free heath care but no job and training
opportunities in Massachusetts unless the state eventually gives more
relief to pay for medical care from the state treasury rather than
employer contributions.
If states bordering Mexico adopt insurance benefits like those in
Massachusetts, thousands upon thousands of U.S. citizens will
become unemployed.The real test case for Massachusetts-styled
legislation might be the financially strapped state of California where
illegal immigrants cluster in enormous numbers awaiting job
opportunities.
High worker compensation insurance (which covers medical care for
job-related injuries) and unemployment compensation mandatory insurance
has already raised havoc with employment and motivated fraud in most
states. For example, the firm that put on a new roof and new siding for
me in New Hampshire fired all its hourly workers and then forced most of
the the former workers to become uninsured independent contractors.
Frauds explode when workers scheme to get lifetime benefits for faked
injuries or injuries that truly did not happen on the job.
When Bill Clinton first took office as President of the U.S., his
wife headed a commission proposing national health coverage funded by
employers. Her plan flew over Washington DC like a lead balloon in the
face of the small business lobby. It seems to me that this nation must
first solve the problem of illegal immigration before national health
care coverage can be adopted. It will be interesting, however, to see
how this plays out in Massachusetts.
The Neanderthal Chorus is Scheduled for Sunday Night at Sunset In Steven Mithen's imagination, the small band
of Neanderthals gathered 50,000 years ago around the caves of Le
Moustier, in what is now the Dordogne region of France, were butchering
carcasses, scraping skins, shaping ax heads -- and singing. One of the
fur-clad men started it, a rhythmic sound with rising and falling pitch,
and others picked it up, indicating their willingness to cooperate both
in the moment and in the future, when the group would have to hunt or
fend off predators. The music promoted "a sense of we-ness, of being
together in the same situation facing the same problems," suggests Prof.
Mithen, an archaeologist at England's Reading University. Music, he
says, creates "a social rather than a merely individual identity." And
that may solve a longstanding mystery.
Sharon Begley, "Caveman Crooners May Have Helped Early Humans Survive,"
The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2006; Page A11 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/science_journal.html
Venezuela has the highest crude reserves in the world A report published by The Wall Street Journal
on its front page raised eyebrows on Wednesday for its claim that new
technology has allowed multinational energy companies to reassess the
amount of recoverable reserves in oil-rich countries. According to staff
reporter Russell Gold, deposits once dismissed as “unconventional” oil
that could not be recovered economically are now, thanks to rising
global oil prices and improved technology, being counted as recoverable
reserves. “That recalculation”, writes Gold, “has vaulted Venezuela and
Canada to first and third in global reserves rankings, respectively,
although Venezuela’s holdings in extra-heavy crude are a rough guess”.
The report asserts that Vene-zuela’s reserves in heavy and extra-heavy
crude – 235 billion barrels approximately – are easier to be developed
from a technical point of view than in other countries, due to their
physical location.
"Venezuela has the highest crude reserves in the world," The Daily
Journal, March 30, 2006 ---
http://www.thedailyjournalonline.com/article.asp?ArticleId=233309&CategoryId=10718
The enemy we face may be the most brutal in our history
John Fund wrote the following in the Opinion Journal, March
30, 2006
Donald Rumsfeld has always been known for
speaking in blunt terms. This week, the Defense Secretary lived up
to his reputation when he told the Army War College that the U.S.
deserves a "D" or "D-plus" for its efforts in communicating in the
"battle of ideas" that is part of the war on terrorism.
He added: "We have not found the formula as
a country" to counter the message of the extremists in the Muslim
world. "The strategy must do a great deal more to reduce the lure of
the extremist ideology by standing with those moderate Muslims
advocating peaceful change, freedom and tolerance."
"The enemy we face may be the most brutal
in our history. They currently lack only the means -- not the desire
-- to kill, murder millions of innocent people with weapons vastly
more powerful than boarding passes and box cutters," Mr. Rumsfeld
told the assembled military officers, referring to the terrorists
who struck on 9/11.
Maybe it's time to dust off some of the
folks who made Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty such a success in
combating the ideology of Communism during the Cold War. They could
form a "Team B" to reevaluate and suggest experiments in how to
conduct U.S. public diplomacy.
A small group of current and former
conservatives--including George Will, William F. Buckley Jr. and
Francis Fukuyama--have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They
have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the
president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is
dead--and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the
Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is
necessary for freedom to take root. And so for cultural reasons,
this effort was flawed from the outset. Or so the argument goes.
Let me address each of these charges in
turn.
The war is lost.
"Our mission has failed," Mr. Buckley wrote earlier this year. "It
seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention
itself or the ideas animating it kindly," saith the man (Mr.
Fukuyama) who once declared "the end of history" and in 1998 signed
a letter to congressional leaders stating, "U.S. policy should have
as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and
establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place."
These critics of the war are demonstrating
a peculiar eagerness to declare certain matters settled. We
certainly face difficulties in Iraq--but we have seen significant
progress as well. In 2005, Iraq's economy continued to recover and
grow. Access to clean water and sewage-treatment facilities has
increased. The Sunnis are now invested in the political process,
which was not previously the case. The Iraqi security forces are far
stronger than they were. Our counterinsurgency strategy is more
effective than in the past. Cities like Tal Afar, which insurgents
once controlled, are now back in the hands of free Iraqis. Al
Qaeda's grip has been broken in Mosul and disrupted in Baghdad. We
now see fissures between Iraqis and foreign terrorists. And in the
aftermath of the mosque bombing in Samarra, we saw the political and
religious leadership in Iraq call for an end to violence instead of
stoking civil war--and on the whole, the Iraqi security forces
performed well. These achievements are authentic grounds for
encouragement. And to ignore or dismiss all signs of progress in
Iraq, to portray things in what Norman Podhoretz has called "the
blackest possible light," disfigures reality.
One might hope our own democratic
development--which included the Articles of Confederation and a
"fiery trial" that cost more than 600,000 American lives--would
remind critics that we must sometimes be patient with others. We are
engaged in an enterprise of enormous importance: helping a
traumatized Arab nation become stable, free and self-governing.
Success isn't foreordained--and neither is failure. Justice Holmes
said the mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through
effort.
The freedom agenda is dead.
The president's freedom agenda is now "a casualty of the war that
began three years ago," according to Mr. Will. The Bush Doctrine is
in "shambles," Mr. Fukuyama insists. We cannot "impose" democracy on
"a country that doesn't want it," he says.
Why is Mr. Fukuyama so sure people in Iraq
and elsewhere don't long for democracy? Just last year, on three
separate occasions, Iraqis braved bombs and bullets to turn out and
vote in greater numbers (percentage-wise) than do American voters,
who merely have to brave lines. Does Mr. Fukuyama believe Iraqis
prefer subjugation to freedom? Does he think they, unlike he, relish
life in a gulag, or the lash of the whip, or the midnight knock of
the secret police? Who among us wants a jackboot forever stomping on
his face? It is a mistake of a large order to argue that democracy
is unwanted in Iraq simply because (a) violence exists three years
after the country's liberation--and after more than three decades of
almost unimaginable cruelty and terror; and (b) Iraq is not
Switzerland.
Beyond that, the critics of the Iraq war
have chosen an odd time to criticize the appeal and power of
democracy. After all, we are witnessing the swiftest advance of
freedom in history. According to Freedom House's director of
research, Arch Puddington, "The global picture . . . suggests that
2005 was one of the most successful years for freedom since Freedom
House began measuring world freedom in 1972. . . . The 'Freedom in
the World 2006' ratings for the Middle East represent the region's
best performance in the history of the survey."
Mr. Will says it is time to "de-emphasize
talk about Iraq's becoming a democracy that ignites emulative
transformation in the Middle East." Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democracy
activist from Egypt, says different. Mr. Ibrahim, who originally
opposed the war to liberate Iraq, said it "has unfrozen the Middle
East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq
force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda,
even if only to fight against us."
Cultural determinism.
The problem with Iraq, Mr. Will said in a Manhattan Institute
lecture, is that it "lacks a Washington, a Madison, a [John]
Marshall--and it lacks the astonishingly rich social and cultural
soil from which such people sprout." There is no "existing
democratic culture" that will allow liberty to succeed, he argues.
And he scoffs at the assertion by President Bush that it is
"cultural condescension" to claim that some peoples, cultures or
religions are destined to despotism and unsuited for
self-government. The most obvious rebuttal to Mr. Will's first point
is that only one nation in history had at its creation a Washington,
Madison and Marshall--yet there are 122 democracies in the world
right now. So clearly founders of the quality of Washington and
Madison are not the necessary condition for freedom to succeed.
A mark of serious conservatism is a regard
for the concreteness of human experience. If cultures are as
intractable as Mr. Will asserts, and if an existing democratic
culture was as indispensable as he insists, we would not have seen
democracy take root in Japan after World War II, Southern Europe in
the 1970s, Latin America and East Asia in the '80s, and South Africa
in the '90s. It was believed by many that these nations' and
regions' traditions and cultures--including by turns Confucianism,
Catholicism, dictatorships, authoritarianism, apartheid, military
juntas and oligarchies--made them incompatible with self-government.
This is not to say that culture is
unimportant. It matters a great deal. But so do incentives and
creeds and the power of ideas, which can profoundly shape culture.
Culture is not mechanically deterministic--and to believe that what
is will always be is a mistake of both history and philosophy.
Americans have debated matters of creed and
culture before. John C. Calhoun believed slavery was a cultural
given that could not be undone in the South. Lincoln knew slavery
had deep roots--but he believed that could, and must, change. He set
about to do just that. Lincoln believed slavery could be overcome
because he believed human beings were constituted in a particular
way. In the "enlightened belief" of the Founders, he said, "nothing
stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world
to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows."
Lincoln believed as well that the self-evident truths in the
Declaration were the Founders' "majestic interpretation of the
economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble
understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes,
gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man."
What has plagued the Arab Middle East is
not simply, or even primarily, culture; it is antidemocratic
ideologies and oppressive institutions. And the way to counteract
pernicious ideologies and oppressive institutions is with better
ones. Liberty, and the institutions that support liberty, is a
pathway to human flourishing.
Critics of the Iraq war have offered no
serious strategic alternative to the president's freedom agenda,
which is anchored in the belief that democracy and liberal
institutions are the best antidote to the pathologies plaguing the
Middle East. The region has generated deep resentments and lethal
anti-Americanism. In the past, Western nations tolerated oppression
for the sake of "stability." But this policy created its own
unintended consequences, including attacks that hit America with
deadly fury on Sept. 11. President Bush struck back, both militarily
and by promoting liberty. In Iraq, we are witnessing advancements
and some heartening achievements. We are also experiencing the
hardships and setbacks that accompany epic transitions. There will
be others. But there is no other way to fundamentally change the
Arab Middle East. Democracy and the accompanying rise of political
and civic institutions are the only route to a better world--and
because the work is difficult doesn't mean it can be ignored. The
cycle has to be broken. The process of democratic reform has begun,
and now would be precisely the wrong time to lose our nerve and turn
our back on the freedom agenda. It would be a geopolitical disaster
and a moral calamity--and President Bush, like President Reagan
before him, will persist in his efforts to shape a more hopeful
world.
Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director
of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Recent years have brought a cascade of
scandals at the United Nations, of which the wholesale corruption of
the Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq has been only the most
visible. We still do not know the full extent of these debacles—the
more sensational ones include the disappearance of UN funds
earmarked for tsunami relief in Indonesia and the exposure of a
transnational network of pedophiliac rape by UN peacekeepers in
Africa—and we may never know. What we do know is that an assortment
of noble-sounding efforts has devolved into enterprises marked
chiefly by abuse, self-dealing, and worse.
Seen by many, including many Americans, as
the chief arbiter of legitimacy in global politics, the UN is
understood by others to be the only institution standing between us
and global anarchy. If that is so, the portents are not promising.
The free world is grappling with threats from the spread of radical
Islam to North Korea’s nuclear blackmail and Iran’s pursuit of
nuclear bombs. The UN, despite its trophy case of Nobel prizes, has
failed so far to curb any of these, just as it failed abysmally to
run an honest or effective sanctions program in Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq. Currently it is gridlocked over matters as seemingly
straightforward as cleaning up its own management department.
In the effort to address the UN’s manifold
problems, there have been audits, investigations, committees,
reports, congressional hearings, action plans, and even a handful of
arrests by U.S. federal prosecutors. There have been calls for
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to step down before his second term
expires at the end of this year. Solutions have been sought by way
of better monitoring, whistleblower protection, the accretion of new
oversight bodies, and another round of conditions attached to the
payment of U.S. dues. On top of the broad reforms of the early
1990’s, the sweeping reforms of 1997, the further reforms of 2002,
and the world summit for reform in 2005, still more plans for reform
are in the works.1 To its external auditors, internal auditors,
joint inspections unit, eminent-persons panels, executive boards,
and many special consultants, the UN has recently added an Office of
Ethics—now expected to introduce in May what will presumably become
an annual event: “UN Ethics Day.”
Is any of this likely to help? Behind the
specific scandals lies what one of the UN’s own internal auditors
has termed a “culture of impunity.” A grand committee that reports
to itself alone, the UN operates with great secrecy and is shielded
by diplomatic immunity. One of its prime defenses, indeed, is the
sheer impenetrability of its operations: after more than 60 years as
a global collective, it has become a welter of so many overlapping
programs, far-flung projects, quietly vested interests, nepotistic
shenanigans, and interlocking directorates as to defy accurate or
easy comprehension, let alone responsible supervision.
But let us try.
One clear sign of how badly things have
gone with the UN is the difficulty of tallying even so basic a sum
as the system’s real budget. Nowhere does the UN present a full and
clear set of accounts, and statistics vary even within individual
agencies and programs.
The UN’s current “core” annual budget is
$1.9 billion—but the “core” is itself but a fraction of the actual
budget. Around it are wrapped billions more in funding provided by
“voluntary contributions” from private and corporate donors,
foundations, and member states, including, to a large extent, the
United States. These sums are shuffled around in various ways, with
UN agencies in some instances paying or donating to each other. For
instance, the UN Development Program (UNDP) operates with its own
“core” budget of about $900 million a year but handles about $3
billion per year—or, depending on whom you ask and what you count,
$4.5 billion per year.
According to Mark Malloch Brown, the UN
chief of staff who has just been promoted to the post of Deputy
Secretary-General, the total budget for all operations under direct
control of the Secretariat comes to roughly $8-9 billion per year.
Adding in just a few of the larger agencies like UNDP (at, let us
say, $4 billion), UNICEF ($2 billion or so), and the World Food
Program ($2-3 billion) already brings the grand total to somewhere
between $16 and $18 billion, again depending on whom you listen to
and what you count. On UN websites devoted to procurement, where the
idea is not to minimize the official amount of UN spending but on
the contrary to attract suppliers to a large and thriving operation,
the estimate of money spent yearly on goods and services by the
entire UN system comes to $30 billion, or more than 15 times the
core budget of $1.9 billion on which reformers have focused.
Staff numbers are likewise a matter of
mystery. The new ethics office proposes to offer its services to
29,000 UN employees worldwide. That number is well short of the
total staff of the Secretariat plus the specialized agencies alone,
which, according to Malloch Brown, consists of some 40,000 people.
And that figure itself does not include local staffs—such as the
20,000 Palestinians who work for the UN Works and Relief Agency
(UNWRA) or the many employees, some long-term, others transient, at
hundreds of assorted UN offices, projects, and operations worldwide,
or the more than 85,000 peacekeepers sent by member states but
carrying out UN orders and eating UN-supplied rations bought via UN
purchasing departments. Whereas the number of UN member states has
almost quadrupled since 1945 (from 51 to 191), the number of
personnel has swollen many times over, from a few thousand into
somewhere in the six figures.
Little of this system is open to any real
scrutiny even within the UN, and no single authority outside the UN
has proved able to compel any genuine accounting. Moreover, even
though there can no longer be any doubt that the scale of the rot is
large, the UN’s top management continues to insist to the contrary.
Take the central scandal of recent UN history—namely, Oil-for-Food.
Last October, Paul Volcker’s UN-authorized probe into Oil-for-Food
submitted its fifth and final report on that relief program, which
in its seven years of operation had become a vehicle for billions in
kickbacks, payoffs, and sanctions-busting arms traffic. By January
of this year, after first having declared that he was taking
responsibility for the debacle, Kofi Annan was spinning a different
story, telling a London audience that “only one staff member was
found to maybe have taken some $150,000 out of a $64-billion
program.”
This was an artful lie. The staff member in
question was Benon Sevan, whom Annan had appointed to run
Oil-for-Food for six of its seven years. If indeed Sevan took no
more than this relative pittance, then Saddam Hussein scored the
biggest bargain in the history of kickbacks. According to Senator
Norm Coleman’s independent investigation into Oil-for-Food, the real
figure for Sevan’s take was $1.2 million. Clearing up this
discrepancy is difficult, however, because Sevan, who was allowed by
Annan to retire to his native Cyprus on full UN pension, is outside
the reach of U.S. law and has denied taking anything.
In any case, the corruption hardly ended
with Sevan. Instances that appear to have slipped the
Secretary-General’s mind include another member of his inner circle,
the French diplomat Jean-Bernard Merim�e, who by his own admission
took a payoff from Saddam while serving as Annan’s handpicked envoy
to the European Union. Within the UN agencies working with Annan’s
Secretariat on Oil-for-Food, Volcker confirmed “numerous [further]
allegations of corrupt behavior and practices,” embracing
“bid-rigging, conflicts of interest, bribery, theft, nepotism, and
sexual harassment.” He also noted that the UN lacked controls on
graft, failed to investigate many cases, and failed to act upon some
of those it did explore. Finally, Volcker calculated that UN
agencies had kept for themselves at least $50 million earmarked to
buy relief for the people of Iraq.2
Nor do the sheer monetary amounts even
begin to convey the extent of the damage done by UN labors in Iraq.
Annan’s office had the mandate of the Security Council, plus a
$1.4-billion budget, to check oil and relief contracts for price
fiddles, to monitor oil exports in order to prevent smuggling, and
to audit UN operations. In the event, Oil-for-Food spent far more
money renovating its offices in New York than checking the terms of
Saddam’s contracts, and ignored the smuggling even when Saddam in
2000 opened a pipeline to Syria. The result of what Annan now
placidly describes as “instances of mismanagement”—as if someone
forgot to reload the office printer—was that Saddam skimmed and
smuggled anywhere from $12 billion (according to the incomplete
numbers supplied by Volcker) to $17 billion or more (according to
the more comprehensive totals provided by Senator Coleman’s staff).
And what did Saddam do with those profits?
Continued in this commentary.
Did the GAO cover up fraud?
"Accountability Office Finds Itself Accused," by William J. Broad,
The New York Times, April 2, 2006 ---
Click Here
A senior Congressional investigator has
accused his agency of covering up a scientific fraud among builders
of a $26 billion system meant to shield the nation from nuclear
attack. The disputed weapon is the centerpiece of the Bush
administration's antimissile plan, which is expected to cost more
than $250 billion over the next two decades.
The investigator, Subrata Ghoshroy of the
Government Accountability Office, led technical analyses of a
prototype warhead for the antimissile weapon in an 18-month study,
winning awards for his "great care" and "tremendous skill and
patience."
Mr. Ghoshroy now says his agency ignored
evidence that the two main contractors had doctored data, skewed
test results and made false statements in a 2002 report that
credited the contractors with revealing the warhead's failings to
the government.
The agency strongly denied his accusations,
insisting that its antimissile report was impartial and that it was
right to exonerate the contractors of a coverup.
The dispute is unusual. Rarely in the
85-year history of the G.A.O., an investigative arm of Congress with
a reputation for nonpartisan accuracy, has a dissenter emerged
publicly from its ranks.
"Set Your Movies to Music: Looking for legal music to enhance
your videos? Here's where you can find all sorts of cool tunes that
won't get you in trouble," by Richard Baguley, PC World via
The Washington Post, April 1, 2006 ---
Click Here
The general term for this is "podsafe"--meaning
that it's safe to use in a podcast. Web sites
such as
PodShow and
Podsafe Audio contain thousands of tracks
that can be used, though you should check the
license on each track before you use it.
The music on these sites is often released
under a Creative Commons
attribution-noncommercial license , which
means that you can copy and use it for any
noncommercial purpose, as long as you include a
credit for the musician. However, some people
release their music under different types of
licenses, some of which may prevent their use in
a video. In particular, the Creative Commons
Music Sharing license doesn't allow you to use
the music in a video. Always check the license,
which should be available on the same Web page
from which you can download the music.
While some major record labels won't even
consider distributing their music online, other
smaller labels realize that downloading music
from the Internet can be a great promotional
tool. Record companies like
Magnatune
and
Opsound offer high-quality, Creative Commons
licensed versions of their music that can be
used for noncommercial videos, as long as you
give the artists credit and add a plug for the
Web site where you can buy the songs.
"If the video project is noncommercial and/or
educational, there is no charge for use of the
music for one album of choice," says Theresa
Malango of Magnatune. "However, the project
would be required to give attribution in the
form of credit to the artist and Magnatune as
well. Specifically, we suggest using the form of
'You heard the 'Song Name' by 'Artist Name,'
which is available at magnatune.com' in the
video credits."
Archive.org's
Netlabels section is another great source
for music. It contains thousands of songs in a
huge range of genres from artists all over the
world. I'm particularly fond of the folk music
that it features from groups like the
Chinkapin Hunters , which makes great
background music for videos (such as
one of my recent projects , which shows my
dogs looking after orphaned kittens).
There are also unusual audio files on
Archive.org, like the
Conet Project , which holds recordings of
numbers stations, mysterious shortwave stations
where robotic voices reel off long lists of
numbers. These could be ideal if you're creating
a spy film. However, not all of the recordings
on archive.org can be used in videos, so check
the terms of the license before you use any of
them.
There are also lots of older pieces of music
available that can be used because they are out
of copyright: the
78 RPMs section of Archive.org is worth
browsing through if you're looking for something
quirky. It contains hundreds of songs and
musical pieces that were released in the early
1900s on 78-rpm records that have been sampled.
Because they are so old, they are out of
copyright and you can use them however you want.
It's a great source for classic songs: How cool
would it be to have
Enrico Caruso singing "O Sole Mio" in the
background on that video of your Italian
vacation?
Institutional Investor magazine has
completed their third annual “America’s best CFOs” ranking. They
asked brokerage firm research analysts and portfolio managers to
name the Best American CFOs across 62 industries. The voting
criteria started at keeping clean books and communicating
effectively with the market and ascended to going beyond traditional
number-crunching, cost-controlling roles, improving operations,
driving revenue growth, and executing big acquisitions.
Vinay Couto, a vice president at consulting
firm Booz Allen Hamilton, told Institutional Investor, “CFOs have
spent the past decade or so moving from being bookkeepers to being
business partners. In the past year or two, we’ve seen that trend
accelerate to the point where a growing number of CEOs are asking
CFOs to step even further outside the traditional bounds of their
positions and be responsible for pushing the business forward in an
active way.”
“There are a lot of CFOs out there that are
controllers with fancy titles. They know how to say no, and they’re
good at cost cutting. But what CEOs want now are people who can
think beyond cost controls and help grow the business. We’re
entering a phase of the business cycle where things are growing
again, and CFOs have to change their stripes,” Laurence Stybel,
co-founder and founder of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire in Boston,
told Institutional Investor.
Several of the CFOS on this year’s list
started in the accounting or auditing world. Jeffrey M. Boromisa is
Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller of the Kellogg
Company. He joined Kellogg in 1981 as a senior auditor. Boromisa is
a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute
of Certified Public Accountants.
Mike Van Handel is the Executive Vice
President and CFO for Manpower. In 1989, he joined the company as
Director of Internal Audit and was named Vice President of
International Accounting in 1993, but his career track didn’t stop
there. He was named Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer in 1995
and became Senior Vice President and CFO in 1998. Van Handel became
Executive Vice President in 2002. He came to Manpower after serving
as Audit Manager at Arthur Andersen & Company.
Christopher Kubasik is the Executive Vice
President and CFO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. He is Chairman
of the Board of Directors of the Lockheed Martin Investment
Management Company that manages the company’s pension assets. He
handles all corporate aspects of financial strategies, processes,
and operations. Kubasik was at Ernst & Young before coming to
Lockheed Martin, becoming a partner in 1996, specializing in
government contracting and high technology companies.
Question
What do CFOs think accounting undergraduate and masters programs are
doing better than ever before?
Answer "Colleges and universities are responding
to a changing accounting landscape," said Max Messmer, chairman of
Accountemps. "More courses are being offered in areas such as internal
audit, enterprise risk management, forensic accounting, information
technology and business ethics." The appeal of an accounting career is
growing, perhaps as a result of increased emphasis on the profession.
According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants,
enrollment in accounting programs climbed 19 percent from 2000 to 2004,
following declines during the late 1990s. There also was a 17 percent
increase in the number of new accounting graduates hired by
organizations between 2003 and 2004.
"Accounting Grads Better Prepared, Survey Says," AccountingWeb,
January 31, 2006 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x51625.xml
"High court to hear landmark eBay patent case," by Peter
Kaplan, The Washington Post, March 28, 2006 ---
Click Here
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will
hear arguments in a patent case involving online auctioneer eBay
Inc. that is part of a wider struggle between the software and
pharmaceutical industries over the future of the U.S. patent system.
Lawyers for eBay and small e-commerce
company MercExchange will square off over whether eBay should be
barred from using its popular "Buy it Now" feature, which infringes
on two MercExchange patents.
The case is being closely watched to see if
the high court will scale back the right of patent holders to get an
injunction barring infringers from using their technologies.
Software companies complain they can be
held to ransom by owners of questionable patents while drugmakers
oppose any weakening of patent rights, which they say would chill
their investment in new medicines.
Patent experts said that, depending on how
the high court rules, the case could have a profound impact on the
way the courts treat intellectual property in the United States.
"Any time we talk about altering
injunctions we really are talking about altering the fundamental
balance of power," said Steve Maebius, a patent lawyer with the firm
Foley & Lardner.
"Less Can Be More When It Comes to Overseas Stocks," by Paul J. Lim,
The New York Times, April 2, 2006 ---
Click Here
From Jim Mahar's Blog on April 2, 2006
Less Can Be More When It Comes to Overseas
Stocks - New York Times
The "Home Country Bias" is the finding that
investors invest more in their home country than would be justified
on a risk-return basis. Today's NY Times suggests that this bias may
be growing less powerful.
Less Can Be More When It Comes to Overseas
Stocks - New York Times ---
"So far this year, about 70 cents of every
new dollar invested in equity funds has been directed to
internationally oriented portfolios, according to the mutual fund
tracker AMG Data Services. And emerging-market stock funds — by far
the hottest foreign category — have pulled in more new money in the
first three months of 2006 than they did in all of 2003, 2004 and
2005 combined."
"Having some foreign exposure clearly helps
diversify a portfolio. From 1970 to 2005, a portfolio invested
entirely in domestic stocks had a standard deviation — a popular
measure of volatility — of 16.8 percent, according to S.& P. By
comparison, a portfolio that was 75 percent invested in domestic
stocks and 25 percent in foreign shares had a standard deviation of
16.4 percent, implying a slightly less bumpy ride."
Negatively Biased and Overly Stressed Media in Iraq It started as arguably the best-covered war in
history: Hundreds of reporters traveled with the military as it invaded
Iraq, and then hundreds more moved freely around the country as troops
secured Baghdad. Today, it has become for some journalists the
least-covered war . . . Meanwhile, high-profile critics are stepping up
their complaints about the media's work. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, long critical of what he sees as overly negative reporting,
told reporters this month: "From what I've seen thus far, much of the
reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation."
President Bush said Tuesday, "For every act of violence there is
encouraging progress in Iraq that's hard to capture on the evening
news."
Mark Memmott, "Reporters in Iraq under fire there, and from critics,"
USA Today, March 22, 2006 ---
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-03-22-media-criticism_x.htm
"ABC News Listens to Viewers' Concerns About
Iraq Coverage: Majority of Viewers Feel Iraq Coverage is Flawed,"
ABC News, March 23, 2006 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1758483
The Never-Ending Saga of Merrill Lynch Fraud The appeal has unsealed a trove of
documents offering a rare glimpse of a Wall Street firm pursuing a
tempting profit opportunity over the objections of internal watchdogs.
On repeated occasions some Merrill employees voiced concern that the
three brokers were doing something wrong and took steps to stop them.
Yet their immediate bosses often pushed back, allowing the trading to
continue.
"How Merrill, Defying Warnings, Let 3 Brokers Ignite a Scandal: Bosses
Back Lucrative Trades By Stars, Then Fire Them; Big Defamation Judgment
'Rewards Outweigh the Risks'," by Susanne Craig and Tom Lauricella,
The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2006; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114342880710008788.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
The insufficiency of course grades for
assessment purposes is roughly analogous to the insufficiency of
total unit cost for monitoring cost elements.
Another analogy is the insufficiency of the
“bottom line” alone, for evaluating performance. This is
particularly intriguing because that expression has entered the
general language. There are in fact institutions in many countries
that do not make grades or grade-point averages known to the public
or to employers; just the degree, period.
Comments?
Cheers,
Donald D. Ramsey, CPA,
Department of Accounting, Finance, and Economics,
School of Business and Public Administration,
University of the District of Columbia,
Room 404A, Building 52 (Connecticut and Yuma St.),
4200 Connecticut Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20008.
March 24, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
I have some threads on that period of time when the Harvard
Business School had a ban on making grades available even when
students requested that the grades be given out to a prospective
employer or university. Grades were not given out period except by
court order.
"Methanol: The New Hydrogen Advances in methanol synthesis,
coupled with improved fuel cell technology, could make it a viable
alternative to gasoline," by Chandra Shekhar, MIT's Technology Review,
March 27, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/wtr_16629,296,p1.html
Holograms Break Storage Record Holographic storage company InPhase
Technologies announced this week that it has broken a storage density
record by writing 64.3 gigabytes of data onto a single square inch of
disc space. This advance could eventually lead to a holographic disc
that can hold more than 100 DVD-quality movies, according to the
company. By comparison, magnetic disks, such as those in the hard drives
of computers, can manage a storage density of about 37.5 gigabytes per
square inch of disk.
"Holograms Break Storage Record: New technology has almost twice
the storage density of a magnetic hard drive," by Kate Greene, MIT's
Technology Review, March 29, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16639,294,p1.html
"The Knowledge -- Part 1: Soviet scientists were developing
plague-like bioweapons in the 1980s: Why aren't we listening more
to a key defector?" by Mark Williams, MIT's Technology Review,
March 13, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16582,312,p1.html
"The Knowledge -- Part 2: Terrorists could buy reagents on the
Web, build a DNA synthesizer, and create a deadly virus. But it would be
no easy feat," by Mark Williams, MIT's Technology Review,
March 14, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16583,312,p1.html
"There are now more than 300 U.S.
institutions with access to live bioweapons agents and 16,500
individuals approved to handle them," Ebright told me. While all of
those people have undergone some form of background check -- to verify,
for instance, that they aren't named on a terrorist watch list and
aren't illegal aliens -- it's also true, Ebright noted, that "Mohammed
Atta would have passed those tests without difficulty."
"The Knowledge -- Part 3: The current revolution in biotechnology is
more likely to be exploited by national militaries than by terrorists,"
by Mark Williams, MIT's Technology Review, March 15, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16584,312,p1.html
Question
Do pilots have to shovel faster on takeoffs? (I had an old friend, Charlie Gleason, who years ago told me how he
hated long upward grades when he shoveled coal on a steam engine in
Nebraska.)
"Coal-Powered Jets: A new process using jet fuel made from
coal could reduce oil dependence, and improve fuel performance in
advanced aircraft," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review,
March 31, 2--6 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/wtr_16650,296,p1.html
Researchers have powered a turboshaft jet
engine, the type used to drive helicopter rotors, with a coal-based
fuel that could eventually replace military and commercial jet
fuels, says Harold Schobert, director of the Energy Institute at
Pennsylvania State University. The successful development of the
coal-based fuel, which was described this week at the American
Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta, could also have uses in diesel
engines and fuel cells, Schobert says.
Coal-powered aircraft are not new --
Germany used fuels derived from coal to power planes in World War
II. But the high cost of building production plants to turn coal
into liquid fuel has prevented the technology's widespread use. Now
Schobert and colleagues have developed a way to make jet fuel
containing as much as 75 percent coal products using existing oil
refineries, eliminating the need to build costly new plants -- and
potentially making coal-derived fuel an economically viable
alternative to oil.
"In the current formulation this would
displace half the petroleum, which is very close to the fraction of
petroleum that we import. We've actually tested, at a smaller scale,
75 percent replacement," with success, says Schobert.
Coal, the cheapest of fossil fuels, which
also has the steadiest prices, is abundant in the United States.
John Grasser, a U.S. Department of Energy spokesperson, cites
estimates that the amount of recoverable coal in the country is
enough for 250-300 years. "You hear a lot about renewables, and
certainly renewables have a part to play in making us self
sufficient," says Grasser. "But they're not going to have an impact
on petroleum coming in. You're going to have to take something like
coal, which we have in huge quantities here, and turn it into a
petroleum component."
In addition to reducing dependence on oil,
the new fuel might, in fact, also have benefits for advanced
aircraft. Today's high-performance military aircraft generate a lot
of heat, which can damage hydraulics and electronics, Schobert says.
As a result, engineers design these planes to use the onboard fuel
as a heat sink. As fuels absorb heat, however, they can begin to
break down, which can lead to carbon deposits that clog fuel lines
and nozzles. Future advanced aircraft could generate even more heat
-- too much for today's fuels to handle. Schobert and colleagues
methodically tested about 50 compounds to discover thermally stable
ones -- and the best, they found, could readily be made from coal.
Their fuel can handle temperatures around 600 degrees Fahrenheit
(315 degrees Celsius), higher that today's fuels.
The
recent sale of Knight Ridder to McClatchy was one of those events
that speak volumes about an entire industry. The newspaper
business's long-term, seemingly inexorable decline is an old story
that is hardly fodder for stop-the-presses, page-one play anymore.
But in the same way that every misstep made by Ford or General
Motors prompts a rash of stories and hand-wringing about the U.S.
auto industry's disintegration, so does the Knight Ridder-McClatchy
deal remind everyone of the wrenching changes that are transforming
how people get their news.
In
itself, the sale on March 12 of San Jose, Calif.-based Knight Ridder
for $4.5 billion in cash and stock and $2 billion in assumed debt
fell into the inherently newsworthy category. As the second largest
newspaper concern in the United States prior to the sale, the fate
of Knight Ridder's 32 properties was important to millions of
readers and thousands of employees across the country. Equally
newsworthy, and perhaps more stunning, was the immediate
announcement by McClatchy, a newspaper chain based in Sacramento,
Calif., that it would sell 12 of the papers it had just acquired,
notably those located in regions of slow population growth. Among
them are The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily
News, The San Jose Mercury News, and papers in Minnesota,
Ohio and Indiana.
Faculty members at Wharton and at journalism schools across the
country say the Knight Ridder sale, which followed one of the most
difficult years the industry has had -- declining circulation, job
losses and falling stock prices -- markedly underscores the
transformation sweeping the industry. Newspapers have two big
strikes against them: They are in a mature industry (the first
regularly published newspaper came out some 400 years ago in Europe)
and they are a textbook example (stockbrokers are another) of an
intermediary between sources of information and customers -- a role
that is being increasingly challenged by the Internet.
To
remain competitive in the coming years, these scholars say, daily
newspapers will have to strengthen their efforts to attract younger
readers, make more imaginative use of the Internet, and develop
stories, mostly local in nature, that better meet the needs of
readers who have thousands of news and information sources at their
fingertips.
Wharton marketing professor
Peter S. Fader holds out little hope that
people will continue to buy physical newspapers in large numbers in
years to come. He likens the Internet's assault on newspapers to the
impact that digital downloading of music has had on compact discs:
CD's still have appeal but they are no longer the sole, dominant
medium they once were. "I still believe that there's a vital role
for non-digital content in music," Fader suggests. "There's a lot to
be said for owning a CD and putting it on the shelf and holding it
in your hand. Some people say that same thing about newspapers. I'm
not sure I agree with that. It may be true, but newspapers are
transient. They have no archive value. I'm not going to add a
newspaper to my collection. They are a nuisance to deal with,
especially since we don't wrap fish anymore. When the Chicken
Littles say, 'The sky is falling,' I think they're right."
Wharton management professor
Lawrence Hrebiniak says newspapers have
adapted and thrived during decades of competition from emerging
media but are now being left reeling by a more intense level of
competition from the Internet and cable television news. Newspapers
themselves are to blame for a large part of the problem, having been
flush with cash for years and thriving in large markets where they
have often enjoyed monopoly status.
"If
you look at the history of newspapers, they have been harassed for a
long time [by emerging competitors]," Hrebiniak says. "Ever since
the telegraph, radio and TV, everyone's been predicting the demise
of newspapers. What have they done? They have adapted by being
proactive. When TV and radio came along, newspapers bought them out.
But I think the industry has matured to the point to where it has
been a little lazy."
Continued in article
Not only are chains (e.g., H&R Block) allowed to sell some of your
private information, they are also allowed to charge you hidden fees and
pressure you to buy products you don't need.
They might even sell your entire return.
My advice is to either obtain tax preparation software to do your
own taxes or go to a reputable CPA.
"Beware of hidden fees for tax preparation: Federal report finds
major chains charge for unnecessary extra services," by Lea Thompson,
MSNBC News, April 4, 2006 ---
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12156097/
(This link was forwarded by Robert Bowers)
More than 60 percent of Americans pay for
tax preparation. Paid tax preparers do 78 million returns. Monday,
NBC News showed you how some tax preparers at the nation's biggest
chains have been cheating the government in order to get their
clients bigger refunds. But NBC’s hidden camera investigation also
found some of those same preparers are quick to sell clients
questionable financial products they may not need.
The problems government investigators found
with the nation's largest tax preparers were widespread, including
high rates for instant refunds and fees you might not expect to pay.
“Frankly, I was amazed at the degree of
incompetence and unprofessionalism,” says Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable
privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds,
accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to
sell information from individual returns -
or even
entire returns - to marketers and data brokers.
The change is raising alarm among consumer and
privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of
proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS
published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official
notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to
update outmoded regulations adopted before it began
accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which
would become effective 30 days after a final version is
published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written
consent before selling tax information.
Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal
and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed
consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers,
especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents
before a filing deadline.
"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs
what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann
Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several
groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a
tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D.,
Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark
Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third
parties, tax information could be resold and handled under
even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers'
vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.
"There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's
return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be
sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply
troubling," Obama wrote.
The IRS first announced the proposal in a news release
the day before the official notice was published, headlined:
"IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer
Information."
The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax
information. It said the proposed rules were guided by the
principle "that tax return preparers may not disclose or use
tax return information for purposes other than tax return
preparation without the knowing, informed and voluntary
consent of the taxpayer."
Questions
Is it wise to advise older widows, widowers, and divorcees to live in
sin?
“It’s galling that they have a marriage
penalty for seniors, when they’ve addressed it for everyone else,”
Lonell Spencer, a 77-year-old retiree from Arcadia, Connecticut,
told the Hartford Courant. The penalty he’s referring to is the tax
on Social Security income, which applies to every dollar of income
over $32,000 for married couples, compared to $25,000 for a single
taxpayer. Recent efforts to eliminate marriage penalties for most
married taxpayers have not significantly affected married seniors
because the taxable income threshold is only slightly higher for
couples than it is for singles. Further, the median family income
for those over 50 is $35,200, according to AARP’s annual report, The
State of 50+ America, indicating that more than half the families
would be subject to the Social security income tax if one or more
family members are receiving Social Security benefits.
For nearly 50 years, Social Security
benefits were tax-free; then in 1983 the rules were changed because
the Social Security system was underfunded. Since then, while
inflation adjustments have more than doubled the standard deduction
and personal exemption write-offs, the tax on income from Social
Security benefits has not been adjusted for inflation. If it had
been, the Hartford Courant reports, then the threshold would be
$50,000. Instead, the tax actually begins accelerating at $44,000
for married couples. According to The State of 50+ America,the real
income of those over 50 has not increased since 1999. In fact, real
income for 2004, the last period for which The State of 50+ America
collected data, is actually lower than the real income levels of
1999.
The issue is not just about taxing Social
Security benefits. The law was intended to tax “high income”
taxpayers but increasingly affects middle-income seniors, the Fresno
Bee reports. The State of 50+ America found that more than half the
income of 50.1 percent of Americans over 62 comes from sources other
than Social Security. In addition, the financial assets of those
over 65, adjusted for inflation, increased by 94 percent between
1992 and 2004, and more Americans over 50 are employed, The State of
50+ America reports.
Unlike other “marriage penalties,” the
senior marriage penalty has not received much attention. That is
likely to change as baby boomers reach retirement age and get caught
by the tax, Mark Luscombe, principal tax analyst for CCH, a Wolters
Kluwer company, told the Fresno Bee. A search of the AARP web site
however, indicates that either the issue has not yet become a
significant issue to boomers or that it has not been incorporated
into the organization’s lobbying efforts to date.
Question
What Happens When the Press Blasts Your CEO for Excess Compensation? Wharton accounting professors
Wayne Guayand
John Core, and Stanford accounting
professor David Larcker, also study executive compensation. What they
conclude from their most recent research is that the most relevant
information does not necessarily make headlines. They also find that in
general, the media's focus on excessive compensation does not
substantively change corporate behavior with regards to pay packages.
The Berkeley Roundtable on the
International Economy (BRIE) is an interdisciplinary research
project that focuses on international economic competition and the
development and application of advanced technologies. Founded by a
group of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982,
BRIE research concentrates on the different ways industrialized
economies create competitive advantage and how these differences
affect international economic and political relations.
For nearly twenty years, BRIE has worked
with academic, policy, and business leaders from around the world to
consider the real-world interactions of technology, markets and
economies. The framework of BRIE�s ties to the academic and
scientific community at UC Berkeley, to the business community in
San Francisco, to the high-tech community in Silicon Valley, and to
European researchers and policy leaders allows BRIE to reach a broad
range of academic, public, and industry audiences. Above all, BRIE
is a collaborative effort. Ongoing intellectual relationships that
cross departmental boundaries anchors BRIE�s vision and guarantees
that separate research efforts inform and reinforce one another at
every stage. This collaborative atmosphere permits the integration
of distinct research approaches and diverse research concerns. These
combination of knowledge and skills provides an entry point and
leverage for an array of unconventional arguments and ideas in the
policy debate.
Through articles, editorials, and
books—including the landmark Manufaturing Matters, The Highest
Stakes, and Who's Bashing Whom?—BRIE has earned the respect of
academic, business, and policymakers. In 1984, BRIE drafted for
President Reagan�s Commission on Industrial Competitiveness what is
now the commonly accepted definition of competitiveness. In 1993,
President Clinton appointed one of BRIE�s directors, Laura D�Andrea
Tyson, to chair the President�s Council of Economic Advisers and
later to head the National Economic Council. Bringing together UC
faculty, policymakers, business leaders, and scholars from around
the world, BRIE continues to pioneer the effort to understand our
rapidly changing global economy.
Forwarded by Don VanEynde
"Cary Clack: He's real, not reel, and a true Champion," San
Antonio Express-News, March 24, 2006
BOERNE — Movies are made about people like
this. The film would open as a humorous, feel-good drama about a
popular small-town boy who grows up to be the popular principal of
that town's one high school.
A principal who would amaze students with
his gymnastic ability and make them laugh when he turned the school
parking lot into a beach but who pushed them to excel.
A larger-than-life figure who embodies the
spirit of his community and is revered partly because he's a
character but, mostly, because of his character.
The story would take a tragic, yet
inspiring, turn when its hero becomes critically ill and the
community rallies around him and his family.
Even the name of the hero, Sam Champion,
would be pure Hollywood with the first name being so Everyman and
the last name a moniker of myth and metaphor.
But last Thursday night, there were no
cameras, scripts or directors in this Hill Country town when a few
hundred of Sam Champion's friends gathered in Boerne High School gym
for a community prayer service for him and to celebrate a life that
the 51-year-old Champion is fighting for.
Champion graduated from Boerne High School
in 1972. In 1982 he was hired by Boerne Middle School to be its
life-science teacher and football, basketball and track coach. In
1987, he was named principal of the high school.
"I've never met an educator in my life that
cared more about the kids. He had more energy than anyone I've ever
met," said Wayne Crocker, an attorney with a practice in San Antonio
who sent four children through the Boerne school system, largely
because of Champion.
During pep rallies, the 5-foot-5-inch
Champion would do backward handsprings on the gym floor. At the
halftime of basketball games, Champion would have little children
run races on the basketball court. One of them was Crocker's
granddaughter, Brittney Griffin, now a junior and cheerleader at
Boerne.
On Fridays before Spring Break, Champion
would put on shorts, pour sand on the parking lot and put up an
umbrella and a lawn chair — in which he'd sit while warning his
students to be careful.
In the spring of 2000, Champion learned he
had a brain tumor. That April, hundreds of people, most of them
students, stood on the side of the road and cheered him as he rode
by in the car carrying him to Methodist Hospital in San Antonio for
his surgery.
Champion returned to work and in 2001
carried the torch of the Winter Olympics in San Antonio. But in
2002, he gave up the principal's job to become the chief
administrator for student services at the Boerne School District's
central administration office.
Late last year, the tumor returned. It's
inoperable.
Champion wasn't at the prayer service
Thursday night but his wife, Caroline, and his daughter, Kelsey, a
senior, were.
Russell Moldenhauer, a star athlete who is
also a senior, noted the outpouring of love for Champion and the
baskets that filled with cash and checks.
"It shows he's done a great deal in a short
amount of time to touch many lives," he said.
Only the silver screen is large enough to
tell of the golden life of Sam Champion.
The largeness of his life and the breadth
of people it's touched are summed up neatly by Stan Leach, the
Boerne High School athletic director.
"Sam is blessed with the ability of being
thoughtful to people."
1. "The Price of Glory" by
Alistair Horne (St. Martin's, 1963).
Over the course of 10 months in
1916, the French and Germans killed or wounded about 1.25
million of their best soldiers in a few wooded acres around
a fortress complex near the French town of Verdun on the
Western Front. Alistair Horne graphically describes the
sheer physics of the human carnage, yet the battle was not
entirely madness: The Germans had a diabolical plan to bleed
the French white, and both sides saw that a German
breakthrough at Verdun might prove catastrophic for the
Allies. Thanks to Horne's brilliance, Verdun is now seared
in the popular memory as a slaughterhouse where well-meaning
but often clueless 19th-century generals, usually from a
safe distance, threw the youth of the 20th century into an
inferno.
2. "With the Old Breed" by E.B.
Sledge (Presidio, 1981).
There are some brilliant memoirs of
the savage battle for Okinawa, but E.B. Sledge's is by far
the most haunting. Sledge, who landed with the Marines on
both Okinawa and Peleliu islands, describes in
matter-of-fact prose how the superior discipline and bonds
between fellow Marines overcame the often brilliant fighting
of the desperate Japanese, who hugely outnumbered the
Americans and fought from impenetrable subterranean concrete
and coral-covered gun emplacements. "With the Old Breed"
might serve as an antiwar ode, but the book ends by
reminding the reader how well the U.S. was served in its
hour of need by rare men such as his own--men that Sledge
thinks it may well need again.
3. "The Face of Battle" by John
Keegan (Viking, 1976).
This exploration of the soldiers'
experience at Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme--all within
a few miles of each other in the cockpit of
Europe--introduced the young military historian John Keegan
to the wider American public. Readers were fascinated with
Keegan's excursus on human qualities such as fear and honor,
the effect of steel and shot on flesh, and the way men ate,
kept warm and armed before battle. "The Face of Battle"
ushered in a new genre of military history known as the
"experience of battle." Yet other efforts to convey
ground-eye views of battle from antiquity to the present
have never matched the level of detail and anguish, or the
literary artistry, of Keegan's acknowledged masterpiece.
4. "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor
(Penguin, 1998).
We in the West cannot quite
comprehend what really went on in this distant battle of
Armageddon that began in late 1942, but Antony Beevor
provides an extraordinary account of a terrible conflict in
which the Nazis' tanks met the Soviets' T-34s, the
Luftwaffe's best encountered skies full of rockets, and a
million Russians fought the last crack troops that an
exhausted Germany and Eastern Europe could throw at them.
Soldiers on both sides accepted that capture meant either an
immediate death or one far more grotesque from disease and
starvation in frigid detention camps. At Stalingrad the
Russians proved the better tacticians and even had the
superior generals, ending for good any crazy notions that
the Germans would go farther east.
5. "The Fall of Fortresses" by
Elmer Bendiner (Putnam, 1980).
This too often overlooked memoir is
the best personal account of American daylight bombing over
Germany. The calm and reflective Elmer Bendiner, a navigator
on a B-17 "Flying Fortress," describes how the Army Air
Corps in Western Europe asked bomber crews to do the
impossible: fly in daylight without escort into the face of
thousands of German fighters and experienced flak batteries.
More than 25,000 airmen did not come home. This book, framed
around the nightmarish second Schweinfurt sortie, shows how
the crews' high �lan and skill fostered persistence despite
perceived hopelessness. Bendiner reminds us in stark prose
that, especially in the war's early years, the enemy enjoyed
advantages of equipment, command and terrain; we simply had
superior morale--and more flexible and innovative soldiers,
who deeply believed that things would finally get better.
Mr. Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution. His most recent book is "A War Like No Other:
How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War"
(Random House, 2005).
Recommended Reading in Accounting, Finance, and Business
•"Streetwise
Finance and Accounting ... How to keep your books and
manage your finances without an MBA a CPA or a PhD,"By Suzanne Caplan
"While sales and marketing are the driving forces to get
the cash register ringing, it's the dull task of
crunching numbers that determines what the business
owner gets to keep! The problem is that most small
business owners hate dealing with numbers. This book is
an easy to understand primer for the business owner who
wants … and needs … a basic understanding of accounting
and finance."
•"Small
Business Accounting Simplified,"By Daniel Sitarz
"Every year tens of thousands of small businesses fail
because the owners have been unable to manage their
financial affairs properly. Simplified for use by
nonaccountants, this book explains the fundamentals of
small-business bookkeeping in plain language and
provides a comprehensive set of clear and understandable
forms for tracking a small business's finances."
Finances and Investing
•"Savvy
Investing for Women,"By Marlene Jupiter
"This book takes a basic approach to help readers
understand the world of money and investments, how to
evaluate your risk tolerance, and how to create and
manage a wealth-building strategy that works. Whether
you are just starting out in the work force, recently
inherited a family fortune, or have arrived at the peak
of your career, it presents a very good base of
information on strategic investing and protecting your
assets as your life changes."
•"Wake
Up and Smell the Money,"By Ginger Applegarth
"For those of you who have come to realize that if your
stock broker was so smart he (or she) would be retired
by now, it's time to take a hard look at your financial
habits and get some good old fashion money smarts. This
book offers readers an excellent guide to build wealth
on real street savvy time tested methods. While this
book doesn't promise you a windfall or that you will
become a multi-millionaire … it does offer valuable
advice and guidance and just might be the best
investment you'll make this year."
•"Values
Based Financial Planning,"By Bill Bachrach
"While there is a never ending stream of books on
investing, most of the books were written by people who
presume the reader already has bushel baskets of money
lying around to invest. So what about the people who are
not at the point where they have substantial money to
plant and grow? This book takes a solid business
approach to financial planning and a program similar to
a business plan. In other words, one philosophy doesn't
fit every person. Before you can achieve better
financial success you have to determine what your
priorities are and what will motivate you."
Taxes
•"Schedule
C from A to Z - The Sole Proprietor's Guide to Tax
Savings,"By Robert Hughes, CPA
"With more and more sole proprietors taking on the task
of doing their own bookkeeping and tax returns, not
having a solid understanding of what makes up the
Schedule C return means that many, if not most, sole
proprietors overpay taxes by hundreds or thousands of
dollars. This guide de-mystifies taxes that apply to the
self-employed with the aim of helping business owners
increase cash available to help their businesses prosper
and grow. It takes the reader step-by-step through each
line of the Schedule C and includes information to help
them understand and comply with IRS rules. The updated
full version for the 2005 tax year is available at
www.NASE.org/scheduleC."
•"Tax
Savvy for Small Business,"By Frederick W. Daily
"Most people don't go into business to be tax experts,
but not having a basic understanding of business taxes
is an expensive error to make. One of the most common
mistakes small business owners make is thinking that
they can just turn all their financial matters over to a
bookkeeper or accountant. However, the first rule of
business finances is that nobody, absolutely nobody, is
going to have as much concern for your money as you
will! This book is one of the best plain language books
on small business taxes. Unless you have an army of
accountants working for your business this book is a
must read.
Raising Money
•"Where's
the Money?"By Art Beroff and Dwayne Moyers
"Raising capital can be frustrating for any business.
While there is no book that can guarantee you will find
the money you need to start or grow a business, this
guide slashes through much of the red tape and confusing
jargon to put financing solutions at your fingertips.
Unlike many other books on small-business financing,
this book offers up expert tips, advice and secrets for
writing financial statements that appeal to different
audiences, filling out loan applications that get
results, anticipating investor questions, and how to
present your business, and yourself in a professional
manner.
•"Investors
in Your Backyard: How to Raise Business Capital from the
People You Know,"By Asheesh Advani
This is an excellent resource to find the information,
documents and calculators you need to put a deal
together and negotiate all the particulars to convince
people to invest in your business. You'll find
step-by-step instructions on how to raise business
capital from non-traditional sources such as bank –
capital in forms such as gifts, loans or equity
investments – from people you already know or who know
people you know. Once you have the investment team
together Investors in Your Backyard will help you create
the paperwork to formalize the deal and protect both
sides' interests.
Marketing
•"Money-Tree
Marketing,"By Patrick Bishop and Jennifer A.
Bishop
Written for business owners who want to achieve higher
than normal yields from their marketing efforts, this
book helps entrepreneurs generate customers, regardless
of the business owner's budget or marketing experience,
by keeping to the basics and capitalizing on what the
competition "might not be doing". This book helps a
small business owner increase their profits by using
some unique techniques that entice potential customers
into their business. More importantly, it identifies
ways to make a business more customer friendly, use a
customer profile to get in-depth knowledge about
customers and to keep those customers coming back for
more.
Legal
•"The
Legal Guide for Starting & Running a Small Business,"By Fred S. Steingold
Legal questions come up everyday that make business
owners scratch their head and wonder what to do. Will
incorporating your business give you more liability
protection? Do you have all the proper permits and
licenses? These are just a couple of the hundreds of
questions that are routine in everyday business. Having
a resource to get a basic understanding of small
business legal issues is not any further away than
reaching for this excellent resource of street savvy
small business legal information.
•"Small
Business Legal Smarts,"By Deborah L. Jacobs
"This simple to understand book will offer readers
enough information about legal issues in business to
raise those little red flags in your head when something
needs closer attention. Actually, it is more like a big
Q&A book and a reference tool with a twist. It's
organized completely around the needs of micro and small
businesses. This book filters out the legalese and
untangles some of the most frequent questions an
entrepreneur might encounter."
•"The
Employer's Legal Handbook,"By Fred S. Steingold
For any employer, with 1 or 50 employees, having access
to a well laid out reference book of "answers" is
important to staying out of trouble and getting the most
out of their employees. In this case this book offers a
sensible, real life, approach to dealing with employees
and all in easy to understand language from the initial
hiring process - and asking or saying the right things -
to firing an employee without getting your pants sued
off.
I asked you previously this semester to
refrain from interrupting our review sessions by badgering me with
questions about what will or will not be on the test. I can’t tell you
what’s going to be on the test any more than I can issue you a copy of
the exam beforehand.
"Your mother was wrong," by Mike S. Adams, Townhall, April 3,
2006 ---
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/mikeadams/2006/04/03/192209.html
Good morning students! It’s good to see you
this morning - although you are probably perplexed that I’ve called
together only a dozen of you for this special study session. Please
be patient, I only have a few things to say before I give you a
special assignment that should make your semester much easier. As
most of you can tell, I love teaching. About 85% of my students are
wonderful. They keep me energized and eager to teach even the
classes I have taught dozens of times. But then there are the 15% of
students that make my job unnecessarily difficult. Unfortunately,
these students are a real pain in the backside. But, fortunately, I
have gathered all of them together today. Look around the room. You
are all part of that 15% of annoying students.
First of all, sir, - yes, you in the green
shirt with the marijuana leaf - I would like to tell you how you
made it into this elite congregation. Earlier in the semester, I
asked you to stop bringing an MP3 player into my class during test
periods. But, last week during another exam you did it again. And
I’ve finally figured out why.
It seems that when you were a little boy
your mother told you that you were special. Although you believed
her, your mother was wrong. You’re not special. You’re just the same
as everyone else. That’s why you have to play by the same rules as
everyone else. And that’s why you’re here today.
Don’t laugh ma’am. I want to tell you why
you’re here this morning. I asked you previously this semester to
refrain from interrupting our review sessions by badgering me with
questions about what will or will not be on the test. I can’t tell
you what’s going to be on the test any more than I can issue you a
copy of the exam beforehand. I’ve finally figured out why you are
wholly unconcerned with my assertion that you are wasting valuable
class time with your inane remarks.
It appears that when you were a little girl
your mother told you that you were special. Although you believed
her, your mother was wrong. You’re not special. In fact, you’re just
the same as everyone else. That’s why you have to play by the rules
I establish. And that’s why you’re here today.
And you, sir, have been instructed
previously to bring something to write with (pencil or pen) to the
examinations. But the fact that you came to the realization that
your pencil has never been sharpened several minutes into the test
period poses problems. Whether you actually get up to sharpen the
pencil during the exam or shout “hey, dude, do you have a pencil?”
you are bound to annoy the hell out of others. But your recidivism
indicates that you inadequately assess the degree to which you annoy
others, including me. And I think I know why you do that.
Like so many others, it appears that when
you were a little boy your mother told you that you were special.
Like these other people you believed what mommy said, although she
was wrong. You’re not special, either. In fact, you’re just the same
as everyone else. That’s why you have to play by the rules of what
we call civilization. And that’s why you’re here today.
Rather than belabor the obvious point that
all of you must surely be grasping by now, I would like to propose
this solution: I want you to stop acting like you’re special. I want
you to start acting more like me. Specifically, I want you to take
up my new hobby of letting others know that they are not special.
And I want you to start doing it immediately for extra credit in
this class.
It may seem like a daunting task but once
you get started you’ll probably change your mind. In fact, unless
you’ve given it some thought, you probably don’t realize how many
opportunities you’ll have in a single day to let someone know how
truly un-special they really are. Just yesterday, on my way back
from Birmingham, I had numerous opportunities in only a few short
hours. For example:
*A man sitting next to me on the plane to
Charlotte refused to turn off his cell phone after the airline
attendant told him to do so. Sure, it was annoying. But it gave me
an excellent opportunity to remind him that he wasn’t special.
*A kid sitting next to me in the caf� in
Charlotte beat his plate with a fork and yelled at the top of his
lungs for about half an hour. It sure was annoying until I realized
it was a good chance to remind him that he wasn’t as special as his
mother had told him. Sure, his mother was sitting right next to him.
But she was too drunk to raise an objection. And who could blame her
for drinking after giving birth to a monster like that?
*A guy nearly knocked me down in a mad rush
to get his bag off the conveyer belt. I told him to be careful
because he might knock the safety off of my concealed 45 Auto. He
didn’t get the joke, largely because he didn’t speak English. That
gave me an excellent opportunity to remind him that he wasn’t mucho
especial.
I hope that you will all trust that this
assignment is for your own good. For starters, you will earn back a
point on your average for every time you disabuse a person of the
notion that they are special. Furthermore, by changing your behavior
(of tolerance) towards others who think they are special, I think we
can also help you develop a healthier attitude (of intolerance)
towards those who are a drain upon the society.
If there is any aspect of this assignment
that you find objectionable or that makes you feel uncomfortable,
please feel free to let me know. In fact, just have your mother give
me a call. I’d like to have a talk with her soon.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links
to various types of music and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
My
Favorite The Irish Blessing
---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/blessing.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of
the page and turn it on.
Then scroll back to the top for the Irish countryside slide show.
Hope
Has Place ---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/pity.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of
the page and turn it on.
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than
someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person
because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to
him. We have already paid the price. Elie Wiesel ---
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/
What is the feeling when you're driving away
from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks
dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But
we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies. Jack Kerouac ---
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would
rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should
be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of
me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper
function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in
trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. Jack London ---
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/
A South American Scientist, from Argentina,
after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient
sexual activity in their lives tend to read their e-mails with their
hand still on the mouse.
Forwarded by Doug Jenson
Opportunity is missed by most people because
it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison ---
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/
The price of self-destiny is never cheap,
and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the
marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.
Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug
Perfume" ---
http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/
Infidel: in New York, one who does not
believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914)
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great
Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by
Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how
theory development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions
changed over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will
take some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
PG.#24 BANDURA Scientific advances are promoted by two kinds of theories
(Nagel, 1961). One form seeks relations between directly observable
events but shies away from the mechanisms subserving the observable
events. The second form focuses on the mechanisms that explain the
functional relations between observable events. The fight over
cognitive determinants was not about the legitimacy of inner causes,
but about the types of inner determinants that are favored (Bandura,
1996). For example, operant analysts increasingly place the
explanatory burden on determinants inside the organism, namely the
implanted history of reinforcements.
PG.#27 BANDURA
Not only are cultures not monolithic entities, but they are no
longer insular. Global connectivity is shrinking cross-cultural
uniqueness. Moreover, people worldwide are becoming increasingly
enmeshed in a cyberworld that transcends time, distance, place, and
national borders. In addition, mass transnational influences are
homogenizing some aspects of life, polarizing other aspects, and
creating a lot of cultural hybridizations fusing elements from
diverse cultures.
Flying is
hazardous. It not just the one in thousands or one in millions
chances of crashes or terrorism, it’s physical effects of travel
that are far more common and potentially just as serious. Whether
traveling on business or pleasure, here are some tips from
Harvard Men’s Health Watch for reducing the health hazards of
flying:
Air
pressure: Prevent sinus and ear problems by chewing gum and
swallowing often. If suffering from a cold or active nasal
allergy, use decongestants to prevent pain, hearing problems and
infections.
Blood
clots: Mobility is the key to preventing blood clots. Ask for an
exit row or aisle seat for more leg room. Don’t cross your legs.
Stretch often and pump your feet up and down for 30 seconds
every half hour.
Infections: Cabin air isn’t likely to present a hazard but your
seat-mate might. Maximize air exchange by keeping your overhead
vent open.
Dehydration: Cabin air is dry, causing water to be lost with
every exhalation. Drink early and often, but avoid beverages
with caffeine and alcohol which can worsen dehydration.
Stress: Arriving early, dressing comfortable and keeping your
travel documents safe but handy, can all help reduce the stress
of traveling.
Jet
Lag: Minimize jet lag by getting plenty of rest before departing
and keep a light schedule upon arriving. Don’t rely on caffeine
to wake up or alcohol to fall asleep.
Motion
sickness: Travel on an empty stomach if you are prone to motion
sickness. Sit upright, don’t read or watch videos during periods
of turbulence.
How to Lie With Statistics: How many illegal immigrants are in
the U.S.?
New York
Democrat Charles Schumer said legislation is needed "to solve the
problem of millions of foreigners who live here illegally and
unprotected" as well as "to alleviate the problem of the millions
more who enter illegally every year." He kept his estimate of the
number of illegal immigrants vague because "no one knows for sure
how many are really here," the National Journal reported. "Nor can
anyone give a reliable estimate of how fast that unknown figure is
growing each year."
A sound bite
from last week? Nope. The year was 1985, Mr. Schumer was in the
House of Representatives and debate was raging over how to address
the growing number of illegal immigrants, then estimated at
somewhere between 3 million and 12 million.
Twenty-one
years later, several amnesties granted to undocumented immigrants
have failed to keep the number of illegal immigrants from growing.
And estimates of their numbers remain fuzzy and full of pitfalls,
even as lawmakers toss them around in the latest round of debates
over whether to offer guest-worker status to illegal immigrants.
At the core of
the problem is the fact that undocumented immigrants don't generally
come forward to be counted. The most widely quoted estimate of 11
million to 12 million is derived indirectly, using what's called a
residual method: Researchers subtract the number of immigrants who
were authorized to come to the U.S. from the number of foreign-born
residents counted by the Census Bureau, then adjust the number using
estimates of immigrants' deaths and migration, and of Census
undercounting. Some critics say that estimate understates the degree
of undercounting: Another estimate making the rounds holds that
there are 20 million illegal immigrants.
That was the upper range Bear Stearns analysts
Robert Justice and Betty Ng
estimated last year, citing high growth
rates in foreign remittances and in school enrollments in localities
with high illegal-immigrant populations. The analysts added,
"According to our discussions with illegal immigrants, they avoid
responding to census questionnaires."
And there are still-higher estimates to be
found online: The Web site of the "immigration crime-fighting" group
American Resistance Foundation
estimates there are more than 28 million
illegal immigrants, based largely on border-patrol apprehension
rates; however, there is little reliable data on how many
border-crossers who are caught trying to enter a second time.
"No one really
knows," says Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services, a branch of the Department of Homeland
Security.
Of those
citing the 20 million figure, Mr. Strassberger says that "the number
seems to be agenda-driven." But if so, it's not always the same
agenda doing the driving.
On CNN last
Sunday, anchor Lou Dobbs, who has argued for tighter border
controls, spoke of "the toll that 20 million illegal aliens take on
the infrastructure of the United States and on local, state, and
federal taxpayer budgets." (At other times during his recent
broadcasts, Mr. Dobbs has cited a range between 11 million and 20
million. A CNN spokeswoman says Mr. Dobbs is relying on the Bear
Stearns report for the higher number.)
But talk-show host Tony Snow, arguing that
immigrants are a boon to the economy,
wrote Monday, "The United States somehow
has managed to absorb 10 million to 20 million illegal immigrants
not only without turning into Animal Farm, but while cranking up the
most impressive economic recovery in two decades."
In 2000, before it was folded into DHS, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service used the residual method to
estimate there were seven million illegal
immigrants and their numbers were growing by 250,000 to 300,000 per
year. Mr. Strassberger says that remains the government's best
estimate, though he concedes it's out of date.
Continued in article
" U.S. jobless claims fall
to 299,000: Continuing claims drop by 22,000 in latest week, " by
Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch, April 6, 2006 ---
Click Here
Hamas is to abandon its use of suicide
bombers, who have killed almost 300 Israelis, in any future
confrontations with Israel, its activists have told The Observer.
The Islamic group, which leads the Palestinian Authority, says,
however, that it may resort to other forms of violence if there is
no progress towards Palestinian statehood.
Yihiyeh Musa, a Hamas member of the
Palestinian Legislative Council, said Hamas had moved into a 'new
era' which did not require suicide attacks.
'The suicide bombings happened in an
exceptional period and they have now stopped,' he said. 'They came
to an end as a change of belief.'
As Hamas toned down its rhetoric, Israel
increased pressure on the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza. Two
militants were killed in an airstrike near Gaza City yesterday and
five men and a five-year-old boy were killed on Friday night.
Each day hundreds of artillery shells are
fired by Israel at northern Gaza. Palestinian factional tension is
also high and the price of commodities such as flour and sugar has
more than doubled as a result of Israel closing border crossings.
Hamas is keen to gain acceptance from the
international community. On Friday the European Union announced it
was stopping direct funding of the PA, while the United States has
halted aid projects. Hamas needs outside funding of $150m each month
to pay PA wages or else the Palestinian economy will collapse.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president,
warned in an interview published yesterday that any attempt by
Israel unilaterally to impose unjust borders on the Palestinians
would lead to another war within 10 years.
Continued in article
Gays chow down at the University of New Hampshire: Light-Hearted
Pancake Breakfast In a light-hearted opening of the 14th
Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Allies
(LGBTQIA) Pancake Breakfast, [Toni] Bisconti, Associate Professor of
psychology and Master of Ceremonies, welcomed guests with a karaoke
rendition, along with a slide show, of Nelson's new, controversial,
pro-gay rights song . . . Rebecca LeHoullier, "Pancakes, support served in GLBT
celebration,"April 7, 2006 ---
Click Here
Colleges Chow Down on Congressional Pork The annual report documents Congressional
“pet projects” that, the group argues, waste taxpayer dollars. This
year’s book names 375 examples of pork, including colleges and
universities that are recipients of federal funds. Earmarking, a
practice that federal lawmakers commonly use to direct funds to specific
recipients, rather than allocating them through the traditional peer
review process, has become a hot issue on Capitol Hill and across the
country in the wake of recent influence-peddling scandals involving Duke
Cunningham, the former California Congressman, and the lobbyist Jack
Abramoff.
Elia Powers, "Bringing Home the Bacon," Inside Higher Ed, April 6, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/06/pork
From Canada: Things you can't find in the U.S. media Despite a variety of unparalleled challenges to
American life and liberty, the direct result of eight years of
irresponsible gross mismanagement under the panty-raid administration of
the 90s, the Bush Administration has managed to prevent 911 follow-up
attacks, liberated 24 million in Afghanistan from the brutality of the
Taliban and Al Qaeda, another 25 million from the brutality of the
Hussein Regime in Iraq, delivered the lowest unemployment rate and the
highest home ownership rate, while leading the country to record numbers
in the stock market. Yet the Administrations approval rating stands
between 36 and 39%, according to the press. How is that possible? It’s
possible because the press doesn’t report any of the facts I just
listed. What they do report is whatever Bush Administration adversaries
want them to report. The average American relies upon the lamestream
press for their daily dose of "reality", but reality is not what they
are getting.
J.B. Williams, "The Verdict is In--It's Official!: America is in Deep
Trouble," Canada Free Press, April 10, 2006 ---
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/williams041006.htm
"Three Years, Few Regrets: Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya on
what's gone right and wrong, and what the possibilities are, on the
third anniversary of Saddam Hussein's fall Michael Young," Reason
Magazine, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.reason.com/links/links040606.shtml
Trial set in civil suit against Bill Clinton A judge in Los Angeles yesterday dismissed Sen.
Hillary Clinton from a lawsuit by business mogul Peter Franklin Paul
that alleges her husband, former President Bill Clinton, reneged on a
$17 million business deal. President Clinton however, remains a
defendant and will be subpoenaed early next week to testify in a
deposition. A trial date has been set, and Paul plans to depose Sen.
Clinton as well.
Art Moore, "Trial set in civil suit against Bill Clinton: Judge
dismisses Hillary as defendant, but she'll likely testify with
ex-president," World Net Daily, April 10, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49651
Though you're well informed, it's
impossible, of course, to know everything. I see you've stumbled
upon a quaint movement that mostly trades on ignorance--spelling
reform. Apparently, the popularity of such stuff indicates it's not
to easy to learn why spelling is apparently so arcane. Actually, it
is fun and enlightening to learn why. Listen to this guy:
In his history of the English language CD,
Professor Lerer explains how phenomena such as vowel shifting, word
encounters at different periods, conflict between North and South
England, and the impact of Normans, Germans, and Vikings, give us
our crazy-quilt spelling. He also teaches a bit on pronouncing words
as originally spoken, so that their spelling makes sense.
Thus, e.g., there is no poem about "knight"
if you understand that once, the word was pronounced "ken-ich-te."
The above CD has dozens of entertaining hours of instruction about
where English comes from. Perhaps in your retirement you'd have time
to listen and learn.
Regards,
Eric
Repeated over and over again: Executives keep bonuses after
getting caught cooking the books Even when ConAgra restated its financial
results, which lowered earnings in 2003 and 2004, Mr. Rohde's $16.4
million in bonuses for those two years stayed the same.
Eric Dash, "Off to the Races Again, Leaving Many Behind," The New
York Times, April 9, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/business/businessspecial/09pay.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Bill of Health: Bad Math in Massachusetts The question is this: What insurance company
will provide coverage with $0 deductible, at an annual premium of $295,
for someone whose health care costs on average $6,000 a year? The
numbers imply losses of over $5,700, not counting administrative costs.
To subsidize zero-deductible health insurance, state taxpayers might
have to pay out about $6,000 per recipient. There is no reason to expect
firms to rush to offer a policy to uninsured employees. It makes more
sense for them to pay their $295 penalty and hand the health-insurance
problem back to the individual -- and ultimately to the taxpayers of
Massachusetts. Economically, consumers who face deductibles of $0 have
no incentive to restrain health-care spending. They are only constrained
by the time and discomfort involved in obtaining medical care.
"Bill of Health," by Arnold Kling, The Wall Street Journal, April
7, 2006; Page A12 ---
Click Here
The Massachusetts health plan promises to
provide health-insurance companies with subsidies in order to induce
them to offer these low-deductible insurance plans. The arithmetic
suggests that these subsidies will have to be large -- thousands of
dollars larger than the $295 per worker that the state plans to
collect from employers that do not provide health insurance.
The problem of paying for health-care
coverage, which politicians are declaring they have "solved," is
really just beginning. The only way to make zero-deductible health
insurance available at low cost is with a large subsidy; how much
will depend on negotiations with insurance companies. Only when the
size of the necessary tax increase becomes clear will
Massachusetts's leaders learn the laws of arithmetic.
Mr. Kling, an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, is the
author of "Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health
Care," forthcoming from Cato.
Massachusetts: Give me your tired, poor, sick, and uninsured If all goes as planned, poor people will be
offered free or heavily subsidized coverage; those who can afford
insurance but refuse to get it will face increasing tax penalties
until they obtain coverage; and those already insured will see a
modest drop in their premiums ... The state's poorest — single
adults making $9,500 or less a year — will have access to health
coverage with no premiums or deductibles . . . The only other state
to come close to the Massachusetts plan is Maine, which passed a law
in 2003 to dramatically expand health care. That (Maine)
plan relies largely on voluntary compliance
(and resulted in a huge tax increase to fund unexpected
cost overages).
"Romney to Sign Mandatory Health Bill," Newsmax, April 5,
2006 ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
These plans would work better if they applied to all 50 states since
free medical care, like generous welfare benefits, encourages
migration of the most needy to a state offering the most free
benefits. Another complication is that this will increase
unemployment since many small business employers such as day care
centers, beauty parlors, painters, carpet layers, and home repair
contractors will close down or outsource to "independent
contractors" for the services, including the firing of legal state
residents and the hiring of illegal immigrants. Those "poorest
single adults making $9,500 or less a year" are often young people
who did not finish high school and desperately need any type of
work. Many of them will have free heath care but no job and training
opportunities in Massachusetts unless the state eventually gives
more relief to pay for medical care from the state treasury rather
than employer contributions.
If states bordering Mexico adopt insurance benefits like those in
Massachusetts, thousands upon thousands of U.S. citizens will
become unemployed.The real test case for
Massachusetts-styled legislation might be the financially strapped
state of California where illegal immigrants cluster in enormous
numbers awaiting job opportunities.
High workers' compensation insurance (which covers medical care
for job-related injuries) and unemployment compensation mandatory
insurance has already raised havoc with employment and motivated
fraud in most states. For example, the firm that put on a new roof
and new siding for me in New Hampshire fired all its hourly workers
and then forced most of the the former workers to become uninsured
independent contractors. Frauds explode when workers scheme to get
lifetime benefits for faked injuries or injuries that truly did not
happen on the job.
When Bill Clinton first took office as President of the U.S., his
wife headed a commission proposing national health coverage funded
by employers. Her plan flew over Washington DC like a lead balloon
in the face of the small business lobby. It seems to me that this
nation must first solve the problem of illegal immigration before
national health care coverage can be adopted. It will be
interesting, however, to see how this plays out in Massachusetts.
Question
What two states discourage business by having the highest workers'
compensation rates and fraudulent abuse?
Another union-driven business cost is
workers' compensation, and in New York the average cost per claim is
second highest in the nation (after Louisiana) and 72% higher than the
national average. Governor George Pataki has proposed a reform that
would lower costs while actually raising the average payout for the
truly disabled, but he's run up against a French-like union roadblock in
the legislature. Thanks to immigration, as well as America's continuing
advantage in financial services, New York City has so far been able to
avoid another fiscal collapse of the kind it had in the 1970s. But
upstate is a different story, with jobs and young people fleeing to
better business climes. New York manufacturing employment fell by 41%
between 1990 and 2005, or double the national rate.
"GM, France and Albany What the declines of all three have in common,"
The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008207
Question: Why is the unemployment rate so high in France? In 1974 the rate of unemployment in France was
2.8% and 5.5% in the U.S; now U.S. joblessness is 4.7% while in France
it is 9.6%, and youth unemployment exceeds 20%. The U.S. over the last
20 years created more net new jobs than the total employment of France.
The French riposte has been the 35-hour work week (without proportional
reductions in wages), strict layoff rules, more vacations and longer
maternity leaves: If jobs cannot be created they must be shared and
employers must bear the burden of higher benefit costs. In recent weeks,
virulent protests against a rather benign reform has confirmed not only
the French preference for entitlements and leisure, but more importantly
the widespread belief that economic growth is a zero-sum game
manipulated by arbitrary employers. Prime Minister Dominique de
Villepin's "first contract law" was effectively annulled by President
Jacques Chirac, who agreed to sign it only if it was amended to allow
employers of more than 20 people to hire and fire, with cause, young
mostly unskilled workers under the age of 26 during their first year of
employment.
"Contract With France," by Marie-Josee Kravis, The Wall Street
Journal, April 10, 2006; Page A19 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114462840563021391.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
French President Jacques Chirac on Monday
scrapped a planned youth job law that provoked weeks of protests, in a
climbdown opponents celebrated as an unqualified victory.
Elizabeth Pineau, "France scraps youth job law," Yahoo News,
April 10, 2006 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060410/ts_nm/france_contract_dc_7
8-25 Years for Burning a Woman Alive in France: Not Much of a
Legal Deterrent French prosecutors called Friday for a
25-year prison sentence for a young man accused of burning a 17-year-old
woman to death in a Paris suburb. Sohane Benziane, a Frenchwoman of
Algerian origin, was doused with lighter fuel, set on fire and left to
die in the basement of a run-down housing estate in Vitry-sur-Seine near
Paris, in October 2002. Jamal Derrar, 22, is accused of acts of torture
and barbarity leading to death and faces 25 years' imprisonment, while
his co-defendant Tony Rocca, 23, faces eight to 10 years in jail.
"Frenchman faces 25 years for burning girl alive," Expatica,
April 7, 2006 ---
Click Here
Please Sign Me Up for the Fountain of Youth: But is a longer life
worth it on this diet? "The Fountain of Health -- Part 1: Antiaging research could provide
a powerful approach to treating the many diseases of old age," by David
Rotman, MIT's Technology Review, April 3, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16649,312,p1.html
For the better part of two decades, Richard
Weindruch, a professor of medicine at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, has fed half of a colony of 78 rhesus monkeys a
diet adequate in nutrition but severely limited in calories -- 30
percent fewer calories than are fed to the control group. Scientists
have known for nearly 70 years that such calorie restriction extends
the life span of rodents, and Weindruch is determined to find out
whether it can extend the life span of one of man's closest
relatives, too.
It's too early to know the answer for
certain. The monkeys in Weindruch's lab are only now growing
elderly. And with 80 percent of them still alive, "there are too few
deaths" to indicate whether the animals on the restricted diet will
live longer, says Weindruch. But one thing is already clear: the
monkeys on the restricted diet are healthier. Roughly twice as many
of the monkeys in the control group have died from age-related
diseases, and perhaps most dramatically, none of the animals on the
restricted diet have developed diabetes, a leading cause of death in
rhesus monkeys.
These encouraging, albeit preliminary,
results are sure to cheer those few who have adopted severe
calorie-restricted diets in hopes of living longer. But their real
significance is the further evidence they provide that calorie
restriction affects the molecular and genetic events that govern
aging and the diseases of aging. Indeed, while calorie restriction
remains impractical for all but the most determined dieters, it is
providing an invaluable window on the molecular and cellular biology
of disease resistance and the aging process.
Up until a decade or so ago, most
biologists believed that the aging process was not only immensely
complex but also inevitable. People aged, they assumed, much the way
an old car does: eventually, everything just falls apart. Then in
the early 1990s, Cynthia Kenyon, a young molecular biologist at the
University of California, San Francisco, found that mutating a
single gene, called daf-2, in worms doubled their life spans. Before
the discovery, says Kenyon, "everyone thought aging just happened.
To control aging, you had to fix everything, so it was impossible."
Kenyon's research suggested a compelling alternative: that a
relatively simple genetic network controlled the rate of aging.
The race to find the genetic fountain of
youth was on. Within a few years, Leonard Guarente, a biologist at
MIT, found that in yeast, another gene produced a similar dramatic
increase in life span. Soon after, Guarente and his MIT coworkers
made another startling discovery: the yeast antiaging gene, called
sir2, required for its activity a common molecule that is involved
in numerous metabolic reactions. Guarente, it seemed, had found a
possible connection between an antiaging gene and diet. The gene,
Guarente thought, might be responsible for the health benefits of
calorie restriction; and indeed, the lab soon confirmed that calorie
restriction in yeast had life-extending effects only when sir2 was
present.
Continued in article
"The Fountain of Health -- Part2: Antiaging research could provide a
powerful approach to treating the many diseases of old age," by David
Rotman, MIT's Technology Review, April 4, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16652,312,p1.html
Online social networks are usually all
about bringing together people who like the same things.
The founder of a new anti-social networking
site, however, is finding that shared hates can be an equally
effective bonding tool.
Software engineer Bryant Choung intended to
satirize social discovery services when he launched his beta site,
Snubster, last month. The site lets members create public lists of
people and things that rankle them.
"The whole concept of online social
networking was really starting to irk me," said Choung, who
initially envisioned Snubster as a way to stem the often irritating
flow of invitations to join networking sites like Friendster and
LinkedIn. While such sites seemed like a good idea at first, their
usage too often devolves into "an attempt to get as many fake
friends as possible."
Bravo John
ABC Television's John Stossel does "not get a break" from the United
Federation of Teachers
"They kicked me out of school," by John Stossel, Jewish World
Review, April 5, 2006 ---
http://jewishworldreview.com/0406/stossel040506.php3
Jensen Comment
John (Give-Us-a-Break) Stossel is one of my heroes.
Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats,
intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life
worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such
sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering
environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence
with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems
that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the
extraordinary power of the free market.
Amie is one of about 1,700 low-income,
mostly minority students in Washington who at taxpayer expense are
attending 58 private and parochial schools through the nation's
first federal voucher program, now in its second year.
Last year, parents appeared lukewarm toward
the program, which was put in place by Congressional Republicans as
a five-year pilot program, But this year, it is attracting more
participation, illustrating how school-choice programs are winning
over minority parents, traditionally a Democratic constituency.
Washington's African-American mayor,
Anthony A. Williams, joined Republicans in supporting the program,
prompted in part by a concession from Congress that pumped more
money into public and charter schools. In doing so, Mr. Williams
ignored the ire of fellow Democrats, labor unions and advocates of
public schools.
"As mayor, if I can't get the city
together, people move out," said Mr. Williams, who attended Catholic
schools as a child. "If I can't get the schools together, why should
there be a barrier programmatically to people exercising their
choice and moving their children out?"
School-choice programs have fervent
opponents, and here, public school officials worry that the voucher
program will diminish the importance of the neighborhood school,
though the program serves only a relative few of the district's
58,000 students. National critics of school choice like Reg Weaver,
president of the country's largest teachers' union, the National
Education Association, accused voucher supporters of "exploiting the
frustration of these minority parents to push for a political
agenda" intended to undermine public schools.
Continued in article
Podcasting Roils NPR Fund Raising Her local Las Vegas affiliate, KNPR, kicked off
its spring membership drive last week with program interruptions
pleading for donations, so Michaels is bypassing that semiannual
annoyance by loading up her MP3 player with various National Public
Radio programs available in whole or in part for free as podcasts. "Why
would I sit through all of that if I can get what I like for free
online, listen to it on my own time and not be guilted for weeks into
giving money?" says Michaels, a real estate agent who says her husband
donates to the station on behalf of her family. "I've even found a whole
bunch of NPR shows online that aren't on NPR here, which is so great."
Steve Friess, "Podcasting Roils NPR Fund Raising," Wired News,
April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/media/0,70583-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
Maj. Moore is among a growing number of
readers who, instead of buying or borrowing new titles, have turned
to book-summary services to feed their interests.
Summaries, mostly sent by email, generally
range between eight and 12 pages, and some publishers see them as a
threat to sales. (A service can't summarize a book without its
publisher's permission.) However, most major houses have agreed to
work with the services, providing free books in hopes that the added
exposure the services provide might lead to sales.
Reader services are increasingly taking a
place alongside the traditional newspaper and magazine book review
to alert readers to new titles, industry officials say. Book
summaries "level the playing field for a book fighting for space on
a table at Barnes & Noble," says Bill Smith, a domestic rights
manager at The Perseus Books Group, based in New York.
The most popular sites cater to specific
groups such as business executives, political wonks, self-help
enthusiasts and evangelical Christians. Christian Book Summaries, an
evangelical reader service based in Colorado Springs, Colo., offers
its summaries free of charge. Launched in 2000, the service now
boasts 2,880 readers who regularly visit its Web site to view its
biweekly postings.
Capitol Reader is a younger service. Darrin
Donnelly, 28 years old, started it two years ago to serve the
interest of political aficionados like himself. Studying journalism
at the University of Kansas, he left school in his senior year to
start Shamrock New Media Inc., a company that runs a number of Web
sites and newsletters covering sports and investing. He hadn't
planned to start a summary service, much less one on politics, until
a visit to a local bookstore, where he noticed the burgeoning
selection of books on current events and the 2004 presidential
campaign.
Capitol Reader's subscribers receive an
email report on a new political book every Thursday. The summary
presents the book's theme and main points and highlights interesting
sections. Subscribers also have access to an archive of previous
summaries.
"Readers want to keep up with new books,
arguments and viewpoints, but with so many new books coming out,
it's almost impossible to really stay on top of them all," Mr.
Donnelly says. The number of new political books doubled in 2004,
rising to 298 from 147 the year before, according to Simba
Information, a market-research firm in Stamford, Conn.
Medical Advances in Pattern Recognition With the database now largely in place, testing
is imminent. Buetow's team has set up a website accessible to cancer
specialists. The next goal is to enable software that will automatically
compare new images of lungs with those already aggregated in the
database. Algorithms will search for commonalities and build a directory
of the likeliest matches. Clinicians in offices and hospitals will be
able to contrast the resulting lung images with the scans they need to
evaluate.
"Cancer's "World Wide Web": A lung image database is breathing life
into 'medical grid' vision," by Tom Mashberg, MIT's Technology Review,
March/April, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16440,304,p1.html
Congoo, a search engine launched this month
and partnered with Google, gives registered users free online access
to a selection of publications that normally required a subscription
or a pay-per-view fee to read. After downloading the Congoo plug-in
and registering, users can get access to "between four and 15
articles per month per publisher." Publications available include
the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, Financial Times, BusinessWire,
Editor & Publisher, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, The Chicago
Tribune, The Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and other major
U.S. newspapers. Congoo is available at http://www.congoo.com/.
Critics of Congoo note that many public
libraries, such as the San Francisco Public Library
(
http://www.sfpl.org/sfplonline/dbcategories.htm ),
also offer free access to subscription
databases. And your own college and university library may also have
online subscriptions that you can access at no additional fee.
"Just when we thought we had e-learning all
figured out, it's changing again. After years of experimentation and
the irrational exuberance that characterized the late 1990s, we find
our views of e-learning more sober and realistic." In "What Lies
Beyond E-Learning?" (LEARNING CIRCUITS, March 2006), Marc J.
Rosenberg suggests that over the next few years we will see six
transformations in the field of e-learning:
1. E-learning will become more than
"e-training."
2. E-learning will move to the workplace.
3. Blended learning will be redefined.
4. E-learning will be less course-centric
and more knowledge-centric.
5. E-learning will adapt differently to
different levels of mastery.
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have
been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found
particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles,
and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your
recommendations to
carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu
for possible inclusion in this column.
On the Dark Side of the Higher Education Academy:
Generation Gaps, Collegial Apathy or Hostility, and Loneliness
On issue after issue — from workload, to how
research should be conducted, to the preferred structure of tenure
reviews — Gen X faculty members have radically different ideas about
higher education should work, Trower said. And these younger faculty
members are willing to give up both money and prestige to find
institutions that provide “a good fit,” Trower said, potentially
changing the way colleges recruit and strive to retain faculty talent.
Scott Jaschik, "The Gen X Professor," Inside Higher Ed,
April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/05/genx
My story, then, felt unique, until I heard
everyone else’s stories. There are an awful lot of people out there who
live their lives in a constant state of low-level despondence: They have
too many papers to grade, their colleagues are not interested in their
work, their colleges are in constant crisis, they didn’t get promoted,
they live in the middle of nowhere, they can’t find a date in the middle
of nowhere, their partners live hundreds of miles away. These may sound
like the complaints that make older faculty members tell us to pull up
our bootstraps and remember that they didn’t even have boots to pull up
when they walked 10 miles barefoot in the snow to MLA, but I wonder how
many of those older faculty members have spent too long repressing the
details of their own unhappiness. And then there are the people, like
me, who don’t complain, but live their lives atop a constant
undercurrent of despair.
"The Apparently Bearable Unhappiness of Academe," by Rebecca Steinitz,
Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/workplace/2006/03/28/steinitz
And it’s not just the hours. My discipline
creates a division, too. Yes, I feel at home in my department
meeting. I even feel at home in the liberal arts building. When I
traverse the campus to the health professions building to teach my
afternoon class, I feel a bit like an interloper.
Passing a man with an attach� in the hall,
I nod a teacher’s hello and walk confidently to my classroom. As I
write on the board the day’s lesson, I wonder if he teaches
something in the medical field since we have pre-med classes here.
Or maybe something scientific. I realize that unless I throw myself
in his path with an awkward introduction, I will never find out what
this man is doing on campus. At the big meetings, faculty members
are very friendly. Disciplines seem more permeable; small talk
abounds. We feel as if we are meeting extended family for the first
time. Deans move about making introductions. Yet the next week,
there is no contact.
Yes, our choice of career makes us special.
While talking to a science instructor at my university cafeteria, I
realize that students at adjoining tables must think we are crazy.
“Pegagogy” and “curriculum” may mean something to education majors;
but to most, it’s a secret teacher language. I realize that I
subscribe to the adult/child split when on campus — that staff,
administrators and faculty are of one kind; students are another.
I’m sure it seems unfair to some. And it
also lends to a feeling of separateness that engulfs some
instructors. A professor friend who teaches upper-level literature
claims it’s not that bad. He then admits that his students are older
and more accomplished; at times they seem more like colleagues than
students. But over the course of years, I’ve noticed that those who
teach must keep some distance from those we teach. Faculty handbooks
caution against close friendships or love relationships between
students and instructors. Many professors find it better to
cultivate peers or those outside of academia for friendships.
And those who relocate for a position have
another hurdle to overcome. Here in the Midwest, many of my
colleagues are married. Others are more established. We who relocate
for positions often find ourselves trying to horn our way into
circles of friends who have lasted for 10, 20 or 30 years. An
ex-colleague of mine in Northern California confessed that she is
going to approach an office mate and his wife and ask point blank if
they’d be interested in cultivating something more than an
acquaintanceship.
Another friend of mine who relocated from
California to the Mid-Atlantic for a position said that she and her
husband have never been more lonely. This is their third semester —
and she is already talking about the possibility of going “back
home” — if only to reestablish old friendships that feel as if they
are fading over the phone. It’s heartbreaking to think of the effort
that they’ve put into this move. Her new tenure-track position is
the envy of all of our friends; he finally found a good corporate
job. Their children are in good schools. And he was contemplating
bringing out his father from a neighboring state. I’m hoping that in
time their mid-sized city will open up to this valuable couple. Yet
I know from experience that smaller towns are tough. Even here in
the Midwest, friendliness only goes so far. And then we outsiders
sometimes feel locked out as locals discuss long bloodlines and who
went to high school with whom.
And what about what we bring to our
situation? Is it possible that we lonely academics have a hand in
our own fate? How many of us have secretly felt superior to those
around us simply because of our specialized knowledge? Is it easy to
cultivate friendships when we have high expectations that simply
cannot be met? And when we do start to form acquaintanceships, how
many of us realize we are too afraid to take the next step? When I
think about it from an objective point of view, I have to admit that
like many academics, I’m socially awkward.
After decades with my head in books, I
sometimes trip over my tongue and stand around looking foolish when
more socially accomplished adults make contact. A girlfriend of mine
on the East coast confessed that she and her husband often find
themselves talking to each other at faculty gatherings. He is
painfully shy; she is in a specialty field that makes her feel cast
out. Making friends — especially in smaller towns — can be difficult
at best and painful at worst for the most accomplished academic.
The solution? I’ve found that I have to be
willing to let my guard down and squelch “better than” thinking.
Reaching out in more than one area has helped. Other professors who
have relocated seem more approachable — if only because they are
suffering from loneliness, too. Staff are a possibility — which has
the added advantage of diminishing the “us vs. them” gap. Social
service organizations and volunteer work can provide contacts
outside of academia.
New Guidelines for Copyright Policies in Universities Four associations have released a
guide for colleges to use in reviewing
whether their copyright policies reflect recent legal and technological
developments. The guide notes that colleges and their faculty members
are major producers of copyrighted material, and that professors and
students also are big users of such material — sometimes in ways that
create legal difficulties. The groups that prepared the guide are the
Association of American Universities, the Association of Research
Libraries, the Association of American University Presses, and the
Association of American Publishers. Inside Higher Ed, December 7, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/07/qt
A report released yesterday by a pair of
free-expression advocates at New York University Law School's Brennan
Center for Justice claims Web site owners and remix artists alike are
finding free-expression rights squelched because of ambiguities in
copyright law. The study argues that so-called "fair use" rights are
under attack. It suggests six major steps for change, including reducing
penalties for infringement and making a greater number of pro-bono
lawyers available to defend alleged fair users. BNA's Internet Law News
(ILN) - 12/6/2005
Coverage at
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5983072.html">
Report at
http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/WillFairUseSurvive.pdf">a>
From the University of Illinois Scholarly Communication Blog on December
7, 2005 ---
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/
With a Big Nuclear Push, France Transforms Its Energy Equation France's push into nuclear power and away from
fossil fuel holds important lessons for other countries gripped by a
fierce debate over how to break their dependency on Middle Eastern oil .
. . Over the past three decades, the French government has transformed
this 15-mile finger of land from a provincial backwater into one of the
world's most concentrated patches of nuclear infrastructure. On an
earthen pad carved from the cliffs squats a power plant with two nuclear
reactors. It's expected to get a third. At the tip of the peninsula,
which juts into the English Channel, sprawls a tightly guarded factory
that processes spent nuclear fuel -- not just from France, but from
throughout the world.
"With a Big Nuclear Push, France Transforms Its Energy Equation: A
30-Year Program Has Cut Oil Use, Greenhouse Gases; Safety Concerns
Linger," The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114351504186809745.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
It's the "tightly guarded" bit that worries me with France.
Maine Fisherman on the Penobscot Bay
They can't remember their wives' names," but they can tell you where
they got that big run years ago. Seated on a 5-gallon bucket in a shack near
Maine's Penobscot Bay, Ted Ames is chatting with a friend about better
days - when commercial cod and haddock fishermen like the two of them
could still pull big catches out of the local waters. The scene might
look like nothing more than two salty seamen idly trading fishing
secrets in their thick New England accents. But Ames has his tape
recorder running. He's taking notes for a massive scientific study to
see whether the steel-trap memories of local fishermen can help restock
the woefully depleted Gulf of Maine. "They can't remember their wives'
names," Ames says, "but they can tell you where they got that big run
years ago."
"A Fish Tale," Wired News, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/posts.html?pg=3
Drilling Teeth Before the Days of Anesthesia Anthropologists discover evidence of dental
drilling dating back as far as 7000 B.C., proving that primitive man had
a certain sophistication -- and an amazing tolerance for pain.
"9,000-Year-Old Dentistry," Wired News, April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70599-0.html?tw=wn_index_7
The Invisible Man at the University of Connecticut Greg Sotzing, associate professor of the
University of Connecticut at Storrs has invented threads of so-called
electrochromic polymers that change colour in response to an applied
electrical field, the British weekly says. The threads work because the
electrons in their chemical bonds can absorb light across a range of
visible wavelengths. When a voltage is applied, it changes the energy
levels of the electrons, causing them to absorb light in a different
wavelength and thus changing the material's colour. So far, Sotzing has
been able to change fibres from orange to blue and from red to blue. His
next step is to create threads that switch from red, blue and green to
white. Ultimately, says New Scientist, Sotzing hopes to weave
differently coloured threads into a criss-cross pattern so that,
connected by metal wires to a battery pack, each crosspoint becomes a
pixel -- the tiny point of light in a TV or computer screen.
"Chameleon clothing lets you vanish into the background," PhysOrg,
April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news63465246.html
In recent years, community and technical
colleges have quietly been developing a number of curriculum and
instruction centers designed to provide a number of excellent
resources for their faculty. The Maricopa Community College District
has its own Maricopa Center For Learning and Instruction (MCLI) and
their website is real find for those teaching at community colleges
as well as those generally involved with teaching in institutions of
higher education. Visitors can start by perusing their “Programs”
section, which contains information about their teaching and
learning assessment resources and initiatives. For most visitors,
the “Projects” area on their homepage will be the most useful part
of the site. This area includes an online weblogging workshop,
information about creating a valuable creative writing assignment,
and a template for creating web- based slide shows. Finally, the
site also includes the Community College Web, which contains over
1200 links to various community colleges around the world.
Tom Regan has taught at North Carolina State University since
1967, and he is well-known for his work in the field of animal
rights within the discipline of philosophy. In 2000, the North
Carolina State University Libraries received a large gift to
establish an archive of his personal papers and books, and since
then, they have also created this online collection for the general
public. First-time visitors can perform an advanced search on the
documents contained here, or they may also want to browse through
categories that include animal rights legislation, animals in the
news, diet ethics, and farmed animals. Within each section, visitors
can view a list of related web sites and also learn about other
external resources. Additionally, visitors can also learn about
research opportunities at the Center.
Around the world, there are thousands of
sites that hold great importance to the world’s different faiths and
religions. It would be quite a task to document all these sites, but
Holly Hayes (a graduate student in religious history) has created
this website to serve as a destination for those persons who might
like to learn a bit about such places. Currently, the site contains
information on more than 1500 sites, and visitors can peruse these
locales at their leisure. The sites are organized by country and
category, and of course, visitors can also search the entire site as
well. The categories theme is a good way to start browsing, as it
contains Buddhist temples, Jewish museums, sacred mountains, and
Shinto shrines. No such site would be complete without a substantial
offering of photos, and this site has visitors covered all the way
from St. David’s Cathedral in Wales to the Hagia Sophia.
As any physicist will tell you, managing
chaos is difficult, if not impossible. Fortunately, this type of
“chaos” refers primarily to the chaotic nature of maintaining an
orderly and logical desktop calendar on one’s computer. With Chaos
Manager, users can create their own organizer, which includes an
Internet sync feature, a notebook, pop-up appointment reminders and
so on. This particular version is compatible with all computers
running Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, and XP.
Within the world of image editing programs,
there are a number of fine applications, and Image Well is
definitely one that it is worth taking a look at. Image Well 2.1
allows users to resize, crop, shape, and rotate images. Visitors can
also add a number of novel visual touches, such as a thought or word
balloon for humorous or ironic effect. This version is compatible
with all computers running Mac OS X 10.3.9 and newer.
Pardon me if I’ve missed a similar
discussion in the past, but does anyone have direct experience with
database systems that store and report on faculty activities? Two we
are considering that are apparently “AACSB-enabled” are Sedona
(
https://www.sedona.bz/ ) and Digital
Measures (
http://www.digitalmeasures.com/ ) .
Ed Scribner
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM, USA
Proposition 13 Deja Vou? Across the country, the hottest
money issue at the state and local level is property
taxes. Tax collectors are reaping giant windfalls from
the national housing boom, as the average property tax
on an American home has climbed to just shy of $3,000 a
year. The National Taxpayers Union reports that Texas is
one of at least 20 states -- including Arizona, Idaho,
New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- where
homeowners are rebelling against soaring assessments
that in some cases are taxing people out of their homes.
The discontent is reminiscent of the anxiety that led to
California's famous Proposition 13 property tax cut 27
years ago.
"Texas-Sized Tax Revolt," The Wall Street Journal,
April 4, 2006; Page A22 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114411560766116119.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
What do big-time athletics programs spend? A New
Database
Public colleges and universities with big-time athletics
programs spent at least $1 billion on them last year,
according to an analysis published Thursday in
The Indianapolis Star.The
newspaper based its analysis on information that the
colleges report to the National Collegiate Athletic
Association — information that The Star obtained through
freedom-of-information requests. The Star also created
a databaseallowing for
searches of the information it obtained. Inside HigherEd, March 31, 2006
LearningSoft Awarded Patent for Adaptive Assessment System
From T.H.E. Journal Newsletter on March 30, 2006
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has
granted LearningSoft LLC (
http://www.learningsoft.net ) a patent
titled "Adaptive Content Delivery System and Method," which covers
the company's proprietary Learningtrac adaptive assessment system.
Learningtrac uses artificial intelligence to optimize assessment and
test preparation for individual students' strengths and weaknesses.
The system uses a student's own knowledge base, learning patterns,
and measures of attention to the material to continually adapt
curriculum content to the student's needs and spur skill
development. Educators are then able to monitor individual student
assessments as well as track classroom progress. Later this year,
Learningtrac will be integrated into LearningSoft's Indigo Learning
System, which is debuting at the 2006 Florida Educational Technology
Conference.
A NEW generation of contraceptive
medication that guards against breast cancer as well as pregnancy
could be available within five years, scientists predicted
yesterday. Patient trials of a drug that is used in higher doses to
cause abortions have shown it to be an effective contraceptive with
few side-effects, and animal and cell models have even suggested
that it can protect against breast tumours.
Women taking the new Pill, which contains
no female hormones, would have no periods and would thus be unlikely
to suffer from pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS). The contraceptive is
also thought to carry a lower risk of blood clots than existing
varieties.
If the early results are confirmed by
larger studies, the research, led by the University of Edinburgh,
would provide millions of women with a safe, reliable way of
controlling fertility. While the Pill is the most effective form of
contraception, many are put off by side-effects from the female
hormones on which it is based.
About 3.5 million British women —
approximately a third of those of reproductive age — take the Pill,
more than 90 per cent of whom are on the combined form that contains
oestrogen and progesterone, the two female hormones. The rest take
the mini-Pill, which contains progesterone only. Its popularity has
largely recovered from the 1995 scare that prompted hundreds of
thousands to give up oral contraception after “third-generation”
Pills that contain different kinds of progesterone were linked to a
higher risk of thrombosis.
The combined Pill protects against ovarian
and endometrial tumours, but its oestrogen content is thought to
contribute to a slightly increased risk of breast cancer. While the
mini-Pill does not have this drawback, it is less effective and has
other side-effects such as heavy bleeding. The new Pill works on a
completely different principle, using a chemical called mifepristone
to block the action of progesterone, which the body needs to ovulate
and support a pregnancy.
As it contains no oestrogen it should not
promote breast cancer, and by inhibiting progesterone it is thought
that it may even reduce the risk. It is also unlikely to cause other
hormonal side-effects, and has the added benefit of stopping
periods, which should prevent PMS.
Mifepristone, also known as RU486, is
licensed for use in abortions, though it is used at doses 100 times
lower for contraception. David Baird, Professor of Reproductive
Endocrinology at the University of Edinburgh, said that this could
be the biggest obstacle to bringing it to the market, as anti-
abortion activists have vociferously objected to it.
“If it was decided just on scientific
grounds, and the pharmaceutical industry did not respond to all
sorts of irrational factors, it could be developed within five
years,” he said. “As it is, I would expect it to be within five to
ten years.”
Mifepristone works by binding to
progesterone receptors, so that the body cannot respond to the
hormone. If given in high doses when a woman is pregnant, it causes
miscarriage, but smaller doses can prevent ovulation and conception.
Two trials, each involving about 90 women in Scotland, South Africa,
China and Nigeria, have now shown that it is well tolerated with few
side-effects, and is at least as effective as conventional Pills.
The effect on breast cancer is predicted
because some kinds of breast tumour appear to be sensitive to
progesterone, so blocking its action should inhibit their growth.
“Certain breast cancer studies suggest that progesterone can promote
cancer as well as oestrogen,” Professor Baird said. “There are also
some preliminary clinical data on women with advanced breast cancer
which suggests that this could be helpful.”
Anna Glasier, Professor of Sexual and
Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, said: “If we can
come up with a Pill that reduces the risk of breast cancer, we will
all be taking it, whether or not we need contraception.”
Sure wish they'd have made bacon a health food earlier in my life "A microscopic worm may be the key to
heart-friendly bacon. Geneticists have mixed DNA from the roundworm C.
elegans and pigs to produce swine with significant amounts of omega-3
fatty acids -- the kind believed to stave off heart disease. Researchers
hope they can improve the technique in pork and do the same in chickens
and cows. In the process, they also want to better understand human
disease.
"Healthier Bacon Geneticists are pursuing healthier foods through
genetic engineering and cloning," MIT's Technology Review, March
28, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/TR/wtr_16636,323,p1.html
Stem cells embedded in
futuristic materials may heal decades-old spinal
cord injuries and rescue patients from paralysis, if
recent experiments in rodents can be replicated in
humans.
Stem cells have cured
many rats of spinal cord injuries, but the treatment
has yet to benefit humans. When it does, most
scientists say the first treatments will benefit
only the newly injured.
But Pavla Jendelova, a
biologist at the Institute of Experimental Medicine
in Prague, Czech Republic, found that adding stem
cells to spinal implants made of hydrogels --
jelly-like polymers consisting of latticed networks
of amino acids -- could build a bridge in spinal
cords even with older injuries, and help patients to
regain function.
"In chronic spinal cord
injuries, there's a large cavity that develops over
time in the injured area," she said. "We want to see
if the hydrogels can breach this gap."
Continued in article
March 31, 2006 message from Chuck White
I really appreciated your
remark about what your print publications have meant
to you as compared to the web based stuff. I have
mentioned that to many since and pointed out how
anachronistic paper publishing seems to be. Check
out the new Sony book reader. Uses the electronic
ink technology developed at MIT several years ago to
render the screen infinitely more readable and
brighter than the LCD screens and brighter than ink
on paper. I am hoping this is the e-book reader that
will end the talk of "I can't read from a computer
screen."
chuck
Charles B. White
V.P. Information Resources and Administrative
Affairs,
Trinity University
"Nano-scale fuel cells may be closer than we
think, thanks to an inexpensive new manufacturing method,"
PhysOrg, March 12, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news11654.html
Question
Where are the greatest risks of forest fires?
"The African continent leads the globe in the
frequency of forest fires, the African Forestry and
Wildlife Commission learned at its meeting in
Mozambique," PhysOrg, April 2, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news63169415.html
"Iran Hard-Line Regime Cracks Down on Blogs,"
by Lara Sukhtian, The Washington Post, March 30,
2006 ---
Click Here
The Iranian blogging
community, known as Weblogistan, is relatively new.
It sprang to life in 2001 after hard-liners _
fighting back against a reformist president _ shut
down more than 100 newspapers and magazines and
detained writers. At the time, Derakhshan posted
instructions on the Internet in Farsi on how to set
up a weblog.
Since then, the community
has grown dramatically. Although exact figures are
not known, experts estimate there are between 70,000
and 100,000 active weblogs in Iran. The vast
majority are in Farsi but a few are in English.
Overall, the percentage of
Iranians now blogging is "gigantic," said Curt
Hopkins, director of an online group called the
Committee to Protect Bloggers, who lives in Seattle.
"They are a talking people,
very intellectual, social, and have a lot to say.
And they are up against a small group (in the
government) that are trying to shut everyone up,"
said Hopkins.
To bolster its campaign,
the Iranian government has one of the most extensive
and sophisticated operations to censor and filter
Internet content of any country in the world _
second only to China, Hopkins said.
It also is one of a growing
number of Mideast countries that rely on U.S.
commercial software to do the filtering, according
to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet
Initiative. The software that Iran uses blocks both
internationally hosted sites in English and local
sites in Farsi, the study found.
The filtering process is
backed by laws that force individuals who subscribe
to Internet service providers to sign a promise not
to access non-Islamic sites. The same laws also
force the providers to install filtering mechanisms.
The Two-Year Truce in Kashmir Separatists opposed to India's
rule over nearly half of Kashmir have waged an
insurgency that has killed more than 45,000 people since
1989 and devastated the region's tourism-dependent
economy. But a two-year-old peace process between India
and Pakistan, both of which claim the region, has led to
a drop in violence and visitors have begun to return.
"Shrinking lake perturbs Kashmiris," Al Jazeera,
March 29, 2006 ---
Click Here
Now that I'm retiring, I think the read outs from
this machine should be appended to all course
evaluations
Scientists are developing an "emotion sensor" to
show if someone is finding your conversation interesting
or not. It is being developed to
help people with autism, who tend to be less skilled at
interacting with others. New Scientist magazine reports
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) have developed the headset. A camera on a pair of
glasses is linked to a hand-held computer which "reads"
the emotional reactions of a listener.
"Emotion sensor 'detects boredom'," BBC News,
March 29, 2006 ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4856050.stm
Question
Should there be national examinations of undergraduate
learning?
A new federal commission
formed by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has
been pushing the idea of
holding colleges more accountable for the outcomes
of their undergraduate education, which has prompted
talk of a federally mandated assessment. I don’t
know anything that would make it harder to improve
student learning than a national or federal
assessment. And that’s where Archilochus can help.
Years ago Sir Isaiah Berlin
picked up the Greek poet’s famous aphorism, “The fox
knows many things but the hedgehog knows one thing,”
and used it as the title of his famous essay, and
now Philip Tetlock, in his new book, Expert
Political Judgment: How Good Is it? (Princeton
University Press, 2005) has classified pundits into
two categories: Hedgehogs, who have a single big
idea or explanation, and Foxes, who look for a lot
of intersecting causes. (He found that, by and
large, the Foxes do better at predicting what’s to
come, except once in a while when the prickly
Hedgehogs see something really important, and don’t
get distracted, no matter what.)
Most of us in academe are
foxes, but I want to suggest that we think like
hedgehogs for a while, and concentrate on one thing
and one thing only — student learning. Although we
can’t ignore the political context, we shouldn’t do
this in reaction to the perceived pressure from the
federal commission. We should do it, instead,
because it’s the one thing on which the flourishing
of liberal education most depends right now. We need
to do it for our students and for ourselves as
educators.
When I became president of
the Teagle Foundation two and a half years ago, I
worried a lot about the alleged decline and fall of
liberal education. The figures I studied showed a
decreasing percentage of undergraduates majoring in
the traditional disciplines of the liberal arts;
some colleges that I visited, or whose leaders I
met, seemed to be turning their backs on liberal
education; short term marketing strategies seemed to
be eclipsing long term educational values.
Recently, however, I’ve
experienced another eclipse, one in which three
tendencies I have been observing block out my old
worries. The three trends are:
A shift in goals from
content to cognition
The demand for
accountability
A new knowledge base for
teaching
None of these is an
unambiguous Good Thing, and there are enough tricks
and traps in each of these trends to challenge both
foxes and hedgehogs. But in my view — on balance —
the collision of these trends present the
opportunity to take liberal education to a new
level.
It is now possible, in ways
that were out of our reach just a few years ago, to
teach better and greatly to invigorate student
engagement and learning. We can do that, I am
convinced, while recommitting ourselves and our
institutions to the core educational values of
liberal education.
This all comes with a big
“IF.” We can reach that higher level only if we
focus, focus, focus on student learning — all of us,
faculty, deans, presidents, foundation officers. We
all have to become hedgehogs.
Let me explain why I feel
so confident that if we focus in this way, liberal
education can reach that new level of excellence. In
my explanation I will say a few words about each of
the three tendencies to which I just alluded, and
then try to imagine what liberal education could be
like if they are brought together in an integrated
system.
"Have Your Mac and Windows XP, Too," by Rob Pegoraro,
The Washington Post, April 6, 2006, Page D01 ---
Click Here
Because the Mac becomes a
true Windows computer when in Windows mode, it is
susceptible to all of the viruses and spyware that
plague regular Windows machines, but not Macs running
the Mac operating system. While these viruses can't
infect the Mac side of the machine, you do have to
install antivirus and antispyware programs on the
Windows side.
"Boot Camp Turns Your Mac Into a Reliable Windows PC,"
by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal,
April 6, 2006; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/personal_technology.html
For mainstream computer
users doing typical tasks, Apple Computer's
Macintosh models have huge advantages over the
prevalent Windows computers from companies such as
Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The Macs have sleeker
hardware designs, a superior operating system, much
better built-in software, and virtually no exposure
to viruses and spyware. Apple's flagship model, the
iMac, is the best consumer desktop on the market.
But, there's a big barrier
for Windows users tempted to switch to the Mac:
software. While there are thousands of programs for
the Mac's operating system, called OS X, potential
Mac buyers often find they have one or two Windows
programs they must use that have no Mac equivalent.
These range from custom software required by their
employers, to niche programs for specific industries
or hobbies, to games.
Yesterday, Apple took a
historic, and potentially huge, step to remove that
obstacle to switching. It introduced free software
that makes it easy to install and run Windows on the
latest Mac models as a complement to the Mac
operating system. With this new software, called
Boot Camp, you can turn your Mac into a fast,
full-fledged Windows computer for those occasions
when you must run a Windows program. That makes the
iMac, the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro laptop the
only computers in the world that allow mainstream
users to run both operating systems at full speed.
I've been testing Windows
on a new iMac for several days and except for a
couple of trifling annoyances, it runs perfectly,
just like a stand-alone Windows PC. I was able to
install Boot Camp and Windows XP Pro on the Mac in
under an hour. After that, I installed 15 Windows
programs, most unavailable in Mac versions, and all
ran properly.
In Windows mode, the iMac
was blazingly fast -- far faster than my
two-year-old H-P Windows computer. And every
function of Windows I tested, including Web
browsing, email and music playback, ran flawlessly.
In fact, I wrote this
column in Windows on the iMac, using the Windows
version of Microsoft Word. And I emailed it to my
editors using Outlook Express, the built-in email
program in Windows. When I was done using Windows, I
just restarted the Mac and the machine turned back
into a regular Macintosh, running the Mac operating
system and Mac software.
Boot Camp
(downloadable at
www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp )
allows you to "boot up," or
start up, the Mac in either operating system. You
can designate which one gets loaded when the machine
boots up. Or, by simply holding down the Option (or
Alt) key while starting or restarting the computer,
you get a screen showing icons for the two operating
systems. Click on the Mac icon and the machine runs
the Mac OS. Click on the Windows icon and it runs
Windows.
Each operating system gets
its own dedicated portion, or "partition," of the
Mac's hard disk, so they don't interfere with one
another. Programs you install in each operating
system, and files you create with them, are stored
in the part of the hard disk devoted to that
operating system.
All of this is possible
because the latest Macs use the same Intel chips as
Windows machines. Boot Camp runs only on these new
Intel-based Macs, which have been available since
January. Older Macs can also run Windows, in a
fashion, but only via a clumsy Microsoft program
that creates a painfully slow "virtual" Windows
computer that can't handle some demanding programs,
like games. By contrast, with Boot Camp, the new
Intel-based Macs can become true, fast, full-fledged
Windows computers that are essentially identical to
standard Windows computers, yet still retain the
ability to operate as normal Macs.
It's important to note that
Apple isn't abandoning its OS X operating system, or
adopting Windows. The company says it won't sell,
preinstall, or support Windows. In fact, while Boot
Camp is free Apple software, anyone using it must
supply his own copy of Windows to install. Boot Camp
is technically beta, or test, software. But in my
tests, it operated exactly as advertised. It will be
built into the next version of the Mac operating
system, called Leopard, due early next year.
You can't run both
operating systems at the same time. Switching
between the two requires you to restart the Mac; the
operating system you're not using is shut down. That
makes switching a little slow, but it also means
that each operating system runs like a separate
computer, with full control of the hardware. This
allows Windows to run at full speed and protects
your Mac files from the effects of Windows viruses.
With Boot Camp, you could
choose to run a Mac solely as a Windows machine,
with good results. But Apple doesn't expect many
people to do this. Instead, it assumes Boot Camp
users will still use the Mac operating system and
Mac software 90% of the time, switching into Windows
mode only to run a few Windows programs. Some
customers may never use Windows on their Macs, and
just see Boot Camp as a sort of insurance policy
that allows them to switch to the Mac without fear
that they'd lose future access to Windows programs.
Apple's move is only the
first in what will likely be a series of new
programs that allow the Intel Macs to run Windows.
Today, a small Virginia company called Parallels
plans to release a beta version of its own software
to run Windows on an Intel Mac. It's called
Parallels Workstation for OS X and will cost $49,
plus the cost of Windows itself. Unlike Boot Camp,
Parallels creates a "virtual machine" that simulates
a Windows computer inside the Mac OS. I haven't had
a chance to test this product, but may do so in
coming months.
Last month, two hackers
caused a stir by posting online their own method for
running Windows on the Intel Macs. But, unlike Boot
Camp, it requires technical skills far beyond those
of the average user, and it doesn't enable all of
the Mac's key hardware in Windows.
Until now, subtle hardware
differences between Mac and Windows made it
impossible to simply buy a copy of Windows and
install it in a Mac, even the new models using Intel
chips. Apple's Boot Camp allows Windows to overcome
these hardware differences, and also includes
"drivers" -- hardware-enabling programs -- so that
Windows can work smoothly with Apple keyboards,
video systems and networking hardware.
Because the Mac becomes
a true Windows computer when in Windows mode, it is
susceptible to all of the viruses and spyware that
plague regular Windows machines, but not Macs
running the Mac operating system. While these
viruses can't infect the Mac side of the machine,
you do have to install antivirus and antispyware
programs on the Windows side.
To install Windows on a Mac
with Boot Camp, you first must upgrade to the latest
version of Mac OS X and perform what's called a
"firmware update." Both are easy.
Next, you download the Boot
Camp program, and install it. Boot Camp first guides
you through the process of burning a CD with driver
software you will later install in Windows. Then, it
lets you divide the hard disk into separate Mac and
Windows partitions. Finally, it starts up your
Windows installation disk.
Jensen Comment
I'm not an expert, but it would seem that it is best to
unplug your computer from the Internet when running
Windows. The Mac version provides much more protection
from Internet invaders such as spyware, trojan horses,
and the like plague Microsoft. In both the Mac and the
Windows versions, you still need firewall protection ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/firewall.htm
Q:The community where I live has a
one-month period (April this year) where you can
dispose of your old computers. I have several old
PCs around the house, but want to clean out the hard
drives. Can you recommend a good program that can
clean sensitive data off a hard drive?
A: There are a number
of such "file wiper" programs, which permanently
delete files so that they can't be recovered. Some
are free, but the one I recommend is called Window
Washer and costs $30 from Webroot Software Inc. It
can be purchased at
Webroot.com and elsewhere.
The program, which also performs other tasks, has a
file-wiping function called "bleaching." It can be
used multiple times.
Q:Does the security I've installed for my
home wireless network protect me when I take my
laptop to a public hot spot? If no, what can I do to
protect against snoopers there? I run both Windows
and Apple laptops.
A: No. The wireless security in your home is
a network feature, not a laptop feature. It doesn't
come along with your computers when you use another
wireless network. At a public hot spot, you are
sharing a network with strangers. So you can't
entirely guarantee your security and privacy from
prying or malicious people in the vicinity. However,
I would turn off all file-sharing features on the
laptop, make sure a firewall is running, and avoid
doing anything sensitive online, such as financial
transactions.
Q:If one has a box of unlabeled USB
cables, is there any way to sort USB 1.1 cables from
the USB 2.0 cables? Or is there even a difference?
A: You can't sort them, and in most cases
there is no difference. Older USB cables that were
certified to work on the older 1.1 ports should also
work perfectly with the faster USB 2.0 ports. The
USB 2.0 standard was designed to work with the same
cables as USB 1.1. In fact, I have never seen or
used a USB cable, no matter how old, that couldn't
be used at full speed with USB 2.0. However, some
cheaply made older cables that weren't certified
might fail.
Plagiarism at Ohio University Ohio University’s Russ College
of Engineering has confirmed at least 30 cases of
“verbatim plagiarism” by graduates of the college’s
mechanical engineering department, based on accusations
raised last year by another former student.
The dean of the college, Dennis
Irwin, said Tuesday that a preliminary report from a
faculty investigative committee had found evidence of
plagiarism in many of the 44 master’s theses that Thomas
A. Matrka had brought to the attention of college
officials. Irwin said the committee’s final report —
which is due by week’s end — would include
recommendations for punishment that would in some cases
include revocation of the master’s degrees if the
plagiarists do not resubmit their theses. Matrka accused
college officials of not taking his charges seriously
and said that faculty members had looked the other way;
Irwin said Tuesday that the committee’s findings do not
suggest that professors condoned the plagiarism.
Inside Higher Ed, March 29, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/29/qt
Top-tier management always wants to please its Board of Directors.
It would seem that making Board compensation contingent on meeting
earnings forecasts has two types of moral hazard
1. There's an incentive to keep forecasts unrealistically low.
This may hurt some traders.
2. There's an incentive to cook the books if the company is having
difficulty meeting forecasted
targets.
Make Work Stance of Labor Unions: To Hell With Saving 1.6 Million
Gallons of Water Per Year
But the union put out the word it doesn't like the idea of waterless
urinals — fewer pipes mean less work.
This city's hoped-for bragging rights as
home of America's tallest environmentally friendly building could go
down the toilet.
In a city where organized labor is a force
to be reckoned with, the plumbers union has been raising a stink
about a developer's plans to install 116 waterless, no-flush urinals
in what will be Philadelphia's biggest skyscraper.
Developer Liberty Property Trust says the
urinals would save 1.6 million gallons of water a year at the
57-story Comcast Center, expected to open next year.
But the union put out the word it doesn't
like the idea of waterless urinals — fewer pipes mean less work.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's
become widely known that New Orleans has been slowly sinking.
Geologists have blamed oil drilling, groundwater pumping, and young,
soft sediments for much of the region's subsidence, but a new study
implicates another culprit. The deep shifting of tectonic plates may
be causing the land to sink faster than the shallower manipulations
of humans. That could mean more drastic measures need to be taken to
protect New Orleans from another storm. Geologist Roy Dokka of
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge focused his study on an
area of the city known as the Michoud, on the southeastern shore of
Lake Pontchartrain. The Michoud has no oil, gas, or water
extraction, which causes sediments to compact, but is underlain by a
7-km-deep fault. It also has some of the highest subsidence rates in
the south-central United States. Could nature be to blame?
Dokka sought the answer by taking advantage
of 50 years of data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration had conducted multiple surveys of the Michoud region,
beginning in 1955. One key benchmark was a 2000-meter-deep solid
steel well. Because human activities such as drilling and the
natural settling of soil occur within the first 2000 meters of
Earth's surface, the well would stay at the same elevation unless
movements were occurring underneath it--where the Michoud fault
lies.
The study area was sinking an average of
16.9 millimeters per year between 1969 and '71 and 7.1 millimeters
per year between 1971 and '77, Dokka reports in the April issue of
Geology. Using his deep benchmark, Dokka calculated that tectonic
activity was responsible for 73% and 50% of the subsidence in those
two periods; the rest was likely due to sediments compressing and
recently deposited soils draining. This indicates "that there's a
big chunk of subsidence occurring in a place that cannot be
explained by other activities," says Dokka. Merely stopping water
extraction and oil drilling off the coast might not help protect New
Orleans from being inundated by future hurricanes, he says.
The Vatican is the only European government
that still holds an official diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. It
will be tempting for Pope Benedict to trade recognition for access
to China's 12 million Catholics. The moral aspects of such a bargain
are not as clear-cut as they might seem at first, particularly if a
relationship with Beijing might enable the Vatican to swing more
weight in defending religious and civil rights on the mainland.
Nonetheless, the Vatican would be
well-advised to demand some serious concessions in return. China
boasts an "official" Catholic Church of around five million, whose
priests pledge fealty to the Communist Party as a condition of
serving their congregations. The unofficial "underground" church
that is repressed and recognizes the pope is likely much larger.
Both sides might do well to agree to a
Vietnam-like compromise. In Vietnam the Holy See is recognized, but
must consult with the Communist government before naming new clergy.
While that offends Catholic purists, it's given Vietnam's Communist
Party a better image; the Church, a new flock; and the people of
Vietnam, a moral purpose the party can't provide.
It's important not to forget how brutal
Beijing has been to people who dare to promote religious freedom.
One recent victim is Hao Wu, a 34-year-old Chinese filmmaker making
a movie about underground Christian congregations. He was arrested
in February without explanation and hasn't been heard from since.
Since we're on the subject of religion, he might take comfort from
the Book of Matthew: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
The Wall Street Journal Flashback, March 31, 1953
The efficient well-trained "Girl Friday"
can pick her job and working conditions most places. Most employment
agencies agree that good secretaries are scarce. One girl taking
dictation from a mechanical recorder faithfully typed "quote" and
"unquote."
Hugh Hefner turns 80 next Sunday, and
The Mansion is once again the place to be. "A major pajama
party" is planned, as he told Maclean's, along with other
observances equal to the dignity of the occasion. But this
milestone also has "Hef" in a reflective mood, wondering how he
will be remembered and trying to sum up "the major message in my
life."
The founder of Playboy, says a Reuters
profile, has become "utterly obsessed with his own legacy" and
lately has "filled some 1,500 leather-bound scrapbooks about his
life and history to date." From the first issue of Playboy to
appear on Chicago newsstands in 1953 right up to the latest
clippings on his current reality show, "The Girls Next Door," no
trace of Mr. Hefner's storied adventures will be lost to
posterity.
Lest we forget that there was actually
a "Playboy Philosophy" to go with the pictures, Mr. Hefner has
also reissued, online, all 250,000 words of his early-1960s
disquisition on the good life and the evils of sexual
inhibition. Still endlessly indulged by reporters, he has
slipped into his best bathrobe for another round of clubby
interviews in which to showcase his three salaried "girlfriends"
and to reminisce about the original Playboy "dream."
Always a "dreamer" and "romantic at
heart," in Hef's telling of the story, he dared to challenge the
repressive attitudes of his day and left America a freer,
happier place. He is guilty only of living out "every man's
dream," and if anyone thinks otherwise it must be envy. "I
consider myself the luckiest cat on the planet," he often says
-- a sort of graying libertine's version of the Lou Gehrig line.
Hef is also devoted these days to various charitable causes and,
he eagerly notes, was recently voted American Charity Events Man
of the Year.
Looking to the day when Shangri-La
falls silent and dust returns to dust, he has even made
arrangements for a final resting place, with that exquisite
Hefner touch. It turns out that there is a tomb in Los Angeles's
Westwood Memorial Park directly adjacent to that of Marilyn
Monroe -- the first "girl next door" to appear nude in Playboy
-- and no one had yet claimed it. "When I found the vault next
door to Marilyn was available," he explained to the Daily
Telegraph, "it seemed natural." So there, next-door to Marilyn,
his permanently pajamaed remains will lie, and all who come to
remember her can cast a glance at his name, too.
One might have thought that the woman,
in life, had enough trouble with users and operators. But of
course Hef, an exploiter to the end, doesn't see himself that
way, and what's clear from all his legacy projects is that he
wants to be remembered as anything other than what he is. We're
to think of him as Hugh Hefner, social philosopher and cultural
revolutionary. Hugh Hefner, entrepreneur and Charity Events Man
of the Year. Hugh Hefner, friend of Marilyn. Hugh Hefner,
luckiest cat on the planet. Anything, please, but the truth
about Hugh Hefner, pornographer.
He is certainly right to believe that
he has left his mark in the world. Richard Corliss in Time
magazine is overstating it a bit when he writes that "porn
doesn't affront contemporary community standards. It is a
contemporary community standard." But he is close enough, and we
have Hugh Marston Hefner, more than anyone else, to thank for
the great plenitude of porn we take for granted today.
HeritageQuest Online (
http://www.heritagequestonline.com/ ) ---
one of (Trinity's) Library databases,
accessible under “Articles & More” on
the Library web page
FamilySearch.Org (
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp ) ---
Run by the LDS Church). Warning: rife with
unsourced and/or downright bad information, but a good source for
clues to follow up on. Has a complete index to the 1880 US census,
though, including all family members (not just heads of household).
Ancestry.com
is arguably the best pay site, with
comprehensive holdings in the federal censuses, Social Security
Death Index, military records, family histories/biographies, and a
lot of other material, and a very sophisticated search function. But
try the free sources first. If you decide to buy access to
Ancestry.com, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into
in terms of a subscription contract. Sometimes they offer seven-day
free trials, but if you don’t cancel by the end of that period,
you’ll often be charged for a full year’s access, which can run into
the hundreds of dollars. So plan ahead, and figure out which
information you absolutely can’t get anywhere else before you
subscribe to a pay site. Doing so will help you maximize the
efficiency of your free trial.
Ancestry.com is very expensive. If you have
an LDS church near or a federal building with public access to
records, usually you can access Ancestry.com free. I have gone to
the federal center in the Denver area as well as an LDS church to
use Ancestry.com
Barb
Defense lawyers are closely watching an
accounting-fraud case that they see as the latest government effort to
stop companies from paying the legal fees of indicted employees.
"U.S. Pressures Firms Not to Pay Staff Legal Fees," by Nathan Koppel,
The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006; Page B1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114352166837109875.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Justice Department spokesman Brian
Roehrkasse counters that "the government does not force corporations
to do anything." If a company declines to advance fees, he adds,
"that is a business decision made after weighing all of the costs
and benefits of cooperation."
The cost of a trial is out of the financial
reach of many white-collar defendants. "It is hard to defend a
white-collar case for less than $100,000, and most cost much, much
more than that," says John Hasnas, a professor at Georgetown
University's McDonough School of Business.
In the New Hampshire case, five former
executives of technology company Enterasys Networks Inc. charged
with accounting fraud were set to stand trial in Concord this month
but got a three-month reprieve after federal prosecutors were
accused of misconduct. Government lawyers pressured the company to
cut off legal fees to the defendants to weaken the employees'
ability to fight the charges, defense lawyers allege in court
filings.
New Hampshire U.S. Attorney William Morse,
the lead prosecutor in the case and one of three accused of
misconduct, denies wrongdoing. In pretrial testimony, when asked why
he inquired about the company's payment of legal fees, he said, he
simply wanted to inform Enterasys that the "payment of attorneys'
fees for defendants was something that the Department of Justice had
instructed its line prosecutors to consider" when assessing a
company's cooperation with prosecutors. In an interview, he says,
"Enterasys's decision to stop paying legal fees had nothing to do
with government pressure." He says that he last spoke to Enterasys
about the reimbursement of fees in the summer of 2004, and that the
company didn't cut off funding until a year later.
Mr. Morse says he notified the Justice
Department in 2004 that he had asked Enterasys about its payment of
legal fees. He says he made the inquiry to determine whether the
company was living up to its cooperation agreement. The Justice
Department approved his actions, he says. A Justice Department
spokeswoman declines to comment.
Continued in the article
Delayed sleep-phase syndrome
"Health Mailbox, by Tara Parker-Pope, " The Wall Street Journal,
March 28, 2006; Page D4 ---
Click Here
Q:I
just read your article about teens and delayed sleep-phase syndrome.
Does this problem also play a part in the teenagers getting migraine
headaches? My daughter is 18 and has missed much school with
migraines. She also complains at times of not being able to get to
sleep. Sometimes she will come home from school and take a nap,
which also affects her sleeping at night.
--E.C.
A:
Migraines and sleep disorders can be linked. Sometimes migraines can
cause sleep disorders. A sleep disorder can trigger migraines, but
so can sleeping too much or not sleeping enough. Young women
sometimes develop migraines as a result of fluctuating hormone
levels. Fluctuating hormones can also interfere with sleep.
I think this transcript is very informative
about Sox and 404. It includes cost figures for compliance for
different size companies. It notes that despite the high cost, more
small companies have gone public after Sox went into effect. It also
discusses the pros and cons of some of the alternatives being
discussed for small companies.
I think all college libraries should
consider this announcement from the American Accounting Association
April 3, 2006 message from Tracey E. Sutherland
[traceysutherland@aaahq.org]
The American Accounting Association is
proud to announce the launch of a NEW online platform for
association-wide and section journals. Everyone can view abstracts
and if you selected and paid for online access with your membership
you can view full text in PDF format. If you would like to add or
change what you have access to, please contact Mary Cole at Mary@aaahq.org.
Any other questions should be directed to Peggy Turczyn at Peggy@aaahq.org.
This new platform includes two versions of
the full text. The first is a straight forward plain PDF file. The
second includes reference links where available.
We would like to encourage you to talk to
your librarians about subscribing to AAA Publications through our
new platform. ABI/INFORM (ProQuest) and Business Source Premier
(EBSCO) will continue to include AAA journals in their collection.
However, their collection does NOT include the current year. The
only way to receive the current issues is through AAA online access.
You are already set up in the new system
with access. You can access association-wide and section journals by
clicking on the link below, then clicking on the "Browse AAA
Journals" link, and using the username and password below.
Corporate law firms are,
essentially, giant pyramid scheme The associates at the bottom funnel money
to the partners at the top. At Sullivan & Cromwell, for example,
according to the American Lawyer, the average partner earned $2.35
million last year. A young lawyer who bills 2,200 hours at $250 per hour
generates $550,000 for the firm, only $145,000 of which pays his salary.
The more the associates, the richer the partners (assuming there's
enough work to keep them billing -- and, presumably, cooing). Thus, law
firms have a vested interest in growing the base of the pyramid.
"Cut My Salary, Please!," b Cameron Stracher, The Wall Street
Journal, April 1, 2006; Page A7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114384471634713946.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
1. "The Interpretation Of Dreams" by
Sigmund Freud (1899).
In these days of relentless Freud-bashing,
it borders on heresy to suggest reading the master's own words. But
"The Interpretation of Dreams" is a stunning book. Freud (who won
the Goethe Prize, Germany's highest literary award, in 1930) writes
in a pleasantly conversational tone that belies the explosive
significance of the concepts he's broaching: the Oedipus complex,
childhood sexuality and his thesis that our nighttime dreams are the
fulfillment of our daytime wishes. Those who know but little about
the details of Freud's contributions will be astonished at how easy
they are to comprehend when presented by the man himself.
2. "The Double Helix" by James Watson
(Atheneum, 1968).
Who says that reading about molecular
biology can't be fun? James Watson's highly subjective account is a
romp through the ups, downs, tangents and trickery of making what
was doubtless the greatest biological discovery of the 20th century,
the elucidation of the molecular structure of DNA. The brilliant
Watson and his perhaps even more brilliant associate, Francis Crick,
are hardly the polite Hardy Boys of the laboratory--there was plenty
of backbiting and elbowing as they raced against some of the leading
biologists of their time, most particularly Linus Pauling, the
two-time Nobelist. The unsparing character sketches alone are worth
the read.
3. "The Silent World of Doctor and
Patient" by Jay Katz (Free Press, 1984).
If it is true, as some say, that physicians
are the least introspective or self-doubting of the learned
professionals, the reason may be that they are convinced of their
own good intentions and of their ability to make correct therapeutic
choices. But many physicians' eyes were opened by the publication
two decades ago of "The Silent World of Doctor and Patient," in
which Jay Katz demonstrates the ways in which a paternalistic system
of medical care is encouraged by a surprising lack of communication
between doctor and patient, too often resulting in inappropriate
treatment. The publication of this classic of medical ethics--by one
of the discipline's most respected pioneers--was a major factor in
the current movement for patient autonomy. Things are much better
than they were back then, but we still have a long way to go.
4. "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif
(Harcourt, Brace, 1926).
For decades after its publication, Paul de
Kruif's collection of fascinating essays on the careers of
bacteriological discoverers was the volume most commonly cited by
medical students when they were asked if the reading of any single
book had drawn them to their choice of profession. De Kruif presents
one stirring story after another--from Anton von Leeuwenhoek's
invention of the microscope in the 17th century to Theobald Smith's
detection of the role of animals and ticks in the spread of microbes
in the 20th. We also see intrepid investigators pursuing the notion
of germ theory and identifying the causes and methods of
transmission of such diseases as diphtheria, yellow fever and
sleeping sickness. This is heady stuff, and de Kruif is a gifted
storyteller.
5. "The Merck Manual of Medical
Information: Home Edition" edited by Robert Berkow, Mark H. Beers
and Andrew J. Fletcher (Merck, 1997).
Americans have been consulting home medical
manuals for more than 300 years, but this one is unlike any other.
The legendary "Merck Manual," first published in 1899, has always
been a highly practical volume of diagnosis and therapy, but one
intended for physicians. In 1997, recognizing the increasing public
demand for sophisticated and yet understandable medical information,
its publishers brought forth this version for the general reader,
and it is a gem. In an era of exhausting Internet searches, it is
refreshing to curl up in an armchair with a book discussing more
than 3,000 medical conditions and to savor its clear, unhurried
prose.
Dr. Nuland is a clinical professor of surgery at the Yale
University School of Medicine and the author of "How We Die" (Knopf,
1994; winner of the National Book Award) and of "Maimonides" (Schocken,
2005).
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
What happens when you put a handful of
Mentos candy into a bottle of diet soda?
As many fans of Web video have found out, the results are pretty explosive.
From NPR
An Explosive Pair: Take a Mentos, and a Diet Coke (Video) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5341058
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
A blogger has started a Web phenomenon by inviting
submissions of "Fibs," poems based on a mathematical progression known as
the Fibonacci sequence.
Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/books/14fibo.html
President Bush’s approval rating is pretty low. He is behind car
salesmen, but still ahead of journalists and Congress. Don Surber, "The
majority is wrong about Bush, The Charleston Gazette, April 16,
2006 ---
http://sundaygazettemail.com/section/Columns/2006041413?pt=20
All progress has resulted from people who
took unpopular positions.
Adlai E. Stevenson
Those who don't build must burn. It's as old
as history and juvenile delinquence. Ray Bradbury, FAHRENHEIT 451
Barry Bonds is embarrassing himself and
major league baseball not by a dearth of talent, of which he has plenty,
but by an absence of character. If a baseball game is to be more than
entertainment -- although supremely entertaining it is -- and remain one
of the ways of demonstrating to us all character in action (as with such
splendid examples as Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Henry Aaron, Jackie
Robinson and Cal Ripken), then only disdain, from fans and players
alike, for those who spoil the story needs to be heard and heard
resoundingly. Players who support Barry Bonds and agree with his lawyers
or union officials that what he did was "not illegal at the time" forget
-- presuming they ever knew -- what brings those who love the game to
cheer their teams and remain loyal to them. If you don't see at a glance
what's wrong with Mr. Bonds, you're not a fan: You're a spectator.
"Pharmacology at Bat," The Wall Street Journal,
April 3, 2006; Page A16 ---
Click Here
Dr. McHugh is University Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. Mr.
Vincent was commissioner of baseball from 1989 to 1992.
When humor goes, there goes civilization. Erma Bombeck
If I were given the opportunity to present a
gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual
to learn to laugh at himself. Charles Schulz
To live is so startling it leaves little
time for anything else. Emily Dickinson
The American public must remember that the
ROTC has produced some of the finest officers in the military. One,
General Russell Honore, recently gained notoriety for his command of
Task Force Katrina – and demonstrated that he was one of the few people
who was able to effectively conduct relief operations of those affected
by Hurricane Katrina. He graduated from Southern University’s ROTC
program. Assisting the flood victims of Hurricane Katrina was something
a lot of people with degrees in the Humanities and Social Sciences were
unable to do. Michael Tremoglie,
"Curricula Rivalries, FrontPageMagazine, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21942
Upbringing is a way of passing on the
shortcomings of parents to their children. Armand Carrel ---
Click Here
It's a place used the world over where
people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography
together. Ben Affleck as Holden
McNeil, describing the Internet, in Kevin Smith's "Jay and Silent
Bob Strike Back"
You see, that's the difference between
us. I assume the best about people, while you assume the worst. So I
get hurt, but you get nothing. Sondra Ahlen
Given a choice, the American people
would prefer the policeman's truncheon to the anarchist's bomb.
Spiro Agnew
Don't worry about people stealing your
ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down
people's throats. Howard Aiken
Worthless. Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL,
FRS, FRAS (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the "analytical
engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September 15, 1842
It didn't matter that this seemed a toy
compared with the IBM 360, 370 and all the other systems we had
used. Dan Bricklin, "The IBM PC: 1981 to ...,"
Memories and Thoughts ---
http://www.frankston.com/?name=ThePCFrom1981To
A man sometimes devotes his life to a
desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh
at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life. Ryunosuke Akutagawa
If we could sell our experiences for
what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires. Abigail Van Buren
You must have been warned against
letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only
because we let them slip by. James M. Barrie
To find something you can enjoy is far
better than finding something you can possess. Glenn Holm
You can't depend on your eyes when your
imagination is out of focus. Mark Twain
I'm not smart, but I like to observe.
Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why. William Hazlitt
The important thing in science is not so
much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about
them. Sir William Bragg
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it
you will land among the stars. Les Brown
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great
Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by
Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how
theory development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions
changed over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will
take some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
The Evolution of Social Cognitive Theory
ALBERT BANDURA
PG.#29 BANDURA
Controlled field studies that systematically vary psychosocial factors
under real-life conditions provide greater ecological validity, but they
too are limited in scope. Finite resources, limits imposed by social
systems on what types of interventions they permit, hard to control
fluctuations in quality of implementation, and ethical considerations
place constraints on controlled field interventions. Controlled
experimentation must, therefore, be supplemented with investigation of
naturally produced variations in psychosocial functioning linked to
identifiable determinants (Nagel, 1961). The latter approach is
indispensable in the social sciences.
Verification of functional
relations requires converging evidence from different research
strategies. Therefore, in the development of social cognitive theory,
we have employed controlled laboratory studies, controlled field
studies, longitudinal studies, behavior modification of human
dysfunctions not producible on ethical grounds, and analyses of
functional relations in naturally occurring phenomena. These studies
have included populations of diverse sociodemographic characteristics,
multiple analytic methodologies, applied across diverse spheres of
functioning in diverse cultural milieus.
PG.#30 BANDURA It is one thing to generate innovative
ideas that hold promise for advancing knowledge, but another to get them
published. The publication process, therefore, warrants brief comment
from the trenches. Researchers have a lot of psychic scar tissue from
inevitable skirmishes with journal reviewers. This presents special
problems when there is conceptual inbreeding in editorial boards. The
path to innovative accomplishments is strewn with publication hassles
and rejections.
It is not uncommon for authors of
scientific classics to experience repeated initial rejection of their
work, often with hostile embellishments if it is too discordant with
what is in vogue (Companario, 1995). The intellectual contributions
later become the mainstays of the field of study. For example, John
Garcia, who eventually was honored for his fundamental psychological
discoveries, was once told by a reviewer of his often-rejected
manuscripts that one is no more likely to find the phenomenon he
discovered than bird droppings in a cuckoo clock.
Gans and Shepherd (1994) asked
leading economists, including Nobel Prize winners, to describe their
experiences with the publication process. Their request brought a
cathartic outpouring of accounts of publication troubles, even with
seminal contributions. The publication hassles are an unavoidable but
frustrating part of a research enterprise. The next time you have one
of your ideas, prized projects, or manuscripts rejected, do not despair
too much. Take comfort in the fact that those who have gone on to fame
have had a rough time. In his delightful book Rejection, John
White (1982) vividly documents that the prominent characteristic of
people who achieve success in challenging pursuits in an unshakable
sense of efficacy and a firm belief in the worth of what they are
doing. This belief system provides the staying power in the fact of
failures, setbacks, and unmerciful rejections.
PG.# 31 BANDURA
There is much talk about the validity of theories, but surprisingly
little attention is devoted to their social utility. For example, if
aeronautical scientists developed principles of aerodynamics in wind
tunnel tests but were unable to build an aircraft that could fly the
value of their theorizing would be called into question. Theories are
predictive and operative tools. In the final analysis, the evaluation
of a scientific enterprise in the social sciences will rest heavily on
its social utility.
"Academic
Live: Microsoft Launches Competitor to Google Scholar,"
Scholarly Communications blog (from the University of Illinois
Library), April 13, 2006 ---
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/
Microsoft has launched
Academic Live,
which searches the full text from thousands of scholarly journals.
Academic Live
(beta release version) currently has deep
content in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
and Physics, but is expanding rapidly. A search today for articles
containing Apis mellifera (the honeybee) yielding nearly
800 references; a search for Human Genome yielded over 11,500
articles. So though Microsoft is saying this beta is primarily for
the computer techies, it's certainly got a lot of biological content
already, too!
Content comes from a wide array of
publishers including Wiley, Blackwell, Elsevier, and more. Microsoft
has been working with
publishers who are members of CrossRef (as
well as others), so the list of publishers will be considerable!
Take a look at the
current
list of titles and publishers searchable
via Academic Live.
We expect UIUC's "Discover"
links to appear in Academic Live, soon (when you're on campus); this
will enable our users to easily discover articles for which we hold
viewing right for.
Academic Live
is still in beta, so be sure to send the folks
at Microsoft your suggestions for improving this tool! And, if
you've not yet tried out
Google Scholar,
please do so! It also searches through the
full text of thousands of journals and institutional repositories
for quality, scholarly information.
Another Hasty Death Knell for the Book The Deseret Morning News has yet another story
about library renovation—in this case at the University of Utah, Utah
State University, and Utah Valley State College. The renovations will
feature some typical additions: computer banks, coffee shops, and
robot-retrieval systems. A caption in the story celebrates the demise of
paper items: "Rows and rows of shelves of books are still there at the
U. library, but they are becoming a thing of the past." It seems a
little hasty to announce the death of the book, particularly since
students have shown that they like to handle and read lengthy texts in
books, not on screen. Yet these obituaries for books keep rolling in.
Chronicle Wired Campus Blog 4/12/06
"Another Hasty Death Knell for the Book," Scholarly Communications
blog (from the University of Illinois Library), April 13, 2006 ---
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/
If you're not already confused enough:
Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World? Despite concerns over global warming,
scientists have discovered something that may have actually limited the
impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in recent years by reducing
the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth. So-called
"global dimming," will be the focus of a NOVA special scheduled to air
on April 18 and featuring Lamont-Doherty researcher Beate Liepert. "Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World?"
PhysOrg, April 16, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news64244336.html
In his 2006 State of the Union
address—between thanking outgoing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor for her service and heralding his wife's Helping America's
Youth Initiative—President Bush slipped in a call for a ban on
"human-animal hybrids." It's probably a phrase that brings thoughts
of centaurs, fauns and harpies to some minds. But, despite the
President's stern disapproval of mixed-species clones, we may soon
find food products derived from them not just in our research labs,
but on our kitchen tables within the next year.
A Dutch biotechnology company called
Pharming has genetically engineered cows, outfitting females with a
human gene that causes them to express high levels of the protein
human lactoferrin in their milk. According to Pharming's website,
the protein—which is naturally present in human tears, lung
secretions, milk and other bodily fluids—fights against the bacteria
that causes eye and lung infections, plays a key role in the immune
system of infants and adults and improves intestinal microbial
balance, promoting the health of the gastro-intestinal tract.
"Since the protein has the ability to bind
iron, is a natural anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral, is an
antioxidant and also has immunomodulatory properties, large groups
of people might benefit from orally administered lactoferrin," the
company literature reads.
Scientists have tested the toxicity of the
protein—isolated from the cows' milk—on rats. They found that—even
at the high level of 2,000 mg recombinant human lactoferrin per kg
body weight—orally consumed human lactoferrin has no adverse effects
to complement all the supposed benefits already mentioned. Pharming
has, therefore, filed a notification with the FDA asking that their
lactoferrin be labeled "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS). If the
FDA approves this product, human lactoferrin derived from these
cloned cows could be in America's yogurt, popsicles, sports drinks
and snack bars within months.
"We believe that now we're at the right
stage...to initiate discussions with nutritional companies and other
food companies who might be interested in this kind of a product,"
said Samir Singh, Pharming's Chief Business Officer. "There has been
some interest from these companies already; we should be in a strong
position to commercialize the product later this year or next year."
To create human lactoferrin-lactating cows,
Pharming's scientists introduce human DNA coding for the protein's
production into the nuclei of fertilized bovine eggs. The cells that
successfully incorporate the foreign DNA or "transgene" are then
selected, and each is fused with a second egg cell that has had its
nucleus removed. The fused cells are then implanted in a surrogate
cow's uterus. If all goes well, the cow becomes pregnant with a
transgenic calf that, upon maturity two years later, will produce
milk containing human lactoferrin. Despite that one component of its
milk, the calf is all bovine—but technically remains an example of
the dastardly human-animal hybrid.
Sometimes the best hope for a
person with a serious illness is to become a subject
in a clinical drug trial. Such trials are often hard
to find, though, as they're rarely well publicized.
Additionally, doctors may not know about the best
trial for a patient, because at any one time
thousands of studies are being conducted around the
world. As a result, finding a useful trial has
usually required hours of intensive searching or
having a doctor who's conducting an appropriate
trial or knows other doctors who are -- or just
plain luck.
Now an initiative is making
information from more than 88,000 completed and
ongoing clinical trials searchable through a single
website. In late March, the International Federation
of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations
(IFPMA) and IBM announced the
IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal
that they hope will enable
doctors and patients to find potentially useful
trials and to make more informed medical decisions
based on past trials. To facilitate this, the portal
is designed to cut through medical jargon, correct
misspelled search terms, and search for results in
five different languages.
"Clinical trials
information is scattered all over the place," says
Marc Andrews, director of strategy and business
development for content discovery at IBM. "These
trials have been conducted by multiple companies,
and it's been difficult to find information needed
to participate in trials relevant to a
life-threatening diseases," he says. "There was no
one place you could go."
The new, free portal is
powered by IBM search software called OmniFind,
which pulls together disparate information to make
it searchable, Andrews says. OmniFind is based on
the
Unstructured Information Management Architecture,
a set of processing engines
that sift through different types of data (PDF,
text, and HTML files) from many different sources
(for instance, databases and websites), to pick out
the information buried within documents that best
match the search terms.
The director of one of the state's worst
elementary school special education programs purchased her Ph.D. for
about $250 from an Internet diploma mill specializing in
metaphysical theology. This is one of three apparently fake
credentials on Judith Blakely's resume, the Daily Southtown has
learned.
Blakely, who earns $75,000 a year as
director of student services at Calumet Park School District 132,
claims to be a 2000 graduate of the business ethics doctorate
program at the American College of Metaphysical Theology, according
to a copy of her resume obtained by the Southtown.
The suburban Minneapolis, Minn., outfit
advertises a Ph.D. for a fee of $249 on its Web site, up from the
$199 deal it offered when Blakely purchased hers.
The school has no campus, awards credit for
"life experiences," and boasts most students graduate in 60 days.
Getting a Ph.D., according to the school's
Web site, could mean increased salary, enhanced prestige and
heightened credibility for recipients.
"Psychologically, the title 'Doctor' and
the word 'healing' have a natural affinity in one's mind," it reads.
The Daily Southtown performed a background
check on Blakely — turning up this fake degree and other false
information — after reviewing state reports that outlined compliance
problems within the Calumet Park School District 132 special
education program, many of which predated her hire in 2003.
The Illinois State Board of Education is
threatening to "nonrecognize" the district and withhold as much as
$6.7 million this year and next if the issues are not corrected.
Blakely oversees $500,000 in grant money
and the 1,300-student district's special education, bilingual and
tutoring programs.
"What I Learned at Hacker Camp: It's easy to create malicious
code, penetrate firewalls, and steal personal and financial information.
"Ethical hacker" Andrew Whitaker can show you how," by Sarah Lacy,
Business Week, April 4, 2006 ---
Click Here
Advances in communicating directly from the brain without movement
or speaking For a person with advanced Lou Gehrig's
disease, communicating can be an enormous challenge. Patients with this
progressive neuromuscular disorder, also known as amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS), can think just fine, but they gradually lose their
ability to move, speak, and breathe. Now, a noninvasive device that
detects brain waves is helping these patients interact with the world.
Emily Singer, "EEG Cap Helps Paralyzed Patients," MIT's Technology
Review, April 3, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16656,304,p1.html
I assume you and your student got the
article I sent you on Saturday night as requested.
On a different point, last week I attended
a meeting at Legg Mason during which we met for a few minutes with
mutual fund manager Bill Miller. Bill is pretty famous for having
beaten the market averages for 15 years in a row - an almost unheard
of streak. When Bill talked about the training of investment
analysts in his group he mentioned that every two months he assigns
a book that helps "open their minds to new ideas" and may or may not
have anything to do with finance or investments. The current book is
"Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know," by
Phillip E. Tetlock. After the analysts read the book, they gather
for a couple of hours to discuss what they thought about it.
Bill said that as part of the material for
the book, Tetlock had a number of "opinion leaders" keep track of
their predictions for 20 years and then he went back to see how
accurate they were. Apparently it turned out that they were just
about as accurate as you and I could have been by tossing a coin.
I just looked at the reviews in Amazon.com
and the book received mainly very favorable comments.
Obviously, I haven't had a chance to read
the book yet but I probably will in the near future.
Denny
Executives' biased delays of bad news versus good news
From Jim Mahar's blog on April 13, 2006
Good news today, bad news later.
My guess is that this surprises NO ONE, ;),
but it is interesting to see it in writing.
Short version: managers don't like to tell
bad news.
SSRN-Do Managers Withhold Bad News? by S.P.
Kothari, Susan Shu, Peter Wysocki: Abstract: "In this study, we
examine whether managers delay disclosure of bad news relative to
good news. If managers accumulate and withhold bad news up to a
certain threshold, but leak and immediately reveal good news to
investors, then we expect the magnitude of the negative stock price
reaction to bad news disclosures to be greater than the magnitude of
the positive stock price reaction to good news disclosures. We
present evidence consistent with this prediction. Our analysis
suggests that management, on average, delays the release of bad news
to investors."
While several potential explanations are
given to the larger price drop (including agency cost stories), it
is possible that the more pronounced stock price declines might be
caused by non-symmetry in investor utility curves.
Kothari, S.P., Shu, Susan and Wysocki, Peter D., "Do Managers
Withhold Bad News?" (September 2005). MIT Sloan Research Paper No.
4556-05 Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=803865
Was the TWA Flight 800 really shot down with a missile? "This has resulted in an extraordinary match up
between his recollection and where the events took place according to
the Islip radar," Donaldson said. The pictures show the CIA's
explanation is "complete bunk," he said. Flight 800 already was at
13,700 feet, well above the rooflines of the building Wire was looking
at and high in the sky. A climb of 3,000 additional feet would be
imperceptible, Donaldson argued, only 20 percent higher than its
original position. It also would not look like a zigzagging streak with
a smoke trail that originated behind one of the beachfront houses.
"THE DOWNING OF TWA FLIGHT 800: Google map used to bolster missile
claim Researcher verifies testimony of key FBI witness,"
WorldNetDaily, April 5, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49593
Type 2 Diabetes: Things are no better Down Under NSW has recorded a 300 per cent increase in
the number of people with diabetes over the past 10 years, and experts
have warned both the health system and the economy will soon be crippled
by its impact. Already 1.4 million Australians have diabetes, and if
trends continue, 2 million will develop the disease - mostly caused by
diet and lifestyle factors - by 2010.
Ruth Pollard, "Time to act on diabetes scourge, say experts," Sydney
Morning Herald, April 11, 2006 ---
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/04/10/1144521269845.html
Secondhand smoke linked to diabetes The 15-year study of 4,572 people supported
earlier claims that smokers were more prone to developing glucose
intolerance -- a forewarning of diabetes, the BBC reported Thursday. The
study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggests smoke toxins
could affect the pancreas, which manufactures insulin, the hormone that
regulates glucose in the blood. "Secondhand smoke linked to diabetes," PhysOrg, April 7, 2006
---
http://physorg.com/news63610151.html
Assessing the Threat: To predict the effects of
bioweapons, we need more data Could terrorists, intent on
causing as much harm and societal disruption as
possible, use new biotechnology processes to engineer a
virulent pathogen that, when unleashed, would result in
massive numbers of dead? Mark Williams, in his article
"The
Knowledge," suggests we
should be contemplating this doomsday scenario in the
21st century. Williams's article might make you sleep
less soundly, but are the threats real? The truth is
that we do not really know.
"Assessing the Threat: To predict the effects of
bioweapons, we need more data," by Allison Macfarlane,
MIT's Technology Review, April 11, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16459,306,p1.html
Accountants Looking for Jobs Can Afford to be Choosy The confidence of Fieler and Tecson is not
misplaced. Both are likely to get what they're looking for. Accountants
are a hot commodity. Demand for professionals with solid skills,
education and experience, is way up since passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley
corporate reform legislation in 2002. Jerry Love, chairman elect of the
Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, said firms everywhere are
struggling to find accountants with three to five years of experience.
"The common theme is, 'I need more people, and I need more experienced
people,'" he told the Austin Business Journal. "Accountants Looking for Jobs Can Afford to be Choosy,"
AccountingWeb, March 30, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101966
A stridently anti-Catholic resolution passed unanimously by the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors has prompted a federal lawsuit. In
the March 21 measure, the city's board condemned Catholic moral teaching
on homosexuality and urged the archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic
Charities of San Francisco to defy church directives prohibiting
homosexual adoptions.
The resolution alludes to the Vatican as a
foreign country meddling in the affairs of the city and describes
the church's moral teaching and beliefs as "insulting to all San
Franciscans," "hateful," "insulting and callous," "defamatory,"
"absolutely unacceptable," "insensitive and ignorant."
The resolution calls on the local
archbishop to "defy" the church's teachings and describes Cardinal
William Joseph Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, which is responsible for safeguarding the doctrine on
the faith and morals of the church throughout the Catholic world, as
"unqualified" to lead.
Continued in article
California's "gender-neutralizing bill that could nix mention of
'mom,' 'dad'" A bill requiring students to learn about the
contributions homosexuals have made to society and that could remove
gender-specific terms including "mom" and "dad" from textbooks is making
progress in California. The state's Senate Judiciary Committee has
approved SB 1437, which would mandate grades 1-12 buy books
"accurately'' portraying "the sexual diversity of our society.'' It also
requires students hear history lessons on "the contributions of people
who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic,
political, and social development of California and the United States of
America.''
"'Gays' history in the making Progress for gender-neutralizing bill that
could nix mention of 'mom,' 'dad' (in textbooks and class),
WorldNetDaily, April 7, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49638
A bill requiring students to learn about
the contributions homosexuals have made to society and that could
remove gender-specific terms including "mom" and "dad" from
textbooks is making progress in California.
The state's Senate Judiciary Committee has
approved SB 1437, which would mandate grades 1-12 buy books
"accurately'' portraying "the sexual diversity of our society.'' It
also requires students hear history lessons on "the contributions of
people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the
economic, political, and social development of California and the
United States of America.''
It also precludes textbooks, teaching
materials, instruction, and "school-sponsored activities" from
reflecting adversely upon persons based on their sexual orientation,
or actual or perceived gender.
"School-sponsored activities include
everything from cheerleading and sports activities to the prom,"
said Karen England of Capitol Resource Institute, a
traditional-values organization. "Under SB 1437 school districts
would likely be prohibited from having a 'prom king and queen'
because that would show bias based on gender and sexual orientation.
"Under SB 1437 school districts would also
likely have to do away with dress codes and would have to
accommodate transsexuals on girl-specific or boy-specific sports
teams."
Continued in article
This was an April 7, 2006 Tidbit
Bill requires gays' history to be taught in California The state Senate will consider a bill that
would require California schools to teach students about the
contributions gay people have made to society -- an effort that
supporters say is an attempt to battle discrimination and opponents
say is designed to use the classroom to get children to embrace
homosexuality. The bill, which was passed by a Senate committee
Tuesday, would require schools to buy textbooks ``accurately''
portraying ``the sexual diversity of our society.'' More
controversially, it could require that students hear history lessons
on ``the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or
transgender to the economic, political, and social development of
California and the United States of America.''
Aaron C. Davis, "Bill requires gays' history to be taught,"
Mercury News, April 6, 2006 ---
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14276578.htm
Jensen Comment
If the curriculum is to be dictated by state law, I would like to
add some other modules such as personal finance and accounting
(including tax law basics) and fraud prevention. These modules
cover serious societal problems faced by virtually all young persons
passing into adulthood. For example, most high school graduates are
unaware of how credit card companies are exploiting their ignorance
when allowing them to pay the "minimum due." Most do not understand
the basics of finance, borrowing, and interest rate calculations.
"Financial literacy is still a very
significant problem. It doesn't seem to be getting any better,"
says Lewis Mandell, a professor at SUNY Buffalo School of
Management who oversaw the survey, which was conducted in
December and January. It includes topics such as investing and
managing personal finances.
He said the lack of knowledge was
troubling given that today's high school seniors likely will be
more responsible for their own financial well-being when they
retire given trends away from company pension plans and an
uncertain future for Social Security benefits.
Continued in article
He shot himself in the foot while demonstrating gun safety: Was
his name Barney?
A DEA agent who accidentally shot himself in
the foot while demonstrating gun safety to school children is suing the
agency, saying video of the incident has made him the joke of the
Internet," the Associated Press reports from Orlando, Fla.
"Agent Who Shot Himself in Foot Sues DEA," EarthLink.net, April
14, 2006 ---
Click Here
Courts Cannot Force State Legislatures to Appropriate Money
"Courts Flunk the Civics Test," by Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod,
The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2006 ---
Click Here
On March 23, a New York appellate court
ordered the state legislature to provide an additional $4.7 billion
for operating the New York City schools, plus another $9.2 billion
for construction. These are immense sums, even in the Empire State.
The advocacy group that brought the suit, Campaign for Fiscal
Equity, declared the court's decision would "get real action"
because the legislature must "come up with a solution now, right
now." This was good spin, but it's not true.
Contrary to a widespread misconception,
courts have no power to force a state legislature to appropriate
money; nevertheless the ersatz order, coming as it did in the final
days of the state's budget process, could tilt the legislators
towards more spending. This is apparently what is happening in
Albany, where, in a partial tip of their hats to the court,
legislators authorized $11.2 billion in new debt to pay for school
construction in New York City.
. . .
When courts claim that they have power to
make legislatures spend more to vindicate a constitutional right to
basic education, they tamper with a basic tenet of our democracy --
no taxation without representation. Voters are entitled to hold
political officials accountable for the taxes they levy, the money
they spend, and the education they produce. When judges pretend that
legislators are their marionettes, the legislators can escape
accountability, but only if the voters are fooled. They shouldn't
be.
Messrs. Sandler and Schoenbrod are professors at New York Law
School and authors of "Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts
Run Government" (Yale University Press, 2003).
Kosovo: A Mafia Nation KOSOVO, the former Yugoslav province, is
falling into the grip of Albanian organised crime gangs, casting a
shadow over attempts by the international community to turn it into a
fully fledged independent state by the end of this year. Participants in
talks in Vienna, sponsored by the United Nations, on the “final status”
of Kosovo, are concerned that the mafia networks that smuggled guns into
the disputed province from Albania in 1997 and 1998 are using the same
channels for a burgeoning trade in illicit petrol, cigarettes and
cement. Prostitution and drugs are also popular staples of the black
economy. The profits are ploughed into shopping centres and hotels,
which are going up as part of a building boom in the province. Petrol
stations are especially popular — there are more than 2,000 of them
catering for a population of 2m in a territory the size of Devon. Many
are believed to be part of a money laundering racket, controlled by a
few of the largest clan families, involving oil smuggled in from
Montenegro.
Tom Walker, "Rampage of the mafia may delay Kosovo independence,"
London Times, April 9, 2006 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2125155,00.html
Even if Hamas wants to suspend suicide bombings, as recently
claimed, it is probably powerless to do so A Palestinian homicide bomber blew himself
up outside a sandwich shop in a busy commercial area near the central
bus station in Tel Aviv on Monday, killing eight other people and
wounding at least 49. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the
attack in a phone call to FOX News. Israeli media identified the bomber
as Sami Salim Hamada from Jenin.
"Homicide Bomber Kills 8 in Tel Aviv," Fox News, April 17, 2006
---
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191967,00.html
But it appears Hamas is not standing by its announced plan to
suspend suicide bombings Today's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed
at least nine Israelis and wounded more than 60 others is Israel's fault
and a "legitimate act of resistance," declared the Hamas terror group,
which now heads the Palestinian government.
Aaron Klein, "Hamas: Tel Aviv bombing 'Israel's fault' Leaders of new
Palestinian government call suicide attacks 'legitimate',"
WorldNetDaily, April 17, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49777
The Worst Enemy in the History of the World Because It Targets
Innocent Civilians and Hides Behind Children AT LEAST 400 Al-Qaeda terrorist suspects —
double the previous estimates — are at large in Britain, according to
police and MI5. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, director-general of MI5,
has said the figure could be as high as 600 if all those thought to have
returned from combat training in camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
elsewhere are included. The new assessment — effectively a “terror
audit” of Britain — was confirmed this weekend by one of Britain’s most
senior police officers, who warned that shortages of trained
surveillance teams were undermining attempts to monitor all the
suspects.
David Leppard, "400 terror suspects on loose in UK," London Times,
April 9, 2006 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2125413,00.html
But Wait: Deliberately Targeting Innocent People is Not Terror
According to Professor The London bombings were not acts of terrorism
but "a demonstration", according to a senior academic. Prof Ron Geaves
has sparked controversy by claiming that the attacks on Tube trains and
a bus that killed 52 innocent people in July were part of a long history
of protests by British Muslims.
Andrew Alderson and Chris Hastings, "July 7 bombs were a 'demo' not
terrorism, claims professor," Telegraph, April 9, 2006 ---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/09/nterr09.xml
He also said that to refer to the attacks
as terrorism risked "demonising" those involved.
His comments were made as he prepared to
give a lecture at the University of Chester to dignitaries and
members of the Muslim community in the North West.
As part of his research, Prof Geaves has
looked at the history of demonstrations by British Muslims. His work
charts the changing nature of Muslim communities from the
demonstrations against the author Salman Rushdie to the anti-war
protests after the invasion of Iraq.
"I have included, rather controversially,
the events in London as primarily an extreme form of demonstration
and assess what these events actually mean in terms of their
significance in the Muslim community," Prof Geaves said last week.
"Terrorism is a political word which always
seems to be used to demonise people."
Prof Geaves, whose lecture was entitled
Twenty years of fieldwork: reflections on 'reflexivity' in the study
of British Muslims, said: "The title refers to the personal
transformation that has taken place over the last two decades in
which I have moved from a position of academic neutrality to one of
active engagement with the Muslim community."
Prof Geaves, who has written at least four
books on religion and has been at the university's department of
theology and religious studies for five years, claims to be
pioneering what he calls Britain's first Muslim youth work degree
programme.
Chester became a university only last year
after previously having college status.
Last night Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP
for Hendon, described Prof Geaves's claims as "absolutely barking".
He said: "What happened on July 7, 2005, fits with every
international definition of terrorism. If any of the men behind the
attacks had survived the incident they would have quite rightly been
tried under the anti-terror laws. I don't think it's helpful that we
have a mealy-mouthed academic trying to justify deaths of innocent
people. It is ludicrous."
Four suicide bombers killed themselves and
52 others on July 7, while more than 700 people were injured in the
attacks. Two weeks later, on July 21, devices on four Underground
trains in the capital failed to explode.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general
of the Muslim Council of Britain, also insisted that the attacks
were acts of "criminality" and "terrorism".
He said Prof Geaves's comments were
unhelpful because they could actually be seized upon by people
seeking reasons to target Muslims.
"For me, the definition of terrorism is
when an innocent human life is lost. These bombings were an act of
criminality and terrorism because that loss occurred.
"No motive can justify an act of terrorism.
I think this kind of speculation is unhelpful because it is taken
seriously by some sections of the community who want to demonise
Muslims."
Loyita Worley, 50, a legal librarian who
was injured in the Aldgate Station blast on July 7, said: "I would
totally disagree with his point of views. There are other ways of
protesting. The circumstances in which these people died were
particularly nasty."
In February, an ICM poll for the Sunday
Telegraph revealed that 40 per cent of British Muslims wanted Sharia
law in parts of the country.
It also indicated that 20 per cent had
sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers,
although 99 per cent thought it wrong to carry out the atrocity.
Last night Prof Geaves, 56, said: "What I
was trying to say was that the word terrorism, like the word evil,
does not take us very far.
"During the lecture I spoke about the
changing nature of Muslim protest. I concentrated on the Salman
Rushdie controversy and the demonstrations against the two Gulf
wars."
He added that it was possible to draw
parallels between the July 7 attacks and atrocities in Northern
Ireland, which claimed the lives of 3,500 people.
"If you look at the Troubles there were
various different types of protest going on at the same time.
"The terrorism which occurred during the
Troubles could also be seen as an extreme form of protest or
demonstration."
Question
According to Time Magazine, who are the ten best versus the five
worst in the current U.S. Senate? Hint: Time tends to like top Democrats
The Best Senators:
Thad Cochran, Kent Conrad, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Jon Kyl, Carl
Levin, Richard Lugar, John McCain, Olympia J. Snowe, and Arlen Specter
The Worst Senators
Daniel Akaka, Wayne Allard, Jim Bunning, Conrad Burns, and Mark Dayton
Afghan Admissions: Harvard Beats Yale
"Meet Masood Farivar: The Afghan Yale refused to admit," by John Fund,
The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008250
Yale now doesn't even attempt to claim that
Mr. Hashemi has changed. In conversations with donors, president
Richard Levin has fallen back on two arguments: that Mr. Hashemi
currently is a nondegree student, and that the State Department
issued him a visa. But Mr. Hashemi's application to become a
sophomore in Yale's full degree program, the same type of program
that Mr. Farivar graduated from at Harvard, is pending before Mr.
Levin. That makes his continued presence at Yale especially relevant
as Yale's Board of Governors, the body that supposedly runs the
university, prepares to meet this week. Many in the Yale community
are appalled at the damage university officials have caused by their
failure to address the Hashemi issue after seven weeks of
controversy. "That silence has provoked bewilderment and anger among
many," David Cameron, a Yale political science professor wrote The
Wall Street Journal last week. "Yale appears to have no convincing
response to those who ask why, given the nature of the Taliban
regime, his role in it, its complicity in the 9/11 attacks, and his
apparent failure or refusal to disavow the regime, Mr. Hashemi has
been allowed to study at the university."
Even some who defend the right of Yale to
make its own admissions decisions now say it went too far with its
Taliban Man. Mark Oppenheimer, a Yale grad who edits the New Haven
Advocate, an alternative weekly, says he has "finally come to the
conclusion" that "Yale should not have enrolled someone who helped
lead a regime that destroyed religious icons, executed adulterers
and didn't let women learn to read. Surely, the spot could have
better gone to, say, Afghani women, who have such difficulty getting
schooling in their own country."
Mr. Oppenheimer attributes his prior
reluctance to realize Yale had erred to "basic human stubbornness"
and says he finds it "awfully upsetting to agree with jokers like
Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly," both of whom have discussed the
Yale story on Fox News Channel. "The harder they flogged this issue,
the more I became convinced that they had to be wrong. I just feel
better across the fence from them. . . . I think it's utterly fair
to blame the right wing for making me so desperate to dissemble."
James Kirchick, a Yale senior, wrote last
month in the Yale Daily News that he was disturbed by the refusal of
liberals to be outraged over the religious fascism the Taliban
represent. Echoing Mr. Oppenheimer, he noted that "a friend of mine
recently remarked that part of his and his peers' nonchalance (and
in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the
right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so
polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the
inverse of their opponents'. This abandonment of classical liberal
values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences
that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse."
Yale's Board of Governors isn't likely to
address those broader issues at its meeting this week. But it will
no doubt take some action in response to the Taliban Man scandal.
Charley Ellis, one of the university's governors, has written to
some alumni noting that "a careful review" of the school's "special
student" admissions "is likely to lead to significant change: fewer
folks allowed and stricter requirements and really close
supervision." Mr. Ellis concludes that "if a mistake was
made--either by the U.S. government or by Yale--it will not be
repeated--not even close."
His response is revealing. Top people at
Yale still won't admit the Taliban Man's admission was a mistake and
continue to shift responsibility for his presence to the State
Department. Several U.S. senators are indeed demanding answers from
State and are preparing hearings on its procedures for granting
student visas.
But Yale also owes itself a more searching
examination of its own admission policies. Donald Kagan, a history
professor and former dean of Yale College, told me there is growing
anecdotal evidence that the supersecret world of university
admissions often operates in such a capricious or unpredictable way
that "people are justified in questioning the fairness of the
process." He suggests that both public and private universities
voluntarily disclose more of their admissions procedures to satisfy
concerns that abuses are common. "If we have policies that we are
proud of, then we should let people know how they operate," he told
me.
More openness would be especially
appropriate now. This spring, the nation's top schools received
record numbers of applications and accepted a smaller percentage of
them than ever before. Since many students have perfect SAT scores
and grades, some parents are spending thousands to hire private
admissions advisers. Anne Marie Chaker reported in last Thursday's
Wall Street Journal that more and more admissions offices are
looking for "a passion or commitment communicated in a clear voice"
that goes beyond intellect or athletic ability. She quoted
Swarthmore admissions dean Jim Bock noting that one successful
applicant took a year off to work with AIDS-infected drug addicts.
As an admissions dean, he says, "you don't forget it."
Given the ultracompetitive desire of
applicants to stand out, admissions officers now have more
discretion than ever. "This is the zone of discretion within which
the admissions officials do their work," says one former top Ivy
League official. "Much mischief is done within this zone--especially
by the application of the academic elite's rather selective notions
of authenticity and 'commitment.' For example, rest assured that
religious commitment, or a fascination with one or another kind of
entrepreneurial business, would be unlikely to attract the attention
of admissions officials."
The real story of Taliban Man at Yale is
the mindset it exposes among Ivy League admissions offices. After
the New York Times broke the story of Mr. Hashemi's admission, Haym
Benaroya, a professor at Rutgers, wrote to Mr. Shaw expressing
disbelief that Mr. Hashemi, who has a fourth-grade education and a
high school equivalency certificate, could be at Yale. Mr. Shaw
replied that his Taliban applicant had "personal accomplishments
that had significant impact" and insisted those accomplishments had
been "positive." "There you have the moral blind spot," Mr. Benaroya
told me. "On the margin, admissions officials go for the 'exotic'
over the well-grounded, and we aren't well served by that. They love
to brag among themselves about the 'special' students one or the
other has landed. The Taliban student shows some are special in ways
we wouldn't want."
Indeed, I was told a chilling story of
another Ivy League University that had two applicants from the same
inner-city high school. Both were Hispanic. One applicant was a very
good student who had participated in school and community affairs.
The other was a mediocre student who had frequently clashed with
authorities and even had a scrape with the law. A leading graduate
of the school was trying to help the former student get admitted.
The deciding factor might have come during his senior year when his
parents managed to save enough money to move a few miles away to a
suburb. "When I heard of their move I told the mother her son was
doomed, because I knew how the admissions office thought," the
graduate told me. "Sure enough the more marginal kid got in, because
he was viewed as a more 'authentic' representative of the Hispanic
community."
Benno Schmidt, Mr. Levin's predecessor as
Yale president, supports diversity programs, but says that cases
such as that of the Taliban Man demonstrate that "diversity simply
cannot be allowed to trump all moral considerations." It also should
not be allowed to trump common sense, as it apparently did in the
case of the two Hispanic applicants. It's no wonder that Peter
Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, thinks
admission preferences should be made more public. "Let's let the sun
shine in," he says. There appear to be a whole lot of dark corners
in university admission offices that deserve illumination.
Punishment may not be all that bad when it comes to making
profits, says a German study.
Using an investment game they created,
economists at the University of Erfurt found that groups that
permitted punishment were more profitable than those that did not,
reports The New York Times.
The participants in the game first chose a
group that did not penalize its members but later joined a community
that punished members, but gave them a chance to profit personally.
The findings were published Friday in the journal Science.
The study suggested groups with few rules
attracted exploitative people who undermined cooperation, whereas
the punitive groups attracted those who were willing to challenge
the exploiters, the report said.
"The bottom line of the paper is that when
you have people with shared standards, and some who have the moral
courage to sanction others, informally, then this kind of society
manages very successfully," said the study's senior author, Bettina
Rockenbach, The Times
A hidden cost of the Medicare Plan D drug plan that you probably
never thought of ---
wasted and uncompensated nursing time in a doctor's office
The Medicare drug benefit is bogging down
my office. The issue isn't getting approval. I know I'm going to win
most attempts at getting a drug that is on the formulary at a lower
cost. (More difficult is getting coverage for a drug that's not on
the formulary at all.) If I can get through to an actual person, I
know what phrases to say to succeed in the bureaucracy of the
formulary systems.
The problem is the sheer volume of these
requests. We're substituting medicines or seeking prior approval for
a medicine an average of four times per day for each of the four
providers in our group -- three doctors and one family nurse
practitioner. It's eating up 100 hours of nursing time per month
that we don't receive compensation for.
My nurse needs to find out which of many
Medicare Part D plans the patient is on, access the Web site or the
800 number, find out which form we need to obtain approval or make
an appeal or identify the most logical substitute for what the
patient had been using.
In the 10-15 minutes of nurse and physician
time it can take to rework a patient's medications, other,
more-important things may be delayed or set aside, from drawing lab
work to changing a dressing to checking up on a sick patient we saw
the day before.
My nurse conferences with me between
patients about what drug to pick to avoid further hassles or which
cases to appeal. Next she fills out a preauthorization or appeal
form, has me sign it, and we fax it off. Then we wait for an answer.
Continued in article
Boycotts of Particular Companies Are Wrong and Ineffective in Most
Instances
Hi XXXXX.
I received three of these messages today to stop or reduce buying
fuel from Exxon-Mobile in an effort to reduce fuel prices. I don’t buy
into this for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the smaller oil companies buy much of their fuel wholesale
from Exxon-Mobil such that buying more from them still is revenue to
Exxon-Mobil.
Secondly, even if all other companies had fuel sources outside
Exxon-Mobil, the added demand relative to supply on a short term basis
would drive prices through the ceiling or result in long lines and empty
tanks due to shortages. This is because Exxon-Mobil is such a huge
provider of fuel in most parts of the U.S.
The best way to drive down gas prices is to temporarily change life
styles. Cease all leisure travel by land, sea, and air. Stay home for an
entire year. And don’t buy a new car or truck of any kind until gas
prices come down. The combined hit on the economies of the world will be
so great that oil companies will be forced to lower prices, and it will
be easier for them to do so since OPEC will be forced to lower crude
prices. And think of the pressure governments will bring to bear when
fuel tax revenues crash.
Actually, high fuel prices contribute greatly to the above solution.
People are forced to cut back on discretionary travel and vehicle
purchases due to fuel prices and the accompanying higher prices for most
commodities and home heating/cooling energy. Reduced discretionary
spending clobbers the oil industry and other sectors in the economy. In
many ways, high prices solve the problem.
Also remember that boycotts hurt a lot of innocent people like the
independent owners of fuel stations that aren’t making a whole lot on
gasoline sales as it is (at the retail level). The mark-up is extremely
low. And there are many low-paid hourly workers who might lose their
jobs even though they are entirely innocent. Executives of Exxon-Mobil
will always be zillionaires no matter what boycott you impose.
It sounds like you received the most recent
flare-up of a chain letter that has been floating around on the
Internet for the past five years. More details are posted at:
In my opinion, the best way to reduce fuel
prices is to significantly cut back on the amount of gasoline that
we consume. This doesn't mean ceasing leisure travel altogether, but
it means carpooling, walking, biking and using public
transportation.
Buying a new car might be a good thing if
it gets decent gas mileage. Hummers get 10 miles per gallon, and
F150s get 14 mpg. The Toyota Corolla gets 35 mpg and the Honda Civic
Hybrid gets a whopping 50 mpg.
Aaron
Contrary to Popular Opinion: San Diego Fence Provides
(Successful) Lessons in Border Control
As Congress looks to revamp immigration
policy, some lawmakers are pushing to extend fencing along the U.S.
border with Mexico. Proposals range from beefing up existing fences
in Arizona to constructing new fences that would span 700 miles.
Those advocating expanded fencing already have a model they can look
to: a fence the federal government built more than a decade ago
along a 14-mile-stretch in San Diego, Calif., that borders Tijuana,
Mexico.
Before the fence was built, all that
separated that stretch of Mexico from California was a single strand
of cable that demarcated the international border.
Back then, Border Patrol agent Jim Henry
says he was overwhelmed by the stream of immigrants who crossed into
the United States illegally just in that sector.
"It was an area that was out of control,"
Henry says. "There were over 100,000 aliens crossing through this
area a year."
Today, Henry is assistant chief of the
Border Patrol's San Diego sector. He says apprehensions here are
down 95 percent, from 100,000 a year to 5,000 a year, largely
because the single strand of cable marking the border was replaced
by double -- and in some places, triple -- fencing.
The first fence, 10 feet high, is made of
welded metal panels. The second fence, 15 feet high, consists of
steel mesh, and the top is angled inward to make it harder to climb
over. Finally, in high-traffic areas, there's also a smaller
chain-link fence. In between the two main fences is 150 feet of "no
man's land," an area that the Border Patrol sweeps with flood lights
and trucks, and soon, surveillance cameras.
"Here in San Diego, we have proven that the
border infrastructure system does indeed work," Henry says. "It is
highly effective."
An edition of Playboy magazine has gone on
sale in Indonesia despite threats of protests by Islamic hardliners who
call the publication a form of moral terrorism in the world's most
populous Muslim nation.
"Indonesian Playboy goes on sale," Al Jazeera, April 7, 2006 ---
Click Here
New Zealand's Pension Problem Helen Clark's Labour government thinks it has a
solution to the aging population, low savings conundrum that's been
troubling most of the developed world: Automatically enroll everyone in
savings plans, whether they like it or not. While the program is
imaginative, it's misguided. Like other illiberal pension schemes, it
doesn't impart the right economic incentives to savers.
"New Zealand's Pension Problem," by Shamubeel Eaqub, The Wall Street
Journal, April 5, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114418524382616904.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Much of what you read in your daily
newspaper,or see on TV,comes from the Associated Press.
Once upon a time, the “AP” symbol at the
beginning of a news story meant the story you were about to read was
reasonably accurate,and reasonably free of political bias. Today,
quite the opposite seems true !
Let’s look at a story that appeared in
newspapers all over America this morning. “Fair Use” rules permit
the quoting of one or two sentences, so that’s exactly what I’m
going to do.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - President Bush and Vice –
President Dick Cheney authorized Cheney’s to aide to launch a
counterattack of leaks against administration critics on Iraq by
feeding intelligence information to reporters,according to court
papers citing the aide’s testimony in the CIA leak case.
The article adds : “…the
prosecutor,detailing the evidence he has gathered, raised the
possibility that the vice-president was trying to use Plame’s CIA
employment to discredit her husband,administration critic Joseph
Wilson. “
WHOA !
The Prosecutor raised no such possibility !
Unlike the AP reporter,he has been extremely careful to avoid making
such irresponsible statements ; careful to avoid this sort of
partisan speculation.
The AP did not see fit to disclose the fact
that much of the information given to the NY Times reporter was
already in the public domain , or that the full text of the National
Intelligence Estimate (minus a few redactions) was made public a few
days later.
The AP reporter,in a word, was speculating
– but refrained from making that clear : thus insuring that millions
of Americans would read an editorial – masquerading as news.
This is hardly an isolated occurrence. The
AP website showed the following headline and lede this morning:
Immigration Deal Held Up Over Amendments By
SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A Senate breakthrough on an
immigration bill praised by leaders in both parties appeared
endangered by partisan bickering over amendments from opponents.
Please note the use of the term “partisan
bickering”- which apparently means “Republican resistance” to the AP
writer. When the story appeared earlier this morning, it was
accompanied by a photo of Senate Majority Leader Frist –gesturing
with an upraised arm – next to the words “partisan bickering”.
A few days ago, the AP ran a big story
about a Department of Homeland Security employee who had been
arrested as the result of an Internet sting, after soliciting sex
from someone he thought was a 14 year old girl.
AP “suggested ” the suspect was a political
appointee,and that his arrest was yet one more embarrassment for a
“troubled administration”.
Assorted left wing posters were having a
field day with the story, until it was learned the man was not a
political appointee, that he was a recent civil service hire, that
he had previously worked as a staffer for Time,that he was a loyal
Democrat ,and a Kerry / Move On supporter.
The AP did not bother to report any of
that. They had already pulled what looked very much like a “ smear
and run” attack.
Maybe it’s just me, but when I see similar
incidents on an almost daily basis – (example: If a Bush
administration member introduces a program, it is usually headlined
as So-and-So defends new program-even when the accompanying story
shows no one actually attacking the proposal ) – it’s clear to me
the Associated Press has definitely moved away from the notion of
impartial news-gathering.
I can’t help but wonder if AP stands for
“Alarmingly Partisan.”
This correction was obscurely placed in the April 7, 2006 edition
of The New York Times:
An article on Feb. 9 about the military's
recruitment of Hispanics referred incompletely to the belief of some
critics that Hispanics in the Iraq war and blacks in the Vietnam War
accounted for a disproportionate number of casualties. Statistics do
not support the belief. Hispanics, who are about 14 percent of the
population, accounted for about 11 percent of the military deaths in
Iraq through Dec. 3, 2005. About 12.5 percent of the military dead
in Vietnam were African-Americans, who made up about 13. 5 percent
of the general population during the war years. The error was
pointed out in an e-mail in February; the correction was delayed for
research after a lapse at The Times.
This chiropractor reaches back in time to cure your pain
A chiropractor who claims he can treat anyone by reaching back in time
to when an injury occurred has attracted the attention of state
regulators. The Ohio State Chiropractic Board, in a notice of hearing,
has accused James Burda of Athens of being "unable to practice
chiropractic according to acceptable and prevailing standards of care
due to mental illness, specifically, Delusional Disorder, Grandiose
Type." Burda denied that he is mentally ill. He said he possesses a
skill he discovered by accident while driving six years ago. me to cure
your pain. Opinion Journal, April 7, 2006
The
Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan has given rise to a spate of
articles in the Western press, assuring Westerners that Muslims do
not actually kill or want to kill apostates. While these may be
reassuring to non-Muslims, many of them have been downright
misleading about the real status of the death penalty for apostasy
in the Islamic world. One of the most egregious of these came this
week from M. Cherif Bassiouni, a professor of Law at
DePaul University and President of the International Human Rights
Law Institute. He has served at the UN in various capacities,
including as Chairman of the Security Council’s Commission to
Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia; Vice-Chairman of
the General Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of an
International Criminal Court; and as Independent Expert on the
Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan.
Yet all these credentials don’t amount to
accuracy. In "Leaving Islam is not a capital crime" in the
Chicago Tribune, Bassiouni purveys a
series of half-truths and distortions about apostasy in Islam that
are -- at best -- misleading. He begins by asserting: “A Muslim's
conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under
Islamic law, contrary to the claims in the case of Abdul Rahman in
Afghanistan.”
This is a sweeping characterization that goes much farther than most
statements that have been made by Islamic moderates in the last week
or so. While others have asserted that apostasy should not be
a capital crime in Islamic law, they have at least acknowledged that
many Islamic authorities believe that it should. Bassiouni, on the
other hand, states flatly -- in defiance of the clear teaching of
every school of Islamic jurisprudence -- that apostasy is not
a capital crime under Islamic law.
It is hard even to take seriously an analysis that begins with such
an obvious falsehood. It gets even worse when Bassiouni continues:
“While there is long-established doctrine that apostasy is
punishable by death, that has also long been questioned by Islamic
criminal justice scholars, including this writer.” Now we are
already entangled in a contradiction. I'm glad that Islamic criminal
justice scholars are questioning this doctrine. But that does not
mean that the doctrine doesn't exist, as Bassiouni asserted in his
first sentence.
The professors make the most basic of all
logical fallacies – they confuse correlation with causation. Listen
to the following passage: By February 2003, a Washington Post
headline summarized the situation: “Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical
on Mideast Policy.” The main reason for this switch is the Lobby.147
The upshot of their naked conclusory assertion is that Ariel Sharon
duped President Bush into overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Mearsheimer
and Walt never consider the more likely explanation: that Bush and
Sharon shared the same worldview and vision for the Middle East.
This is not academic writing. There is no weighing of evidence.
Mearsheimer and Walt simply chose the most insidious explanation –
which also happened to be the least plausible explanation – and
dismissed all other possibilities without even an acknowledgement
that other interpretations are possible. No wonder Mearsheimer’s
colleague critiqued the research as poor “monocausal social
science.”
. . .
Conclusion
It is not only the words –
false and unbalanced as they are – that invoke old stereotypes and
canards. It is the "music" as well – the tone, pitch, and feel of
the article – that has caused such outrage from academics and
concerned citizens from all across the political and religious
spectrum (with the exception of the hard right and hard left). What
would motivate two recognized academics to issue a compilation of
previously made assertions that they must know will be used by overt
anti-Semites to argue that Jews have too much influence, that will
give an academic imprimatur to crass bigotry, and that will place
all Jews in government and the media under suspicion of disloyalty
to America? Imagine if two professors compiled as many negative
statements, based on shoddy research and questionable sources, about
African-Americans causing all the problems in America, and presented
that compilation as evidence that African-Americans behave in a
manner contrary to the best interest of the United States. No matter
how many footnotes there were, who would fail to recognize such a
project as destructive?
I wonder what the authors
believed they would accomplish by recycling such misinformation
about Jewish "blood kinship," by raising discredited and false
connections between Jonathan Pollard and the Soviet Union,154
by saying that the “Zionist” army was larger and better
equipped than the Arab armies that tried to destroy it in 1948, and
by repeating so many other easily refutable distortions? Why pay so
much attention to Jewish congressional staffers? Is it so that
Congresspeople will stop hiring Jews or demand loyalty tests of
them? I simply do not understand, what is the motive?
And so I repeat my challenges
to Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. I challenge them to tell us
which arguments are new and have not previously been made on hate
sites and in anti-Israel screeds.155 What new evidence has been
gathered? Why are there so many factual errors, all cutting against
Israel? Why didn’t they present important counterfacts or address
any counterarguments?
Walt and Mearsheimer
repeatedly claim that they have written their paper, at least in
part, in order to stimulate dialogue concerning the influence of the
Lobby. They claim that it is the pro-Israel side that seeks to
suppress public discussion: “[The Lobby] does not want an open
debate on issues involving Israel, because an open debate might
cause Americans to question the level of support they currently
provide.”156 Yet the pro-Israel side has risen to the Walt-Mearsheimer
challenge and has participated in the marketplace of ideas, only to
be greeted by silence from the authors, who have generally refused
to defend their views. I have personally offered Walt and
Mearsheimer an opportunity to debate the issues raised in their
paper, but to date they have not done so.157 My invitation to debate
remains open. I challenge Mearsheimer and Walt to look me in the eye
and tell me that because I am a proud Jew and a critical supporter
of Israel, I am disloyal to my country.
Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard.
His latest book is Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways
(Norton, 2006).
Though you're well informed, it's
impossible, of course, to know everything. I see you've stumbled
upon a quaint movement that mostly trades on ignorance--spelling
reform. Apparently, the popularity of such stuff indicates it's not
to easy to learn why spelling is apparently so arcane. Actually, it
is fun and enlightening to learn why. Listen to this guy:
In his history of the English language CD,
Professor Lerer explains how phenomena such as vowel shifting, word
encounters at different periods, conflict between North and South
England, and the impact of Normans, Germans, and Vikings, give us
our crazy-quilt spelling. He also teaches a bit on pronouncing words
as originally spoken, so that their spelling makes sense.
Thus, e.g., there is no poem about "knight"
if you understand that once, the word was pronounced "ken-ich-te."
The above CD has dozens of entertaining hours of instruction about
where English comes from. Perhaps in your retirement you'd have time
to listen and learn.
I am a french teacher in electrical
engineering, and I worked in computer science for a long time. I
developed a new subject called Dynamic synchronous spreadsheet
programming : shortly, I first build a two phase clock (just like on
a processor board), then simple objects called generators actuated
by the clock (a shift register, a timer, a generator of integers),
and then more complex objects (a generator of prime numbers, a
digital filter IIR or FIR, the carwash station or queuing network, a
systolic algorithm) by interconnecting simple objects. I wrote a
tutorial (english language) at the URL :
http://members.aol.com/apicw/mw2/sprdsh.htm
In case you are not interested, please
forward this message to someone interested in spreadsheet
programming and/or parallel or distributed programs.
Internet governance has become an increasingly contentious
issue, not only in regards to who should manage it, but also the
limitations that some countries have placed on access.
For example, the Chinese government actively restricts access
to forbidden sites and content -- a barrier that has been dubbed
"The Great Firewall of China."
In contrast, the U.S. State Department has created a new
"Global Internet Freedom Task Force" designed to help technology
companies handle problems with censorship in countries that
restrict Internet use.
Hans Klein, an associate professor of public policy at the
Georgia Institute of Technology, has studied and written
extensively on Internet governance and is an active member in
various organizations that aim to foster the growth of the
Internet and determine who should legally govern activity on the
Web.
Here, Mr. Klein comments on a selection of what he considers
among the best books and online resources about Internet
governance.
Online Resources
ICANN,
icann.org
"This is the site of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN). I sometimes call ICANN 'the WTO of the
Internet' because it coordinates world Internet resources the
way the World Trade Organization coordinates trade. The site is
packed with information, but it can be dry."
•The Internet Governance
Forum,
www.intgovforum.org
"The Internet Governance Forum will host international
discussions of public policies for the Internet. This is its
official site, and it will undoubtedly grow in importance as we
approach the first IGF meeting in October 2006."
•ICANNwatch.org,
icannwatch.org
"A lively site for news and sometimes biting commentary on ICANN.
It also contains lots of archival documents and articles."
•Internet Governance Project,
www.intgovforum.org
"A joint project of researchers from Syracuse University,
Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Wissenschaftzentrum
Berlin [Social Science Research Center Berlin], this site offers
expert policy analysis on current issues. Full disclosure: I am
one of the partners of this project."
•UN Working Group on
Internet Governance,
wgig.org
"This official site is for a U.N. working group that did
important work last summer, but it remains a treasure trove of
materials."
•World Summit on the
Information Society,
www.itu.int/wsis
"The World Summit on the Information Society was the site of
last fall's showdown between the U.S. and the rest of the world
over ICANN, wherein the U.S. won the right to approve new
domain-name extensions and agreed to create an international
forum on various Internet issues. The site hosts the 'Tunis
Commitment' document that preserved ICANN's operation under U.S.
authority."
•Heinrich Boell Foundation
WSIS Site,
www.worldsummit2005.de/en/nav/14.htm
"This was the main European site for tracking issues of Internet
governance. It offers abundant material, in both English and
German."
•The Register,
theregister.co.uk
"This online trade journal, whose slogan is 'Biting the hand
that feeds IT,' regularly offers thoughtful analysis of
governance issues."
Books
•"Ruling the Root: Internet
Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace,"By Milton L.
Mueller
"This is a detailed history of the Internet governance debate by
a professor of information studies at Syracuse University one of
the leading intellectual-activists in the field."
•"Borders in Cyberspace:
Information Policy and the Global Information Infrastructure,"Edited by Brian Kahin and Charles Nesson
"Although it is a bit dated, the essays in this volume offer a
good legal overview of the issues of internationalization and
cyberspace. Especially interesting is the lead article by David
Johnson and David Post, 'The Rise of Law on the Global
Network.'"
•"Global Public Policy:
Governing Without Government,"By Wolfgang H. Reinicke
"Reinicke's book is not about the Internet per se, but it
explains a great deal about global governance in general. It
offers a powerful perspective for thinking about Internet
governance."
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently audited a sample of
tax returns filed by real Americans who had hired a tax preparer. More
than half of those tax forms contained what the GAO described as "a
significant level of errors." The GAO then traveled to tax-preparation
chain stores in random towns across the country and posed as ordinary
taxpayers, such as plumbers, single working mothers, and the like. Only
two of the 19 accountants could fill out even routine tax returns
mistake-free . . . Mr. Baucus says that the tax code is in such
miserable shape it's "like a canary in a coal mine. . . . The canary is
dying." He's right, but the solution isn't to give the canary -- i.e.,
the taxpayer -- CPR. Better to write a new tax code that isn't such a
clear hazard to Americans' mental and financial health. Wall Street Journal,
April 13, 2006 ---
Click Here
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both
science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep
nonsense. Carl Sagan as
quoted by Mark Shapiro at
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-04-13-06.htm
Words are important if they are few. Lalla Romano (1906-2001) ---
Click Here
The decline of Western civilization proceeds
apace. One shudders to imagine life in decades hence. A case in point:
People now use cell phones in research libraries. Related stories Legal
Jams, March 22 Stem Cells Meet Google, March 8 Doing the Lord’s Work,
March 1 Google’s Not-So-Simple Side, Feb. 27 The Shift Away From Print,
Dec. 8 E-mail Print Wandering the stacks, they babble away in a blithe
and full-throated matter -– conversing, not with their imaginary friends
(as did the occasional library-haunting weirdo of yesteryear) but rather
with someone who is evidently named “Dude,” and who might, for all one
knows, be roaming elsewhere in the building: an audible menace to all
serious thought and scholarly endeavor . . .
Being forced to listen to one side of a manifestly
inane conversation is now a routine part of public life. It is tolerable
on the street — but not, somehow, in a library; and in one mostly full
of academic tomes maybe least of all. What’s worse, the rot is
spreading. Scott McLemee, "The Silencer," Inside Higher Ed,
April 12, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/04/12/mclemee
Let's also say that liberty is something
rather vague, but there's no vagueness about its absence. Rodrigo Rey Rosa
Click Here
We are liars, because the truth of yesterday
becomes a lie tomorrow, whereas letters are fixed, and we live by the
letter of truth. D. H. Lawrence, "Lies About
Love"
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The
saddest are these: "It might have been!" John Greenleaf Whittier,
"Maud Muller"
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"A Psalm of Life"
No bird soars too high if he soars with his
own wings. William Blake, "The Marriage
of Heaven and Hell"
No bird soars too high if he soars with his
own wings. William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year. Robert Frost, "A Prayer in
Spring"
Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's
party!" Robin Williams
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great
Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by
Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how
theory development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions
changed over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will
take some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
Image Theory
LEE R. BEACH and TERENCE R. MITCHELL
PG.# 39 BEACH and MITCHELL
This state of affairs elicited two immediate responses from behavioral
decision researchers. The first was to declare decision makers flawed
and to insist that they learn to behave as the normative models
prescribed. The impact of this response has been minimal; there is
little or no evidence that training in decision theory or decision
analytic methods makes one a better decision maker. The second response
was to modify normative theory, usually by retaining the general
maximization of expected value framework but adding psychological
assumptions that make the theory more predictive of actual decision
behavior. Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory (1979, Tversky and
Kahneman, 1992) is the prime example of this response. By taking into
account various biases, the underlying logic of the normative model
remained relatively unscathed.
Quite aside from whether observed
decision making resembles a gambler behaving as normative theory
prescribes, there are two very large logical problems with the gamble
analogy itself. The first is that the expected value of a gamble is the
amount that the gambler can expect to win, on average, if he or she
plays the gamble repeatedly. However, it is not at all clear what
expected value means for a single gamble; the gambler either wins or
loses and the average is irrelevant. Thus, the gamble analogy may hold
if a decision maker makes a series of highly similar decisions, but it
probably does not hold for unique decisions. In fact, in laboratory
studies, gamblers treat repeated and unique gambles very differently
(Keren and Wagenaar, 1987). Because decision makers regard the bulk of
their decisions as unique, it seems unlikely they would treat many of
them like gambles, which makes the analogy inappropriate. A manager
does not approach a major decision with the idea that he or she will get
to do this repeatedly and all that matters is that he or she is
successful, on average, over the long run.
The second problem with the gamble
analogy is that real gamblers doe not get to influence the outcomes of
gambles; they place their bet and await the turn of the card or the spin
of the wheel. In personal and organizational decision making,
substantial time may elapse between the decision and its outcomes and
most of us use this time to do our utmost to influence those outcomes.
We acknowledge that risk abounds, but we do not accept the passive role
of a gambler who patiently waits to see if he won or lost. This is why
probabilities make so little sense to most people --- they want to use
probabilities to describe the overall riskiness of the decision task,
but they do not want to attach probabilities to every attribute of each
decision alternative. In fact, real world decision makers insist that
they try to nullify risk (probability) by working hard to make sure that
these things come out well.
PG.# 41 BEACH and MITCHELL
Both of us had a history of working with Fred Fiedler. Among the many
contributions Fred has made to organizational theory, one of the most
important is the concept of contingency theory. A contingency theory
assumes that behavior is contingent upon the characteristics of the
person, the characteristics of the task, and the characteristics of the
environment in which the person and the task are embedded. The
theoretical problem is to identify the components of each of these three
classes of characteristics. The empirical problem is to see how the
components of these classes of characteristics influence the behavior of
interest.
So, based on our introspections
about our own decision strategies and on our familiarity with the
relevant literature, we began to write a contingency theory of decision
strategy selection. We began with the idea that decision makers have
repertories of strategies that range from aided analytic strategies,
such as decision matrices and decision trees based on SEU, which usually
require the help of a computer and/or a decision analyst: to unaided
analytic strategies, such as Simon's (1957) "satisfying rule"; to simple
nonanalytic strategies, such as a rule of thumb or asking a friend or
consulting a fortune teller. The expenditure of effort (and, sometimes,
money) required to use these strategies decreases from aided analytic to
nonanalytic. Moreover, there are individual differences in the
strategies decision makers have in their repertories.
The decision maker's
characteristics are knowledge of strategies, ability to use them, and
motivation. The latter is characterized as wanting to expend the least
effort compatible with the demands of the decision task, whose
characteristics are unfamiliarity, ambiguity, complexity, and
instability. The decision maker and the task are embedded in a decision
environment characterized by the irreversibility of the decision,
significance, accountability for being correct, and time/money
constraints. The strategy selection mechanism is driven by the decision
maker's motivation: Select a strategy by balancing the effort of using
it against its potential for producing a desirable outcome.
PG.# 42, 43and 44 BEACH and
MITCHELL In light of our thinking about these three troubling
issues, and in light of our doubts about the generality of the Strategy
Selection Model, we actively tried to make ourselves think outside the
accepted canon and lore about decision making. With the help of Kenneth
Rediker, who was a graduate student at the time, we held weekly
think-sessions in which we chased ideas. Slowly, we began to see a
structure to what we were thinking, and we began to write small essays
trying to pin down our ideas. These essays eventuated in our first
attempt to go public (Mitchell, Rediker, and Beach, 1986).
After that first publication
things got tough. American journal reviewers seemed particularly
reluctant to publish our work, even the empirical studies. We did much
better in Europe (e.g., Beach and Mitchell, 1987; Beach, et al., 1988;
Beach and Strom, 1989). To get the word out, we decided to put our
ideas, and our research, in a book, but no American publisher was
interested. Finally, Britain's Wiley Ltd. took the risk, publishing
Image Theory: Decision Making in Personal and Organizational Contexts
in 1990. Although we do not believe many people read the book, its mere
existence seemed to give the theory legitimacy and interest quickly
grew.
3.2 IMAGE THEORY BRIEFLY In
the Image Theory view, the decision maker is an individual acting
alone. Of course, most decisions are made in concert with others, be it
a spouse, a friend, business colleagues, or whoever. But, even so, the
decision maker has to make up his or her own mind and then differences
of opinion must be resolved in some manner that depends upon the dynamic
of the group. That is, Image Theory does not regard groups or
organizations as capable of making decisions per se, they are the
contexts within which individual members' decisions become consolidated
through convincing others, negotiation and politics to form a group
product (Beach, 1990; Beach and Mitchell, 1990; Davis, 1992). As a
result, Image Theory focuses on the individual making up his or her own
mind on the context3 of a social relationship or an
organization, with the presumption that the result may later prevail, be
changed, or be overruled when presented to others.
Each decision maker is seen as
possessing values that define for him or her how things should be
and how people ought to behave. This involves such old-fashioned
concepts as honor, morals, ethics, and ideals as well as standards of
equality, justice, loyalty, stewardship, truth, beauty, and goodness,
together with moral, civic, and religious precepts and
responsibilities. Collectively these are called principles and they are
"self-evident truths" about what the decision maker (or the group to
which he or she belongs) stands for. They help determine the goals that
are worthy of pursuit, and what are and what are not acceptable ways of
pursuing those goals. Often these principles cannot be readily
articulated, but they are powerful influences on decisions.
3
The social or organizational context includes knowledge about others'
views, information about the issue requiring a decision and the values
and meanings (culture) shared by members of the relationship or
organization (Beach, 1993).
"GMA's Class Warriors Sneer at Health Exec Sleeping
on 'Nice Sheets'," by Mark Finkelstein, NewsBusters,
April 20, 2006 ---
http://newsbusters.org/node/4989
On the heels of MSM outrage
at the retirement package granted to Exxon/Mobil CEO
Lee Raymond [see Brent Baker's report here], Good
Morning America was back at the class-warfare
ramparts this morning with a new target in its
sights, Dr. William McGuire, head of United Health
Group. As the result of share prices that have
increased over 7,000 percent, stock options granted
McGuire are currently worth in excess of $1 billion.
ABC reporter Dan Harris
narrated the segment, and GMA set the tone with its
title - "You Must be Kidding!" But there was no
joking about the class-warfare on display in the
opening lines: "The head of one of the nation's
largest healthcare companies is sitting on more than
a billion dollars in stock openings while Americans
go uninsured."
GMA never explained how the
one fact relates to the other. If the money paid to
McGuire went instead to shareholders in the form of
dividends or remained in the company and drove share
prices up, would that somehow have made a
significant dent in the ranks of the uninsured?
GMA sustained its drumbeat
of envy and jealousy: "While patients, doctors and
hospitals have been feeling the pain of rising
healthcare costs, [McGuire] has been accumulating
one of the richest batches of stock options ever."
A clip was shown of McGuire
being asked "$1.6 billion. Do you intend to keep all
that money?"
McGuire: "I've been very
fortunate. But that number fluctuates with the price
of the stock." It was noted that he has donated tens
of millions to various organizations.
GMA then screened a
pharmicist, Joel Albers, from McGuire's neck of the
woods, and informed us that "this man goes to state
fairs dressed as Dr. McGuire accusing him of
corporate greed."
Albers: "As health
practitioners, we have a moral obligation to speak
out."
When McGuire was quoted as
saying "I've never made it a practice of looking for
money," GMA responded sneeringly: "the man who
claims not to be looking for money cared very much
about perks such as the nearly $140,000 the company
forked over for his personal travel plus nearly
$70,000 for personal financial planning."
ABC reported that
shareholders have brought a lawsuit over the stock
options and that "yesterday, the Attorney General of
Minnesota joined" the suit. Don't suppose the good
AG sees any political hay to be made, do you? It was
mentioned that McGuire has asked for his perks to be
pulled and for no more stock options to be granted
to him and fellow company execs.
Back in the studio, when
Harris concluded "McGuire is saying, and I quote
here 'we sleep with good conscience'," host Robin
Roberts, echoing the theme of the day, shot back
"You must be kidding!" She then tossed it to Charlie
Gibson, who observed "he sleeps with a lot of money,
too," as Diane Sawyer piled on "maybe on nice
sheets." Gibson echoed the "sheets" line.
Hey, who can blame Sawyer
and Gibson for their jealousy? According to this
article, Diane has to make ends meet on a mere $13
million a year, while Gibson, scraping by at a
paltry $7 million, is one lost paycheck away from
sleeping on a subway grate.
If you now have technology for skipping TV adds,
enjoy it for the short time it will continue to work In this era of easy ad
skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could
television viewers one day be forced to watch
commercials with a system that prevents channel
switching? Yes, according to Royal Philips Electronics.
A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office said researchers of the Netherland-based consumer
electronics company have created a technology that could
let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial,
so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it. The pending
patent, published on March 30, said the feature would be
implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that
could carry the technology would be a television or a
set-top-box.
"Enjoy Skipping TV Ads -- While You Can," Denver
Channel 7, April 20, 2006 ---
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/technology/8848424/detail.html
Freaky: The sex-change chicken A sex-change chicken which
started life as an egg-laying hen has turned into a
crowing cockerel. The pet, called Freaky, spent eight
months laying dozens of eggs until she crowed like a
cock bird one morning. Over the next few weeks, she
sprouted a scarlet comb, grew red flaps called wattles
under her chin and tufty tail feathers - all attributes
of cockerels. Owner Jo Richards, of Saltford, near
Bristol, said: "I've kept chickens for 10 years but I've
never heard of such a thing." Animal experts said
Freaky's sexchange was a one-in-10,000 rarity. It
happens when a damaged ovary causes the hen's
testosterone levels to soar, turning the remaining ovary
into a testicle. Freaky, a silver-laced Wyandotte hen,
now crows every sunrise, aggressively attacks other
males and even tries to mate with his old female
friends.
"The sex-change chicken that crows," Daily Mail,
April 20, 2006 ---
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=383491&in_page_id=1770
A Slice of Cheesecake: The Notorious
Bettie Page Her story is
coming to the screen this week in “The
Notorious Bettie Page,”
written and directed by Mary Harron,
whose film
about
Valerie Solanas,
“I Shot Andy
Warhol,” was an exceptionally smart and
insightful biopic. But Harron isn’t the
only contemporary feminist interested in
Page — or in the combustible mixture of
sexist ideology and female agency
captured in vintage erotica . . . A
thumbnail sketch of its analysis can’t
do justice to the book. It includes
dozens of images from the history of the
pin-up — from the na�vely stagy
publicity photos of the 1860s to the
ironically stagy meta-pin-ups created by
contemporary pomo artists. An excerpt
from the book is available at Buszek’s
Web site. I recently interviewed her
about her work. The notorious Bettie
Page has only a small part in the
history that Buszek has reconstructed. I
asked about her anyway. (It meant that
watching those short films on DVD
counted as research.)
Scott McLemee, "A Slice of Cheesecake,"
Inside Higher Ed, April 19, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/04/19/mclemee
Dirt that defies gravity By simple light and heat
mechanisms, dust particles seem to defy gravity and leap
up into the air. The effect, which once played a role in
the formation of the Earth and asteroids, could also
have applications in dust removal and even propel small
probes on Mars.
"Scientists pin down causes of dust eruptions,"
PhysOrg, April 18, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news64572780.html
It's a confusing time for
computer buyers, and that makes this annual spring
buyer's guide to desktop computers harder to write
than usual. Microsoft's Windows XP operating system
is in its last months of primacy, yet the company
still hasn't issued final guidelines for the
hardware you'll need to run Windows Vista, its
successor, which is due in January.
Meanwhile, Apple Computer
is in the process of revamping its entire Macintosh
line to run on Intel chips. It has now made it
possible for the newest Macs to run Windows as well
as the Mac OS X operating system, so you can buy one
machine for both worlds.
I believe every mainstream
consumer doing typical tasks should consider the
Mac. Its operating system already contains most of
the key features promised for Vista. However, the
Mac doesn't really need a buyer's guide. It has only
two consumer desktop models -- the gorgeous iMac and
the low-end Mac Mini.
So, as I did in my last
guide last fall, I'm going to direct this one at
people shopping for standard Windows desktops who
would like to buy one now that could be upgraded to
Vista later. Despite the lack of final hardware
specs for Vista, Microsoft has put out some new
information, and I have been talking to sources
there to glean further details. These specs also
apply to laptops.
If you want a new Windows
PC, my best advice is to wait until January and buy
one with Vista preinstalled. If you can't wait till
then, you'll still have a good chance of upgrading
to Vista if you follow these guidelines.
There's a problem, though.
Running Vista with all its features enabled will
require a major increase in hardware power, and that
means a costlier PC. So Microsoft is essentially
taking a two-tier approach to the hardware specs. To
soothe PC makers who want to offer low price tags on
some models, it is quoting lower specs that it says
will allow running Vista in a sort of stripped-down
mode. The company is also offering higher specs for
running Vista as it was designed, with all features
turned on.
The main difference between
these two tiers is graphics performance and look and
feel. If you have a computer with the weaker specs,
Vista will still give you enhanced security and
built-in desktop search. But you won't get the
dramatic new graphical look and feel that makes
Vista look more like the Mac OS. Your computer will
look like an evolved version of Windows XP, and it
will probably run only the wimpiest edition of
Vista, called Home Basic.
Vista performance will
depend on how much memory your PC has and what sort
of graphics hardware it contains. If you have enough
memory and good enough graphics hardware to meet the
top-tier specs, you will likely be able to run the
Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista.
Some computers will carry
"Vista Capable" stickers, and Microsoft has a Web
page on Vista-capable hardware specs at
www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx.
But be careful. Some "Vista-capable" machines,
especially those under $600, may run Vista only in
stripped-down mode.
• Memory: Microsoft
suggests 512 megabytes of memory, or RAM, for
stripped-down Vista, and it will probably recommend
one gigabyte of memory for full Vista. But based on
experience with the company's guidelines, I strongly
suggest doubling those amounts. Even on a cheap
machine, I'd get one gigabyte of memory, and if you
want to run Vista with all its features, I suggest
two gigabytes.
• Video: Stripped-down
Vista can run on any graphics hardware that can
support what's called SVGA, or a resolution of 800
by 600. The hardware should also support a Microsoft
technology called DirectX 9. This includes many
integrated graphics systems, which do away with a
separate video card in favor of graphics chips
bolted to the mother board.
Full Vista will be best
with a separate, or "discrete," graphics card that
has at least 128 megabytes of dedicated video
memory. These cards also need support for DirectX 9.
In addition, however, they must also support
Microsoft software called "WDDM" and "Pixel Shader
2." If your eyes are rolling right now, don't fret.
Microsoft officials say nearly all discrete graphics
cards on the market today meet these specs, as will
the latest integrated graphics systems, such as
Intel chip sets labeled 945 or higher.
• Processor: For
stripped-down Vista, a processor running at 800
megahertz or faster should be sufficient, according
to Microsoft. For full Vista, the speed rises to one
gigahertz. I'd edge higher if your budget allows,
but you don't need the fastest processor.
• Hard disk: Disk storage
is already copious enough for Vista, and buying
large amounts is cheap. For stripped-down Vista, I'd
go for at least 60 gigabytes of hard-disk space. For
full Vista, I'd boost that to 160 gigabytes, to
accommodate lots of music and video.
On April 1, 2006, Apple
Computer celebrated its 30th birthday. Some may
consider it an April’s fool joke to suggest
seriously considering Apple’s computing platform,
the Macintosh, as a legitimate accounting tool.
However, perhaps a better thought would be to
extrapolate from that popular saying of the 60's:
now that Apple has reached 30, maybe it’s become a
company that serious grown-ups can trust.
Accounting is serious
business. As such, there are several key factors
that must contribute to the decision of which
computing environment (hardware, software, operating
system) to entrust vital and sensitive financial
data to.
The first factor is
security. In today’s world, stories about thefts of
massive databases containing personal and financial
information regularly make headlines. This is only a
part of the data security story, however. Though it
no longer garners much attention, “age-old” (in
terms of the time-accelerated computer industry,)
problems, such as hard drive failures, network drive
backup failures and even data compromised internally
on an individual workstation, still exist. The
Macintosh incorporates a number of technologies to
mitigate against these potential downfalls.
FileVault encrypts users’
data such that it cannot be accessed by another
person even if the computer is stolen.
Backup provides a facility
to make automated backups of data to a number of
sources, including Apple’s secure servers. And, of
course, while not immune to them, to date,
Macintoshes have been practically unaffected by the
viruses, worms, and online intrusions that have
plagued Windows users for years.
The second factor is
reliable accounting software. Unbeknownst to many,
the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was released in
1979 on the Apple II. Since then, accounting
software has had a checkered history on Apple
computers. However, over the last few years,
accounting software has had a strong presence in the
Macintosh market. The two primary professional
packages,
Account Edge 2006 and
QuickBooks Pro 2006, are
well regarded and positively
reviewed.
Finally, there is the issue
of compatibility. No user exists in a vacuum. Files
often need to be shared between users, potentially
running different software on a different platform.
Files in the applications mentioned above are
compatible between Windows and Macintosh versions of
the applications. Also, no user strictly runs
accounting software and nothing else on their
computer. Users have a wide range of software that
they need to run. The Macintosh currently offers a
mixed bag in regards to this issue.
Older Macintosh computers
offered compatibility with Windows applications
through emulation software such as Microsoft’s own
Virtual PC. On recent
hardware, this solution runs Windows software
reasonably well for all but the most
processor-intensive applications. However, with
Apple’s ongoing switch to Intel-based Macintoshes,
the future of emulation software is in question.
This week, Apple offered
another potentially viable option. As of April 5,
Apple is supporting the ability to boot Windows XP
on Intel-based Macintoshes. It remains to be seen
whether or not users will ever be able to rapidly
switch between both Windows and Macintosh operating
systems running simultaneously on the same computer.
In the meantime, though, at least users have the
ability to run Windows software when they need to.
There are any number of
reasons to choose one platform over another based on
individual computing needs. Where accounting is
concerned, the Macintosh can at least be considered
a viable option.
"The Green Home," Time Magazine, April
17, 2006, Page 92
BATHROOM Conventional bathroom cleansers contain
ammonia and chlorine, which can be dangerous in
confined or unventilated spaces. Use nontoxic
products whenever possible. Or make your own:
baking soda and vinegar proves a surprisingly
effective toilet-bowl cleanser.
Jensen Comment
Friends of mine recently had a pipe burst under the
kitchen sink in their new home. They were not at
home, and their house flooded quite badly. The
reason was corrosion of pipes by an ammonia bottle
under the sink. I'm told that ammonia is not so
dangerous with copper, but it will eat away at
stainless steel like crazy.
LIVING ROOM The glue, paints, varnishes and waxes used
in conventional furniture can release the volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) that affect indoor air
quality. Look for organic or certified
chemical-free sofa.
BEDROOM Conventional sheets are often treated with
formaldehyde to get a wrinkle-free finish. For a
chemical-free slumber, look for natural or
organic bedding. Faribault Mills, for example,
offers hypo-allergenic Ingeo bedding that is
made from corn based fibers.
THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE Paint can contribute to poor indoor-air
quality long after it dries. Petroleum-based paints
are a source of VOCs. Look for low- or zero-VOC
paints or old-fashioned milk paints when trying
to add some color to your house. Full-spectrum
lightbulbs simulate natural daylight and last
longer than conventional bulbs.
Thousands of British credit card details traded
online At least 400 credit card
numbers are sold per day, along with other personal
information such as dates of birth and mothers' maiden
names, The Times said. A credit card number fetches one
dollar (0.83 euros) in Internet chatrooms, whereas a
card with a three-digit code is traded for five dollars.
Additional security information can add 10 dollars to
the asking price and a working personal identification
number can raise the cost to 100 pounds (175 dollars,
145 euros), the newspaper said Saturday. The thieves
were not just targeting consumers who bought goods
online, showing that Internet-based firms were not the
only ones at risk which held personal information about
customers. The Times said the online fraudster gangs
were thought to be operating out of eastern Europe and
southeast Asia.
"Thousands of British credit card details traded
online," PhysOrg, April 15, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news64309890.html
University of California gets a settlement from
Citigroup as part of its losses in the WorldCom
accounting scandal Citigroup has agreed to pay the
University of California
more than $13 millionto
settle a lawsuit over liability for the university’s
investments in WorldCom, a company that collapsed in
2002. The university sued over inaccurate analyses of
WorldCom, which led UC to pay more than it would have
otherwise to buy stock in the company. Inside Higher Ed, April 7, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/07/qt
Package Mapper shows you a map of your FedEx, USPS, and DHL
package routes
Enter a carrier and a tracking number to see your package's progress
plotted on a map, Google Earth, or iCalendar. Sign in to enter a list of
packages and see their current locations on a table or map ---
http://packagemapper.com/
Alzheimer's Drugs Offer Debatable Promise A decade ago, the best that doctors could offer
Alzheimer's patients and their families was an early diagnosis. Today,
doctors have four medications to offer, but there's no agreement on how
helpful those drugs are.
Patricia Neighmond, "Alzheimer's Drugs Offer Debatable Promise," NPR,
April 20, 2006 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5352086
Fungus Outbreak Among Contact Lens Wearers (especially in warm
climates like Texas --- now hot, hot) On Thursday, Bausch & Lomb voluntarily asked
retailers across the nation to temporarily remove bottles of ReNu
contact lens solution from their shelves. Consumers are encouraged to
switch to another contact lens solution until the investigation into the
fungal keratitis infections among contact lens wearers is complete. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that a total
of 109 patients with suspected Fusarium keratitis were being
investigated in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North
Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont. Although not
all patients had been interviewed, among the 30 patients for whom data
is complete, the median age was 48 years and the majority (70 percent)
were female. More than 90 percent of patients wore soft contact lens and
32 percent reported wearing contact lenses overnight. Wearing contact
overnight is a known risk factor for microbial keratitis. The condition
is more prevalent in warm climates such as those in the southernmost
U.S. but the infection can and does occur anywhere.
"Fungus Outbreak Among Contact Lens Wearers," The AccountingWeb,
April 14, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102034
Stem cell technology in curing heart disease Thai scientists are set to begin the country's
first official study into the effects of stem cell technology in curing
heart disease, according to a report published Sunday.
"Thailand to begin stem cell heart study: report," PhysOrg, April
16, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news64375302.html
FDA Approves Insulin Device for Diabetics The Food and Drug Administration approved a
combination insulin pump and glucose monitor system, offering a way for
some Type 1 diabetes patients to avoid dangerous episodes of
hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, and reduce their risk of a host of
complications and death. The Paradigm system, created by Medtronic Inc.,
of Minneapolis, includes a monitor taped to a patient's abdomen that
continuously reads his or her blood glucose and transmits the data to a
pump, which beeps or vibrates when blood sugar drops to a dangerous
level. Patients adjust the pump, worn like a pager, to administer
insulin into a port in the body. The system eliminates the need for
repeated needle sticks to test blood and to inject insulin.
"FDA Approves Insulin Device For Diabetics," by Tomas M. Burton, The
Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2006; Page A11 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114497047978525628.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Virus linked to multiple sclerosis Young adults, whose immune systems react
strongly when exposed to a common virus, may run a higher risk of
developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life, a new report has
revealed. While three other studies have linked the Epstein-Barr virus
(EBV) - which often causes mononucleosis - to multiple sclerosis, the
new findings provide stronger evidence of a connection, said the report
released on Monday.
"Virus linked to multiple sclerosis," Al Jazeera, April 11, 2006
---
Click Here
The number of businesses owned by black entrepreneurs grew more
than
four times the national rate for all businesses The number of businesses owned by black
entrepreneurs grew more than four times the national rate for all
businesses from 1997 to 2002, the federal government said Tuesday. Black
entrepreneurs owned 1.2 million businesses in 2002, an increase of 45
percent from 1997, according to a report by the Census Bureau. "It's
encouraging to see not just the number but the sales and receipts of
black-owned businesses are growing at such a robust rate, confirming
that these firms are among the fastest-growing segments of our economy,"
Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon said in a statement. Revenues
from black-owned businesses increased by 25 percent during the period,
to about $89 billion.
Carl Limbacher, "Black-Owned Businesses Thriving in U.S.," NewsMax,
April 18, 2006 ---
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/18/103439.shtml?s=ic
Voting Rights of Buffalo and Bees and Cockroaches: Democracy in
the Animal Kingdom
The Manyara buffalo of Africa begin
stirring from their postprandial rest just before dusk. Each beast
raises its head higher than usual and gazes into the distance.
After much shuffling around, the herd treks
toward a new grazing ground, but not in the direction --
north-northeast, say -- that a majority have set their eyes on.
Instead, the buffalo compromise. They perform the bovine equivalent
of vector algebra, biologist Herbert Prins of Wegeningen University,
the Netherlands, has found, choosing a direction that represents the
weighted average of the directions the members of the herd have
"voted" for.
Compromise, consensus, plebiscite: When it
comes to decisions, the animal world is as diverse as the human one,
providing a menagerie of approaches that scientists believe can
illuminate decision-making in groups of people.
In contrast to the buffalo's compromise
strategy, Cuban leaf-cutter ants are more likely to follow the
crowd. When placed in a box with two exits, the ants use each about
equally under normal conditions. But if scientists drop insect
repellent into the box, the panicked ants follow the herd: An
average of 75% try to get through only one exit, scientists at the
University of Havana reported last December in American Naturalist.
When people do that, as when fire breaks out in a crowded room, the
result has been multiple deaths.
Honey bees, biologists recently figured
out, prefer quorums. In late spring, colonies divide, with the queen
and half the workers leaving the old hive. The swarm forms a cluster
outside its old home and goes about finding new digs. But the queen
doesn't choose. Instead, the bees engage in what biologist Thomas
Seeley of Cornell University calls "a plebiscite, where once you
have a quorum in favor of one site it wins."
In a swarm of 10,000 bees, several hundred
"scouts" visit a dozen or more tree hollows. Each visits only one
site; there is no comparison shopping. When a scout returns to the
swarm after finding a great site (lots of space, small entrance),
she shows her enthusiasm for it by dancing. Much as the "waggle
dance" tells other bees where to find food, the dances of scout bees
tell watchers the location of prime real estate.
"When a scout really likes a site, she
dances her little heart out," says Prof. Seeley. The number of times
she scoots around the dance floor reflects her enthusiasm. The more
circuits, the more uncommitted scouts follow her directions, also
becoming recruiters for the site.
A scout that loves a site visits it
repeatedly, returning to the swarm after each sortie to dance about
it. But with each reprise she makes 15 fewer circuits, Prof. Seeley
and colleagues will report in the May-June issue of American
Scientist. (Enthusiasm dims with time.) As a result, scouts that
visited mediocre sites and so performed shorter dances from the
get-go eventually stop dancing for that site (Subtracting 15 from a
smaller number gets you to zero sooner than subtracting 15 from a
larger number.) Soon, uncommitted scouts are being recruited only to
top sites.
Once scouts find a quorum of 10 to 20 bees
at a site, they emit a high-pitched sound that tells other bees in
the swarm to warm up their flight muscles. After an hour or so they
take off for their new home, scouts leading the way. "The beauty of
this process is that quorum sensing results in selection of a great
site even though no one scout knows all the alternatives out there,"
says Prof. Seeley.
Even cockroaches manage to make collective
decisions that, seemingly by magic, produce an outcome that benefits
everyone (except the people whose kitchens they are in). When
roaches decide where to move in, they must balance crowding against
protection against predators. The goal: pack enough roaches into a
shelter to provide strength in numbers, but not so much that
dangerous crowding results.
Continued in article
Comedian Bill Cosby brought tough talk to Cincinnati with his
controversial
"call out" to the Tri-State's minority community.
"Bill Cosby Tells Parents To Take Control Of Their Kids," 55KRC,
April 14, 2006 ---
Click Here
Comedian Bill Cosby brought tough talk to
Cincinnati Thursday night with his controversial "call out" to the
Tri-State's minority community.
Cosby's dialogues on parenting, crime, and
social responsibility caused uproars in other cities.
About 600 people attended the first session
at Xavier's Cintas Center. About 1,200 came to the second.
Cosby's message was very much one of
personal and family responsibility. He did crack some jokes. Yet,
you could tell the audience was unsure how they were going to take
his message to the streets.
The comedian known for his quick wit, is
quick to make serious points.
Bill Cosby asked, "are we so sedated that
we know not how to stand anymore?"
Cosby joined a panel of local community
leaders Thursday to talk tough about the social issues he says are
pounding at the heart of minority communities...fractured families,
hopelessness, and lack of education.
"When that young man was killed," said
Cosby. "At the place, I read about it, at the White Castle."
Crime. Cosby told the audience it's up to
them to change the attitudes of young black men and women. He spoke
of the importance of raising children within a family, stressing
education.
"Well, I was disappointed." Folks such as
Michael Howard say the message was good, but he says Cosby didn't
deliver. "I think that was kind of impossible without the youth
causing all the crime and violence being present," said Howard.
Some suggested the answer would be to have
the event in the streets where the issues boil.
Hamilton County Corner Dr. Odell Owens says
he agrees with Cosby's stance on education..says it works. And so
continues this comedian, touring cities with a not-so-funny message.
"I can feel your shame, but what's worse I
can feel how sedated you seem to be about making corrections."
At the very end, audience members were able
to ask questions and receive advice from panel members on topics
such as how to enroll in school, how to get financial aid, and
mentoring.
Continued in article
Hollywood high-visibility liberals largely unseen in immigration
debate Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn
protest the war. Leonardo DiCaprio has taken on global warming and Mike
Farrell stands vigil against the death penalty. But when it comes to
immigration reform a controversy in Hollywood's own backyard stars have
largely been unseen and unheard.
Lynn Elber, "Hollywood stars largely unseen in immigration debate,"
Daily Bulletin, April 14, 006 ---
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3708128
Jensen Comment
Immigration reform appears too complicated for Michael Moore to take up
---
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3708128
Barbara doesn't appear to know what's going on about this one ---
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3708128
Where is the Bush Conspiracy on this one Charlie Sheen?
Mum's the word from "Meathead Michael" Stivic since labor unions
adamantly oppose an open door immigration policy.
It would be a bitter pill for celebrity liberals to take up a cause
supported by big corporations and President Bush.
This week’s demonstrations and marches by
illegal immigrants and their supporters pose an interesting
question: Who were they directed against?
Not the Democrats or the semi-organized
Left. Democrats strongly backed the marches which were actually
organized by the usual hard-Left suspects responsible for the
antiwar and anti-Bush campaigns — ANSWER, and so on.
Well, then, they must have been directed
against the GOP, corporate America, and the establishment? Not so.
The White House also supports the marches. President Bush took time
out while talking to students at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies to praise the marchers for expressing
“discontent” democratically.
Much of corporate America goes along — some
businesses closed down to allow their Hispanic workers to
participate. And all over the U.S. schools are giving their pupils
“credits” for playing truant in order to show approval of
law-breaking and open borders.
Those senators who favored the misnamed
“compromise” immigration reform, now stalled, loudly express the
hope that the marches will change the minds of their recalcitrant
colleagues in both House and Senate. And the media, fondly recalling
its glorious days in the post-1968 “revolution,” almost salivates
over the prospect that these demonstrations are the harbinger of a
new multicultural political movement that would revive the moribund
Left.
So I repeat the question: Who are these
demonstrations against?
In the first instance they are
self-evidently directed against most congressional Republicans
(supported by a discreet minority of Democrats) who oppose the
legislation supported by all of the above and who want to enforce
border security without either a guest-worker program or a massive
amnesty for illegals. The marchers are hoping to morally impress or
intimidate (take your pick) these legislators into accepting a
slightly different version of the “compromise” when Congress returns
from recess.
But the legislators themselves are marching
to a different drummer — namely, the strong skepticism about the
immigration “compromise” as revealed in the opinion polls. Almost
all polls have shown over years that about two thirds of the voters
favor lower immigration levels overall, and are increasingly worried
about impact of immigration on both economy and society. They are
sometimes prepared to go along with highly moderate versions of
guest-worker and amnesty as part of much tougher enforcement
legislation, on the lines of the House bill proposed by Rep. Jim
Sensebrenner — provided that the illegals meet a number of strict
standards — learning English, paying stiff fines and back taxes,
returning home to join the line for entry, and so on. But they are
in general firmly opposed to illegal immigration, want to see it
stopped, and worry about its impact on lower-paid Americans and the
social fabric of American society.
So the marches are, in effect, directed
against the voters since they stand behind the Republican
legislators blocking the bill. If one listens carefully to the
rhetoric of the marchers and their organizers, they deny the right
of Congress and the voters to control immigration, to expel illegal
immigrants, or even to place any conditions on their remaining — the
conditions that the voters insist on as the minimum for any genuine
compromise.
Such rhetoric comes under two headings. The
first holds that the illegals are already Americans with the rights
of American cities since any distinction between citizens and
foreigners is suspect as xenophobic or racist. The second is that
the Americans are the real foreigners since they invaded America,
stole it from the Indians and Amerindians, drew their own illegal
borders across it, and now seek to criminalize the original
inhabitants.
These two positions plainly contradict each
other. Neither is likely to appeal to the voters. But the second is
much more repellent to ordinary Americans than the first. The demo
organizers, who understand politics, have told the marchers to wave
only American flags and to refrain from separatist slogans and
placards. So it is very significant that many marchers — in some
cases most — have ignored this advice, waving Mexican flags and
anti-Yanqui placards.
Even if they succeed in intimidating
Congress, therefore, they are alienating the voters still further.
Recent polls indeed show far more voters hostile than favorable to
the marchers.
So the division represented in these
marches pits the marchers, backed by the White House, both party
leaderships, corporate America, and the organized multicultural
Left, against the voters, supported by a narrow majority of
Republicans and a small minority of Democrats in Congress. If
Congress sticks with its current stalemate and the legislation
stalls, the issue will go into cold storage for two or four years —
i.e., between now and next two national elections. If the marchers
succeed in pressuring Congress to revive the bill, however, then we
are all in for a long hot political summer.
In the streets the marchers will try to
keep up their momentum by continual demonstrations that will further
alarm voters. In Congress the details of the legislation will become
better known as the legislators debate it — and those details will
alarm the voters far more than any demonstration.
Continued in article
Can you believe it? Unions on opposite sides of Kennedy and
Feinstein AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says
guest-worker programs supported by top Democrats such as Sens. Edward M.
Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein are a "bad idea and harm all workers."
"They cast workers into a perennial second-class status and unfairly put
their fates into their employers' hands," said Mr. Sweeney, whose
organization represents 13 million workers in 54 unions.
Charles Hurt, "Unions worked up over illegals," The Washington Times,
April 15, 2006 ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060414-110533-7413r.htm
Illegal-alien activists target CNN's Lou Dobbs Illegal-alien activists who have pulled off
major rallies in several cities in recent weeks plan to shift part of
their focus May 1 by targeting a newsman they see hurting their cause.
An "Ax AOL" campaign is being organized to coincide with a national
action by various groups defending illegal immigration, but the real
target of their wrath is Lou Dobbs of CNN. "Why AOL?" asks one of the
promoters of the campaign rhetorically. "Lou Dobbs is the number one
money maker for CNN so he is not going anywhere as long as he makes
money for CNN...
"Illegal-alien activists target Lou Dobbs: 'Ax AOL' campaign designed
to pressure CNN parent company to fire newsman," WorldNetDaily,
April 17, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49769
"Demonstrations on Immigration Harden a Divide," by David D.
Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, April 17, 2006 ---
Click Here
As lawmakers set
aside the debate on immigration legislation
for their spring recess, the protests by
millions around the nation have escalated
the policy debate into a much broader battle
over the status of the country's 11 million
illegal immigrants. While the marches have
galvanized Hispanic voters, they have also
energized those who support a crackdown on
illegal immigration.
"The size and
magnitude of the demonstrations had some
kind of backfire effect," said John
McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who said
he was working for 26 House members and
seven senators seeking re-election. "The
Republicans that are tough on immigration
are doing well right now."
Mr. Hayworth said,
"I see an incredible backlash." He has
become one of the House's most vocal
opponents of illegal immigration and is one
of dozens of Republicans who have vowed to
block the temporary-worker measure that
stalled in the Senate.
Continued in article
Students get course credit for protest marching, but
only if they march on the politically correct side of the street
Many parents are outraged over learning
that their kids are being used by school administrators and teachers
to further their own political agenda. Officials with Montgomery
County Public Schools in Maryland say those students who attend the
upcoming pro-illegal immigration rally can get credit for their
Student Service Learning hours. However, no credit is being offered
for attending rallies that are opposed to open borders or illegal
immigration.
The immigration rally scheduled to be held
in Montgomery County on Monday is expected to attract thousands,
including some children from a local school district.
Every high school student in MCPS must have
60 hours of volunteer or activism service to graduate, according to
WTOP radio in Washington, DC. The school district equates volunteer
work at a nursing home or hospital with a political protest, say
many observers.
Many parents are outraged that children can
get credit for attending the rally, saying there is a potential for
endangering the students if things get out of hand.
When the baby son of Charles Lindbergh was
snatched from his crib on a March evening in 1932, the kidnapper
left a ransom note demanding $50,000. Over the next several weeks, a
dozen more ransom notes popped up, asking for bigger sums of money
and telling the world-renowned aviator where to leave it.
For 74 years, the notes have intrigued
professional and amateur detectives alike. Who wrote them? And did
the same person kill Charles Augustus Lindbergh, who was found dead
two months later near his New Jersey home?
A German immigrant named Bruno Hauptmann
was eventually convicted of the crime and executed, partly on the
basis of an FBI analysis that matched his handwriting to the ransom
notes. But questions have persisted ever since.
A Virginia company thinks it may be able to
solve some of the mystery for good. It is analyzing the ransom notes
with new software that matches handwriting samples by creating
statistical snapshots of each handwritten letter and digit.
If it's proven to be effective in rounds of
testing, the software created by Gannon Technologies Group could do
more than bring new light to an old case. It has the potential to
change the American forensic landscape by providing document
examiners with the same impressive degree of certainty that
scientists boast of when they make DNA matches. It may be possible
for the first time for someone to testify that the odds are millions
to one that, say, Uncle Joe didn't sign the will that left his
entire estate to his mistress.
Until now, handwriting examination "has
been very much an art," said Mark Walch, director of operations at
Gannon Technologies, a privately held company that specializes in
optical character recognition software.
Indeed, unlike other forensic
investigators, document examiners continue to rely on their eyeballs
more than computers. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are aware of
this fuzz factor, and they've occasionally had success challenging
document examiners in court, especially since they don't come with
impressive DNA-style statistics such as "there's a one in 4.5
million chance that this drop of blood came from someone other than
Mr. Jones."
"We just have to rely on our experience and
our standard protocols," said Gary Herbertson, a retired FBI
forensic document examiner who now works on his own in Berkeley,
California. Instead of DNA-like odds, "We have a scale of opinions
from 'certainty' and 'highly probable' to 'merely probable' and 'no
conclusion.'"
Enter the handwriting analysis technology,
which Gannon Technologies unveiled in February at the annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Armed
with a bank of dozens of high-end Dell computers and a database of
handwriting samples from more than 500 people who wrote a paragraph
called the "London Letter" (.pdf), the company claims its software
can easily match different samples of the same person's handwriting,
even when the writer is purposely trying to fool the technology.
The key is statistical analysis that takes
into account more than 200 measurements -- from curvature gradation
to size -- of each letter or digit. The software then figures out
which 10 or 12 of those measurements are most important, and then
creates a statistical snapshot, said Donald Gantz, a statistician at
George Mason University who is working on the handwriting project.
For now, Walch said Gannon Technologies is
spending millions (he declined to specify the actual amount)
gathering proof that the technology works. If it can be proven, the
software could allow users to give odds nearly as precise as DNA
analysis.
Continued in article
A Meat Eater Bigger Than T. Rex Is Unearthed A new dinosaur species, one of the largest
known carnivorous dinosaurs, has emerged from the red sandstone of
Patagonia, in Argentina, where reptilian giants seem to have thrived 100
million years ago.
John Noble Wilford, "A Meat Eater Bigger Than T. Rex Is Unearthed,"
The New York Times, April 18, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/science/18dino.html
From The Washington Post on April 12, 2006
MySpace.com is hiring a security czar to
oversee child safety measures. How many members does the popular teen
dating and music site have?
MUSLIM students training to be imams at a
British college with strong Iranian links have complained that they
are being taught fundamentalist doctrines which describe nonMuslims
as “filth”. The Times has obtained extracts from medieval texts
taught to the students in which unbelievers are likened to pigs and
dogs. The texts are taught at the Hawza Ilmiyya of London, a
religious school, which has a sister institution, the Islamic
College for Advanced Studies (ICAS), which offers a degree validated
by Middlesex University.
The students, who have asked to remain
anonymous, study their religious courses alongside the
university-backed BA in Islamic studies. They spend two days a week
as religious students and three days on their university course.
The Hawza Ilmiyya and the ICAS are in the
same building at Willesden High Road, northwest London — a former
Church of England primary school — and share many of the same
teaching staff.
They have a single fundraising arm, the
Irshad Trust, one of the managing trustees of which is Abdolhossein
Moezi, an Iranian cleric and a personal representative of Ayatollah
Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme religious leader.
Mr Moezi is also the director of the
Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale, a large mosque and
community centre that is a registered charity. Its memorandum of
association, lodged with the Charity Commission, says that: “At all
times at least one of the trustees shall be a representative of the
Supreme Spiritual Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Both the Irshad Trust and the Islamic
Centre of England Ltd (ICEL) were established in 1996. Mr Moezi’s
predecessor as Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative, another cleric
called Mohsen Araki, was a founding trustee of both charities.
Firms are being lured away from IT
consulting to focus more attention on attest related services, where
market demand has been stoked by the increased financial reporting
requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reform law. “Firms are
doing a good job of building practices around that because that’s
compliance work and something that clients have to do. Firms are
embracing this intellectually in way they could not for IT,” he
says.
Meanwhile, the IT world has moved away from
CPAs by converting many of its products and services to Web-based
platforms, which allow end users to download them on line, rather
than having applications physically implemented on their computer
systems by CPAs and other technology advisors, Eagle says. The ITA
has responded by adding training sessions in which practitioners
discuss how they have changed their IT practices to accommodate
Web-based products and services.
In addition to the Web-based sales, some IT
products for the smallest companies have been moved more toward
being packaged for sales on retail store shelves, Eagle adds.
“Vendors want to create software that works out of the cellophane
wrapper. Between that and the ASP (Web-based application service
providers) movement, the role of the implementer is fading,” he
says, summarizing what many IT implementers have long known.
He notes that, if anything, the bulk of
smaller firms’ IT work in the future will be advisory roles helping
clients put together requests for proposals from software vendors.
The larger firms will increasingly use their specialized vertical
industry practices to deliver IT products and services tailored for
those vertical industries, he predicts.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
At the same time we see a surge in CPA consulting in "risk advisory
services" that covers a broad spectrum of risk concepts. For
example, KPMG's overview of such services is at
http://www.kpmg.com/services/content.asp?l1id=90&l2id=520
It is true that accounting firms are not
concentrating on non-assurance related IT consulting. That, in my
humble opinion, is because they probably never considered it a part
of their core competence. In one case where it almost became a part
of their core competence (Arthur Andersen), the two parted ways
quickly (AA and Accenture). So, I don't think the firms were really
lured away from IT consulting but have chosen to avoid it.
There is a great gulf between the cultures
of the firms and those of IT consulting; and maintaining competency
in IT requires enormous investments (just as, for example,
maintaining competence in SEC audits requires enormous investments).
It is my understanding that all of the big
firms maintain an assurance-related IT practice (TSRS, STS, CRM,...
are some of the acronyms; in fact those practices hire almost all of
our AIS and Information Assurance majors). Non-attest related IT
services, when performed, are separated through separate "channels",
which in my opinion, is a sort of virtual Chinese wall.
On the other hand, there is at least one IT
risk consulting firm that evolved out of Big-5. Take a look at
www.protiviti.com
.
You may be interested in what your old
friend has been doing for the last several months. The website
www.freeloadpress.com contains the
publication of three Accounting Textbooks which have been made
available to college & University students FREE:
Accounting Principles
Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting
The element that makes the books available
for free is based on sponsorships by American businesses. You may
want to visit this website and access either the instructors area or
the students area. This is an interesting adventure for us and it
could be meaningful for both students and instructors, again at NO
COST.
If you have a reaction to this, I would be
glad to hear from you.
All the best,
J. Don Edwards
James Don is a former President of the American Accounting
Association and member of the Accounting Hall of Fame ---
Click Here
The very title of this website would
perhaps draw only hushed whispers from those commentators in the
world of education policy, and that’s probably not a bad reaction.
The site makes good on the promise of its title, as it offers the
casual and seasoned visitor a wide variety of indicators in the
forms of tables and charts, including total enrollments in grades
K-12, trends in half-day kindergarten, and past and projected
undergraduate enrollment figures. Culled from annual reports created
by the National Center for Education Statistics, these helpful
pieces of information and data are complemented nicely by a series
of special analyses, including “Mobility in the Teacher Workforce”
and “Private Schools: A Brief Portrait”. If visitors encounter any
problems finding the information they desire, they should consult
the “User’s Guide”, which contains directions on how to best
navigate the site. Finally, the site is rounded out by a brief
summary that highlights some of the findings of the 2005 Condition
of Education report.
The supposed promise of digital learning
initiatives across the globe continues to draw commentary from both
passionate believers to unrepentant skeptics. Recently, the staff at
the Development Gateway website, created a special report on the
topic of online education, and more specifically “…at lessons
learned, innovations that work, and the future of ICT in education
for developing countries”. The homepage contains a number of “Issue
Roundtables”, where a variety of experts in the field weigh in on
topics such as “Can it solve the education crisis in poor
countries?” and “Is high internet cost the only obstacle?” After
perusing a few of these archived roundtable discussions, visitors
will want to look at some of the other sections, which include
explorations of best practices in online education and some of the
potential roadblocks to creating and sustaining e-learning
initiatives.
What are the shared experiences of young
women across the globe today? Alternately, what are some of the
unique and individual experiences that young women are having across
the globe? These are but a few of the questions raised by the
Imaging Ourselves website, created through a partnership started by
Paula Goldman and the International Museum of Women. The idea for
the site came when Goldman was having a conversation with a friend
after the events of 9/11, and wanted to find a way to ask thousands
of women: “What defines your generation of women?”. Each month the
site takes on a new theme (such as “love, “money”, and the future”),
and asks women to write in about their thoughts on each of these
themes. After receiving the responses, they are posted here on the
website for the web- browsing public. Currently, women from over 100
countries have posted their stories, and they include those titled
“Playing with Mexico’s colors in my heart” and “Holistic Healing”.
For those with a number of relatives,
friends, or colleagues in far-flung international destinations, the
Skype application is definitely worth a look. With Skype, visitors
can call others with the application installed at no charge.
Visitors will need to select a Skype “nickname”, and then proceed to
add the phone numbers they wish to call. It should be noted that
phone calls to mobiles and land lines are possible with Skype, but
there is a fee associated with this service. This version of Skype
is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 or XP and those
running Mac OS X.
"Google's Time Keeper: Managing appointments is a snap with
new online tools such as Google Calendar. What does it mean for
Microsoft?" by Wade Roush, MIT's Technology Review, April 14,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16697,308,p1.html
In its latest challenge to
Microsoft's desktop-based productivity software,
Google yesterday launched a public beta version of
the long-rumored
Google Calendar tool,
which allows users to create and track appointments
through a Web-based interface accessible from
any computer connected to the Internet.
Like most beta products at
Google, the calendar was rolled out without hoopla,
but is already generating interest -- and praise --
among Web users worldwide, including thousands of
bloggers. "My first impression: It's fast, slick,
and stable," writes Michael Arrington, publisher of
the widely followed product review blog
TechCrunch.
The reason: Google remains
true to its tradition of building interfaces that
echo but simplify tasks historically done using
desktop software such as Microsoft Outlook. As with
Gmail, Google's Web-based
e-mail manager, Google Calendar runs entirely inside
a browser program such as Microsoft Internet
Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. It takes advantage of a
programming approach called AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript and XML) to reproduce the look and feel
of desktop software over the Web -- while adding
features of Google's own invention, such as the
ability to transfer events mentioned in Gmail
e-mails directly to the calendar.
"Calendaring is one of
those problems where we felt like it hadn't been
done right before, and we felt we could add some
value to it," says Carl Sjogreen, Google's product
manager for the calendar project. "We really set out
to make a calendar program that made it drop-dead
simple to get information onto your calendar. With
one easy graphical click-and-type interface, you can
enter data, and we have some pretty sophisticated
natural language processing technology that lets you
type in a description of an event -- like 'Meet Bob
for coffee Thursday at 7 p.m.' -- and add it to your
calendar without filling in a big form."
That's in stark contrast to
Outlook's calendar, which requires users who are
creating calendar entries to fill in a minimum of
three separate boxes: one for the subject, a second
for the start time, and a third for the end time.
Google Calendar is not the
first Web-based calendar to emerge in recent months;
its features are largely matched by existing
calendar services, such as
Kiko
and
30
Boxes, and it joins a raft
of other free tools for personal organization and
time management, such as
Upcoming,
Gootodo, and
GTDTiddlyWiki (a
note-taking program customized for followers of
David Allen's
Getting Things Done). And
it's just one advance in the larger Web 2.0
movement, a flowering of free online tools for
creating, organizing, and sharing personal
information (see "Web
2.0's Startup Fever").
Continued in article
Yuki Noguchi's review in The Washington Post on April 14, 2006
---
Click Here
Wouldn't it be great to be able to
keep track of all the events in your life, coordinate
schedules with friends and family, and find new things to do
-- all with one online calendar? We thought so, too.
Learn More ---
http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/overview.html
Seeing the big picture
With Google Calendar, you can see your friends' and
family's schedules right next to your own; quickly add
events mentioned in Gmail conversations or saved in
other calendar applications; and add other interesting
events that you find online.
Sharing events and calendars
You decide who can see your calendar and which details
they can view. Planning an event? You can create
invitations, send reminders and keep track of RSVPs
right inside Google Calendar. Organizations can promote
events, too.
Staying on schedule
You can set up automatic event reminders, including SMS
notifications, and instantly bring up anything on your
calendar with the built-in search tool.
When political correctness is allowed to trump common sense
A recent commentary in The Chronicle of
Higher Education by Linda Reid Chassiakos, who is the director of
the student health center at Cal State Northridge, illustrates a
moral dilemma that can arise when political correctness is allowed
to trump common sense. Dr. Chassiakos is a physician who received
her training in the early 1970s, a time when the percentage of
female students in medical schools was much smaller than it is
today. so she knows well the pernicious effects of discrimination.
The student health center that she supervises provides health care
and health counseling to Cal State Northridge students; and, it also
provides opportunities for practical training and experience for
students who are majoring in various health care fields.
As Dr. Chassiakos noted in her article, the
center has hosted nursing students, medical students, and Northridge
seniors who are majoring in nutrition. Not too long ago Dr.
Chassiakos received an unusual request from a woman in the nutrition
program. Both the woman and her husband are practicing Muslims. The
husband had asked his wife not to speak to or counsel any men while
she was working in the health center because that would conflict
with their religious beliefs. The wife agreed to the request, and
asked Dr. Chassiakos to allow her to work only with female patients
during her training in the health center. Chassiakos promised her a
quick response.
Though her initial reaction was to turn
down the request, Chassiakos was concerned that such a response
would be intolerant of the student's religious beliefs, and after
consultation with faculty members, the university's diversity
office, and legal counsel she agreed to the student's request. The
student would be permitted to work only with female clients, while
others from her class would provide dietetic services for male
patients.
It is clear from the article that
Chassiakos was conflicted by her decision. At one point she writes
"don't I have to acknowledge that some women will choose to submit
to restrictions of freedom, imposed by a relationship or culture?"
But, then asks "on the other hand, would those chosen restrictions
be acceptable if they were directed at groups not identified by
gender, but by criteria such as ethnicity or sexual preference ..."
And, she begins her final paragraph with
the statement "Deep down, however, I am not convinced that I made
the right choice."
Dr. Chassiakos' discomfort with her
decision is understandable because in the end she chose to
accommodate the religious beliefs of one of her providers at the
expense of nearly half of her clients. That simply is unacceptable.
Northridge is a public university. Its health center is supported by
taxpayer funds and mandatory student fees. It can no more
discriminate by gender in the services it provides than it could by
ethnicity or other factors. But when the health center allows one of
its providers to choose who she will serve, it has done just that.
Health care providers certainly are
entitled to their own religious beliefs and preferences. However,
when they work in a public facility they hardly have the right to
impose their individual beliefs and preferences on their clients.
Would a health center doctor who belonged to a religious sect that
was opposed to homosexuality be permitted to refuse to treat gay
students? Would a health center nurse whose religion did not permit
the use of contraceptives be allowed to refuse to counsel students
about the use of contraceptives? We all know the answers to those
questions. When you choose to work in a public health facility, you
put aside your personal beliefs and provide the best possible care
to your clients regardless of who they may be.
It may be argued that a public university,
such as Cal State Northridge, does have some obligation to make
reasonable accommodations for students who hold strong religious
beliefs. The key point, however, is that the accommodation must be
reasonable. Allowing a trainee to work only with female clients or
only with heterosexual clients or only with any other subgroup of
clients in the student health center is not reasonable. What might
be reasonable would be to allow the nutrition student who did not
want to counsel male students to complete her practical training at
a private facility such as a health club that caters only to women.
10. West Virginia, where American
Independence is celebrated with a special tax on sparklers and other
novelties, in addition to the state’s regular 6 percent sales tax.
09. Kentucky’s thoroughbred stud fees are
subject to sales tax (that would be thoroughbred horses). “You would
not believe how many checks I send back because they forget to add
the $30,000 in sales tax to the $500,000 fee!” one breeder told
Taxware.
08. In North Carolina, members of racing
teams and motor-sport sanctioning bodies can obtain refunds for
sales tax paid on aviation fuel (used to get to a motor sport event)
because the state is a tax-free zone for motor sports.
07. Using a pay-phone in Kentucky is tax
free as of January 1. Right across the state line, however, Indiana
still taxes pay-phone calls.
06. Cloth diapers are exempt from sales tax
in Wisconsin, however, disposable diapers are taxable.
05. In California fresh fruit is tax-exempt
unless it is purchased from a vending machine where it is taxed on
33 percent of the price.
04. Texas’ holiday spirit includes a
heaping helping of taxes: holiday trees decoration services are
taxable, but only if the decorator provides the ornaments, as are
holiday pictures painted on windows, phone calls from holiday
characters and greeting cards featuring Santa Claus or the Easter
Bunny.
03. Dead people in Ohio get a tax break
because applying makeup in a mortuary is tax-free, while applying
makeup in a beauty salon is taxable.
02. South Dakota taxes air ambulance
services but not ground ambulance services.
And the craziest American sales tax is….
01. Pennsylvania taxes air. That’s right,
use of coin-operated vacuum vending machines, commonly found at car
washes, is now taxable. No word on whether extending this to the air
from air compressors used to fill tires is next on the list.
www.taxware.com Taxware, a
First Data Company, is an industry leader focused exclusively on
global commercial tax compliance systems.
The United States is
taking aim at internet casino ads as
tensions build in a high-profile trade fight
over the country's largely toothless online
gambling ban.
Although many
website operators insist internet gambling
ads are legal, a recent crack down by U.S.
authorities has led some website operators
to disgorge online casino advertising
revenues and spurred others to rethink their
advertising policies, jeopardizing millions
of dollars in revenues.
Shawn Riley, whose
Amateur Poker League
draws 2.5 million
visitors a month, figures his Wichita,
Kansas, business has passed up seven figures
in revenue by refusing to run ads or
affiliate links for gambling sites.
"I would really
like the money but I have to avoid the
headaches," he said. "I feel like I'm doing
55 down the highway and everybody else is
doing 80."
Because gambling
operations are based in foreign countries
such as Antigua and Costa Rica, and
individual gamblers have extremely low odds
of being prosecuted, websites and media
organizations that sell gambling ads are
being caught in the middle.
One of the biggest
losers is Sporting News, the media company
owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. In
January, the company surrendered $4.2
million in revenue to avoid prosecution for
advertising gambling sites between 2000 and
2003 in its magazine, as well as on its
website and syndicated radio network.
Tune in Sporting
News Radio today and you'll hear the other
half of the settlement -- a $3 million,
three-year barrage of anti-gambling public
service ads.
Announcer: "Sports
fans like you should know that betting with
offshore or foreign gambling enterprises via
the internet or telephone violate U.S.
federal and state laws."
Fan: "You mean it's
illegal?"
Announcer: "Yep!"
Publishers of
gambling- and poker-related websites
disagree about whether accepting the ads is
a safe bet.
"The casinos that
we advertise are legal in their
jurisdictions," said Carson Cashman1,
marketing president for Ace Nine, a small
Pittsburgh company that launched one of the
web's most well-trafficked sites on poker in
2001.
The company's
TexasHoldem-Poker.com,
the top Google search
result for the term "Texas Holdem," contains
ads for PartyPoker.com, PokerRoom.com and
other casinos.
"It's similar to
running an ad for the Bellagio in a paper in
Detroit," Cashman said. "We've never had
anyone tell us we're going to get into any
trouble."
Still, websites in
the United States that accept advertising
from internet casinos are rolling the dice,
says the chief of the organized crime and
racketeering section of the Department of
Justice.
That takes in a lot
of websites. Ads for poker sites, casinos
and sportsbooks appear all over the web, as
well as in other media, and online gambling
raked in an estimated $12 billion last year,
according to Christiansen Capital Advisors.
Half the wagers came from the United States,
the research firm said.
The Justice
Department began warning media organizations
about gambling ads with a letter to the
National Association of Broadcasters and
three other trade groups in 2003, efforts
that seem to have gained steam in recent
months.
"The sheer volume
of advertisements for offshore sportsbooks
is troubling because it misleads the public
in the United States into believing that
such gambling is legal," wrote John G.
Malcolm, deputy assistant attorney general.
Brad Waller, who
writes a blog on affiliate programs for
ReveNews, has a
more cynical view of the government's
actions.
"They target the
easy prey here in the U.S. because the
gaming companies themselves are difficult to
prosecute," he wrote in January after the
Sporting News settlement. "Time will tell,
but I predict we will see the first casino
affiliate prosecuted this year."
Though large sites
such as Yahoo and Google have stopped taking
the ads, gambling sites offer a substantial
source of revenue for thousands of smaller
web publishers. Casinos and sportsbooks will
buy ads, purchase links to improve their
search engine rankings and even split the
pot each time a referred customer loses to
the house.
Continued in article
Question
What's the difference between Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae?
One of the most confusing types of business is a corporation formed
by the U.S. government that sells private equity (ownership) shares.
Some of these corporations receive annual subsidies such as Amtrak, but
the U.S. government can allow these corporations to go bankrupt without
guarantees on debt repayment. Some of these companies receive no
subsidies but have debt guarantees such as Ginnie Mae ---
http://www.ginniemae.gov/about/about.asp?Section=About
Ginnie Mae does not buy or sell loans or
issue mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Therefore, Ginnie Mae's
balance sheet doesn't use derivatives to hedge or carry long term
debt.
What Ginnie Mae does is guarantee investors
the timely payment of principal and interest on MBS backed by
federally insured or guaranteed loans — mainly loans insured by the
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or guaranteed by the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA). Other guarantors or issuers of loans
eligible as collateral for Ginnie Mae MBS include the Department of
Agriculture's Rural Housing Service (RHS) and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development's Office of Public and Indian Housing
(PIH).
Ginnie Mae securities are the only MBS
to carry the full faith and credit guaranty of the United States
government, which means that even in difficult times an investment
in Ginnie Mae MBS is one of the safest an investor can make.
Fannie Mae, on the other hand, is a much larger and much more
confusing type of corporation formed by the U.S. Government ---
Click Here
Fannie Mae is a private, shareholder-owned
company that works to make sure mortgage money is available for
people in communities all across America. We do not lend money
directly to home buyers. Instead, we work with lenders to make sure
they don't run out of mortgage funds, so more people can achieve
their goal of homeownership..
Fannie Mae stock (FNM) is actively traded
on the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges and is part of
the Standard & Poor's 500 Composite Stock Price Index.
In 1938, the Federal government established
Fannie Mae to expand the flow of mortgage money by creating a
secondary market. Fannie Mae was authorized to buy Federal Housing
Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages, thereby replenishing the
supply of lendable money.
In 1968, Fannie Mae became a private
company operating with private capital on a self-sustaining basis.
Its role was expanded to buy mortgages beyond traditional government
loan limits, reaching out to a broader cross-section of Americans.
Today, Fannie Mae operates under a
congressional charter that directs us to channel our efforts into
increasing the availability and affordability of homeownership for
low-, moderate-, and middle-income Americans. Yet Fannie Mae
receives no government funding or backing, and we are one of the
nation's largest taxpayers.
Jensen Comment
Fannie Mae on paper differs in some respects from Fannie Mae in reality.
Fannie Mae is independent from the Feds on paper. But in my opinion
Fannie Mae has become so enormous by owning over 25% of the mortgages in
the U.S. that allowing Fannie to declare bankruptcy would probably
disrupt the U.S. economy more than the huge S&L Crisis of the 1980s that
required a Government bailout.
I received the following message from a former graduate student who
works for Deloitte & Touche and has been working for ten months in
Washington DC on the monumental Fannie Mae audit.
Dr. Jensen,
I happened to come across this article this
morning -- in the second half it mentions what we discussing on
Wednesday (that Fannie is not backed by the federal government).
Thought you'd be interested.
Take care!
Roger
CAPITAL VIEWS: Fannie Answers Frequently
Asked Questions
Dow Jones Capital Markets Report, Apr 13,
2006
By John Connor A Dow Jones Newswires Column
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Fannie Mae clearly
is a kinder, gentler, humbler entity than it was in the past, but
the old tiger hasn't been completely defanged and declawed.
This latter conclusion is based on a visit
to the "Frequently Asked Questions" corner of Fannie's Web site.
One frequently asked question, it turns
out, is "What is FM Policy Focus?" This is the anti-Fannie
Mae/Freddie Mac coalition that previously was known as FM Watch.
According to Fannie Mae's Web site, "FM
Policy Focus is a group of mortgage insurers, high cost lenders, and
their allies who want to roll back Fannie Mae policies that cut
costs to consumers.
"We call them the Coalition for Higher
Mortgage Costs because if they had their way, the costs that Fannie
Mae lowers for consumers would go up," Fannie Mae informs us.
"Its membership includes trade associations
for sub-prime lenders, home appraisers, government-guaranteed
enterprises and others who profit from the mortgage origination and
settlement business," Fannie Mae elaborates.
"The companies represented by FM Policy
Focus are in dozens of lines of business - everything from jet
turbines to cargo ship insurance and sub-prime loans," Fannie
continues. "These companies have simple goals: maximizing profits
from mortgage lending and insurance. How would they do that? Higher
costs to consumers."
FM Policy Focus, on its Web site, calls
itself "a coalition of financial services and housing-related trade
associations, working with affordable housing and consumer
advocates, taxpayer groups and financial institutions...dedicated to
monitoring the activities of two government-sponsored enterprises,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
FM Policy Focus says its mission includes
supporting market competition that results in affordable housing for
consumers; backing federal policies that don't allow the GSEs to
move beyond their unique charters into markets and services already
provided by the private sector; and supporting federal policies that
prevent exposure to unnecessary risks that could require a massive
bailout by the U.S. taxpayer.
Back to the "Frequently Asked Questions"
section of Fannie Mae Web site, where Fannie goes to some lengths to
air out its view of where it stands vis a vis Uncle Sam.
The company says at one point: "The front
page of the offering circulars for Fannie Mae's debt and
mortgage-backed securities clearly states that 'The securities...are
not guaranteed by the United States and do not constitute a debt or
obligation of the United States or any agency or instrumentality
thereof other than Fannie Mae.'"
Elsewhere, Fannie says it "receives no
subsidy or appropriation from the government. Furthermore, our
securities are not backed by the full faith and credit of the United
States government."
Moving along, the firm states in response
to the frequently asked question of "what is Fannie Mae's
relationship to the government?" that "Fannie Mae is a
private-shareholder-owned company whose stock is traded on the New
York Stock Exchange (Symbol:FNM).
"Fannie Mae is NOT part of the government,"
this response continues. "The company was created in 1938 with the
responsibility of creating a secondary market for home mortgages and
operated under direct federal control. It was privatized by
legislation enacted in 1968 and became fully private in 1970."
In response to another question, "Is Fannie
Mae a private company or part of the government?" Fannie declares
itself to be "a private company, owned entirely by its
shareholders." It later adds that it operates "under a Congressional
charter" to make homeownership more affordable to low- and
moderate-income borrowers."
On to another frequently asked question:
"Doesn't Fannie Mae's implicit government backing allow it to borrow
funds more cheaply than banks, resulting in a built-in competitive
advantage?"
Fannie's answer begins as follows: "The
prospectuses for all of Fannie Mae's debt offerings clearly state
that the U.S. government does not back the company's debt
instruments. In fact, commercial banks, including the three that
make up half of the FM Policy Focus board of directors, have many
close ties to the government."
Fannie says these bank ties include
federally-insured deposits; the ability to borrow "from their own
cooperative government-sponsored entity, the Federal Home Loan Bank
System;" the ability to make FHA and VA loans, "which are fully
guaranteed by the federal government;" and the ability to obtain
emergency loans from the Federal Reserve's discount window.
The upshot here, according to Fannie, is
that banks have a lower cost of funds than Fannie Mae.
Judging from the "FAQ" section of Fannie's
Web site, there don't appear to be any frequently asked questions
that deal with Fannie's accounting scandal and ongoing remediation
efforts.
Fraud Update
This appears to be one of those moral hazard situations in game theory
where it is optimal to break the law and pay the fine.
The
Federal government does not back the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
However, since they own the lion's share of all home mortgages in the
U.S., the general perception is that allowing Fannie and Freddie go
bankrupt would bring the economy crashing down.
It's well-known that Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac have good friends on Capitol Hill. But last week the Federal
Election Commission shed some light on how Freddie Mac rewarded its
friends. In a settlement with the FEC, Freddie admitted to illegally
raising $1.7 million for candidates from both parties between 2000
and 2003. In 2001 alone, Freddie Mac's Senior Vice President for
Government Affairs boasted of holding 40 fund-raisers for House
Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley.
Unfortunately for Freddie, it is explicitly
barred by law from political fund-raising. In the settlement,
Freddie agreed to fork over $3.8 million in fines. Yet Freddie
probably figures it also got its money's worth. Genuine reform of
the two giant "government-sponsored enterprises" is now stalled on
Capitol Hill, thanks in large part to Mr. Oxley's dutiful service.
Which means it's time for reformers to turn
to Plan B. The Bush Administration could itself take the opportunity
to rein in Freddie and Fannie. An overlooked provision of the laws
that founded the two companies already gives the Treasury Secretary
the power to restrict the duo's mortgage portfolios that now
threaten the U.S. financial system.
First, some background. Fan and Fred have
lower costs of capital than their competitors because of the market
perception that the government stands behind their debt. This, in
turn, is indispensable to their business model. Fannie and Freddie
between them hold more than $1 trillion worth of mortgage-backed
securities that they've bought with this cheaper credit.
To make it all work, Fannie and Freddie
must carefully balance the risks that arise from interest-rate
movements, mortgage prepayments and the different maturities of
their debts and assets. The monumental accounting troubles that both
companies have had in recent years centered around how they account
for those risks and the hedges they use to mitigate them. The danger
that those portfolios could melt down has led critics such as Alan
Greenspan and his successor at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to
warn that Fan and Fred pose a "systemic risk" to the financial
system if the size of their portfolios is not reduced.
It took Congress just weeks to pass
Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002. But -- perhaps because Mr. Oxley has been
spending so much time at Freddie's fund-raisers -- it can't seem to
deal with the far larger financial problems at Fan and Fred. A
watered-down reform bill has passed the House, but a stronger bill
in the Senate shows no sign of being brought up for a vote anytime
soon. Securities analysts have been telling investors they believe
the drive to rein in the duo is losing momentum. Freddie Mac's
president and COO recently concurred in public. He added that strict
limits on retained portfolios would not be in the "best interest of
the housing finance industry." By which he meant the best interest
of Fannie and Freddie.
Portfolio limits are, however, in the
interest of American taxpayers and the integrity of the financial
system. The law requires that the bonds that Fannie and Freddie
issue explicitly deny that they are backed by the federal
government, but plainly no one believes that. Otherwise, who in
their right mind would purchase the debt of Fannie Mae, a company
with no financial statements and $11 billion in overstated profit?
This type of situation was foreseen when
Fan and Fred were chartered. Which is why the same sections of the
U.S. Code that require Fannie and Freddie to disavow any government
backing of their debts also require the companies to get the
approval of the Treasury Secretary before issuing any debt.
Specifically, the law pertaining to Fannie
reads: "[T]he corporation is authorized to issue, upon the approval
of the Secretary of the Treasury, and have outstanding at any one
time obligations having such maturities and bearing such rate or
rates of interest as may be determined by the corporation with the
approval of the Secretary of the Treasury . . ." (our emphases). The
section of the law dealing with Freddie Mac has similar language.
As we read that, Treasury already has the
power to limit Fannie's and Freddie's borrowing. What's more, that
authority appears to have been granted specifically out of concern
that the debts of the pair might someday be laid at Treasury's
doorstep. But without massive borrowing, neither Fannie nor Freddie
could afford to hold the hundreds of billions of securities that
they currently do. So limiting their borrowing would require them to
decrease the size of their portfolios -- and hence the risk to the
economy of a blow-up. Meanwhile, their regular business of
securitizing mortgages and selling them would be unaffected. It is
their repurchase of those mortgages with subsidized credit that
needs to be limited.
The Bush Administration has been forceful
in calling for Congress to reform how Fannie and Freddie are
regulated and run. But if it wants its effort to succeed, it is
going to have to show Fan and Fred and their friends on the Hill
that Treasury will act if Congress doesn't..
With state and local governments scrambling
to meet the Government Accounting Standards Board’s (GASB) amended
rules for reporting on postretirement benefits, and private and
public companies getting ready for compliance with the Financial
Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) proposed statement on recording
pension liabilities, a congressman from Indiana has introduced
legislation that would require the federal government to meet a
similar standard. The Truth in Accounting Act, sponsored by Rep.
Chris Chocola (R-Ind) and co-sponsored by Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn)
and Mark Kirk (R – Ill), would require the federal government to
accurately report the nation’s unfunded long-term liabilities,
including Social Security and Medicare, a debt that amounts to $43
trillion dollars, during the next 75 years, Chocola says, according
to wndu.com.
The U.S. Treasury Department is not
currently required to file an annual report of these debts to
Congress, wndu.com says.
“When I was in business, the federal
government required our company to account for long-term liabilities
using generally accepted accounting principles,” Chocola told the
South Bend Tribune. “This bill would require the federal government
to follow the same laws they require every public business in
America to follow. If any company accounted for its business the way
the government accounts, the business would be bankrupt and the
executives would be thrown into jail.”
The legislation doesn’t propose solutions
for the burgeoning liabilities, but it takes a crucial first step,
according to Chocola, “by requiring the Treasury Department to begin
reporting and tracking those liabilities according to net present
value calculations and accrual accounting principles,” the Tribune
reports.
“In order to solve our problems and prevent
an impending fiscal crisis,” Chocola said, “we have to first
identify where and how large the problem is.”
Chocola clearly sees a looming fiscal
crisis. “Congress is the Levee Commission and the flood is coming,”
he told the Tribune. “This [bill] is intended to sound the warning
bell.”
To support his position, according to the
Tribune, Chocola referred to an article written by David Walker, a
Clinton appointee who serves as Comptroller General of the United
States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Walker wrote that the government was on an “unsustainable path”.
Speaking to a British audience last month,
Walker said that the U.S. is headed for a financial crisis unless it
changes its course of racking up huge deficits, Reuters reported.
Walker said some combination of reforming Social Security and
Medicare spending, discretionary spending and possibly changes in
tax policy would be required to get the deficits under control.
“I think it’s going to take 20-plus years
before we are ultimately on a prudent and sustainable path,” Walker
said, according to Reuters, partly because so many American
consumers follow the government’s example. “Too many Americans are
spending more than they take in and are running up debt at record
rates.”
Webby Awards:
The leading international award honoring excellence in Web design,
creativity, usability and functionality
In its 10th year, the Webby Awards is
presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a
500-member body of leading web experts, business figures, luminaries,
visionaries and creative celebrities ---
http://www.webbyawards.com/
Rob Pegoraro has nothing good to say about the Nokia 770 hand held
device But while this $360 gadget might fit in great
on "Star Trek," in the real world it competes with a galaxy of other
handheld devices -- most of which do more than the Nokia 770, and do it
far more reliably and gracefully. The Nokia 770's aptitude at providing
a pocket-size window on the Web can't overcome its ineptitude at almost
everything else.
Rob Pegoraro, "It Does Little, and Not Very Well," The Washington
Post, April 17, 2006 ---
Click Here
"Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say," by
Florence Graves and Sara Kehaulani Goo, The Washington Post,
April 17, 2006 ---
Click Here
Whether questionable parts ended up in
hundreds of Boeing 737s is the subject of a bitter dispute between
the aerospace company and Prewitt and two other whistle-blowers. The
two sides also have enormously different views on what that could
mean for the safety of the jets.
The whistle-blower lawsuit is in U.S.
District Court in Wichita. No matter how it is resolved, it has
exposed gaps in the way government regulators investigated the
alleged problems in aircraft manufacturing, according to documents
and interviews.
Boeing said that the lawsuit is without
merit and that there is no safety issue. Even if faulty parts landed
on the assembly line, the company said, none could have slipped
through Boeing's controls and gotten into the jetliners. The
whistle-blowers "are not intimately familiar with Boeing's quality
management system," said Cindy Wall, a company spokeswoman. "Our
planes are safe."
Continued in article
Homeless Drug Addict Gets Five Fannie Mae Loans in Florida
"Investor, or pauper or merely a front man?" St. Petersburg Times,
April 9, 2006 ---
Click Here
After struggling much of his adult life
with unemployment, homelessness and drug addiction, Johnny Moon Sr.
died last year on a dirty mattress on the floor of a small home near
Tampa's College Hill district.
Moon, who looked far older than his 56
years, died of pneumonia brought on by malnutrition. He left behind
a watch, a flashlight and a wallet containing a solitary dollar
bill.
And more than a half-million dollars worth
of real estate.
In the last months of his life, Moon left
his signature scrawled on a variety of deeds and mortgages recorded
at the Hillsborough County courthouse.
A high school dropout with no job history
who got by on food stamps, Moon morphed into a real estate investor.
Within a year, he bought five properties and signed for mortgages in
excess of $614,000.
Moon appeared to be an astute picker of
properties, finding value others did not see in Tampa's older
neighborhoods. He paid well above market value yet managed to get
loans to cover all, or nearly all, of the purchase price.
Three months before his death, Moon sold
one home for $180,000 - $75,000 more than he paid 17 months earlier.
Those familiar with Moon's background have
doubts about his abrupt transformation into real estate investor.
Linda Johnson, Moon's 59-year-old sister, a
former packing plant worker who is disabled and lives in a mobile
home in Tampa, thinks he was an unlikely candidate for easy credit.
"He never had nothing much, no bank
accounts or nothing like that," she said.
Reading through Moon's probation record,
Don Russell, division chief for the county probation department at
the Salvation Army, concluded that Moon may have been used by
someone else to front for real estate deals.
"If this guy walks into a bank with this
background, they're not going to give him any kind of money," said
Russell. "It looks like someone just used this man's name to get
mortgage loans."
Evidence mounting since Moon's death
suggests he may have been the latest straw man used in what the FBI
says is a national epidemic of mortgage fraud.
In Tampa, one face behind the epidemic
belongs to Matthew Cox, a mortgage broker suspected of using phony
names, fake documents and forgery to defraud lenders of millions. He
is now a fugitive sought on Secret Service warrants.
Cox was initially charged in 2001, accused
of using a stolen identity to obtain loans on the home at 1904 E
Powhatan Ave. Who was living there at the time?
None other than Johnny Moon Sr.
Among the four properties Moon bought in
November 2003 was a white frame home at 2714 12th St. N in Ybor
City. The seller was a land trust controlled by Chuong X. Dam, a
Vietnamese businessman who was indicted by a federal grand jury in
February on conspiracy and bank fraud charges. Dam is accused with
others of using straw buyers to apply for fraudulent mortgage loans,
though none of the charges involve the 12th Street home.
Records show Moon bought the 12th Street
property from Dam's trust for $147,000 - triple what the county
property appraiser said it was worth - and paid for it with a
$147,000 mortgage loan.
The Federal National Mortgage Association,
commonly called Fannie Mae, ended up with the home after Moon died
and the loan went into foreclosure. For Fannie Mae, the loan has
become a loser.
The lender's representatives discovered the
86-year-old home with the tin roof has leaks, flooring problems, no
sink in the bathroom and no kitchen. As is, it is uninhabitable. The
home is listed at $88,500, but so far, no takers.
Two businessmen who might provide insight
into Moon's investment activities are his son, Johnny Moon Jr., and
an associate, Dominic Ferrara. Both are licensed mortgage brokers
who assisted Moon Sr. with his acquisitions, records show.
The younger Moon used a power of attorney
form to sell one of his father's properties last year.
Ferrara witnessed and notarized that power
of attorney, as well as deeds on sales executed by the elder Moon.
Ferrara also helped collect rent from
tenants at one of the homes bought by Moon Sr., according to one
renter.
"Mr. Dominic collected the $450 rent," said
tenant Judy Vaughn, who with her husband and four children rented
the four-bedroom home at 905 E 25th Ave. "He said it had to be cash.
It was a good deal for us. The last place we were in was a shotgun
shack."
The St. Petersburg Times contacted Moon Jr.
and Ferrara to inquire about how the elder Moon had qualified for
the mortgage loans, what had happened to the $75,000 profit on the
home sale before Moon Sr.'s death, and why no one had stepped
forward to claim an estate ownership in the real estate in Moon
Sr.'s name, including three homes that eventually went into
foreclosure.
Moon Jr. and Ferrara did not want to talk
about it.
"My relationship with my father is
personal," said Moon Jr. "It's none of your business."
"I don't know nothing about it," said
Ferrara. "Please don't contact me again."
Moon Jr. and Ferrara are former business
associates of Cox, the mortgage broker accused of fraud and now on
the lam.
Cox, Moon Jr. and Ferrara worked together
at a Tampa firm called Consortium Financial Services.
While there, Cox was charged with forgery
and mortgage fraud after obtaining a $110,000 loan under an assumed
name.
Moon Jr. and Ferrara were questioned after
authorities discovered Cox had directed payments to them from the
illegal proceeds totaling $45,000.
Moon Jr. and Ferrara told investigators
they knew nothing about any illegal activity and believed they were
simply helping hide money from Cox's wife. Neither Moon Jr. nor
Ferrara was charged with any crime.
Moon Sr. served four stretches in prison,
for delivery of heroin, possession of cocaine, aggravated assault
and arson.
In all, he was arrested more than 30 times.
Typically, he was assigned a public defender because he was
indigent.
Charged with possession of marijuana in
1994, Moon Sr. told a judge he had no income, no cash, no assets.
Charged with shoplifting a can of tuna and
a package of steak from a Winn-Dixie in 1998, Moon Sr. testified he
received $494 in Social Security income and had last worked "18
years ago."
"He had a long battle with prescription
drugs," said Anjeanette Moon, a former daughter-in-law. "He was
homeless a lot of the time."
Then came the real estate career.
In November 2002, Moon Sr. signed for an
$85,000 loan to buy the home at 2204 E Chipco St.
Six days later, Moon was arrested at a
Publix supermarket on Nebraska Avenue after stuffing packages of
razor blades, Tylenol and Advil tablets into his pocket and trying
to leave without paying. He was charged with petty theft.
Moon pleaded no contest to the $26.69 theft
and got 60 days in jail and six months' probation.
Probation records show he reported
receiving $108 a month in food stamps and $555 a month from
Supplemental Security Income - a form of disability income generally
available to people owning less than $2,000 in property.
A few months after being released and
reporting that meager income, Moon Sr. signed for four mortgage
loans, totaling $529,300, to buy four more properties. The four
purchases occurred in a two- week period.
He somehow got himself to all four
closings, records show, and presented a Florida driver's license as
identification, though the state had revoked his license
indefinitely during the 1990s when he was classified as a habitual
traffic offender.
Two weeks after Moon Sr.'s flurry of
purchases, Moon Jr. and Ferrara paid $53,000 for a two-bedroom home
with a fenced yard at 3309 E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
In July 2005, Moon Sr.'s body was found in
one of the back bedrooms there.
Five months after the death, Moon Jr. and
Ferrara sold the small home for $98,000 - $45,000 more than they
paid for it.
Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to
this report. Jeff Testerman can be reached at (813) 226-3422 or
testerman@sptimes.com.
POOR MAN, RICH MAN?
Oct. 7, 1948: Johnny Moon Sr. born, the son
of a Baptist minister. He will drop out of high school and work
briefly as a carpet installer. During his adult lifetime, he will be
arrested more than 30 times.
1977-1989: Served four stretches in prison,
for convictions for heroin, cocaine, arson and assault.
June 1998: Charged with shoplifting a can
of tuna and a steak from Winn-Dixie. Told judge he had no assets,
last worked 18 years ago and subsisted on Social Security income of
$494 a month. Sentenced to 45 days in jail.
Nov. 5, 2002: Signed for an $85,000
mortgage loan to purchase home at 2204 E Chipco St. for $85,000.
Nov. 11, 2002: Charged with shoplifting
headache tablets and razor blades from Publix. Sentenced to 60 days
in jail. Arresting officers list his address as "at large."
Feb. 26, 2003: Released from jail, reported
to probation. Said he gets $505 a month in Supplemental Security
Income and $108 a month in food stamps.
Nov. 7, 2003: Signed for two mortgage
loans: $150,100 to buy the home at 905 25th Ave. E for $158,000, and
$137,700 to buy the home at 3801 N Dartmouth Ave. for $153,000.
Nov. 14, 2003: Signed for $147,000 mortgage
loan to buy the home at 2714 12th St. N for $147,000.
Nov. 21, 2003: Signed for a $94,500
mortgage loan to buy the home at 1410 31st Ave. E for $105,000, the
fourth home he bought that month. Total mortgages: $529,300.
April 27, 2005: Sold home at 1410 31st Ave.
E for $180,000 - $75,000 more than he paid 17 months earlier.
July 30, 2005: Died of pneumonia due to
malnutrition. Police found meager personal effects, including a
single dollar bill in his wallet. His real estate later goes into
foreclosure after no relatives come forward to establish an estate
for him.
Since the History Matters website was first
profiled in the Scout Report close to eight years ago, they have
expanded their reach to include a host of lovely new features. All
the while, still maintaining their key strengths in providing access
to high-quality teaching resources for high school and college
students and teachers of American history. Arriving on the site,
visitors will find three primary sections: “Many Pasts”, “Making
Sense of Evidence”, and “www.history”. In “Many Pasts”, visitors can
explore over 1000 primary documents, including photographic images
and audio interviews. “Making Sense of Evidence” provides material
on how historians approach resources as they attempt to craft
intelligent and erudite narratives. The final section,
“www.history”, contains brief reviews of over 800 websites that
address various aspects of American history. The site also contains
a number of other gems, including “Secrets of Great History
Teachers”, which features interviews with those who impart the
knowledge of the ages with wisdom and insight.
Recently, a team of international experts
in the field of archaeology came across a rather remarkable find
when they located the Gospel of Judas, which was written on a 1700
year-old leather-bound papyrus. Part of this team included experts
from the National Geographic Society, and armed with this material,
they have created this fine website, which allows users to explore
the document at their leisure and to learn more about the potential
importance of such a find. First-time visitors to the site will want
to stop by the “About the Project” area. Here they can learn about
the persons working on this project, review a list of FAQs, and
learn more about Coptic, which is the language in which the Gospel
of Judas was written. Proceeding from there, visitors can explore
the document online and they can also download the entire work,
translated into English, or in the original Coptic. Visitors seeking
additional context for understanding this piece of writing will want
to peruse the timeline offered here, which includes background
material on early Christian history and Gnosticism. The site is
rounded out by an area that contains information about the complex
and painstakingly detailed process by which the document was brought
back to life and subsequently conserved for future generations.
For those who might see the words “IT
Conversations”, and think: “Oh no. A website dedicated to
conversations about IT”, think again. This delightful website
started life in June 2003, under the careful direction of Doug Kaye
and it currently contains dozens of compelling interviews,
discussions, and heated debates with a number of fascinating
individuals. The first-time visitor might want to begin by looking
through some of the series listed on the homepage. Some of the
themes addressed by these sessions include social innovation,
technology development, and global security. Each interview can also
be rated, so visitors may want to listen to some of the highest
rated programs first, depending on their faith in such ratings. Of
course, users may also wish to use the search engine offered here,
as they can use this application to quickly locate different
programs of interest.
Like the noted explorer for which this
program is named, this application demonstrates a rather impressive
ability in the areas of discovery and exploration. Truth be told,
the application doesn’t actually “discover” far- off lands and such,
but it will help users find the information they require online
quickly. With Magellan, visitors can query a host of search engines
all at once. Visitors can enter in complex search terms, and also
take use a number of standard boolean and proximity operators. This
version of the application is compatible with all systems running
Windows 98 and newer.
Parents and those concerned about young
people surfing the Internet may want to take a close look at this
particular application. With this application, users have the
ability to block adult sites and other potentially offensive content
from the eyes of children and other impressionable persons. K9 Web
Protection 3.0.23 can also be configured to stop spyware or gambling
programs. This particular version is compatible with all computers
running Windows 2000 and XP
Bookmarks, The Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2006; Page W7 ---
Click Here
I Alone Have Escaped To Tell You, by
Ralph M. McInerny (University of Notre Dame Press, 167 pages, $25)
It was all about money, or so he says. In
the mid-1950s, Ralph McInerny was a young scholar with a wife, a
slew of children and a job teaching medieval philosophy at Notre
Dame -- a college known for its football team, its bleak Indiana
campus and its barely visible academic salaries. So he set up a desk
in the basement, put a sign on the wall that read "No One Owes You a
Reading" and began writing fiction.
It sounds like a model for disaster, but in
those golden days of the American short story, the mystery and
thriller pulps were still going strong, the New Yorker-style slicks
were making stars out of everyone from J.D. Salinger to Flannery
O'Connor, and the glossy women's magazines were desperate for prose.
Redbook published Mr. McInerny's first story, the other journals
quickly following. A solid writing career resulted: more than 60
novels, a best seller in 1973 with "The Priest" and a successful
television series based on his mystery stories about a detective
named Father Dowling.
What makes Mr. McInerny's autobiography
worth reading, however, are all his other careers. A professor at
Notre Dame for 50 years, he has published academic works from his
1961 "Logic of Analogy" to his 1990 "Handbook for Peeping Thomists,"
making him the nation's most prominent scholar of medieval
philosophy.
Along the way, Mr. McInerny was a leader in
the movement that turned Catholics into vital intellectual figures
for modern conservatism. In 1981, he joined Michael Novak to found
Crisis, a magazine that helped to halt the drift of American
Catholicism toward the leftist "Liberation Theology." It's hard to
remember just how bad things were in the early 1980s -- bad enough,
anyway, that you'd want to name a Catholic magazine Crisis -- but
Mr. McInerny's columns and op-eds made it respectable for American
religious intellectuals to support John Paul II's struggle against
communism.
For all his success, however, the
77-year-old Mr. McInerny has written a sad autobiography -- not
dark, exactly, but the autumnal light casts long shadows through the
book. "I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You" -- the title comes from the
Book of Job -- describes the world-as-it-used-to-be in terms more
golden than the world-as-it-now-is.
The Depression-era Minnesota in which Mr.
McInerny was a child, the schools he attended in the 1940s, the
faculty life of the 1950s, the way a rising novelist was f�ted by
New York publishers in the 1960s: So much seems to have been lost
along the way. It's the decline of community, really, that Mr.
McInerny feels, and the reader will finish "I Alone Have Escaped to
Tell You" feeling that, indeed, community in America has much
decayed.
Perhaps the novelist's eye can't help
seeing even his own story in a novelistic way, using decline to
shape an autobiographical narrative. But that doesn't quite square
with the fact that Ralph McInerny has had a very fine life. He may
have set up that desk in the basement only to make some money, but
we're the ones who are richer for it.
Some enterprising students at MIT visited rival Caltech and
quietly pilfered Caltech's famed 130-year-old Fleming Cannon, fired
annually during commencement day and now sitting peacefully in
Cambridge. The MIT students simply presented Caltech guards with work
orders from their new business: "Howe & Ser Moving Company."
Massachusetts pranksters, posing as
professional movers, stole the beloved Fleming Cannon —
traditionally fired at each year's commencement — from the Pasadena
campus last week.
On Thursday it popped up, pointed toward
Pasadena and adorned with an oversized Massachusetts Institute of
Technology school ring, at the Cambridge campus next to a plaque
referring to Caltech as "its previous owners."
The plaque explained that the students
created the phony "Howe & Ser Moving Company" and used fake
work-order forms to get past Caltech campus security guards. After
that, a real shipping company toted the 2-ton relic across the
country.
Continued in article
Jensen
Comment
This reminds me of a Trinity graduate who was hired by top management
years ago to see if he could successfully penetrate a company's computer
system. He dressed up like a UPS delivery man and delivered a phony
upgrade program supposedly from Microsoft ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/262wp/262case2.htm
This is a stale prank, and I was
disappointed that MIT students had to stoop so low to plagiarise.
Back around 1986 or so, when I was teaching
at the Claremont Colleges, the students of Harvey Mudd College (one
of the colleges in the Claremont cluster) stole the same cannon from
CalTech. Apparently the MIT students who pulled the plagiarised
prank consulted one of the original Harvey Mudd pranksters,
presently a Professor at Boston University.
Shame on MIT students. (:-|)
Jagdish
The Wall Street Journal Flashback, April 7, 2000
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's chairman, Philip J.
Purcell, offered a spirited defense of casual dress on
Wall Street at the firm's annual meeting. He said it was
needed "to attract the best young talent," particularly
those working in New Economy areas.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Online Video
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music
and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature
available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Days after announcing that Iran had successfully enriched uranium,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called Israel a "rotten,
dried tree" that will be annihilated by "one storm." . . . "Like it or
not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihiliation," Ahmadinejad
said. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be
eliminated by one storm," he said. Haaratz.com, April 14, 2006 ---
Click Here Also see
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1615069/posts
Jensen Comment
I think the current Iranian President was planted by Israel --- nothing
better could help defense of Israel more in world opinion than to have
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tongue continue to remind the world of Hitler's
oratory in the 1930s. The danger is that he, like Hitler, may whip a
sector of the world into a frenzy that really pushes the world to the
brink of mass destruction. Is Mein Kamph required reading in
Iran? ---
http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/
People were unprepared for it. I was
unprepared for it. What I grew up with was the "rational actor" model of
foreign policy — the idea that you're dealing with someone who is going
through a rational process and not a spiritual process. Madeleine Albright
responding to a question from Deborah Solomon on "having underestimated
the role that religion would come to play in foreign affairs." In her
new book, Clinton's Secretary of State (Albright) admits to having
underestimated the important role of religion. Her new book is entitled
The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World
Affairs. The interview appeared in The New York Times
Magazine, April 23, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23wwln_q4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Responding to polls showing that a strong
majority of Americans support building a wall across the U.S.-Mexican
border, 2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton announced Saturday
that she backs a border wall plan that would be supplemented by a "smart
fence." "A physical structure is obviously important," Mrs. Clinton told
the New York Daily News. "A wall in certain areas would be appropriate."
The News said she also supported deploying a high-tech "smart fence"
that could spot people approaching from 200 or 300 yards. Clinton also
said the deployment of surveillance drones and infrared cameras should
also be considered. Carl Limbacher, "Hillary
Clinton Comes Out for Border Wall," NewsMax, April 23, 2006 ---
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/23/90825.shtml?s=ic
Jensen Comment
There is also evidence of declining support in both political
parties for the amnesty plan still being actively promoted by President
Bush but out of touch with the majority of voters --- See the Los
Angeles Times, April 23, 2006 ---
Click Here
Of course there is still active business and political support for both
amnesty and the guest worker program. See the New York Post, April 23,
2006 ---
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64942.htm
Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton Disagree on
Tightening Border Howard Dean and Bush agree on the legislation
at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand
guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.
However, at a speech in an Oakland union hall, the 2004 Democratic
presidential candidate sought to tie Bush to a much tougher House bill
that would tighten borders . . . Howard Lindlaw, "Howard Dean
accuses Bush, GOP of exploiting immigration issue," The Mecury News,
March 31, 2006 ---
Click Here
"What this means is that Americans will
tolerate or even welcome immigrants as long as they show loyalty to this
country and behave like the Americans already here," Straughn says.
"Where newcomers were born or how long they've lived here is secondary."
Eighty-six percent feel that immigrants make the United States more open
to new ideas and cultures, while about the same proportion believe it is
better if different groups adapt and blend into the larger community.
Professor Jeremy Straughn,
"Sociologist Asks What It Means to be American," PhysOrg, April
23, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news64938913.html
The only
way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you
don't like, and do what you'd rather not. Mark Twain (1835-1910) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain
A California judge has rejected legal
challenges to the new state agency, created in a statewide vote, to
promote stem-cell research for which the Bush administration bars
federal support, the Associated Press reported. Inside Higher Ed, April 24,
2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/24/qt
One impulse from a vernal wood
Can teach us more of man
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can. Wordsworth Jensen Comment
I need more help from the sages and pages.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no
matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall. Mitch Hedberg
You know, you can't please all the people
all the time... and last night, all those people were at my show. Mitch Hedberg
I'm
sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're
going and hook up with them later. Mitch Hedberg
The difference between sex and death is that
with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
Woody Allen
Every man thinks God is on his side. The
rich and powerful know that he is. Jean Anouilh, "The Lark"
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his
morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability. Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability"
It is so easy to miss pretty trivial
solutions to problems deemed complicated. The goal of a scientist is
to find an interesting problem, and live off it for a while. The
goal of an engineer is to evade interesting problems. Vadim Antonov
Unix gives you enough rope to shoot
yourself in the foot. H. Peter Anvin
I knew the gratuitous bra scene had to
be CGI. The curve of Julia Roberts' breasts was too reminiscent of
the Sterns-Rahaja pertness algorithm. Dan Appelquist
It's really amazing to me how much crap
people write. Dan Applequist
Kevin, your wit is tepid and lacking in
spirit. You are as a small flower which, when carried upon the
wind's harrowing passages, is thrown hither and thither, never
reaching safe ground to spread its roots. And therefore, just as the
flower, your feeble witicisms die from lack of nitrogen. Dan Appelquist
My friend Stew says I don't qualify for
Gen X because I've never done any telemarketing. Dan Appelquist
In April 2006 I commenced reading a heavy book entitled Great
Minds in Management: The Process of Theory Development, Edited by
Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt (Oxford Press, 2006).
The essays are somewhat personalized in terms of how
theory development is perceived by each author and how these perceptions
changed over time.
In Tidbits I will share some of the key quotations as I
proceed through this book. The book is somewhat heavy going, so it will
take some time to add selected quotations to the list of quotations at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/GreatMinds.htm
The Road to Fairness and Beyond
ROBERT FOLGER
PG.# 56 FOLGER The turning
point in events that led to my dissertation's themes, however, came
indirectly. At some point while perusing the social-comparison
literature, I read the Adams (1965) chapter on inequity. Here was
something I could sink my teeth into! Unlike ideas that seemed to go
several directions at once, the Adams material had a focus that seemed
promising. Also, I saw significant "holes" in the research. For one
thing, Adam's own research stream had concentrated almost exclusively on
the counterintuitive aspects of advantageous inequity ("overpay"),
whereas I found the relative deprivation of disadvantageous
inequity more interesting. I also thought the lack of systematic
investigations into the latter left a large number of questions
unanswered. Moreover, the Adams framework seemed well formulated in
ways that would make useful operationalizations of the relevant
constructs reasonably straightforward. The more I read, the more
convinced I became that predictions about reactions to underpayment were
problematic because of these unanswered questions. A series of early
studies by Karl Weick (e.g., 1966) only confirmed this impression.
PG# 67, 68, & 69 FOLGER At
the time, the mainstream journals reacted negatively to the presentation
of results from those surveys in terms of procedural justice because the
items referred not to choice or voice but to the demeanor and conduct of
the police. Having been influenced by Leventhal's (1980) approach to
procedural variables, however, Tom conceived of procedures more
inclusively. Hindsight indicates we had addressed what Bob Bies later
termed interactional justice (e.g., treating people with dignity and
respect), but his writings on that topic had not yet appeared in print.
Bob became the next source for my
recognizing the incompleteness of outcome-dominated thinking because of
the frequency with which people care as much or more "how" things
transpire as they do "what" they receive as tangible benefits. The
evolution of my thinking did not move in a linear fashion; various
side-ways investigations also occurred (e.g., Folger and Konovksy, 1989;
Folger, Konovsky, and Cropanzano, 1992). I only realized gradually that
traditionally conceived "outcomes" (e.g., pay amounts) often fail to
have the psychic and symbolic impact of impersonal misconduct that
demeans (e.g., publicly insulting subordinates in front of their peers).
Work by Bies influenced me in
several ways. His notion of interactional justice had a lasting impact
not only on me but also on organizational science. He also stressed
social accounts, however, in ways that linger at least as much in my
case. Here, I saw that my RCT manipulations of "procedural" factors
(e.g., Folger, Rosenfield, and Robinson, 1982; Folger and Martin, 1986)
did not actually manipulate the structural aspects of procedures but
instead applied social accounts to influence the participants'
perceptions of procedures. Bob's, having made that explicit, let to a
follow-up study (Cropanzano and Folger, 1989) showing that the effects
of both accounts and structural elements nonetheless paralleled one
another. Bies also reinforced my thinking that notions regarding
legitimacy stretched beyond the structural design features of formal
procedures per se--the very intuition that had guided me in using
justification as the key non-outcome element in RCT rather than
procedures or procedural justice. In addition, I saw this
beyond-structure impact as coming from social conduct, such as
choices of how, when, and what to communicate (the accounts emphasis)
but also including a range of interpersonal behaviors whether explicitly
linked with communication efforts or not (such as giving someone the
"cold shoulder," deliberately ignoring someone or taking pains to have
nothing to do with them; e.g., Folger, 1993).
Having given an historical
background on RCT, I turn now to Fairness Theory as an outgrowth
from that line of thought.
4.3 FAIRNESS THEORY
Fairness Theory or FT (e.g., Folger and Cropanzano, 1998, 2001; Folger,
Cropanzano, and Goldman, forthcoming), herein reflects as yet
unpublished developments in that model. It stresses the theme of
accountability impressions (not necessarily from conscious,
deliberative thought--at least for some instances of initial reactions
to events and persons) in relation to counterfactuals. Accountability
regarding blameworthiness can, in principle, reflect a continuum but in
practice tends towards such poles as innocence versus guilt, blame
versus credit, merit versus demerit. FT posits that the motives and
intentions presumed to underlie a person's mode of conduct can influence
impressions about unfairness when the person seems at fault for
wrongdoing.
The relevant counterfactuals--Would,
Could, and Should--align roughly with elements from
Schlenker's (e.g., 1997) triangle model of moral accountability as three
interlocked components. FT treats unfairness (holding someone
accountable and blameworthy) as derived from a conjunction among these
three facets relevant to impressions about human conduct. Blame for
unfairness amounts to a negative impression concerning each facet: What
actually happened appears detrimental vis-�-vis three counterfactual
representations (what did not happen) that each, in some sense,
seem positive by comparison.
Pain contrasts negatively with
pleasure as its (implicit) counterfactual, for example, just as guilt
contrasts negatively with innocence. Perceived unfairness
metaphorically mirrors the "pain" associated with a perceiver's
impressions about an incident (e.g., one person scathingly belittles
another) that Would NOT have generated concern "if only" the
incident had never taken place. Blame also constitutes a negative
(e.g., disapproving) impression related to at-least implicitly activated
counterfactual representations concerning how the blamed person did
not behave but Could and Should have behaved.
An example of an employee treating
a customer in a rudely unfair manner (adapted from McColl-Kennedy and
Sparks, 2003) illustrates these abstractions. The rudely treated
customer perceives unfairness with regard to the following conjunction
of counterfactual standards or referents: "what could have
occurred (being served with a smile), what should have occurred
(being treated politely), and how it would have felt had an
alternative action been taken (feeling happier)" (McColl-Kennedy and
Sparks, 2003, 254). Similarly, a third-party observer might consider
the rudeness unfair and blame the employee for it if that perceiver's
impressions include the sense that (a) the employee Could
have smiled (e.g., did not have his or her mouth wired shut), (b)
the employee Should have had more respect for the customer (e.g.,
by virtue of service-employees' duly assign responsibilities and
obligations toward customers in general), and (c) the situation
Would not have aroused any concern on the observer's part in the
absence of the kind of incident that occurred.
PG.# 81 FOLGER Adams, J. S.
(1965). Inequity on social exchange. In I. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances
in Experimental Social Psychology: 267-299. New York: Academic
Press.
Maybe Mississippi, following Wyoming's lead, will at last close
down some of its diploma mills Mississippi has a new law that allows the
state’s higher education board to go to court to try to shut down
diploma mills in the state, the Associated Press reported. Mississippi
has been among the states in which unaccredited institutions flourish.
Inside Higher Ed, April 24, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/24/qt
When you fly this summer, take lots of dollar bills to pay for
unexpected nuisance fees Ask for a pillow and blanket to help get
through a long flight and you may be out of luck. Or you may be able to
buy a "comfort package" from Air Canada for $2. Like to check your
luggage curbside? That could cost up to $3 a bag. Airlines are starting
to charge for many services that once were free -- such as assigned
seating, paper tickets and blankets. Air travelers who don't fly often
may be in for some unpleasant surprises when they reach the airport this
summer.
"$1 for a bag of airline pretzels? Carriers add a bundle of new
charges," CNN, April 4, 2006 ---
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/04/03/airline.charges.ap/index.html
The First History Course: It's no longer a lecture course Stopping short of criticizing the
conventional lecture format, Shanahan, speaking during a session at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, said that
history classes — even introductory courses — need an infusion of
creative lesson plans that deviate from the chronological information
dump. While her touch-taste-smell approach is perhaps extreme for the
college setting, her concept of diversifying the curriculum drew a
uniformly positive response from panelists. “There’s a thought among
historians that classrooms are just about delivering a rubric of
information,” said David Settje, a history professor at Concordia
University, in Illinois. “That model is old,” he said, and encourages
straight memorization rather than critical thinking. “We were boring the
crap out of students,” he said. “The acknowledgment is finally out there
that we have to talk about how to teach.”
Elia Powers, "Spicing Up U.S. History," Inside Higher Ed, April
24, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/24/history
Scientists find brain cells linked to choice If choosing the right outfit or whether to
invest in stocks or bonds is difficult, it may not be just
indecisiveness but how brain cells assign values to different items,
scientists said on Sunday. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in
Boston have identified neurons, or brain cells, that seem to play a role
in how a person selects different items or goods. Scientists have known
that cells in different parts of the brain react to attributes such as
color, taste or quantity. Dr Camillo Padaoa-Schioppa and John Assad, an
associate professor of neurobiology, found neurons involved in assigning
values that help people to make choices. "The neurons we have identified
encode the value individuals assign to the available items when they
make choices based on subjective preferences, a behavior called economic
choice," Padoa-Schioppa said in a statement.
"Scientists find brain cells linked to choice," Yahoo News, April
23, 2006 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060423/sc_nm/science_choice_dc_2
Zimbabwe's white farmers say they have been
invited to apply for land - in an apparent U-turn by the government
which has seized their land. All but 300 of the 4,000 white farmers
have been forced off their land since President Robert Mugabe
started his "fast-track" land reform in 2000.
A farmers' leader says some 200
applications have already been made and more are coming in.
Critics say the reforms have devastated the
economy and led to massive hunger.
Foreign currency
Much of the formerly white-owned land is no longer being
productively used - either because the beneficiaries have no
experience of farming or they lack finance and tools.
Many farms were wrecked when they were
invaded by government supporters.
Continued in article
The 10 Wackiest E-Commerce Sites To help bring some diversity to your online
spending sprees, Wired News asked around for suggestions in order to
present you this limited, biased but gem-packed list of some of the
coolest online stores.
Ryan Singel, "The 10 Wackiest E-Commerce Sites," Wired News,
April 20, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70695-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
Bad news from the McComb's School of Business at the University of
Texas at Austin Nearly 200,000 records of students, alumni, and
faculty and staff members at the University of Texas at Austin’s
business school were illegally viewed by someone outside the
institution, the Daily Texan reported. More than 106,000 of the records
contained Social Security numbers. Inside Higher Ed, April 25, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/25/qt
When does Barbie become a "sex toy" in South Carolina? Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said
she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering
outlawing sex toys. But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite
common in some Southern states. The South Carolina bill, proposed by
Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices
used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize
sex toys from raided businesses. "That would be the most terrible thing
in the world," said Ms. Gillespie, an employee the Anderson shop. "That
is just flabbergasting to me. We are supposed to be in a free country,
and we’re supposed to be adults who can decide what want to do and don’t
want to do in the privacy of our own homes." Ms. Gillespie, 49, said she
has worked in the store for nearly 20 years and has seen people from
every walk of life, including "every Sunday churchgoers."
Seanna Adcox, "Bill would make sale of sex toys illegal in South
Carolina," Anderson Independent Mail, April 21, 2006 ---
http://www.independentmail.com/and/home/article/0,1886,AND_8195_4641568,00.html
Three rare conditions coincided recently. I
had time alone in the San Francisco apartment where I rent a room
part time. I had my new sex gadgets and all of their parts with me,
including lube and an extra wing nut. And I had an entire day free
of deadlines, deliverables and dinner plans.
One of those sex gadgets was the Je Joue,
the iPodesque sensual massager. Another was the Jack Hammer Johnson
shipped to me by its inventor after I called it a ridiculous,
expensive and gimmicky device while promising to "give it a whirl"
if they sent me one.
I think he had it in the mail that very
afternoon.
I hate assembling things and vowed years
ago I would never again buy anything at Ikea, but even I am
competent enough to put the JHJ together. As I secured the dildo in
its holder, I wondered if I would take this much effort for a
penetration toy if I weren't doing it for work.
Continued in article (where you can find out more about how well
these work)
Scientists devise means to test for phony technical papers Authors of bogus technical articles beware. A
team of researchers at the Indiana University School of Informatics has
designed a tool that distinguishes between real and fake papers. It's
called the Inauthentic Paper Detector -- one of the first of its kind
anywhere -- and it uses compression to determine whether technical texts
are generated by man or machine.
"Scientists devise means to test for phony technical papers," PhysOrg,
April 24, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news65101797.html
The tongue bone connected to the eye bone;
The eye bone connected to the brain bone;
The brain bone connected to the trigger bone;
Now here's the soldier of the world
"'Taste' of wars to come," Al Jazeera, April 24, 2006 ---
Click Here
Military researchers in the United States
are trying to create super-warriors by focusing on the tongue.
By routing signals from helmet-mounted
cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain,
they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls,
snakes and fish.
Researchers at the Florida Institute for
Human and Machine Cognition hope to turn fiction into reality by
giving army rangers 360-degree unobstructed vision at night and
allowing Navy Seals to sense sonar in their heads while maintaining
normal vision underwater.
The device, known as "Brain Port", was
pioneered more than 30 years ago by Dr Paul Bach-y-Rita, a
University of Wisconsin neuroscientist.
Superior transmitter
Bach-y-Rita began routing images from a
camera through electrodes taped to people's backs, discovering that
the tongue was a superior transmitter.
A narrow strip of red plastic connects the
Brain Port to the tongue, where 144 microelectrodes transmit
information through nerve fibres to the brain.
Navy Seals may soon be able to see through
their tongues
Dr Anil Raj, the project's lead scientist,
said instead of holding and looking at compasses and bulky hand-held
sonar devices, the divers can process the information through their
tongues.
Continued in article
Bob Dylan's New Career: Radio DJ After decades as music's most enigmatic icon,
Bob Dylan has stunned his fans by becoming a DJ for an American
station. Once the most iconic recluse in the music business, Dylan will
spring a surprise on fans next month by broadcasting a weekly music show
across America. His debut behind the mic, due to be broadcast on 3 May,
. . .
David Smith, "Hey Mister DJ ...," The Guardian, April 23, 2006
---
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1759452,00.html
The Ambitious and Controversial Rumsfeld Plan for Fighting
Terrorists: A Special Operations Command The new Department of Defense plans, which the
Post calls the "most ambitious" in the fight against terrorism, were
developed by the Special Operations Command and follow Rumsfeld's
long-repeated goals to modernize the military and increase the role of
elite Special Operations troops. The WP says there are three plans: a
main one that describes priorities and strategies, and two offshoots,
one that focuses on al-Qaida as well as other terrorist groups, and
another one that details what the military role could be if there is
another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Daniel Politi, "Elite Takeover," Slate, April 23, 2006 ---
http://www.slate.com/id/2140485/
High End versus Low End Voice Recording (e.g., for Podcasting)
There are some good non-free alternatives. The company that offers
the great Camtasia for video capturing of computer screens with audio
narration also has an audio recording product called DubIt ---
http://www.techsmith.com/snagit/accessories/dubit.asp
"High-Quality Voice Recorder In the market for a professional-quality
voice recorder for, say, podcasting? by James A. Martin, PC World
via The Washington Post, April 14, 2006 ---
Click Here
During recent podcasting
classes and seminars I attended, I asked some
audio pros for their recommendations. No single
device earned a unanimous thumbs-up,
unfortunately. But one recorder, M-Audio's
recently released MicroTrack 24/96, was
mentioned several times as an intriguing new
contender.
I tested the MicroTrack and found a lot to
like. The recorder has a few drawbacks, however. Here's the story.
The MicroTrack ( about $499 ) is designed
for audio professionals seeking to record high-quality sound on the
go (or "in the field," as the pros say), and for consumers who want
an easy-to-use digital audio recorder with above-average sound
quality.
The MicroTrack records audio onto
CompactFlash cards. With no moving parts, flash memory doesn't add
noise to recordings. And flash memory is durable, whereas tape wears
out with repeated play. Plus, digital audio files are easy to share
and archive, unlike tape recordings.
The audio experts I spoke to liked the
MicroTrack's professional features, such as two-channel recording,
microphone and line-level inputs, and the ability to record
uncompressed audio as .wav files. They were impressed with the
device's compact size, and they liked the easy-to-use, on-screen
menus.
In my tests, the MicroTrack's audio
recordings were exceptionally clear. The T-shaped microphone
included in the box does an excellent job of picking up detailed,
warm sound. The device measures 4.3 by 2.4 by 1.1 inches and weighs
4.9 ounces, not including the memory card.
In my recording tests, the MicroTrack's
built-in battery lasted about 4 hours on a single charge. Though not
stellar, that's probably fine for most casual users. However, the
MicroTrack's nonremovable battery is a potentially big drawback for
anyone who regularly records for hours at a time, without access to
a power source.
M-Audio pointed me to a workaround: Apple's
iPod Shuffle External Battery Pack ($30). Inserting two standard AA
batteries into the battery pack and connecting the pack to the
MicroTrack via USB cable can extend the recorder's internal battery
charge. In my informal tests, the iPod Shuffle's add-on battery pack
added about an hour to the MicroTrack battery's charge.
However, the USB battery packs aren't
powerful enough to actually recharge the MicroTrack's battery,
according to an M-Audio technical marketing specialist. Rather, a
USB battery pack simply prolongs what's left of the MicroTrack
battery's existing charge.
I encountered a more significant problem
with the MicroTrack: On several occasions, the device froze while I
was recording. To restart it, I had to turn the recorder off, then
back on. Unfortunately, this wiped out an hour-long recording I had
been making.
Since my initial tests, M-Audio released a
firmware update, version 1.3.3, designed to fix this and other known
problems. I retested the MicroTrack with the new firmware. All but
one subsequent recording continued without a hitch; in one instance,
the MicroTrack froze after about 4 minutes of recording.
HowStuffWorks
Results for: Podcasting
How Podcasting Works
Podcasting combines the freedom of
blogging with the technology of MP3 to
create an almost endless supply of
content. Now almost anyone can be a disc
jockey, talk show host, or recording
artist. Find out what tools you need to
record and receive podcasts and see what
industry analysts have to say about the
future of podcasting. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/podcasting.htm
How Wikis Work
The basic idea behind any wiki is very
simple: It's a collection of articles
that multiple users can add to and edit
freely online. The most famous wiki, an
online encyclopedia called Wikipedia, is
now one of the top 100 Web sites in the
world. Learn all about wikis and the
communities that keep them alive.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wiki.htm
How MP3 Players Work
With the rise of MP3 files as the
digital audio format of choice –- at
least in terms of cost and portability
-- the MP3 player has become the
portable audio device of choice. These
players can now store weeks of nonstop
music, and they’re being incorporated
into DVD players, CD players and other
home-theater components to take further
advantage of the MP3 standard. Find out
what's going on inside an MP3 player and
what to look for when buying one.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/mp3-player.htm
How ITunes Works
Remember when Microsoft was the bad guy
and Apple was the underdog? Funny how a
brilliant idea can change everything.
See what makes iTunes the most popular
jukebox software in the world, review
some its more advanced functions,
explore the integrated Music Store and
find out why the whole setup is
inspiring some lawsuits and epic hacking
wars.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/itunes.htm
How IPods Work
In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, an
MP3 player with the unheard-of storage
capacity of 20 gigabytes. Five iPod
generations later, the device plays
songs, movies and photo slideshows, and
you can store up to 60 GB of any type of
file you want. Find out why so many
people buy iPod after iPod, see our
dissection of an iPod video to find out
how it works and check out what type of
software is available to enhance its
functionality.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ipod.htm
Also see "For IPod Fans, Here's Wheel
Satisfaction," by Seth Hamblin, The
Washington Post, April 16, 2006 ---
Click Here
"Buying a Digital Camera: Our Annual Guide:
New Features Fight Blurring, Allow In-Camera Editing;
The Truth About Megapixels," Walter S. Mossberg and
Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal, April
19, 2006; Page D1---
http://online.wsj.com/article/the_mossberg_solution.html
"Two Challengers Enter The Smartphone Wars:
Microsoft-Based Devices Aren't a
Match for the Treo; Reaching for the Stylus,"
by Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, The Wall
Street Journal, April 12, 2006; Page D5 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/the_mossberg_solution.html
Walt Mossberg tests the Sony Vaio SZ160 and the
Lenovo ThinkPad X60s, and says for road warriors, these
small, light, well-designed laptops are worth their
hefty price tags. Neither can
match Apple when it comes to the quality of its built-in
software. Lenovo's is too geeky and is aimed more at
corporate than consumer customers. Sony's is more
consumer-oriented, but it's inconsistent and confusing.
I like both machines, but
they have different benefits and downsides. The
ThinkPad is the latest entry in a long line of
small, rugged laptops with great keyboards and
strong battery life. It has a speedy, optional,
internal cellphone modem for connecting to the
Internet over a cellphone network. But it lacks an
internal optical (CD or DVD) drive.
At the cost of just a
little more weight and size, the Sony I tested
includes an optical drive and a bigger screen, but
it lacks a cellphone modem and has weaker battery
life than the Lenovo configuration I tested. For
enhanced security, both laptops have built-in
fingerprint readers that can bolster or replace
typed passwords. Neither is a bargain-basement
laptop. The Sony SZ series starts at $2,000, and the
ThinkPad X60 series starts at $1,900. They come in
many different configurations, and thus many
different prices. The ThinkPad X60s I tested, which
included a cellphone modem, an extra-strength
battery and a dock with an optical drive, costs
$2,300. The Sony SZ I tested, which didn't include a
dock, an extended battery or a cellphone modem --
but did have that internal optical drive -- costs
$2,500.
The Thinkpad X60S I tested
weighed 3.46 pounds, while my Sony SZ160 test model
weighed just 3.72 pounds, even with the bigger
screen and optical drive. The ThinkPad is 10.5
inches wide by 8.3 inches deep, and it's between 0.8
inch and 1.11 inches thick. The Sony is 12.5 inches
wide by 9.3 inches deep, and it's between 0.9 inch
and 1.3 inches thick. The Sony's larger dimensions
are mainly a result of its bigger screen -- 13.3
inches, versus 12.1 inches for the Lenovo. The Sony
screen is also higher resolution.
I put both laptops through
my usual tough battery test, wherein I turn off all
power-saving software, crank up the screen
brightness to the max, turn on the wireless
networking, and then play an endless loop of music.
My test ThinkPad, with its
double-capacity battery, lasted a very impressive
four hours and 49 minutes. In normal use, with
power-saving turned on and a more typical work
pattern, I'd expect it to last six hours or more,
which is excellent. My test Sony, which had a
normal-size battery, lasted just three hours and two
minutes, even though the machine was running on its
so-called Stamina setting. In normal use, the Sony
would likely top four hours. Presumably, a Lenovo
with a standard battery would do worse, and a Sony
with an extended battery would do better.
Neither can match Apple
when it comes to the quality of its built-in
software. Lenovo's is too geeky and is aimed more at
corporate than consumer customers. Sony's is more
consumer-oriented, but it's inconsistent and
confusing.
A Simple Home Test to Predict Drug Effects An international group of
scientists has demonstrated a new tool for personalized
medicine that makes it possible to predict nearly any
adverse reaction an individual might have to drugs.
Rather than being based on genetic screening, which up
to now has been the dominant approach to personalized
medicine, the new test relies on profiling an
individual's metabolic products.
"A Simple Way to Predict Drug Effects: Experiments with
rats suggest that a urine test could accurately predict
how an individual will react to medications," by Duncan
Graham-Rowe, MIT's Technology Review, April 20,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wtr_16719,259,p1.html
Science for non-majors
offers an important chance to reach out to students
outside the sciences, and try to give them some
appreciation for scientific inquiry. This is
critically important, as we live in a time where
science itself is under political assault from both
the left and right. People with political agendas
are constantly peddling distorted views of science,
from conspiracy theories regarding pharmaceutical
companies and drug development, to industry-backed
attempts to challenge the scientific findings
regarding global climate change, to the
well-documented attempts to force religion into
science curricula under the guise of “intelligent
design.” It’s more important than ever for our
students to be able to understand and critically
evaluate competing claims about science.
I worry, however, that our
approach to teaching science as a part of a liberal
education is undermining the goals we have set for
our classes. Despite the effort we put into
providing classes that are both relevant and
informative, I am troubled by the subtext of these
classes. By their very existence, these classes send
two damaging messages to students in other
disciplines: first, that science is something alien
and difficult, the exclusive province of nerds and
geeks; and second, that we will happily accommodate
their distaste for science and mathematics, by
providing them with special classes that minimize
the difficult aspects of the subject.
The first of these messages
is sadly misguided. Science is more than just a
collection of difficult facts to be learned. It’s a
way of looking at the universe, a systematic
approach to studying the world around us, and
understanding how things work. As such, it’s as
fundamental a part of human civilization as anything
to be found in art or literature. The skills needed
to do science are the same skills needed to excel in
most other fields: careful observation, critical
thinking, and an ability to support arguments with
evidence.
The second subtext,
however, is disturbingly accurate. We do make
special accommodations for students who are
uncomfortable with science, and particularly
mathematics. We offer special classes that teach
science with a minimum of math, and we offer math
classes at a level below what ought to be expected
of college students. Admissions officers and student
tour guides go out of their way to reassure
prospective students that they won’t be expected to
complete rigorous major-level science classes, but
will be provided with options more to their liking.
It’s difficult to imagine
similar accommodations being made for students
uncomfortable with other disciplines. The
expectations for student ability in the humanities
are much higher than in the sciences. If a student
announced that he or she was not comfortable with
reading and analyzing literary texts, we would
question whether that student belonged in college at
all (and rightly so). We take the existence of
“Physics for Poets” for granted, but nobody would
consider advocating a “Poetry for Physicists” class
for science majors who are uncomfortable with
reading and analyzing literature.
The disparity in
expectations goes well beyond simple literacy. I was
absolutely stunned to hear a colleague suggest, to
many approving nods, that all first-year students
should be required to read The Theory Toolbox. We
would never consider asking all entering students to
read H. M. Schey’s Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An
Informal Text on Vector Calculus, even though the
critical theory described in The Theory Toolbox is
every bit as much a specialized tool for literary
analysis as vector calculus is a specialized tool
for scientific analysis. Yet faculty members in the
humanities can seriously propose one as essential
for all students in all disciplines, while recoiling
from the other.
This distaste for and fear
of mathematics extends beyond the student body, into
the faculty, and our society as a whole. Richard
Cohen, writing in The Washington Post, wrote a
column in February in which he dismissed algebra as
unimportant, and proclaimed his own innumeracy.
“I confess to be one of
those people who hate math. I can do my basic
arithmetic all right (although not percentages) but
I flunked algebra (once), barely passed it the
second time — the only proof I’ve ever seen of
divine intervention — somehow passed geometry and
resolved, with a grateful exhale of breath, that I
would never go near math again.”
It’s a sad commentary on
the state of our society that a public intellectual
(even a low-level one like Cohen) can write such a
paragraph and be confident that it will be met with
as many nods of agreement as howls of derision. If a
scientist or mathematician were to say “I can handle
simple declarative sentences all right (although not
transitive verbs),” they could never expect to be
taken seriously again. Illiteracy among the general
public is viewed as a crisis, but innumeracy is
largely ignored, because everybody knows that Math
is Hard.
Fundamentally, this problem
begins well below the college level, with the sorry
state of science and math teaching in our middle
schools and high schools. The ultimate solution will
need to involve a large-scale reform of math and
science teaching, from the early grades all the way
through college. As college professors, though, we
can begin the process by demanding a little more of
our students, and not being quite so quick to
accommodate gaps in their knowledge of math and
science. We should recognize that mathematical and
scientific literacy are every bit as important for
an educated citizen as knowledge of history and
literature, and insist that our students meet high
standards in all areas of knowledge.
Of course, the science
faculties are not without responsibilities in this
situation. Forcing non-science majors to take the
same courses as science majors seems like an
unappealing prospect in large part because so many
introductory science courses are unappealing. If we
are to force non-science majors to take introductory
science major courses, we will also need to commit
to making those courses more acceptable to a broader
range of students. One good start is the teaching
initiative being promoted by Carl Wieman, a Nobel
laureate in physics Carl Wieman who is leaving the
University of Colorado to pursue educational reforms
at the University of British Columbia, but more
effort is needed. If we improve the quality of
introductory science teaching and push for greater
rigor in the science classes offered to non-majors,
we should see benefits well outside the sciences,
extending to society as a whole.
As academics, we are
constantly asked to look below the surface to the
implications of our actions. We are told that we
need to consider the hidden messages sent by who we
hire, what we assign, how we speak to students, and
even what we wear. Shouldn’t we also consider the
hidden message sent by the classes we offer, and
what they say about our educational priorities?
A Theory of Relativity for Poets? "The one sentence statement of
general relativity is that ‘gravity is the curvature of
spacetime," explains Dr. Sean Carroll, assistant
professor of physics at the University of Chicago.
“Really, the differences come in understanding what that
sentence means.”
"Generally Speaking: A Primer on General Relativity,"
PhysOrg, April 13, 2006 ---
http://www.physorg.com/news64168756.html
Carroll says that origin of
the theory of general relativity dates to 1905, when
scientists, notably including Albert Einstein,
realized that space and time are related
characteristics of a four-dimensional existence.
“When you meet someone for coffee,” says Carroll,
“you have to give four numbers of where to meet.
Three of them are in space — latitude, longitude,
and height above ground — and the fourth is what
time to meet.”
However, within this new
4-D framework, says Carroll, Einstein could not
understand gravity, and how it worked in spacetime.
He decided that rather than being a force, like
electromagnetism, gravity must be a property: a
geometric curvature. Even though we agree that the
angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, this
rule changes when a curve is involved. When that
same triangle is put on a sphere, the angles add up
to more than 180 degrees. Likewise, when the
curvature of spacetime is recognized, the basic
rules thought to apply to gravity are changed.
Lately, though, general
relativity has been looked at closely. Carroll says
that while no evidence exists for the overthrow of
the theory of general relativity, there are some
points where general relativity may not apply.
“General relativity is doing really well,” he
explains to PhysOrg.com, “but there are two places
where it might break down.”
These two places, Carroll
says, have to do with very short distances and on
very large scales. With very short distances, in
terms of quantum mechanics, there are problems with
gravity and with general relativity. The theory does
not apply in the same way as it does with longer
spacetime distances. “In classical general
relativity, spacetime has a geometry; in quantum
gravity, there should be a wave function that tells
us what the likelihood is that spacetime has one of
various geometries,” Carroll explains. Even though
no experiment exists yet that has cracked the theory
of quantum gravity, a new test is being developed in
Europe to try and work toward just that (read
about it on PhysOrg.com:
http://www.physorg.com/news12054.html) .
The other breakdown might
occur on large scales. There is still much about the
larger scales that remain hypothetical. General
relativity is one of those things. “There is still a
question of how much curvature is caused by a
certain amount of energy and mass,” says Carroll.
“Einstein suggested an equation that related energy
to the curvature of spacetime, but it may be right
in some circumstances and not in others.” He
explains that breaking down dark energy and matter
is necessary to understand the implications, but
that, so far, their existence is only known through
their gravity. “That could be a sign that general
relativity breaks down at this scale.”
Carroll also addresses the
case of special relativity. “Special relativity is
special because it is a special case of general
relativity. General relativity is, well, general,
and special relativity is one particular case.”
In the case of special
relativity, gravity is “turned off.” Carroll
explains that gravity can be ignored in this subset
because it is such a weak force. “Special relativity
deals with the idea that different people moving at
different velocities will have different perceptions
of what they see, and gravity is not taken into
account.” But, he continues, work with particle
accelerators show that special relativity is
extremely accurate for many experiments.
Understanding general
relativity is more a function of realizing that
gravity is a property of spacetime, and one of its
properties is gravity, which is actually a
curvature. The effects we see, explains Carroll,
comes from the fact that particles cannot move in a
straight line. “Particles are trying to move in
straight lines,” he says, “but there are no straight
lines because spacetime is curved.”
From MIT: Why are some people better adapted for
making money in the financial markets?
"Survival of the Richest: Why are some people better
adapted for making money in the financial markets? MIT
Sloan School's Andrew W. Lo explains," by Michael
Fitzgerald, MIT's Technology Review, April 19,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/wtr_16714,295,p1.html
Financial
markets are supposed to pool the
knowledge of market participants to
come to the most efficient decision
about matters like what a stock is
worth. They're supposed to be
rational -- driven by the numbers
and facts. But, in fact, financial
markets are better understood as
biological systems, argues Andrew W.
Lo, professor at MIT's Sloan School
of Management and director of the
MIT Laboratory for Financial
Engineering.
Lo, also a
partner in the AlphaSimplex hedge
fund, combines mathematics,
neurology, and psychology to study
how markets work. One of his
research projects actually involves
putting traders in an magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) machine and
measuring their brain activity. Once
a disciple of the Efficient Markets
Hypothesis -- the premise that
markets operate rationally and
efficiently -- Lo wants to replace
that model with the biologically
driven Adaptive Markets Hypothesis.
Technology Review: When did
you decide that biology might help
you to understand how markets
behave?
Andrew W. Lo: I've always
been interested in biology, and
evolution is one of most important
topics in modern science and
society. So little by little I tried
to think about how it is that
evolution affects economic
interactions. I remember about ten
years ago, where at the end of the
year I felt so frustrated that [the
Efficient Market Hypothesis] didn't
make sense to me. And then the year
after, when I started really taking
more seriously the notion of
evolution and its impact on
financial markets, it somehow all
fell into place. It's such a simple
idea: namely, that financial market
participants adapt to changing
market conditions. That seemed to
explain pretty much everything. In
the last five or six years I've used
this paradigm to explain one anomaly
after another. And at this point I
really feel like there isn't a
single anomaly that financial market
participants have documented that I
cannot explain with this framework.
TR:
Can you give us an example of
evolution working in financial
markets?
AL:
An example of behavioral bias is
what psychologists like to call
"loss aversion." When you're faced
with losses you become much more
risk-seeking; and when you're faced
with large gains, you become much
more conservative, much more
risk-averse. And that, people have
documented, is generally not
conducive to building wealth. It's
rational to cut your losses and ride
your gains. Instead, in practice
what people do when they're losing
is to double their bets in the hopes
of getting back to even -- traders
call it doubling down. And when
you're making money you cash out
right away and preserve your gains.
That is irrational behavior in
financial markets.
I've
derived a simple mathematical model
to show that loss aversion is really
the outcome of a survival instinct.
This notion of loss aversion, being
more aggressive when you're losing
and more conservative when you're
winning, is a very, very smart thing
to do when you're being hunted on
the plains of the African savannah.
However, it's not a smart thing to
do when you're on the floor of the
New York Stock Exchange.
Continued in article
From The Washington Post on April 21, 2006
What source provides the
highest amount of online advertising revenue?
In 2002, the University of
Houston Law Center was ranked 50th in the U.S. News
& World Report annual law school rankings.
Today, it’s ranked number
70.
Some faculty members and
students at the institution believe that the
downward slide may have been the cause of Monday’s
resignation of Nancy Rapoport, the center’s dean
since 2000. Others say that notion — and the
rankings themselves — are phooey.
“After six years as dean, I
don’t think this is a really big deal,” says Michael
A. Olivas, a law professor at Houston and director
of the Institute for Higher Education Law and
Governance at the school. “There is a shelf life for
deans, you know. These rankings are definitely not
how I measure the success of a dean.”
But, according to students
who attended a faculty member meeting last week,
some professors directly criticized the dean for the
drop. While the U.S. News rankings are regularly
derided by educators as poor measures of quality,
many of those same educators worry about how their
institutions fare.
Joy N. Hermansen, who has
seven more months before she graduates from the
school, was reluctant to give names of faculty
members who were particularly critical of the dean.
“I know that most deans don’t stay longer than six
years, and maybe it was time for the dean to move on
anyway,” she says. “However, I doubt she would have
resigned but for the recent events related to the
rankings because our school is up for accreditation
next year. That’s a really bad time to not have a
dean.”
One professor, who wished
to remain anonymous, said that faculty members and
student groups had been meeting regularly since the
most recent rankings came out to discuss what could
be done to boost them. The professor indicated that
none of these meetings involved the dean.
Hermansen says that
students began to concurrently rebel against
Rapoport. “I’m sure the fact that a few
irresponsible people, not thinking about the
consequences of their actions, posted messages
seriously criticizing her and her actions on public
Internet forums bothered her,” says Hermansen.
“Dean Rapoport, as one
faculty member described her, prides herself on
being an ‘outside’ dean — one who spends most of her
time meeting with people outside the law school to
try to improve its reputation,” she adds. “This
would be in contrast to an ‘inside’ dean who spends
his or her time mingling with students and is very
visible on campus. Therefore, we really don’t have
much insight into her thought processes or most of
her decisions.”
While Rapoport did not
respond to calls for comment for this story, there
is evidence that the magazine rankings have, in
recent years, weighed heavily on the minds of
administrators and faculty members. In an article
published by Rapoport in the Illinois Law Review in
2005, she detailed a plan called Project Magellan,
which was begun after the law school dropped below
the 50th spot in the U.S. News rankings.
“Magellan is raising
important issues and forcing us to make some hard
choices,” wrote the dean. “In our last few brown-bag
discussions, we’ve talked about making some changes
that may, over time, improve our rankings — at least
as long as every other school above us in the
rankings doesn’t make these changes at the same time
that we do. Most of those changes (to improve
placement, to reconsider how we award financial aid,
to change the curriculum slightly, and to encourage
different choices for placement of articles by
faculty) are likely to make our school better than
our rankings will demonstrate.”
Donald J. Foss, senior vice
president for academic affairs and provost at the
university, cautioned against putting too much stock
in the rankings in a recent Houston Chronicle story
regarding the dean’s departure. In a press release,
he stated that plans to appoint an interim dean and
a search committee in the immediate future.
Olivas also cautions
against putting too much stock in a dean’s ability
to affect the rankings of the school. He says that
funding shortcomings resulting from the state’s
Enron scandal as well as continued and rebuilding
efforts from Tropical Storm Allison are challenges
that will not soon go away. He says that these
situations have affected the magazine’s ranking of
the school, but that the school is actually doing
much better than the drop would indicate.
The Federal Government Maintains Two Sets of
Accounting Books
"The Safety Valve Has Become a Fire Hose," by Judd
Gregg, The Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2006;
Page A18 ---
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If Benjamin Disraeli were
around today, he would need to revise his famous
quote: "There are four types of lies . . . lies,
damned lies, statistics and budget estimates."
Controlling the federal budget and reducing the
deficit are difficult enough without obscuring the
numbers. But, that is exactly what is happening
today -- the federal government is keeping two sets
of books.
Back in 1990, Congress and
the executive branch agreed on a new framework to
govern the federal budget. The Budget Enforcement
Act, which essentially replaced the
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget law, created
statutory budget limits or "caps" to control annual
appropriation bills and force both branches to live
within financial constraints. Before finalizing the
law, some questioned the lack of flexibility to
accommodate unforeseen natural or man-made
disasters. In response, the then-Democratic
congressional leadership and the administration of
President George H.W. Bush included a safety valve
providing for "emergency" spending if necessary.
The safety valve has become
a fire hose, so much so that to understand budget
estimates one needs to know not only the budget, but
the "shadow budget" as well. We discuss regular
spending "within the caps" and emergency spending
"outside the caps"; but emergency spending is
considered "free money" because it is not controlled
or offset vis-�-vis other federal spending. The
White House regularly transmits and the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees report bills
containing "emergency" spending above budget
allocations and controls. This emergency spending is
charged straight to the U.S. government's deficit
and debt, like a credit card, with our kids and
future generations paying the interest.
During the 1990s, even
taking into account Operation Desert Storm and
Kosovo operations, Congress and the administration
averaged $22 billion of emergency spending per year.
More recently, emergency spending is averaging over
$100 billion in spending per year. Just two weeks
ago, on a vote of 27-1, the Senate Appropriations
Committee not only approved $92.2 billion in
additional spending justified by the administration
as "emergency," but it added a mere $14.3 billion
more in amendments! Included were such highly
important items as oyster restoration, more foreign
aid, relocation of a library on a military base and
ongoing regular Army procurement programs that the
Pentagon moved to the "emergency" supplemental
ledger so they do not have to compete with ships,
aircraft and personnel costs.
On a bipartisan basis, the
nation's elected leaders are abusing the process. If
a program doesn't compete well against other
priorities, one need only shift it to the next
emergency supplemental appropriations request.
The defense budget is a
good example. One set of books said the Defense
Department and related national security functions
would require $434 billion this year, about a 3%
increase over the previous year. When emergency
funding is factored into the equation, the true set
of books show that defense will be provided at least
$558 billion, or almost a 12% increase above the
previous year. For fiscal 2007, the president's
budget states that Defense Department spending will
decline by 8.7%! The Defense Department freely
admits that the budget is intentionally understated,
as they intend to pick up the difference in the next
emergency supplemental.
Another example is
Hurricane Katrina. Emergency relief has totaled over
$100 billion and an additional $27 billion has been
proposed. Clearly, this was a huge national
disaster. But just as clearly, federal spending for
this disaster is unprecedented and still growing.
Each "special" disaster program, such as Katrina tax
relief, will become the benchmark for what the
federal government will be expected to provide in
response to future natural disasters.
Is spending for the Iraq
War and natural disasters important? Of course. But
there is no such thing as free spending, even in
Washington. These emergency supplemental
appropriations bills are added to the nation's debt
and our kids are handed the bill.
So what should be done?
First, we have to restructure the budget rules
again. They have been bent so many times, they have
been rendered meaningless. The Fiscal Year 2007
Budget Resolution passed by the Senate proposes to
limit the use of the "emergency loophole." Our
budget allocated $90 billion for high priority
emergency spending in 2007, such as operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan, border security and supplies
to prepare for the avian flu threat. That number
represents the average cost of the war over the last
four years. The budget resolution was transparent
and counted the cost of the war "on budget." Our
budget provides the Congress and the president with
$963 billion for discretionary spending next year
and requires that three-fifths of the Senate approve
any spending above this ceiling.
Second, we need to move
forward with overall budget process reform.
President Bush's line item veto/expedited recission
proposal is a good start. Many have suggested we
need "two year budgeting." I would respectfully
suggest that a better approach would be to require
"one year budgeting" -- that is, force Congress and
the president to live within this year's budget --
period. Let's recreate a Gramm-Rudman-Hollings-type
sequester if the deficit limits are exceeded.
Uncontrolled federal
spending could derail our nation's economic growth
and our economy. It should not require an external
event, like the 1987 stock market plummet, for
America's elected leadership to step up and control
federal spending.
Budget process reform alone
cannot force fiscal responsibility, but it can help
drive action. It is time to rein in so called
"emergency spending" and to adopt substantive budget
reform. It is time to plug the hole in the budget
and maintain just one set of books.
Continued in article
Elite colleges are for the rich and
the poor and selected minorities,
but no longer for middle income families Lucas Puente has been accepted
at Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of
Pennsylvania. But to attend any one of the prestigious
universities would cost a total of about $48,000 a year,
and he wouldn't qualify for need-based aid. The
University of Georgia, meanwhile, has offered him a
Foundation Fellowship, which would cover not only his
out-of-state tuition of $16,000, but also other costs.
Total value of the package over four years: roughly
$125,000 . . . More middle- and upper-income families
are in a similar bind -- trying to assess the value of a
degree from a top-tier school. Even as the price of
attending an elite college approaches $50,000 a year,
less-prestigious schools are offering more merit aid,
making the cost differences starker. Nationwide, $7.3
billion in merit scholarships was awarded in 2003-2004,
up from $1.2 billion in 1993-1994, according to the
latest data available from the National Association of
Student Financial Aid Administrators. And college
officials say the trend is growing.
"Saying 'No' to the Ivy League: Families Face Tough
Choice As Back-Up Schools Boost Merit Aid for Top
Students," by Robert Tomsho, The Wall Street Journal,
April 20, 2006; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114549432060630668.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal
With internal auditors
taking a more prominent role in U.S. companies, the
popularity of the field is surging. "Our membership
has more than doubled in the last 10 years," said
Trish Harris, director of communications for The
Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). "There's been
huge growth."
The IIA's membership has
grown 38 percent since 2000, and the number of
people taking the certified internal auditor exam
rose from 30,634 to 38,000 in 2005, the Pittsburgh
Business Times reported.
The Sarbanes-Oxley
corporate reform legislation brought internal
auditing out of the back rooms of corporate
headquarters. Now, internal auditors are reporting
directly to the CEO or board of directors, and their
visibility makes it easier for them to get promoted.
"People who work in
internal auditing have the opportunity to see every
corner of the enterprise and interact with
executives throughout the company," said Bill
Strait, director of internal audit for Respironics
Inc., which makes sleep apnea devices. "Because of
(Sarbanes-Oxley), because of business failures, it's
become even more of a launching pad for people
moving into important areas of the company."
"Needed: An 'Apollo Program' for Energy: The
world's critical energy problems require solutions
beyond those that policymakers are exploring now," by
David Talbot , MIT's Technology Review, April 20,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/BizTech/wtr_16718,296,p1.html
SO WHAT did happen to
Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross when they boarded
that bus and travelled into the sunset of 1967 at
the end of The Graduate?
The outcome was left to the
cinemagoer’s imagination — but there is nothing
imaginary about the fate of the real-life couple on
whom Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson were
based. They are stony broke and facing eviction from
their flat in Hove, East Sussex.
Charles Webb, the novelist
who based the couple on himself and his long-term
female partner, Fred, wrote the basis for a hugely
successful film but made one serious tactical error.
He accepted a �14,000 one-off payment for his work,
and then watched the film take �60 million at the
box office. The wise generally go for the
percentage, but material wealth, he says
defensively, has never meant much to him.
It is just that he could do
with some right now.
Webb and Fred, who settled
in Britain six years ago after emigrating from
America, received a letter from their landlord last
week telling them to expect an eviction notice
because they are two months behind in their rent.
Webb is hoping that a well-wisher will offer them a
place to stay while he finds a buyer for his latest
works.
One project that would earn
him money would be his sequel to The Graduate,
entitled Home School. The story it tells could
hardly be more different from the original, and is
nothing if not quirky.
The pair were so
disenchanted with their own education that they
removed their children from school so that they
could teach them at home, an illegal act in
California at the time. They fled the authorities by
hiding in a succession of nudist camps.
Fred, who was given the
name Eve by her parents, changed her name as a
gesture of solidarity with a men’s support group.
She and Charles divorced, not out of personal
differences, but in protest against the institution
of marriage. The pair eventually came to Britain to
settle in Newhaven, in a flat above a pet shop. They
have since moved to less frugal accommodation in
Hove, but still live with as little furniture as
possible.
But he is reluctant to
publish the somewhat bizarre story of the rest of
his life because, thanks to a legal quirk, he no
longer owns the rights to the characters. According
to the agreement under which the rights to The
Graduate were sold, Canal Plus, the French media
company, would be able to make a film of Home School
without his consent. Webb declared that he would
rather have the book published after his death than
risk a poor adaptation being made during his
lifetime.
Scandals in South Korea
tend to come in pairs. No sooner are prosecutors
finished pursuing the Samsung group for wiretapping,
stock manipulation and bribery, for instance, than
it's Hyundai's turn to face investigation for
alleged payoffs to politicians. The details may be
different, but the pattern is dishearteningly
familiar: Year after year, corruption on an
extraordinary scale slows South Korea's productivity
and hinders its economic competitiveness. It's time
for the country to take a hard look at the root of
the problem: its all-powerful conglomerates, the
chaebol.
Ironically, the empire
currently under investigation, Hyundai, has slimmed
down a bit in recent years. Unlike Samsung, Hyundai
was broken up into separate groups several years
ago. But the process wasn't done competitively.
Rather, Hyundai's founder, Chung Ju-yung, divvied up
his sprawling conglomerate among his sons and heirs
before his death in 2001. The biggest, most visibly
successful of them, Hyundai Automotive, is the
principal target of the current inquiry, though some
others bearing the Hyundai name are also under
investigation.
Continued in article
Political Bribes and Other Wrong Doings by South
Korean Executives With apologies to Elton John,
"sorry" doesn't seem to be the hardest word in South
Korea these days. In fact, the heads of Samsung and
Hyundai Motor are chock full of contrition for alleged
wrongdoings. But letting the justice system work, while
admirable, isn't enough. Until South Korea tackles its
clubby corporate culture and truly throws open its
markets to competition, more and more of these cases
will surface . . . South Korea simply isn't in a
position to play this kind of game. The country remains
heavily dependent on exports, and while per capita
income is rising, it's still not in the big leagues
with, say, neighboring Japan. Mr. Roh's government needs
to tackle the root of the problem; namely, the
environment in which these companies operate. Only then
can South Korea stop saying "sorry."
"Sorry Isn't Enough," The Wall Street Journal,
April 12, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114479190783523313.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
From Opinion Journal on April 13, 2006
The Seattle Times
reports that a racist question appeared on a math
test at Bellevue Community College:
*** QUOTE ***
[Student Chelsey]
Richardson, 25, said she found the question on a
practice test for a math final she was studying
for in March. The question read, "Condoleezza
holds a watermelon just over the edge of the
roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and
tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per
second." The question went on to ask when the
watermelon will hit the ground, based on a
formula provided. The question propagates a
racial stereotype and denigrates[ ** ] Secretary
of State Rice, said [the Rev. Wayne] Perryman [a
civil rights activist Richardson contacted].
While Rice's last name wasn't mentioned, the
reference was clear, he said.
"How many Condoleezzas
spell their name that way and how many
Condoleezzas are associated with a federal
building? It doesn't take much to connect the
dotted lines," he said.
Richardson, along with
her friend Ilays Aden, met with the chairman of
the math department who agreed to remove the
question from the department's files. But the
women left feeling the school needed to take a
deeper look at how a racist stereotype could be
inserted into the curriculum.
*** END QUOTE ***
Liberals are always telling
us that racism is everywhere, "just beneath the
surface," and perhaps this reflects a degree of
self-knowledge. Many white liberals are
astonishingly uninhibited about attacking black
conservatives or Republicans on racial grounds, and
that is what appears to have happened here. (We
don't know for sure, since Bellevue is not revealing
the identity of the professor who wrote the
question.)
The good news is that the
college president, Jean Floten, is taking the
complaint seriously. According to the Times, she
"apologized Wednesday at an emotional open-campus
meeting" and "praised the courage of the students
who brought the question to the college's
attention."
** A curious choice of
words, since denigrate means "to blacken."
Q:I know that with Apple's Boot
Camp, the Mac and Windows operating systems occupy
their own distinct "partitions" on the machine's
hard disk. But can they view and use each other's
data files?
A: Yes, but
it takes careful setup plus add-on software. Here's
how to do it.
When you run Boot Camp, you should make sure that
the Windows partition you create on your hard disk
is under 32 gigabytes. Then, when you install
Windows, you should choose to format the Windows
partition as "FAT32," not "NTFS." The FAT32 choice
will allow your Mac to read and write to the Windows
portion of the hard disk.
If you pick NTFS, the Mac will be able to read
Windows files, but not write them. Note: You can't
choose FAT32 if the Windows segment of your hard
disk exceeds 32 gigabytes.
After that, when you start up in Mac OS X, you'll
see the Windows drive and be able to access it from
the Mac side. But, when you boot up in Windows, you
won't see, and can't access, the Mac drive.
After the whole system is running fine, you should
install a product called MacDrive on the Windows
side. MacDrive, which costs $50 from a company
called Mediafour, allows Windows PCs to access Mac
disks.
The company says that MacDrive
works on Boot Camp-equipped Macs. For more
information, see:
www.mediafour.com/bootcamp.
Q:Will Boot Camp work on my iMac G5,
or my PowerBook G4?
A: No, it
works only on the very latest crop of Mac models,
which began appearing this year, including the
newest iMac and Mac Mini and the new MacBook Pro.
They are powered by Intel processors. If your Mac
was bought before January 2006, or if its name
includes the words G4, G5, iBook or PowerBook, it
won't work with Boot Camp.
Q:Can I upgrade my older Mac to the
Intel chips so I can run Windows on it?
A: No.
Apple hasn't made this kind of upgrade available.
And, even if another company did, it would likely
involve replacing most of the computer's guts, not
just one chip, and would likely cost almost as much
as buying a new computer.
Q:After I run Boot Camp, can I
install my copy of Windows 2000? Can I use a copy of
Windows I got with my Dell, or that I got from work?
A: No. Boot
Camp works only with fresh copies of Windows XP,
purchased at retail, that include the "SP2" update
from Microsoft in the box. It won't work with
upgrade versions of XP, or with copies that came
with another PC, or that you got from friends or the
office. And it won't work with Windows 2000, or any
other pre-XP version of Windows. You also can't use
Windows XP and then add the SP2 update later.
Eusocial organisms often
divide up other kinds of labor as well, with castes
of workers. But not all of the mole rats are pulling
their weight. South African researchers say there is
a caste of lazybones, referred to, charitably, as
"infrequent workers." These slothful mole rats can
make up as much as 40 percent of a colony yet do
only about 5 percent of the work.
Michael Scantlebury and
Nigel C. Bennett of the University of Pretoria
analyzed the energy expended by the lazy mole rats
and their more industrious counterparts, using
biological tracers for the animals' metabolism.
Their study, published in the journal Nature, found
that the two groups had very different levels of
energy consumption. Most of the time the lazy
animals did little besides eat.
In eusocial insects, castes
are recognized by anatomical differences. "This is
the first time it's been shown that things are
happening physiologically as well as
morphologically," he said.
The researchers also found
that there was a method to the mole rats' laziness.
Anecdotal evidence had suggested that when the soil
was moistened by rain, the fat animals would dig new
tunnels, looking for love by connecting with another
colony. The energy studies provided further evidence
that this occurs: the lazy rats' energy expenditure
increased markedly after rainfall.
So although the mole rats
sit around most of the time, draining the colony of
resources, they are actually building up their
reserves for those brief periods when they act as
dispersers. "The colony puts up with them," Dr.
Scantlebury said, "because they offer the chance of
spreading the genes and creating future colonies."
1. "Money Masters of Our
Time" by John Train (HarperCollins, 2000).
I am an advocate of
market-tracking index funds, so this might seem like
an odd book for me to recommend. John Train profiles
17 renowned money managers, combining entertaining
biographical sketches with breezy descriptions of
their investment strategies. The folks profiled,
including Warren Buffett, T. Rowe Price, George
Soros and John Templeton, all made their names by
generating outsized investment returns. Meanwhile, I
am convinced that the financial markets are
reasonably efficient and that investors are better
off avoiding costly efforts to beat the market
averages. Still, early in my career, I read a
slightly different version of this book--and it was
maybe the first book that got me truly excited about
investing. And besides, even if you're going to
index, it is important to know how the enemy thinks.
2. "Capital Ideas" by
Peter Bernstein (Free Press, 1991).
If John Train gives you a
great introduction to traditional active investing,
then Mr. Bernstein's book is the antidote, telling
the story of how finance professors turned Wall
Street upside down by bringing academic rigor to the
investment process. Sure, a book devoted to the
capital-asset pricing model and the Black-Scholes
formula might sound like heavy going. Yet it's a
gripping tale. Before the 1970s, professional money
managers were assumed to beat the market and
controlling investment risk was a rough-and-ready
business. But as the insights of Harry Markowitz,
William Sharpe, Eugene Fama and other academics took
hold, the business of managing money was forever
changed.
3. "Winning the Loser's
Game" by Charles Ellis (McGraw-Hill, 2002).
When novice investors ask
what to read, this is the book I usually suggest.
Charles Ellis provides an easily digestible
introduction to sensible investing--in other words,
he is a fan of indexing--and he does it in a brisk
182 pages. The book's title reflects Mr. Ellis's
contention that investment management has become a
loser's game, where trying to win is the surest way
to lose, because you are competing against so many
other talented investors and because of all the
investment costs you incur. My only complaint:
Earlier versions of "Winning the Loser's Game" were
even shorter and hence more digestible. In fact, on
my desk, I have the 1985 version of the book, which
I borrowed from the Dow Jones company library in
1990 and somehow neglected to return. That one is a
wonderfully brief 81 pages.
4. "The Four Pillars of
Investing" by William Bernstein (McGraw-Hill, 2002).
Mr. Bernstein (no relation
to Peter) is a semiretired neurologist in North
Bend, Ore., who didn't get around to applying his
considerable intellect to finance until he was in
his 40s. Yet over the past decade I have probably
learned more from chatting and emailing with him
than from anybody else. This book will give you a
taste of his thinking, including what to expect from
different asset classes and how to build a winning
portfolio. Think of Charley Ellis's book as your
introduction to investing and Bill Bernstein's tome
as the second semester. Full disclosure: Before
publication, I read and commented on the manuscript
of both this book and the fourth edition of "Winning
the Loser's Game."
5. "Fooled by
Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Thomson
Texere, 2004).
If you're going to survive
on Wall Street, you don't just need to be wary of
brokers, insurance agents, financial journalists and
overhyped mutual funds. You also need to guard
against your own self-confidence. That is where Mr.
Taleb's quirky book comes in. "Fooled by Randomness"
is a delightful mix of mathematical insights,
philosophical ruminations and intriguing anecdotes.
Think you've found the next superstar mutual fund?
Convinced you've detected some stock-market pattern
that foretells fabulous returns in the months ahead?
Spend a few minutes with Mr. Taleb's book, and he
should be able to talk you down.
Mr. Clements's latest book is "You've Lost It,
Now What?" (Portfolio, 2003).
Snopes concurs with these findings, but takes the
study further, showing that our "allies" voting record
is not much better. There is no record of how much money
is being given to our "allies."
Dick
How they vote in the United Nations:
Below are the actual voting records of various
Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US
State Department and United Nations records:
Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the
time
Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time
Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the
time
United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of
the time.
Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the
time.
Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the
time.
Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of
the time.
Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the
time.
Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the
time.
Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.
Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the
time.
Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the
time.
Libya votes against the United States 76% of the
time.
Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the
time.
Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the
time.
India votes against the United States 81% of the
time.
Syria votes against the United States 84% of the
time.
Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the
time.
U S Foreign Aid to those that hate us:
Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time
against the United States,
still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.
Jordan votes 71% against the United States
And receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.
Pakistan votes 75% against the United States
Receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.
India votes 81% against the United States
Receives $143,699,000 annually.
More facts forwarded by Dick Haar
ALASKA
More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in
Alaska.
AMAZON
The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply.
The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more
than one hundred miles at sea, off the mouth of the river, one can dip
fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is
greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and
three times the flow of all rivers in the United States.
ANTARCTICA
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any
country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica. This ice
also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As
strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The
average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered
with ice (all but 0.4% of it, i.e.), Antarctica is the driest place on
the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
BRAZIL
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
CANADA
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an
Indian word meaning "Big Village."
CHICAGO Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in
the world.
DETROIT
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M - 1,
named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.
DAMASCUS, SYRIA
Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome
was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city
in existence.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two
continents.
LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los
Angeles de Porciuncula and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.
NEW YORK CITY
The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the
1930s who used the slang expression "apple" for any town or city.
Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time- The Big Apple.
There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; more
Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jewish people in
New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.
AFRICA
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28. Percentage of North America
that is wilderness: 38.
OHIO
There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio; every one is man made.
PITCAIRN ISLAND
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at
just 1.75 sq. miles/4.53 sq km.
ROME The first city to reach a population of one million people was
Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
SIBERIA
Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.
S.M.O.M.
The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M.). It is located in the city of Rome,
Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001, has a
population of eighty, twenty less people than the Vatican. It is a
sovereign entity under international law, just as the Vatican is.
SAHARA DESERT
In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not
receive a drop of rain for ten years.
SPAIN
Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
St. Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pig's Eye after a man named
Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant who set up the first business there.
ROADS
Chances that a road is unpaved in the U.S.A.: 1%, in Canada: 75%.
TEXAS
The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as 20
empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide.
UNITED STATES
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five
must be straight These straight sections are usable as airstrips and in
times of war or other emergencies.
WATERFALLS
The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela drops 3,212
feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
Lena called the airlines information desk and inquired, "How long does it
take to fly from Minneapolis to Fargo?
"Just a minute," said the busy clerk.
"Vell, said Lena, "if it has to go dat fast, I tink Ill just take da bus."
The judge had just awarded a divorce to Lena, who had charged non-support. He
said to Ole, "I have decided to give your wife $400 a month for support." "Vell,
dat's fine, Judge," said Ole. "And vunce in a while I'll try to chip in a few
bucks myself."
Ole's neighbor Sven had a boy, Sven Junior, who came home one day and asked,
"Papa, I have da biggest feet in da third grade. Is dat becoss I'm Norvegian?"
"No," said Sven, "It's because you're NINETEEN."
Lars asked Ole, "Do ya know da difference between a Norvegian and a canoe?"
"No, I don't," said Ole. "A canoe will sometimes tip," explained Lars.
Ole is so cheap that after his airplane landed safely, he grumbled: "Vell,
dere gose five dollars down da drain for dat flight insurance!
Ole wore both of his winter jackets when he painted his house last July. The
directions on the can said "put on two coats".
Lars: "Ole, stant in front of my car and tell me if da turn signals are
vorking". Ole: "Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes, No...."
LARS: Have you heard dat dey elected a Pole to be Pope? SVEN: Ya, it's about
time, dose Catlicks have had it long enough.
Lena was being interviewed for a job as maid for the very wealthy Mrs.
Diamond, who asked her: "Do you have any religious views?" "No," said Lena, "but
I've got some nice pictures of Norway."
Lars was staggering home after a night in the tavern. A Lutheran minister saw
him and offered to help him get home safely. As they approached the house, Lars
asked the minister to step inside for a moment. He explained, "I vant Lena to
see who I have been out vith."
Ole and Lena got married. On their honeymoon trip they were nearing
Minneapolis when Ole put his hand on Lena's knee. Giggling, Lena said, "Ole, you
can go a little farther now if ya vant to"... so Ole drove to Duluth.
When Ole went to play cards with da boys his friend Lars asked him, " Why is
it when we play cards you bring your wife, when we go fishing you bring your
wife, and when we go bowling you bring your wife." Ole replied, "Have you
noticed that Lena is kind of ugly? Dis way I don't never have to kiss her
goodbye."
Ole and Sven grabbed their poles and headed out to do some ice fishing. As
they were augering a hole in the ice they heard a loud voice from above say,
"There are no fish under the ice." Ole an Sven moved about 25 feet over and
started to make another hole. The voice said a little stronger, " There are no
fish under the ice." They both looked around and then looked up. Ole said in a
humble voice, "Are you God?" The voice spoke back, "No ya idiots! I'm the ice
rink attendant."
Ole died. So Lena went to the local paper to put a notice in the obituaries.
The gentleman at the counter, after offering his condolences, asked Lena what
she would like to say about Ole. Lena replied, "You yust put 'Ole died'." The
gentleman, somewhat perplexed, said, "That's it? Just 'Ole died?' Surely, there
must be something more you'd like to say about Ole. If its money you're
concerned about, the first five words are free. We must say something more." So
Lena pondered for a few minutes and finally said, "O.K. You put 'Ole died. Boat
for sale.' "
Ole and Sven were taking a vacation in Sven's new camper. As usual, they'd
become lost and were wandering around a strange town trying to find the highway.
Sven was just starting down a grade to go under a bridge when he slams on the
brakes. Ole: Vat da heck you do dat for, Sven? Sven: Dat sign dere says "Low
Bridge. No Vehicles Over Twelve Feet High." Dis here camper is t'irteen feet!
Ole: Cripes almighty Sven, dere ain't no cops around. Yust hit da gas pedal and
go for it!
One fine spring day, Ole decided to take Lena for a drive in his new car. As
they were driving through town, a policeman pulled them over and told Ole that
he was doing 50 miles an hour in a 30 zone. "Oh, no", Ole protested, "I vas only
doing thirty, Officer." "No, you were doing fifty", replied the cop. "Really,
Officer, I vas only doing thirty", Ole replied stubbornly. "Well", sniffed the
cop, "I clocked you doing fifty!" At that point, Lena, sitting in the back seat
and trying to be helpful, spoke up. "Officer...you really shouldn't argue vit
Ole ven he's been drinking."
Forwarded by Cindy
From a
book called "Disorder in the American Courts! ", published by court
reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were
taking place.
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
______________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? ____ _________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan. ______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep,
he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATT ORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.. _____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male o r a female?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition
notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead
people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an
autopsy on him!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITN ESS: H uh?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a
pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began
the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing
law.
Puns Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE POTATOES
1. Some people are very bossy and like to tell everyone what to do, but of
course they do not wish to soil their hands. You might call that type "Dick
Tator."
2. Some people never seem to be motivated to participate. They are content to
watch while others do. They are "Speck Tators."
3. Some people never do anything to help, but they are gifted at finding
fault with the way others do things. They might be called "Comment Taters."
4. Some people are always looking for ways to cause problems. They look or
others to agree with them. You call them "Aggie Taters."
5. Then there are those who always say they will, but somehow never get
around to doing anything. They are "Hezzie Taters."
6. Some people put on a front and act like they are someone they are not.
They are "Emma Taters."
7. Still, there are those who live what they talk. They are always prepared
to stop what they are doing to lend a hand. They bring real sunshine into
others' lives. You might call them "Sweet Taters."
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam (who would really
look funny in a ten gallon hat)
A Texas vs Oklahoma story.
Bubba Wayne and Billy Bob, who are both from Enid, Oklahoma, traveled to
Lewisville, Texas for a vacation.
While walking along a busy downtown street, they see a sign in a store window
which reads, "Suits $5.00 each, Shirts $2.00 each and Trousers $2.50 a pair."
Bubba Wayne says,"Woo Hoo, Billy Bob! We could buy a whole gob of these
clothes, take 'em back to Enid, sell 'em to all our friends and make a fortune
fer us." Bubba Wayne continues, "Now when we go in there, don't you say a word,
okay? Just let me do the talkin' 'cause if they hear your Okie accent, they
might think we're ignorant, and they won't wanna sell them clothes to us. Now,
I'll talk in a slow, fake Texan drawl so's they won't know."
They go in and Bubba Wayne says with his best fake Texan drawl, "I'll take
50 of them thar suits at $5.00 each, 100 of them thar shirts at $2.00 each,
and 50 pairs of them thar trousers at $2.50 each. I'll just back up my pickup
and......"
The owner of the shop interrupts, "Ya'll from Oklahoma, ain'cha?"
"Well....yeah," says a surprised Bubba Wayne. "How come'd you know that?"
The owner replies, "Cause this here's a dry-cleaners."
Bumper Stickers Forwarded by Auntie Bev
DEAR WORLD, WE TRIED OUR BEST
HALF OF AMERICA
BLIND FAITH IN BAD LEADERSHIP IS NOT PATRIOTISM
IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED,
YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION
IF YOU SUPPORTED BUSH,
A YELLOW RIBBON WON'T MAKE UP FOR IT
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS;
IMPEACH BUSH
AT LEAST IN VIETNAM,
BUSH HAD AN EXIT STRATEGY
SEND THE TWINS
POVERTY, HEALTHCARE & HOMELESSNESS ARE MORAL ISSUES
REMOVE BUSH'S FEEDING TUBE
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS;
BRING THEM HOME NOW!
BUSH LIED,
AND YOU KNOW IT!
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM:
A THREAT ABROAD, A THREAT AT HOME
GOD BLESS EVERYONE
(No exceptions)
BUSH SPENT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY ON HIS WAR
"THEY THAT CAN GIVE UP ESSENTIAL LIBERTY
TO OBTAIN A LITTLE TEMPORARY SAFETY
DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY NOR SAFETY
Benjamin Franklin
PRO AMERICA,
ANTI BUSH
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?
IF YOU SUPPORT BUSH'S WAR,
WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?
SHUT UP AND SHIP OUT
FEEL SAFER NOW?
I'D RATHER HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO SCREWED HIS INTERN
THAN ONE WHO SCREWED HIS COUNTRY
JESUS WAS A SOCIAL ACTIVIST LIBERAL
MY VALUES? FREE SPEECH. EQUALITY.
LIBERTY. EDUCATION. TOLERANCE
IS IT 2008 YET?
DON'T BLAME ME.
I VOTED AGAINST BUSH - TWICE!
NOBODY DIED WHEN CLINTON LIED
OF COURSE IT HURTS.
YOU'RE GETTING SCREWED BY AN ELEPHANT
ANNOY A CONSERVATIVE;
THINK FOR YOURSELF
VISUALIZE IMPEACHMENT
HEY BUSH!
WHERE'S BIN LADEN?
STOP MAD COWBOY DISEASE
GEORGE W. BUSH:
MAKING TERRORISTS FASTER THAN HE CAN KILL THEM
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
AND WHY ARE WE IN THIS HANDBASKET?
KEEP YOUR THEOCRACY OFF MY DEMOCRACY
DEMOCRATS ARE SEXY.
WHOEVER HEARD OF A GOOD PIECE OF ELEPHANT?
ASPIRING CANADIAN
DON'T CONFUSE DYING FOR OIL WITH FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
STEM CELL RESEARCH IS PRO LIFE
HATE, GREED, IGNORANCE:
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
HONOR OUR TROOPS;
DEMAND THE TRUTH
REBUILD IRAQ?
WHY NOT SPEND $87 BILLION ON AMERICA?
FACT: BUSH OIL
1999 - $19 BARREL
2006 - $70 BARREL
THE LAST TIME RELIGION CONTROLLED POLITICS,
PEOPLE GOT BURNED AT THE STAKE
I'LL GIVE UP MY CHOICE WHEN S.C.J. JOHN ROBERTS GETS PREGNANT
HOW ON EARTH CAN 59,411,287 PEOPLE BE SO DUMB?
TRUST ME, I NEVER TOLD A SINGLE SOUL TO VOTE FOR BUSH
Jesus
DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM
Thomas Jefferson
Forwarded by Debbie
One morning, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were having breakfast at a DC
restaurant.
The attractive waitress asked Cheney what he would like and he replied, "I'll
have a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit."
"And what can I get for you, sir?" she asked George W. He replied, "How about
a quickie?"
"Why, Mr. President," the waitress said, "How rude. You sound like President
Clinton!", and she stormed away.
Cheney leaned over to Bush and whispered, "It's pronounced 'quiche'."
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
After years of raising donkeys, an old farmer discovered that one was
unusually intelligent. Remembering stories of horses learning to add and
subtract by stomping their hooves, and knowing that this donkey was so much
smarter than any horse, he went one step further and taught him to multiply and
divide, as well. The farmer was positive that the public would pay to see this
amazing donkey, so he sold his farm and went on the road, renting booths at
fairs to show off the animal's mental prowess. Unfortunately, he could never
find customers who wanted to see his donkey perform. It seems he learned the
hard way that nobody likes a smart ass.
Forwarded by Paula
At A&M University, there were four sophomores taking chemistry and all of
them had an "A" so far. These four friends were so confident, that the weekend
before finals, they decided to visit some friends and have a big party.
They had a great time, but after all the hearty partying, they slept all day
Sunday and didn't make it back to College Station, until early Monday morning.
Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would
explain to their professor why they missed it. They said that they visited
friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the
final. The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day.
The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam.
The Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet.
They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought!
Each one in separate rooms, thinking this was going to be easy.... then they
turned the page.
On the second page was written....For 95 points: Which tire?
Forwarded by Doug Jenson
I was a very happy person. My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for
over a year, and so we decided to get married. There was only one little thing
bothering me ... it was her beautiful younger sister.
My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and
generally was braless. She would regularly bend down when she was near me, and I
always got more than a pleasant view. It had to be deliberate. She never did it
when she was near anyone else.
One day "little" sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding
invitations. She was alone when I arrived, and she whispered to me that she had
feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome. She told me that she
wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life
to her sister. Well, I was in total shock, and couldn't say a word. She said,
"I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want one last wild fling, just
come up and get me."
I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. When she
reached the top she pulled off her panties and threw them down the stairs at me.
I stood there for a moment, then turned and made a beeline straight to the front
door. I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car. Lo and behold, my
entire future family was standing outside, all clapping! With tears in his eyes,
my father-in-law hugged me and said, "We are very happy that you have passed our
little test..... we couldn't ask for better man for our daughter. Welcome to our
family!!!"
And the moral of this story is: Always keep your condoms in your car.
Forwarded by Doug Jenson
This is classic! Ole is not a dumb as he may seem to be!!
Ole dials 911 anonymously.
"Hello, is this here the sheriff's office?" "Yes. What can I do for you?"
"I'm callin' to report my neighbor, Sven Svenson. He's drillin' holes in his
farwood and hiding marijuana inside!"
"Thank you very much for the call, sir.
The next day, the sheriff & his deputies descend on Sven's house. They search
the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they split every piece of wood,
but find no marijuana. They sneer at Sven and leave.
The phone rings at Sven's house. "Hey, Sven! This here is Ole. Did the
sheriff come?"
"Yeah!"
"Did they split yer farwood?"
"Yep!"
"Happy Birthday, buddy!"
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
REST IN PEACE
A new business was opening and one of the owner's friends wanted to send
flowers for the occasion.
When the flower arrangement arrived at the new business, they displayed a big
banner saying, "Rest in Peace".
The owner's friend was upset and called the florist to complain. After he had
told the florist of the obvious mistake and how angry he was, the florist said.
"Sir, I'm really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry you
should imagine this: somewhere today, there is a funeral taking place and they
have flowers with a big banner that says, "Congratulations on your new
location."
Smitty
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
Dear IRS
Enclosed is my '97 Tax Return and payment. Please take note of the attached
USA Today article describing the Pentagon's paying $171.50 for hammers and NASA
paying $600.00 for a toilet seat It also states HUD paid $22.00 for a 1.5 inch
Phillips Head Screw.
Please find enclosed four (4) toilet seats (value $2400) and six (6) hammers
(value $1029)
This brings my total payment to $3429.00. Please note the over_payment of
$22.00 and apply it to the Presidential Election Fund option. Might I suggest
you send the above fund a 1.5 inch screw!
It's been a pleasure paying my taxes this year in this way, and I look
forward to paying again next year. I just saw an article on the cost of Pentagon
screwdrivers.
Sincerely,
I Getscrewed Everyear
Smitty
Forwarded by Dick Haar
A woman arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter
to greet her, she peeked through the gates.
She saw a beautiful banquet table. Sitting all around were her parents and
all the other people she had loved and who had died before her. They saw her and
began calling greetings to her, "Hello, How are you ! We've been waiting for you
! Good to see you."
When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful
place! How do I get in ?" "You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her.
"Which word?" the woman asked.
"Love." !
The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.
About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the
Gates of Heaven for him that day.
While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived. "I'm
surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been ?"
"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I
married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And
then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in !
and bought a huge mansion And, my wife and I traveled all around the world. We
were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my
head, and here I am. What a bummer. How do I get in ?"
"You have to spell a word," the woman told him.
"Which word ?" her husband asked
"Czechoslovakia."
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
YOU KNOW YOU ARE OVER THE HILL WHEN...
You find yourself beginning to like accordion music.
You're sitting on a park bench and a Boy Scout comes up and helps you cross
your legs.
Lawn care has become a big highlight of your life.
You're asleep, but others worry that you're dead.
You tune into the easy listening station...on purpose.
You discover that your measurements are now small, medium and large ....In
that order.
You light the candles on your birthday cake and a group of campers form a
circle and start singing Kumbaya.
Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.
You start video taping daytime game shows.
At the airport, they ask to check your bags...and you're not carrying any
luggage.
You wonder why you waited so long to take up macrame.
Your Insurance Company has started sending you their free calendar...a month
at a time.
At cafeterias, you complain that the gelatin is too tough.
Your new easy chair has more options than your car.
When you do the "Hokey Pokey" you put your left hip out... and it stays out.
One of the throw pillows on your bed is a hot water bottle.
Conversations with people your own age often turn into "dueling ailments."
It takes a couple of tries to get over a speed bump.
You discover the words, "whippersnapper", "scallywag" and "by_crikey"
creeping into your vocabulary.
You're on a TV game show and you decide to risk it all and go for the rocker.
You begin every other sentence with, "Nowadays..."
You run out of breath walking DOWN a flight of stairs.
You look both ways before crossing a room.
Your social security number only has three digits.
You come to the conclusion that your worst enemy is gravity.
People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
You go to a Garden Party and you're mainly interested in the garden.
You find your mouth making promises your body can't keep.
The waiter asks how you'd like your steak...and you say "pureed."
At parties you attend, "regularity" is considered the topic of choice.
You start beating everyone else at trivia games.
You frequently find yourself telling people what a loaf of bread USED to
cost.
Your back goes out more than you do.
Cafeteria food starts tasting GOOD.
You refer to your $2500 stereo system as "The Hi_Fi."
You make it a point to attend all the RV shows that come to town.
You realize that a stamp today costs more than a picture show did when you
were growing up.
Your childhood toys are now in a museum.
Many of your co_workers were born the same year that you got your last
promotion.
The clothes you've put away until they come back in style... come back in
style.
All of your favorite movies are now revised in color.
The car that you bought brand new becomes an antique.
You have more hair in your ears and nose than your head.
You wear black socks with sandals.
You take a metal detector to the beach.
Forwarded by Doug Jenson
Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.
Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down
lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you
realize it's not so bad after all.
Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few
technicalities of my job.
As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the
office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do
to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater.
This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it
to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden
hose, which is taped to the air hose.
Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no
complaints.. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the
hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with
warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So,
of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.
Within a few seconds my butt started to burn I pulled the hose out from my
back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened The hot
water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I
don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the
crack of my butt was not as fortunate.
When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the
jellyfish into the crack of my butt
I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His
instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers,
were all laughing hysterically
Needless to say I aborted the dive.
I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops
totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my
chamber dry decompression.
When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.
As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down
his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as
I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two
days because my butt was swollen shut.
So, next time you're having a bad day at work.think about how much worse it
would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.
Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."
Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, "Is this a jellyfish bad day?"
May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!
New Drugs forwarded by Auntie Bev
DAMNITOL Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to
hell for up to 8 full hours.
EMPTYNESTROGEN Suppository that eliminates melancholy
and loneliness by reminding you of how awful they were as teenagers and how you
couldn't wait till they moved out.
ST. MOMMASWORT Plant extract that treats mom's
depression by rendering preschoolers unconscious for up to two days.
PEPTO-BIMBO Liquid silicone drink for single women. Two
full cups swallowed before an evening out increases breast size, decreases
intelligence, and prevents conception.
DUMBEROL When taken with Pepto-bimbo, can cause
dangerously low IQ, resulting in enjoyment of country music and pickup trucks.
FLIPITOR Increases life expectancy of commuters by
controlling road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.
MENICILLIN Potent anti-boy-otic for older women.
Increases resistance to such lethal lines as, "You make me want to be a better
person. Can we get naked now?"
BUYAGRA Injectable stimulant taken prior to shopping.
Increases potency, duration, and credit limit of spending spree.
JACKASSPIRIN Relieves headache caused by a man who
can't remember your birthday, anniversary, phone number, or to lift the toilet
seat.
ANTI-TALKSIDENT A spray carried in a purse or wallet to
be used on anyone too eager to share their life stories with total strangers in
elevators.
NAGAMENT When administered to a boyfriend or husband,
provides the same irritation level as nagging him.
Forwarded by Paula
Country Boy Once there was a little boy who lived in the country.
They had to use an outhouse, and the little boy hated it because it was hot
in the summer and cold in the winter and stank all the time. The outhouse was
sitting on the bank of a creek and the boy determined that one day he would push
that outhouse into the creek.
One day after a spring rain, the creek was swollen so the little boy decided
today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek. So he got a large stick
and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated
away.
That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper.
Knowing that meant a spanking, the little boy asked why.
The dad replied, "Someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today. It was
you, wasn't it son?"
The boy answered yes. Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in
school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didn't get
into trouble because he told the truth."
The dad replied, "Well, son, George Washington's father wasn't in the cherry
tree."
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
A guy is 81 years old and loves to fish. He was sitting in his boat the other
day when he heard a voice say, "Pick me up."
He looked around and couldn't see any one. He thought he was dreaming when he
heard the voice say again, "Pick me up."
He looked in the water and there, floating on the top, was a frog.
The man said, "Are you talking to me?"
The frog said, "Yes, I'm talking to you. Pick me up. Then, kiss me and I'll
turn into the most beautiful woman you have ever seen.
I'll then give you more sexual pleasure that you ever could have dreamed of."
The man looked at the frog for a short time, reached over, picked it up
carefully, and placed it in his front breast pocket.
Then the frog said, "What, are you nuts? Didn't you hear what I said? I said
kiss me and I will give you sexual pleasures like you have never had."
He opened his pocket, looked at the frog and said, "Nah, at my age I'd rather
have a talking frog."
"Objective: To have my skills and ethics challenged on a daily basis."
"Special skills: Thyping."
"Special skills: Experienced with numerous office machines and can make
great lattes."
"I can play well with others."
"I have exhaustive experience in manufacturing."
"Special skills: I've got a Ph.D. in human feelings."
"My contributions on product launches were based on dreams that I had."
"I eat computers for lunch."
"I have used lots of software appilcations."
"Objection: To utilize my skills in sales."
"Experience: Watered, groomed, and fed the family dog for years."
"Reason for leaving last job: Pushed aside so the vice president's
girlfriend could steal my job."
"Previous experience: Self-employed -- a fiasco."
"I am a pit bull when it comes to analysis."
"I am the king of accounts payable reconciliation."
"Work history: Bum. Abandoned belongings and led nomadic lifestyle."
"I like slipping and sliding around behind the counter and controlling
the temperature of the food."
"Reason for leaving last job: The owner gave new meaning to the word
'paranoia.' I prefer to elaborate privately."
"Reason for leaving last job: Bounty hunting was outlaw in my state."
"My ruthlessness terrorized the competition and can sometimes offend."
"I love dancing and throwing parties."
"I am quick at typing, about 25 words per minute."
"I am a rabid typist."
"Skills: Operated Pitney Bones machine."
"Special Skills: Speak English."
"Strengths: Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer."
"Education: B.A. in Loberal Arts."
"Work Experience: Dealing with customers' conflicts that arouse."
"Education: College, August 1880 - May 1984."
"Experience with: LBM-compatible computers."
"Fortunately because of stress, worked in the cardiac intensive-care
ward."
"Typing Speed: 756 wpm."
"Objectives: 10-year goal: Total obliteration of sales and federal income
taxes and tax laws."
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
For those of you who are tired of jokes delivered retail there is now a site
for getting you jokes wholesale: www.the-jokebox.com
Forwarded by Paula
Oldies but goodies! Airline cabin announcements
All too rarely, airline attendants make an effort to make the in flight
"safety lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real
examples that have been heard or reported:
1. On a Southwest flight (SW has no assigned seating, you just sit where you
want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight
attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find
a seat and get in it!"
2. On a Continental Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the
pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be
turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the
appearance of your flight attendants."
3. On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your
belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something
we'd like to have."
4. "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out
of this airplane"
5. "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving
us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
6. As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Ronald Reagan, a lone
voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
7. After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a
flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced, "Please take care when opening
the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell
everything has shifted."
8. From a Southwest Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight 245
to Tampa. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and
pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how
to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
9. "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from
the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you
have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with
theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your
favorite."
10. "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but
we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody
loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."
11. "Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and, in the event of an
emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our
compliments."
12. "As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings.
Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants.
Please do not leave children or spouses."
13. And from the pilot during his welcome message: "Delta Airlines is pleased
to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none
of them are on this flight!"
14. Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt Lake
City the flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump,
and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's
fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it
was the asphalt."
15. Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a
particularly windy and bumpy day. During the final approach, the Captain was
really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant
said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats
with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our
airplane to the gate!"
16. Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We
ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."
17. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had! hammered
his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required
the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited, smile, and
give them a "Thanks for flying our airline." He said that, in light of his bad
landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that
someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a
little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a
question?" "Why, no, Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?" The little old lady
said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"
18. After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the attendantcame on with,
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the
Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once
the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the
door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."
19. Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank
you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge
to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll
think of US Airways."
20. Heard on a Southwest Airline flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish
to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing and if you can
light 'em, you can smoke 'em."
21. A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a
comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the
intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain peaking. Welcome to Flight
Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. The weather ahead is good and,
therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and
relax... OH, MY GOD!" Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain
came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I
scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant
accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of
my pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You should see the back
of mine."
Forwarded by Aaron Konstam
THE PESSIMISTS DICTIONARY
Antidepressant: whatever is causing you unwarranted optimism
Liberal: a religious group with four commandments and six suggestions
Date: an organized meeting with someone who has yet to realize their dislike
for you
Stupidity: letting the child with stomach flu sleep on the top bunk.
Dilemma: trying to believe someone you normally trust when you know you would
lie if you were in their place
Diet: a deliberate period of self_denial, followed by a gain of five pounds
Irony: driving forty minutes to a health club, then waiting thirty minutes to
get on a treadmill for twenty minutes
Progress: what you get when each mistake is a new one
Shopping: retail therapy.
Marriage: the process of finding out what type of person your spouse would
prefer.
Forwarded by Paula
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.
She fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
She's so stuck up she'd drown in a rainstorm.
It's so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs.
My cow died last night, so I don't need your bull.
He's as country as cornflakes.
This is gooder'n grits.
If things get any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it.
I'm 'bout as........ Nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking
chairs. Busy as a moth in a mitten. Happy as a clam at high tide.
Advice for Northerners moving to the South: Save all manner of bacon grease.
You will be instructed on how to use it shortly.
Just because you can drive on snow and ice does not mean Southerners can.
Stay home the two days of the year it snows.
If you DO run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in the cab of a
four-wheel pick-up with a 12-pack of beer and a tow chain will be along shortly.
Don't try to help them. Just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
You can ask Southerners for directions, but unless you already know the
positions of key hills, trees and rocks, you're better off trying to find it
yourself.
Remember: Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural
possessive.
Get used to hearing, "You ain't from around here, are you?"
Don't be worried that you don't understand anyone. They don't understand you
either.
The first Southern expression to creep into a transplanted Northerner's
vocabulary is the adjective "big ol' ," as in "big ol' truck," or "big ol' boy."
"Fixin'" (as in "I'm fixin' to go to the store") is 2nd, and "Y'all" is 3rd.
As you are cursing the person driving 15 mph in a 55 mph zone directly in the
middle of the road, remember: ALL Southern folks learned to drive on a John
Deere, and this is the proper speed and lane position for that vehicle.
If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all, watch this!" get out of his
way. These are likely the last words he will ever say, or worse still, that you
will ever hear.
Most Southerners do not use turn signals; they ignore those who do. In fact,
if you see a signal blinking on a car with a Southern license plate, you may
rest assured that it was already turned on when the car was purchased.
If it can't be fried in bacon grease, it ain't worth cooking, let alone
eating.
If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the most minuscule
accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It
does not matter if you need anything from the store. It is just something you're
supposed to do.
Satellite dishes are very popular in the South. When you purchase one, it is
positioned directly in front of the house. This is logical, bearing in mind that
the dish cost considerably more than the house and should, therefore, be
prominently displayed.
One last warning but probably the most important one to remember: Be advised
that in the South, "He needed killin'" is a valid defense.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher, whose hand
was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation
with the old man.
Eventually the topic got around to former Texas Governor, George W. Bush and
his elevation to the White House.
The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle'."
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle'
was.
The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come
across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."
The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to
explain, "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he
doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the dumb
shit get down.
I highly recommend TheFinanceProfessor
(an absolutely fabulous and totally free newsletter from a very smart
finance professor, Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) ---
http://www.financeprofessor.com/
Click on
www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp for
a complete list of interviews with established leaders, creative thinkers
and education technology experts in higher education from around the
country.
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu
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